How to Improve Your Photography
Derek Smith • 27 April 2022
I was really heartened to see at the recent “Print of the Year” POTY competition the extremely high standard of photography that members are now achieving.
Some newcomers to the hobby may be thinking, “how can I achieve that high standard?” The answer I believe lies in consistency, i.e. practice, and knowledge. To become proficient in a hobby such as photography, you should be taking photographs at least weekly, and more frequently if you can. Get to know your camera; the buttons, and dials can be intimidating at first, but possibly with an unfamiliar camera, set everything to “Auto” mode to be comfortable with the feel of the camera in the hand, taking photos and analysing the results. After this leave the ISO in “Auto” and set the camera to Aperture Priority (usually marked A or Av on the mode dial, in the case of a Fuji camera set all the dials to A). Become accustomed to composing an image, and try different angles, get low to the ground, or possibly stand on a higher position. The “run & gun” style of photography is not always the best approach, yes sometimes a “grab shot” is all that you can get in the case of wildlife, or sports photography. In landscape, or portraiture photography, there is usually more time to think, compose the image, and be mindful of the light.
Will an expensive camera improve my photography? No, a high standard, carefully composed image can be taken on a smartphone. However, most dedicated hobbyist photographers will want an interchangeable lens camera, simply because of the control that you have over how the final image looks. A good quality second-hand camera body can be bought for around £200, a Nikon D3300, a Canon EOS 2000, both DSLR cameras are readily available, for mirrorless cameras the Fuji X-E1, Panasonic GX7, or an Olympus OM-D E-M10ii again are in plentiful supply, the Sony A6000 is another good camera but pricier than the models listed. For lens choices allow possibly up to another £200, but some zoom lenses can be bought for less than this.
These photos from my Australian trip in 2017 were taken on an Olympus OM-D E-M10ii, with the Olympus 17mm f/1.8 lens, which made for an amazing lightweight travel kit.
As I was the only entrant in the Portraiture section of the POTY competition, would any members be interested in me arranging another “studio” portrait workshop?
Some newcomers to the hobby may be thinking, “how can I achieve that high standard?” The answer I believe lies in consistency, i.e. practice, and knowledge. To become proficient in a hobby such as photography, you should be taking photographs at least weekly, and more frequently if you can. Get to know your camera; the buttons, and dials can be intimidating at first, but possibly with an unfamiliar camera, set everything to “Auto” mode to be comfortable with the feel of the camera in the hand, taking photos and analysing the results. After this leave the ISO in “Auto” and set the camera to Aperture Priority (usually marked A or Av on the mode dial, in the case of a Fuji camera set all the dials to A). Become accustomed to composing an image, and try different angles, get low to the ground, or possibly stand on a higher position. The “run & gun” style of photography is not always the best approach, yes sometimes a “grab shot” is all that you can get in the case of wildlife, or sports photography. In landscape, or portraiture photography, there is usually more time to think, compose the image, and be mindful of the light.
Will an expensive camera improve my photography? No, a high standard, carefully composed image can be taken on a smartphone. However, most dedicated hobbyist photographers will want an interchangeable lens camera, simply because of the control that you have over how the final image looks. A good quality second-hand camera body can be bought for around £200, a Nikon D3300, a Canon EOS 2000, both DSLR cameras are readily available, for mirrorless cameras the Fuji X-E1, Panasonic GX7, or an Olympus OM-D E-M10ii again are in plentiful supply, the Sony A6000 is another good camera but pricier than the models listed. For lens choices allow possibly up to another £200, but some zoom lenses can be bought for less than this.
These photos from my Australian trip in 2017 were taken on an Olympus OM-D E-M10ii, with the Olympus 17mm f/1.8 lens, which made for an amazing lightweight travel kit.
As I was the only entrant in the Portraiture section of the POTY competition, would any members be interested in me arranging another “studio” portrait workshop?
Uluru
Photo By: Derek Smith
Lizard
Photo By: Derek Smith
Circular Quay, Sydney
Photo By: Derek Smith
Loch Ard Gorge
Photo By: Derek Smith
Louth Photographic Society
I was scrolling through the archives yesterday, and found these "Still Life" images. Still Life is an interesting photographic genre that requires good lighting, and compositional skills, but the results can be amazing. Here are four images of the genre, "Breakfast" showing cereal falling into a bowl, "Four Candles" (no not the ones from the Two Ronnies sketch), the moody "Decaying Tulip", and the simple but effective monochrome "Opener". Perhaps these images might give you some inspiration.
I joined the NELPS outing at Chambers Farm Woods on Wednesday. The NELPS visit to Chamber Farm wood and butterfly garden was well attended, with several members from NELPS, Grimsby, Dunholme and Louth, kind thanks to all that came, although it was very hot the butterfly garden, being rather full and slightly unkept did not let us down with butterflies, two less common were seen, a Comma butterfly and a humming bird moth, with loads of very lively common blue butterflies. Most of the insects in the butterfly garden were highly active, and by the time an insect was spotted, it was off!! I managed to just about get an image of the Comma butterfly, and nobody stood a chance with the humming bird moth, it was too fast. The dragonfly was more accommodating remaining fairly still posing for us. The next NELPS outing will be to the Peoples Park in Grimsby on Wednesday 19th, I'm busy on that day, but I will be attending the meeting at the Sandtoft Trolleybus Museum on Wednesday 26th. Many thanks to NELPS for organising these outings, it was a thoroughly pleasurable morning.
