How Can I Improve My Photography Skills?

It probably goes without saying that we all want to improve our photography skills and learn how to take better pictures. Here are a few ways that you can improve your photography to get better pictures. Some of these are relatively easy to do, and others take a little more effort. Regardless, applying some form of them to your own photography journey will undoubtedly result in improvement over time. Learn Your Camera Inside and Out The first thing to do when you get a new Nikon D3500 DSLR camera from Beachcamera.com is to learn everything about it. Take the time to learn every single button, dial, and menu feature. This takes time and can be tedious, but it will be worth it to get better pictures. If you want to take better photos, get beyond the basics of setting shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Even learn about features that you may think you'll never use. Learning about all these features will give you a better understanding of how you can use your camera to take better photos. Learn Off-Camera Flash One of the things that will really set your photography apart is learning to use lighting, specifically off-camera flash. There are many uses for flash in photography, but you can make some drastic improvements in portraiture work. Not only using flash, but getting it off the camera, will allow you to create amazing images that have a much more professional look. Be More Selective Have you ever “sprayed and prayed”? There are times that using this method may be warranted, such as fast action sports and birds in flight. For most types of photography, however, it’s best to slow down the image making process to get better pictures. This involves planning, scouting, pre-visualization, and a whole lot of patience. Another tip for taking good photos is to become more deliberate in your shooting. One way to do this is to use a tripod. This will slow you down and make you think more about the composition; light and shadows; and elements to include and to leave out of the frame. It's very rewarding to really nail an image; one that could be a portfolio piece or even hang on your wall. It's even more so when you actually mean to do it. Understand What Makes a Shot Blurry When it comes to mastering focus to get better pictures, you also need to know why your shots aren't sharp. This can be due to just learning how to focus using your new Sigma lens from Beachcamera.com, but it may also be due to camera shake or the subject moving. You'll need to spot the cause, fix the problem, then try again. If the softness is due to incorrect focusing, you may find that areas in front or behind the subject are sharp. If you can't see any sharp areas, incorrect focusing will give a uniform blur all around each area of the image. You can easily spot blur caused by camera shake by the characteristic 'streaking' of highlight areas. These indicate that the camera, or possibly the subject, has moved at some point during the exposure. Use Saturation Using the drop-down menu in the Hue/Saturation window allows you to decrease the saturation of individual colors, without losing detail. Saturation needs to be used with care if you want to avoid your images looking garish and over-cooked. In many scenes you'll find that some colors are much more saturated than others, especially reds and greens. So rather than simply adjusting the saturation of the whole image, you can also target individual colors using the Hue/Saturation control to get better pictures. So there you have it. This is certainly not the be-all end-all list of things to do to take better pictures.  It’s a good start, though.