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The primary activity of every photographer is to take pictures - or record images. Unfortunately, many photographers lose sight of this fundamental process and spend their time photographing brick walls to critique lens performance, or "pixel peeping" to determine sensor resolution and/or noise. The photographers primary goal should be to take the picture, record the image, GET THE SHOT!
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COMPOSITION
Probably the most important difference between a simple snap-shot and a "good" image is composition. There are no absolute rules when composing a photograph, but some general principles can be employed to vastly improve the quality of the final image. The rules stated below are general guidelines - they are not "written in stone". Every scene requires careful analysis of the required composition and every scene requires slightly different composition. Use the rules below as a guide only. In general, your pictures will improve dramatically by following these guidelines, but then again......
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DEAD CENTRE IS DEAD WRONG
Do not centre the subject in the frame! A handy rule of thumb to follow is the "rule of thirds" where we divide the frame into thirds. Draw an imaginary tic-tac-toe board onto the image in the viewfinder. Place the primary subject on one of the lines - either 1/3 or 2/3 into the frame. Ideally, place the subject 1/3 away from both the sides and top & bottom of the frame - i.e. on the intersection of the lines of our imaginary tic-tac-toe board.
If shooting a landscape, place the horizon along one of the thirds. If shooting a portrait, place the subjects' eyes along one of the thirds. If shooting wildlife, place the animal's head/face/eyes at one of the thirds.
Many modern cameras "paint" grid lines on the viewfinder for you (check your instruction manual). Use these lines to help keep the subject "off-centre". Beware that some camera grid lines divide the frame into quarters rather than thirds (are you listening Nikon users?). The grid lines are still useful for getting the image straight & level, but not so useful for the rule of thirds.
The Rule of Thirds - Try Placing the subject upon the
intersection of the grid lines (circled above). In a land-
scape shot, place the horizon along one of the horizontal
lines.
The rule of thirds serves quite well for most scenes, but the use of the Fibonacci "golden ratio" is (in my opinion) better. The Fibonacci golden ratio is approximately 0.618, which is very close to 5/8 (0.625). Try putting the primary subject at a point 5/8 of the frame away from any edge. Better? I think so. In practice, the rule of thirds and the golden ratio placement points are very close to each other. With a little practice you can hit the golden ratio point by simply shifting off of the 1/3 point slightly.
The Fibonacci Golden Ratio vs. the Rule of Thirds
Notice how close the Fibonacci point is to the 1/3 point.
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If you are using Adobe LightRoom to post-process your images, a "rule of thirds" grid and a golden ratio grid (along with the golden ratio spiral) can be displayed on your image while cropping. In the DEVELOP module, choose the CROP tool (or press "r" on the keyboard). While in crop mode press the "o" key to change between several different crop overlays - including fine grid, one-thirds grid, golden rule grid, triangles, and the golden rule spiral. Once the golden rule spiral is displayed, press SHIFT-o to "flip" the spiral point to different sectors of the crop area. Repeatedly pressing SHIFT-o will flip the golden spiral to all possible points within the cropped frame.
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CHECK THE EDGES
Once you've got the subject in position, "sweep" your eye around the edges of the viewfinder. Look for distracting objects in the foreground, background, and sides of the scene. Many times the photographer is so "focused" on the primary subject that distracting items get left near the edges of the scene. A simple check of the viewfinder edges can save a shot from ending up in the bin.
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STRAIGHT & LEVEL
If you're taking landscape shots, keep the horizon horizontal. This sounds obvious, but there are a surprising amount of "crooked" photos taken. Use the grid-lines built into the camera viewfinder as a levelling aid. If you're having trouble getting your horizons horizontal, use an external aid. Some cameras have built-in levelling aids (read your instruction manual) and some do not. Mini bubble-levels that attach to the flash hot shoe are available from most photo retailers. Use them!
Beware that many lenses distort straight lines and turn them into gentle curves (barrel distortion). Barrel distortion and crooked horizons can both be fixed in post-processing, but the better the in-camera image is, the less post-processing time is required. I would much rather spend my time behind the lens than behind the computer...
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WATCH THE LIGHT
Photography is, after all, about light. Try to avoid deep shadows (by using fill flash and/or reflectors). Use a graduated filter to "tone-down" bright skies when taking landscape shots. Use a polarizing filter to darken blue skies and remove glare from water and other smooth surfaces.
Watch the colour of the light - sunrise and sunset give warm, yellow-orange-red colours. Mid-day and shaded areas give cool blue-violet colours. Electronic flash gives a harsh white-blue colour.
Include a white-balance grey card in at least one of your images while on a shoot to correct colour cast during post-processing. If you do use a white balance grey card, make sure it is in fact neutral grey. Include the card in at least one image under the same lighting conditions as the final image will be taken. For a wonderful white balance grey card system that is truly grey, see http://www.whibal.com
If electronic flash is your primary light source, use bounce flash or add-on flash diffusers to "soften" the harsh light. An electronic flash properly used with bounce and/or diffusers can produce studio quality shots with no deep shadows and well defined detail.
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DIGITAL SHOOTERS: EXPOSE TO THE RIGHT
If you're shooting with a digital camera, watch your histogram display. The histogram display is the 21st century light meter. The histogram simply displays a representation of the amount of light in the captured scene. The far left-hand edge of the histogram is pure black, while the far right-hand edge of the histogram is pure white. Many cameras display a number of histograms - typically one for the red channel, one for the green channel, and one for the blue channel. Whatever the number of histograms (one, three, or four), they all can be interpreted in the same way.
If the histogram is too far left and gets "clipped" or "cut off", details will be lost in the dark (shadow) areas of the image. This leads to "muddy" shadows that are pure black, with no discernable detail in them. Any image content that may have lurked in the shadows is forever lost.
Likewise, if the histogram is too far right and gets clipped (or cut off), detail will be lost in the brightest portion (highlights) of the image. This leads to "blown out" highlights that are 100% white and any image detail contained in the "blown out" areas is forever lost.
Obviously, we want our final image to be near the centre of the histogram - clipped neither on the right or the left. So, do we adjust our exposure to aim for dead-centre? The answer is no! We want to expose our image so the histogram is placed toward the right without blowing out the highlights - "Expose to the right".
Due to the nature of the digital capture process, the vast majority of the image data is captured in the last 2 stops before the right-hand edge of the histogram. In other words, the vast majority of the image content is captured near the highlights rather than the shadows. Keeping this in mind, digital photographers should expose their images "to the right". Exposing to the right allows the maximum amount of detail to be captured by the camera sensor, which allows the photographer a much wider latitude during post-processing.
