Rule of thirds

• If you were to divide a frame into thirds, both ways, the points of intersection are the points where your subject should be placed in order to be most interesting. For example:

This might be a typical picture someone might take of a friend. The subject is almost dead center, with a lot of

wasted room.

There is not as much wasted room, the person’s head is at the top of the frame, and thus more of the person can be seen.

It also gives a sense of height. The subject is off-center, which not only adds a significant amount of interest and mystique, but directs

your attention very clearly to him, as well as allowing you to see the background.

The subject’s eyes are directly lined up with the intersecting points. Any

one of those four points is a great place to frame your subject.

• You are never just taking a picture of ‘a person’ or ‘a thing.’ You are taking a picture of a very specific part. Know what you are taking a picture of, and know why.

Framing

• Every photo has a foreground and background, so use them together to add an interesting element to the shot.

• Use foreground elements to frame your photo's subject. Architectural elements work well (windows, doorways, arches, and so on),

• See how they used the buildings to frame the water and the sail boat.

• The important point here is the subject. It doesn't do much good to frame your subject with interesting elements if they overshadow the subject, making it difficult to determine what the subject is supposed to be.

Visual cropping

• Crop your photos visually before you take them.

• Look into the corners of the viewfinder.

• Do you see things that shouldn't be there?

• You can remove, or crop, these elements from your photos simply by moving closer to your subject,

• Zooming in on your subject,

• Moving your subject within the viewfinder.

• Try different angles.

• Look for anything that will diminish the impact of unwanted objects in your photos.

Visual Cropping

Angle of the view

Angel of view

• By taking a picture from a different angle, you can produce a totally new feeling, mood or effect.

• Some of the most interesting photographs are those taken from a unique vantage point.

• Get down to the level of the flowers before taking the picture.

• Climb a tree to take a picture of a meadow.

Angle of view

• Always ask yourself if the photo would look better taken as a landscape or portrait shot. (horizontal or vertical)

• Experiment and try different perspectives.

• Look for angles that are interesting and demonstrate the mood and inspiration you're trying to capture.

Perspective

• To capture the essence of what you experience when viewing a scene.

• It helps to add an element to your photo to convey this perspective.

In the following picture, the bow of the boat helps to add an interesting perspective to the vastness of the

scene.

Without the bow of the boat in the picture, the scene would be far less interesting and void of any drama.

Leading Lines

• A leading line can be almost anything: a road, path, sidewalk, fence, river, hedge, tree line or shadow.

• Lines in a picture should lead into, not out of, the picture, and they should lead your eye toward the main subject.

• Sometimes it is a matter of choosing the right angle or point of view to make leading lines lead into the picture.

• Starting a leading line from the corner of your picture will often improve composition.

Steady camera = Sharp pictures

• Stand with your feet firmly on the floor or ground with your weight distributed evenly on both feet. This will keep you from swaying or weaving.

• Grip the camera firmly with both hands. • Brace your arms against your body and the

camera against your head. • Press the shutter release as smoothly as

possible. Jabbing at it could make the camera drop, resulting in a picture with the subjects' heads cut off.

Aperture

• The aperture determines the amount of light that gets to the digital sensor.

Aperture

• A SMALL number indicates a LARGE aperture, good lenses start with a maximum aperture of 2, better and more expensive lenses start at 1.1!

Aperture

• Apart from the quantity of light that is allowed to get through, the aperture also determines the DOF (depth of field).

• On "point and shoot" digital cameras you do not see this numbers on the side of the lens, the process of opening and closing the aperture is controlled electronically and has also increments like: 5.9 or 8.2

Shutter speed

• The shutter is the device that controls the exposure time of the photo.

• The exposure time usually begins at 1/2000 sec. and goes up to 30 sec.

• The exposure time determines how a photo will look, if it will be "shaken" or crystal clear.

• Exposure Compensation is a feature on a digital camera that allows you to adjust the shutter speed measured by its light meter. Usually, the range of adjustment goes from +2 to -2 EV in 1/3 steps.

• If for whatever reason you select +1 exposure compensation, the shutter speed used by the camera will be 1/125 sec.

• If you use -1 exposure compensation, the shutter speed will be 1/500 sec.

• Every increment in exposure compensation (+2 | +1 | -1 | -2) increases or decreases the amount of light going through the camera by a factor of 2.

If you want to take a picture of a water fountain. You have two options, use a short exposure, or a long one. A short exposure (of 1/2000 sec.) will "freeze" the water droplets in mid air; the detail of every droplet will be clearly visible in the photo. A long exposure time (of 1 sec.) will create a special effect where the falling droplets traces unite to create streams of water.

Shutter Speed 1/25 | Aperture Value 8 | ISO Speed 50

Shutter Speed 1/1000 | Aperture Value 3.2 | ISO Speed 50

ISO speed

• It is usually expressed with the following numbers:

50 | 100 | 200 | 400 | 800 | 1600 | 3200• These numbers tell you how "fast" does

the digital sensor react to the light sent through the aperture and shutter.

• A small number means that it takes a relatively long time to take a photo, a large number, a very short time.

• The ISO speed 50 is usually used on bright sunny days, while the 200 and 400 ISO is used in low light conditions (like interiors or at night)

• If you're taking a photo of a still object, like a flower, then always use a low ISO setting. It allows for a longer shutter speed and produces a cleaner image.

• If you're shooting a moving object, like a baby playing with a toy, then a higher ISO setting of say 400 would be better.

Depth of Field

• This is another way you show what your subject is and where it is.

• It also lets you see, well, depth.

• Depth of field (or DOF, for short) is most commonly demonstrated in photography by what objects are in focus and what objects are not.

For example:

What is important in the picture where is your focus?

Depth of field(DOF)

• The amount of DOF you have is defined by two terms ‘ shallow and deep. A shallow depth of field means the photo has a lot of blur in it, whereas deep depth of field means that there isn’t a lot of focus at all.

This would be an example of a photo with a shallow depth of field. The background is

almost entirely blurry, whereas the foreground is completely, totally, 100%

razor-sharp.

Nearly everything is in focus. This would be described as a deep depth of

field.

Depth of field

• You can manipulate depth of field using

two things: focus and aperture