Top Ten Tips for Amateurs

I do not claim that the list below is any sort of comprehensive guide to photography - indeed, some people might disagree with what I suggest. But people who like my pictures sometimes ask if there is anything special I do to distinguish them from ordinary snapshots. Here are are my standard answers, in no particular order. They are aimed at inexperienced amateurs who want some ideas on how to improve their pictures.

1. Use the best film.
   For me this means professional quality slide film - usually Fuji Velvia 50, which is generally reckoned to have the finest grain and highest colour saturation of any film available. It is very good for landscapes. Its only drawback is a very slow film - only ISO 50, and in fact I rate it at 40. This means that in a lot of conditions hand-held photography is not possible and a tripod is required. In mid-2005 Fuji discontinued Velvia 50 and released an inferior ISO 100 version, which caused prices for remaining stocks of the 50 to soar on eBay. Fortunately, Fuji reintroduced Velvia 50 in late 2007. If you want a good reference, go out and look at a quality photo magazine. You will find that the great majority of the pictures they publish are taken with Velvia - QED. Film which reacts quickly to light is called "fast", and film which reacts slowly is called - you guessed it - "slow". The lower the ISO number (eg ISO 50) the slower the film, and the higher (eg ISO 1600), the faster. Fast film is great because it allows you to take pictures with very fast exposures, narrow apertures, and in low light. Why doesn't everyone use it? Because unfortunately, the faster the film, the lower the resolution (or the "grainier") it is. You have to decide what is more important to you. But basically, go for professional films - the ones that are kept in fridges in camera shops. With the rise of digital there are fewer shops that sell professional film but most serious shops still stock it and it is in any case readily available (and often cheaper) on the Internet. Professional films may be more expensive than the stuff you buy in the supermarket but there is a good reason for it - and the difference in price is small enough to be the cheapest way to make a dramatic improvement in the quality of your photographs. If you have never tried Fuji Velvia then I recommend that it should be the very next film you take.
   
   
2. Use a polarising filter
   I think that polarisers are just about one of the best things to happen to photography. Before I discovered them I tried all sorts of tricks like deliberate under-exposure to try and increase the colour saturation in my pictures. Now I use polarisers a lot, and have one more or less permanently attached to one of my lenses (the general purpose Canon 28-135). Polarisers reduce the amount of glare in bright light and this has the effect of increasing colour saturation (the intensity of the colour). Reducing glare from the sky also has the effect of balancing the amount of light from the sky and the amount reflected from the earth. They are also very useful for deliberately increasing or suppressing reflections in water or other shiny surfaces. A rare but very effective use is to increase the brilliance of rainbows (example).
   
   
3. Use a decent single lens reflex (SLR) camera.
   What do I mean by that? I know that there are some very expensive non-SLR cameras available (Leica, Contax etc) but for an amateur point-and-shoot user struggling to improve his or her pictures, nothing beats what you might call a WYSIWYG camera. A decent camera will also have a range of lenses, and the ability to override the onboard computer. At the very least your camera should have aperture-priority auto-exposure, which means that you can set the aperture manually and allow the camera to work out the length of the exposure. See below for the implications of that. If someone were serious about becoming a good photographer and they were on a budget, I would probably counsel them to buy a fully manual SLR. This would force them to learn how to take photographs properly while leaving as much money left over for the purchase of good lenses, ensuring that they ended up with the best optical quality for their money. But most people these days will end up with an autofocus Canon, Nikon, Pentax or Minolta with a lot of automatic features. There is an advantage to this: you can upgrade the camera body later to a higher specification and still use the same lenses. Or you can buy better lenses to fit the same body.
   
