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Equipment Choice and Improving Your Photography
Good photographers do a lot of experimentation. It's not just a process of random guessing and hoping that something good will happen, though. The idea is to maintain a constantly growing basis for being able to anticipate how your gear (camera, sensor/film, lens(es))will react to a particular combination of subject and lighting. If you can anticipate the results of your action, you're always more likely to get what you want than if you're just guessing. It’s odd then that you rarely see anyone writing down what they have done. Without a record, how will you know even one week (and 500 exposures) later? EXIF Data - Digital cameras do a lot of the record keeping for you. This useful information is not visible until you query the file: hover your mouse over the file icon in your browser and you will see the image size in pixels, its file size on the disk and when it was taken or modified. Right click and select Properties and you will be able to see all this information plus camera model and brand, exposure details, lens focal length, camera settings and a great deal more EXIF ([u]Ex[/u[changeable [u]Information). Image editing software (PaintShop, Photoshop etc)also lets you see and edit this info. You can also add other information, including your personal details, titles, copyright information, location etc.... but will that help if you are trying to learn and to improve your photography? I don’t think so, because it happens too long after the event. You really need to make a note of what you are trying to achieve or what problems you can see at the time if s very useful EXIF data is to become a learning aid: it tells you what you did, but not what options you had and what was in your mind at the time. A notebook in your camera bag (and a torch!) is potentially much more helpful - it tells [u]why you chose those setting. The combination of notebook and review data is really powerful. Some software packages preserve EXIF data only in the original image. Edit it or convert it to another format and the data is lost. Some warn you, some give you the option to preserve the EXIF data on conversion, but some just dump the information. Make a copy of an image, and make sure the EXIF data has been preserved in the copy. Then edit it (any operation will do) and save the edited version. If the EXIF data is still preserved in the edited version, convert it to another format (say, .tiff) and again check that the data has been preserved. Finally, resize the image and check once more. Do not expect EXIF to be preserved in “non-photographic” formats like .wmf or .bmp. For these, you will always have to save a file in the original format to keep access to the EXIF data. Limitations of Your Equipment - The starting point for for developing skill as a photographer is often discovering what your equipment won't allow you to do. I was just so excited as a 9 year old to get a camera, it never occurred to me there might be pictures I couldn’t take with it! Now, what was true of me as a child is still true of adults with their first cameras; or what they describe to me as their “first good camera”. I am not suggesting they are childish, or even that there is anything wrong with their cameras. Just that aspiring photographers are eventually going to be disappointed with their kit. That’s as it should be: there's simply no point in buying an expensive camera kit when you don’t really know if this is something more than a casual hobby. Even if you can afford to buy an expensive camera at the outset, if you stick with photography, you'll wind up replacing most of your equipment as you mature as a photographer. Matching a Camera to Your Needs - The limitations of your equipment are not absolutes: they are only limitations to the degree they stop you achieving the photographic results you want. Maybe automatic exposure isn’t giving the results you expected, more likely it used to, but now you want something else from it.. Or perhaps the pop-up flash that was such a selling point has now become a limitation. But how would you know until you had some experience? If your first choice is too expensive, it is going to be a bit of a pain to replace it with the right camera. My advice? Don't talk yourself into expensive gear until you've had enough experience to really stretch the simpler equipment to its limits! Remember, too, that choosing a camera is often choosing a system by default. By a Nikon, a Canon or any other brand and you limit your choice of accessories (flash guns, lenses, remote, viewfinders, focussing screens....) to that brand. Very good brands though they are, each has they strengths and you should be sure their strength matches your interests! I recommend your first camera be one with limited automation and a good lens. The advent of digital cameras has put some very fine, film cameras on the market at bargain basement prices. Visit a second hand store and pick up a steal. Explore its capability in terms of shutter speed, aperture, lens etc. and you will definitely expand your own capability. If you already have your photographic equipment (as I suppose most people reading this will), the idea is still sound. Try out a broad variety of subjects in a diversity of styles, using techniques you have seen or heard about. Your goal is to find out what you want to shoot that you can't do with your present gear and then seek out whatever will enable you to get those images - but only after you are sure the limitations are in the equipment, not in the photographer. Practising your Art - Learning and experimentation go hand in hand. Tips and magazines and photography clubs all help make the learning curve less steep, and you can learn much of the technical side of photography by reading, but the creative side can't be learned from a book (or this Intel!). Virtually any photographer will occasionally get an outstanding photograph, even by accident. What you want is the ability to obtain consistently satisfactory results by choice. At first, to get a high proportion of successful images, you'll wind up rejecting an even larger number of failed experiments. Like other endeavours, quality photography depends on mastering the basics, not from some bag of tricks. When you do, your proportion of hits to misses will improve, but If you don’t recall what you did, or can’t remember why you did it, your rate of improvement will not be quick. Which goes back to the idea of a running record. You will become experienced enough to know, when you take a shot, what the outcome will be. But you should still set aside some of your photography for expanding your horizons. Try some specific idea about how to work the subject to achieve some a different outcome and use the feedback of your actual results to grow yourself as a photographer. You can do this if you have taken the time to master the basic elements first. |
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This intel was contributed by David Rich
David Rich
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May, 2012
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