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Originally Posted by btimbit
Awesome, awesome, awesome stuff guys, thanks everyone for taking the time to write up your thoughts on this. I definitely have both some gear to check out and some good jumping off points to do some research now
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As a noob, some of this starts before the camera. I totally forgot to address a certain point. The best camera rule is a camera you actually use. For creating images, the most important facet isn't the camera. It's your own eyes and mind.
Check around for entry level photography workshops around the city. Some are free, some are a small fee. IMO, if you had a $1000 budget, $200 on photography classes and an $800 camera is worth more than knowing nothing and lucking into a $1500 camera for $1K.
Start on your phone camera. If not an in person class, I bet there's videos and apps that would be highly beneficial as well. I hate spending money on apps, but if there's a truly quality app out there, $100 or less is completely nothing in terms of improving photographs for the rest of your life.
https://blog.depositphotos.com/back-...our%20subjects.
https://www.scienceofpeople.com/perfect-selfie/
The most important facets are the composition rules. As Pepsi hinted at, these rules mean that many good photographers are better with a crappy phone than amateurs with a high end camera. IMO if I'm making up my own paraphrased terminologies and concepts, I'd say there's micro and macro. Macro is more the first link. That's compositions, landscapes, landmarks etc. The second link for selfies are portrait type of rules. These IMO are separate for certain scenarios of what you are photographing, but also can be combined.
But IMO if you're just starting off I'd focus on these and slowly adding on later on if possible:
Humans (ie: in front of an object):
- Rule of thirds (that's what the 3x3 grid on the viewfinder is for)
- Figure to ground (Main subject contrast to back ground indirectly)
- Fill the frame (stacked on top of rule of thirds, the item doesn't too big or too small)
I'd also focus on playing with angles, a lot. Either to use the subject to block undesired back ground/people or to ensure that the positioning of the subject doesn't feel as unnatural to you the viewer. And light angles (don't really want strong back light directly behind).
My wife think's it's weird that sometimes I move 3-5 feet in different directions to get shots. I also anticipate the shot and tell someone to take a picture for me in a specific spot so they are at the correct angle and not just some ####ty spot that they had been standing at. But... "DoubleF take the pic. You do a better job than me." is frequent.
Tying into this for humans (portrait/selfie):
- As eye level as possible, but rule of thumb eye level > top down >> bottom up. (unflattering angles/uncomfortable view point)
- Depth of field (blurring of back ground)
Theory wise...
Beyond a focused pic, the 2 most important to focus on IMO to really move towards great photos are the rule of thirds + angles (lighting/filling the frame/contrast and blocking). Getting these down typically means you can crop and adjust your photos to something nicer on a computer.
The third most important is speed of capture. IMO you should get something respectable within 3-8 seconds of looking at the view finder as you should already be doing some of the other elements (angles, lighting, framing etc.) even before pulling out the camera.
This is essentially about 3-4 things to focus on to really differentiate yourself from bleh photos to not bad and it can easily be added to to get to decent every time. Typically I only have to truly focus on rule of 3 and lighting (avoid washout or horrible shadows which are hard to fix) when I look at the view finder.
Decide how far you want to go. I know how to go further for aperture, shutter speed, ISO etc. but my cameras were on auto 99% of the time and I'd tweak it later. We aren't pros and we aren't documenting things in high level detail. Quickly getting a ton of good stuff is IMO better than slowly getting some great to excellent stuff, especially at tourist traps where people shove you to GTFO so they can have a turn. Taking 20-30+ seconds to take a single pic isn't always possible, especially if you're trying to capture things that have motion or a line up for people snapping shots. It's also annoying for others/subjects if this is what is going on for every damn pic. I know of pros like this. Awful if you don't know how to balance getting something workable (baseline material) vs a truly special shot (your advertised skills).
Doing these basics means you have raw material you can use that's superior to camera phones and you can cheat on the computer to improve your compositions later. These skills also improve your phone camera skills. That's where I settled.
Metaphorically like settling on bringing driving skills to a level to pass a drivers test every time vs the average person that auto fail a drivers test due to bad habits and not going to the level of being a stunt driver or something.
Settling on this level vs taking shots of a higher calibre of skill allowed me to keep photography fun. Too many people try to jump into this and thus the learning curve is much higher. Either they abandon it before they make it, of more often than not, they're taking hundreds of extra shots and having no clue what is going on/having too much extra raw material or pissing people off for taking too long to get a single useable pic.