   
4. Understand the effects of aperture and exposure.
   Aperture is the most important. It controls the depth of field - whether lots of stuff is in focus or whether only the subject of the picture is in focus and everything else is out of focus. A wide aperture means less depth of field (example); a narrow aperture means more (example). Wide apertures also mean that more light gets in - which means that you can take pictures in conditions where there is less light. Generally speaking, the wider the maximum aperture of a lens, the more expensive it is - because it contains more of that very expensive optical glass. The effect of exposure (the length of time that the shutter remains open) is more subtle. Firstly, a short exposure will freeze action, while a longer exposure will blur it. Secondly, most lenses, especially zoom lenses as I mentioned, suffer from deficiencies that are the result of the compromises made by the designers. To simplify the issue drastically, most lenses achieve maximum sharpness at neither their widest nor their narrowest aperture. About f11 is a good one to aim for. Finally, an understanding of focusing allows you to control exactly what is in focus and what is not. There is something called "hyperfocal technique" which I will not go into here, but which allows you to maximise the depth of field in any given circumstances. For another drastic oversimplification, go for about f11 aperture and try and focus on a point about one third of the way into the area you wish to be in focus. Some modern autofocus cameras have a depth of field mode in which you focus first on the closest point you want to be sharp, and then on the furthest point, and the camera will work out the rest.
   
   
5. Consider NOT going digital
   Why? Because at the moment, unless you have a very specific reason to go with digital, emulsion film will give you far better quality for the money. There are many good reasons for going digital, but achieving maximum possible quality for a given price is not one of them. To put it another way, whatever you were going to spend on a digital kit, you could get significantly better quality for the same money by buying film gear - and that is not all. To read the adverts, you would think that the only important thing was the resolution - the number of pixels. But dynamic range is also important - meaning the range and intensity of colours, and the range of contrast. In this area too digital cameras struggle to compete with film. For me the best of both worlds at the moment is to take pictures on film and to use a film scanner to convert them to a digital format - or have the scanning done professionally. Another factor in film's favour is, ironically, due to the success of digital. Because many professionals are having to go digital for press, studio or wedding work, there is some really high quality gear coming on to the used market. Having said all that, I have no doubt that it will not be too many years before digital closes the gap, but it is not there yet.
   
   
6. Read a lot
   You can get a great deal of assistance from a good book on photography or a magazine. My favourite magazine is Outdoor Photography (UK) which I know is available in Australia, North America and several European countries. There is also Practical Photography which is aimed at relatively inexperienced amateurs who are trying to raise their standards, so there is a lot of explanation of first principles in it. Outdoor Photography tends to assume a somewhat higher level of knowledge, but is still not overpowering for the beginner. But there are others. If you are keen on photography and you see a good photograph, your immediate response is to ask yourself how it was achieved. The great thing about photo magazines is not only that you see wonderful pictures that inspire you, but that in many cases they actually tell you how they did it. There are also some excellent photographers who have written books that not only contain good advice on improving technique, but which contain photographs which really inspire you. I recommend photographers like Charlie Waite, Lee Frost and Joe Cornish.
   
   
7. Waste a lot of film
   What? Well, one thing that magazines and books will keep telling you is that film is the cheapest component of your camera. So don't be afraid to experiment with different angles and exposures, then when you get the results back, throw out all except the best. If the only examples of your pictures that people ever see are breathtaking, then you will have a reputation as a good photographer. It doesn't matter if two out of three exposures never see the light of day. One way to maximise your chances of success - and go through a lot of film - is to use what is called bracketing. Bracketing is taking several pictures at different exposures to make sure you get one that you like. Typically, a bracketed shot involves three pictures - one at the metered exposure, one below and one above. Many modern cameras will allow you to do automatic bracketing. My Canon EOS3 does - and believe me, when every press of the shutter results in three frames exposed, you can go through a lot of film. But if you aren't coming back to that spot, or the light is perfect, which is more important - saving film, or getting it right?
   
   
8. Plan your shots
   There will be many times when you are in the right position to take a good shot, but the light is wrong due to clouds, or is coming from the wrong direction due to the time of the day. If the day is overcast, look at the way the clouds are moving and try and work out if the light will be better in a few minutes. If you have the luxury of coming back later in the day when the sun is at a more favourable angle, do so. Remember also that the light is best for photography first thing in the morning and around sunset. Morning Example. Evening example. Early morning often has the additional advantage of stillness, for beautiful reflections on water. I carry a compass in my camera bag to work out where the sun is likely to be at other times of the day. I also have some software on my laptop that tells me the times and azimuth of sunrise and sunset for anywhere in the world, at any time of the year. If I am going to be in an area for a day or two I will often make a note (mental or actual) to come back to certain spots at particular times to try and get ideal conditions.
   
