Tips & Tricks

I started a tips section on my website but thought it might be of interest to some of you as well.  So I will be posting them here as well. 

It's not the camera, it's you.

I am dead serious.  A great photographer can use any camera and churn out gorgeous works.  Any camera can give you an amazing picture conversely, any camera can give you an awful picture.  Does a great camera help?  Absolutely, but it isn't the secret to success.  There are tons of 'photographers' out there that use crap cameras and shoot crap work, some even have the same camera I do and they still shoot crap.  Is that a bit harsh maybe, but the truth remains.

The photograph to the left was shot with a 6 megapixel D-SLR.  It is an old D-SLR, in fact it is the predecessor to almost every D-SLR Canon makes today.  I shot exclusively with this antique of the digital era until two months ago.  The photo can not be made any bigger that 8x12 due the size of the brain in the camera, the megapixels.  Wanna know the secret to this shot?  It required the help of another photographer to stimulate the butterfly to open his wings.  Photoshop was used to remove the device that stimulated the butterfly but none was used on the butterfly itself. 

Ok back to the topic at hand.  If you want better pictures, practice.  Simple as that.  It is a skill that is used and requires use to get better.  Use that Rebel or which ever Nikon you have.  Heck- grab that point and shoot and go for it.  I read a blog post at B&H Photo Video about many pro's waiting to buy the Canon 5D Mark II because the Mark III is due out eventually.  They recommended buying the currently available products and shooting and practicing as a newer camera isn't going to promise a better shot, it's just going to promise a bigger file.  The truth with technology today is that sooner rather than later it is becoming out-dated.  Heck the iPad only lasted 1 yr before the newer version out-dated the first one.   When I picked up my camera again for more than my kids snapshots, my work was rusty and I had a rather bad success ratio.  I still have bad days, days where you shoot and get nothing, but I practiced and honed a bit so the day wasn't a loss.  Last week I could have shot with any camera and it wasn't going to work, it was an off day.  I am just happy I wasn't shooting film and would have lost a great deal of money on a bad day.

This leads us to my first bit of advice- go out, practice.  If you get something awesome great, if not you learned more of what doesn't work.