Professional photographer James Maher writes about photography beliefs that you shouldn’t take too seriously.
I’m guilty of following some of these guidelines before and I have to say my photography has taken a leap forward once I started breaking these rules.
A photograph has to be technically perfect to be good
One of the noticeable aspects of many old photographs is the lack of technical quality, when compared to today’s standards. This was usually due to the early camera technology that was used. We just have a lot more available to us these days.
What stands out in many of these prints however, is that despite their technical deficiencies, the images still look beautiful. They are still interesting. They are still fantastic. Think Cartier-Bresson, Doissneau, Stieglitz.
Light, sharpness, composition, and image quality are very important to master, but just know that they do not always have to be perfect to create a great photograph. Some images have glaring deficiencies and yet they’re wonderful. Figure out how to take an interesting image and don’t discard every photo that isn’t sharp enough. Sometimes an underexposed or overexposed photograph will look great. Often an unorthodox composition will be just what was needed. Pixel peeping is important to train your eye, but you can sometimes do too much of it.
You need to use as low an ISO as possible
In the last seven years, I would argue that the greatest improvement that digital cameras have made has been in their ISO capability. You can now shoot with ISOs of 1600, 3200, 6400, and even beyond, with great quality. Even significant noise in many digital cameras has an exquisite quality to it.
Unfortunately, the low-ISO stigma has continued. On a tripod, for landscape photography, or studio photography, a low ISO is usually better. The rest of the time, raise it up. This will allow you to use more ideal shutter and aperture settings, and you will notice that the technical qualities of your images will actually turn out better.
You think all of those gorgeous wedding photographs were done at ISO 200? So many of them were taken at 3200. I will walk around at night shooting handheld with ISOs of 3200 and 6400 on my small Fuji X100S, and the quality of the photographs is incredible.
Aperture Priority is always the best mode
Aperture Priority has its time and place, but there are many situations where Shutter or Manual can be ideal. I prefer Shutter Priority for any times that subjects are in motion, such as sports, kids running around, images where you want motion blur or motion in water, or street photography. I will even use shutter priority sometimes in event photography with up to a half second shutter, and mixed with flash, so I can add both a sharp aspect and an element of motion.
Manual mode is ideal for studio photography, on a tripod, or in any situation where the lighting is completely consistent. This allows you to dial in the exact exposure, and not leave anything up to chance or the camera’s light meter.
In addition, by shooting in Aperture Priority all of the time, I have noticed that photographers do not develop the ability to pay attention to the shutter speed as much as they should. Because of this, while their exposure will always look good, many images will be taken with too slow of a shutter speed leading to slightly blurry photographs. This will not be noticeable on the back of the camera however, and the image will appear sharp until loaded onto the computer.
Read the full article over at Digital Photography School.
Source: Digital Photography School