A visit to Whitby for a sunset picture didn't quite go to plan. Unknown to me today is the last day of the Whitby Regatta. Whitby in the summer is usually busy, but today it rivaled Time Square in New York. My planned shoot of the East Pier was a non-starter because for tonight only there's a fun fair along West Pier where I planned to shoot from. I had to re-think and resort to plan b, which was also a non-starter because the East Pier was closed as it was packed with fireworks. Plan c was OK though and I got an image I'm pleased with.
I've been up to RSPB Bempton Cliffs this week, and have taken some excellent photographs, the weather was fine, and the lighting was less harsh than usual. This pair were on the cliff top, obviously well established, and saw off this interloper trying to muscle in on their space, those beaks look very vicious. I hope that everyone else is having a productive summer break.
For club interaction, we are invited to these NELPS photo shoots. So lets start this club interaction, NELPS are now on there summer break, but it does not stop there. The NELPS club president has put together some outdoor photo shoots:- Lincoln 5th Aug meet at the Cathedral 11am Not forgetting the photo exhibition by Lincoln Camera Club in the Usher Gallery! Chambers Farm Wood & Butterfly Farm 12th Aug meet at 10am. Peoples Park Grimsby 19th Aug meet at 10am. Trolley Bus Museum Sandtoft 26th Aug meet at 10am Cadwell Park 10th Aug motorbikes, 24th Aug cars and both are track days so free to get in.
Sutton & Trusthorpe Camera Club have their annual Exhibition at the Meridale Hall, Sutton on Sea, on 29th / 30th August. Drink and a Home-made cake only £3!
I’ve lost my photographic “mojo”, that desire to go out and take impactful photographs. That creative spark has gone, vanished, will it ever return? Writers talk of a “writers block”, when they just sit in front of a blank page, and can’t think of anything else to write, I’m the same, still out with my camera, but just not creating anything meaningful. Some of this I suppose is due to the fact that I’ve almost stopped my genre of model photography, we had the Studio evening, and other than that I’ve only had 2 model shoots this year. So what is my photography genre now? I know that I’m not a bird photographer, I haven’t got the patience to sit in a bird hide for hours with a long lens, waiting for the right bird shot to appear. Landscape, possibly, but I look at the work of some of our members, and YouTube videos, and don’t know whether I can achieve as good a standard in my work? I do enjoy macro photography, but again do my photos reach a good standard? One way forward is to look at our Societies annual project, this year it’s “water” one photo a month depicting water. Then of course there are the planned photo competitions for the rest of the year, those subjects could inspire me to go out and take some images. Anyway, that’s me, enjoy the rest of the summer, and if any of our members could share a photo, with a line or two of text I will be very happy to post on this blog.
Good Morning All Last week we had a very good evening at Kirkby Gravel Pits, it was a warm sunny evening and there was wildlife about to photograph. There were Dragonflies about, but all flying, but we did manage to photograph some Damselflies and grasshoppers etc. We then called at the local pub in Kirkby on Bain for refreshments. There were only 7 of us, if you have other ideas for outings please let me know and I will look into them for next year. Derek has also done a blog on the evening. Louth did make it through to the LPA Battle finals coming fifth overall, the final is on the 18 th October at Nettleham village hall. That was the last event before the summer break, so we now have a break before returning in September. I won't be doing any newsletters unless there is something to report. If you do anything interesting over the break you can always send Derek a blog for our website. There are things you can do over the break, the monthly project of water, preparing for the PDI competition in September, with the categories of "Objects in the Air" and "Open". In September our first meeting back will have members speaking on the topic "15 minutes on what you have done over the summer", you may want to prepare something for this. Have a good summer, Graham
Lincoln Camera Club are holding an exhibition at the Usher Gallery, Lincoln. Commencing July 30th to November 1st.
This was our last outing before the summer break, on this occasion several of us met up at Kirkby Gravel Pits nature reserve for an evening of photography. The evening weather was perfect for photography, and we ambled around the reserve stopping to take some macro photography where opportunities arose. We did see a couple of butterflies, and I managed to take this image of a red admiral. As we walked along the paths, several grasshoppers could be glimpsed in the dry grass, they are very difficult to photograph as they are tiny, and agile, but I captured this one while I was laying down in the grass, at eye level, a lot of patience is needed to capture a quality image. In the brambles damselflies could be seen, one took off straight into a spiders web, luckily Graham was able to release it. On the water a heron, and egret could be observed across the water. It was an excellent evening of photography, as well as a social meetup, these outings are ideal for newcomers to photography to learn camera skills.
