Taking Better Photographs

Modern cameras, film, and processing make it easier than ever to create well-exposed, sharply focused photographs. Even so, photography is not foolproof and probably never will be. In many photographs the colors come out all wrong, the subject is out of focus, or the composition doesn’t do justice to the original scene. Knowledge and control are the fundamental tools that will help you create better pictures.

Have you ever seen fans in the upper deck at a baseball game taking flash pictures of the action on the field? Do you know that the light from their flashes has absolutely no effect on their pictures? You should, because understanding your equipment—both its potential strengths and its limitations—is the first step to better photography.

No camera is capable of handling every picture-taking situation. Cameras are designed to perform specific tasks, and you should be aware of what these are. You need to pick both a camera and lens appropriate for the subject you want to shoot. Conversely, you need to stay within the capabilities of your camera and lens. For example, a so-called single use camera, the cardboard-and-plastic kind you can buy at a tourist shop that comes already loaded with film, is intended specifically for casual snapshots. Outdoors, it produces reasonable results of monuments, tourist attractions, and groupings of friends or family. But if you try to take close-ups of flowers, for example, you'll only get blurry blobs of color.

The best all-around cameras are called point-and-shoots because they are versatile and easy to use. They set exposure and focus automatically, fire a built-in flash unit when more light is needed, and wind and rewind the film with a built-in motor. They use either 35-millimeter or APS-format film. Point-and-shoots are great for family snapshots or for keeping a visual diary of life's events. They often come with a zoom lens that can go from a telephoto setting (for magnifying a distant subject) to a wide-angle setting. But for a subject closer than a few feet, (those flowers, for instance) a zoom lens still won’t give very good results. For close-ups like that you will need a macro lens, which allows you to shoot from within inches of your subject.

If you want the ability to switch from a macro lens (for close-ups) to a more powerful telephoto lens (to zoom in on the action at a sports event, for example) a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera is your best choice. SLRs offer maximum versatility as well as maximum performance because they allow you to change lenses to suit the task at hand. They also offer you more accurate framing because the image you see in the viewfinder appears exactly as it will look on film. This can make a big difference when you want to compose a landscape or portrait artistically. The biggest disadvantages to SLRs are that they are heavier, more complex, and more expensive than the more common point-and-shoots.

Read your camera's instruction booklet to find out how it sets the exposure, how fast and slow its shutter can operate, how close it focuses, and how its automatic focusing system works. There are several types of auto-focusing systems, and each of them has quirks; for example, some cameras will automatically focus on the windowpane if you try to shoot a picture through a car window. Learn the different ways in which you can override or alter exposure, focus, and flash to get the camera to do what you want it to do. If you have a zoom lens, practice zooming from wide angle to telephoto settings to see how this can change the scene.

Generally, the lower the film’s speed or sensitivity to light (expressed as an ISO number on the packaging), the higher the quality you'll get in terms of color and fine detail. The most common choices range from ISO 100 (best for bright, sunny days) to ISO 400 (best in lower light, or with rapidly moving subjects). ISO 200 film splits the difference and is a good all-around choice.

Films differ in color rendition and color density, graininess, and contrast range. These factors interrelate. For example, faster films (with higher ISO numbers) usually can deal with extremes of light and shadow better than slow films, but they usually do not produce colors as dense and dramatic, and they may appear more grainy. The most popular choices in color print and slide films strike a balance among these factors, so that they function well in a variety of picture-taking situations. Premium-grade films, which cost a few dollars more, are designed for very specific picture-taking situations, and usually emphasize one factor at the expense of another. For example, some films are made for action photography and are fast enough to record a racehorse in mid-stride, but grain and color quality suffer. Other premium films produce exceptionally rich, clear colors, but can only be used for a still subject such as a landscape.

Film manufacturers throughout the world, such as Agfa, Fuji, and Kodak, produce films capable of outstanding results. Choosing among them is a matter of personal taste, availability, and price. Within a brand, select a film type based on your needs: fast film for rapidly moving subjects, slow film for scenic views or if reproducing colors accurately is important, medium-speed film for general use. If you are going to be taking flash pictures, remember that the faster the film, the greater the distance at which your flash will operate successfully.

Pick a film that's appropriate to your subject, then seek out light that will help the film perform at its best. Remember that most film is designed for daylight. To avoid the orange cast that shows up when film is used indoors in incandescent light (from ordinary light bulbs), and the green or purple casts caused by fluorescent light tubes, use electronic flash, which imitates sunlight.

With all the automation built into today's cameras, you might think that all the picture-taking decisions have been made for you. That's true with some cameras, but many of even the most automated models provide some possibility for operator control. If you take advantage of these controls, you can enhance your chances for successful pictures.

Exposure is determined by the lens aperture, which controls how much light comes through the lens, and by the shutter, which controls the duration of the light. With old-style manual cameras you could set the apertures and shutter speeds manually, which allowed for plenty of creative control as well as lots of mistakes. Automatic cameras use a built-in metering system and miniature motors to ensure more consistent results. But even the most sophisticated automatic system doesn't know how you want the picture to look; at best it tries to guess what you are looking at and adjusts the exposure accordingly.

Some lighting situations challenge automatic-exposure systems and cry out for operator intervention. One such situation is back lighting, when the light source lies behind your subject. Most automatic cameras will underexpose such a subject due to the brightness of the background. A savvy photographer will compensate in one of two ways: either by setting the aperture a stop or two wider than what the meter recommends (that is, to a lower f-stop number than the one recommended), or by using the flash to add extra light to the foreground. Which method you choose, and how you accomplish it, depends on your camera. Some have backlight buttons that increase exposure when pressed; others have a mode called fill-in flash that will activate the flash even in bright light.

Be aware that exposure meters see the world only as a medium shade of gray. An all-white scene, such as a snowy landscape, or an all-black one, say, a black cat at night, will be automatically exposed to produce a medium gray tone. Bad move! To render the snowy scene correctly you need to increase exposure by several stops; the black cat calls for an equivalent decrease from what the meter recommends. This is why more sophisticated cameras provide an exposure-compensation button. Another way to adjust the exposure, on some cameras, is to change the film-speed setting (the ISO setting) on which the camera bases its exposure; a lower number for more exposure and a higher number for less exposure.

Automatic focusing is like automatic exposure: it works well for 95 percent of your pictures but it misunderstands the other 5 percent. Most automatic focusing errors occur when your main subject is not in the middle of the frame. The focusing system locks onto whatever is at the center of the frame—the background, for example—and everything closer to the camera goes out of focus. To avoid this effect, most cameras allow you to preset the focus by pointing directly at the main subject, pressing the shutter button down halfway, and then reframing without letting go of the button. The focus will remain set for the closer subject as you push the button completely down to take the picture.

Other focusing flubs happen because of the ways the camera's automatic system works. One type, called an active auto-focus system, sends out a beam of infrared light that bounces from the subject back to the camera, telling the camera how far away the subject is. But if you try to photograph through a window, or into a mirror, the beam stops short. Result: fuzzy photograph. For these situations, some cameras of this type provide an infinity focus lock, which will keep the camera focused on infinity (any point beyond about 30 m, or 100 ft). So-called passive auto-focusing systems are more sophisticated but still have their limitations. They work by sensing the level of contrast at the center of the photograph. Because they look for this contrast in only a tiny part of the scene, they get confused with subjects lacking in contrast, especially dim scenes at dusk. Most cameras with contrast-sensing focusing will let you turn off the automatic system and focus manually by looking through the viewfinder and turning a collar on the lens until the scene appears focused.