   
9. Avoid camera shake; use a tripod
   One of the most common causes of spoiled pictures (often confused with being out of focus) is camera shake. There is a simple and useful rule of thumb to estimate the maximum length of exposure you can get away with for hand-held photography. It is that the exposure should be no longer in fractions of a second than the reciprocal of the focal length in millimetres. For example, if you are using a 300mm lens, 1/300 of a second is safe, while 1/250 is not. With 50mm, 1/60 is safe, 1/30 is not. Using a tripod, especially with a remote cable release, gives you the luxury of setting the aperture to what you need it to be for the depth of field you want, no matter what the lighting or the focal length of your lens. I really recommend you use a tripod. If you can't or won't use a tripod in marginal conditions, then you will need to brace the camera against something, or use faster film. When cheap "superzoom" lenses (eg 28-200mm) started being sold a lot of people brought them back to the shop and complained of lack of sharpness. The problem was in fact that their usual ISO 100 was not fast enough for hand-held photography at long focal lengths. Some manufacturers tried to educate their buyers by giving away ISO 400 film with the lenses. A monopod is not as steady as a tripod, but by limiting the number of dimensions in which a camera can move, it is a lot better than nothing. A monopod will be much lighter than a tripod, and some monopods double as walking sticks. If you do not have a tripod or a monopod, then look for something like a fence post to steady the camera on. Or for longer exposures, use the self-timer and place the camera on something solid.
   
   
10. Understand the characteristics of different focal length lenses
    As a very simple guide, a 50mm lens is considered to match the distortion characteristics of the human eye, and is called a standard lens. Any focal length shorter than 50mm is called wide angle, while anything over is called telephoto. Wide angle lenses give you - well, a wide angle of view, and also a good depth of field. But they also distort things. With a 35mm or 28mm lens, buildings will seem to lean in and vertical lines converge (example). Telephoto lenses are the opposite. There is less distortion, and a much shallower depth of field. There is also a pronounced "foreshortening" effect, where objects that are a long way apart seem very close together (example). A standard 50mm lens is OK for most purposes, but is not considered ideal for portraits - as the shorter the focal length, the closer you have to get to the subject, and the bigger the subject's nose looks! Traditionally, the standard portrait lens is 130mm, although anywhere between 70 and 200mm will do. Taking pictures of people with telephoto lenses has two additional advantages. One is that standing 15 feet away is a lot less intimidating than standing 3 feet away, and will result in a much more natural pose. Indeed, it is easier to take pictures without the subject being aware of it at all. The other advantage is that the shallow depth of field of a telephoto will allow you to throw the background out of focus, giving much greater prominence to the subject. Zoom lenses (lenses with variable focal lengths) are very convenient, but are inferior to fixed focal length (or "prime")lenses in two respects. Firstly, for a given price range, a zoom lens will usually have a smaller maximum aperture than a prime lens. Secondly, because the optical characteristics of lenses change with the focal length, zoom lenses have to compromise on optical quality to try and achieve uniformity over the full range, or compensate by using very expensive materials or techniques. For that reason, a prime lens will almost always have superior optical performance to a zoom lens in the same price range set to the same focal length. Bear that in mind if going for maximum sharpness.
    
    Note: Whether you perceive a lens to be "wide angle" or "telephoto" is actually a result of the "angle of view", which in turn is a function of the focal length combined with the size of the image on the film, or the size of the digital sensor. So my descriptions of 50mm as "standard", and 28mm as "wide angle" are only really true for 35mm film, or the small number of expensive DSLRs that have the same size sensor as a 35mm film image. Since many digital cameras have smaller sensors (which are cheaper to make) a lot of people are confused about this. For an image size smaller than 35mm, a given focal length will be slightly less wide (or slightly more telephoto) than for 35mm. For medium format cameras such as my Hasselblad, with a 6x6cm image size, 50mm is wideangle and 80mm is standard. On my Horseman 45FA large format camera, which takes 4x5 inch cut sheet film, 90mm is wide angle and 150mm is standard. You can find many discussions of this, with varying degrees of lucidity, on the Web.
    
    And finally - have your camera with you at every possible opportunity. The times you leave it behind are the times you will see the best shots!