5 Beginner Photography Mistakes + How To Fix

hey what's up everybody my name's Sawyer Hartman and today in honor of our 10 Photography mistakes that you probably don't know on how to fix video going over three hundred and seventy thousand views today I'm going to be giving you five more Photography mistakes you might be making as well as how to fix them because well let's all be honest we can always get better and that's why we're here so without further to do roll is further to do or further ado no further ado whatever let's just get into the video Cobian yeah pop quiz that one is the best time of day to be shooting midday twelve to one tears it up the best time to shoot Golden Hour you know it already but you're shooting at the wrong hours of the day now before I tell you exactly when you should be shooting you need to understand why you shouldn't be shooting in the middle of the day now as you might know from your time in school the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west but during the middle of that it's right overhead now when the Sun is directly overhead which is my least favorite time to ever try to take a photo it's basically like shining a flashlight down on your face you're gonna have shadows inside your eyes your nose is gonna create a shadow and it's just not gonna be very flattering so when should you be shooting you might have heard this term used before but magic hour or golden hour is the term that refers to the hour after sunrise and the hour just before sunset this is the time where the Sun is the lowest in the sky which means the light actually diffuses a little differently than when it's overhead instead of getting really harsh bright light that creates shadows and shows imperfections actually what the Sun does at magic or golden hour is diffuses the light kind of like a big soft box so not only is the lighting actually going to be warmer in color tone but it's also going to be a very beautiful light that light instead of creating shadows and harsh lines on your subject is going to smooth in all the imperfections now another very valuable time to be shooting that a lot of people don't actually know about it's called blue our blue hours actually the exact opposite of gold it takes place just before the Sun rises and just after the Sun sets now this effect might not be for everyone but if you're looking to capture photos like save Branden woeful this is that time of day that you should be focusing on but just remember if you want to have a competitive edge over other photographers when you're shooting on the same here in the same locations you've got to rely on the actual lighting and composition you can find okay moving on now the second mistake I feel people are making in their photography is by thinking they don't live anywhere pretty enough to shoot now if anywhere at first glance doesn't look beautiful let's just say my apartment well this thought process among photographers is super common so don't worry you're not alone but there is something that professionals do to be able to get past this well that's because you're looking at what we'd like to call the big picture now what I mean by big picture are landscapes things that you see with your eyes and go wow that would be a beautiful photograph here's how you get past that you need to start looking for things that your eye cannot see now at first that might sound kind of tricky but let me just put it into an actual example as you can see as you can see nothing too photogenic I'm just gonna put on a zoomed in lens and try to change that let's find some cool photos find different ways to take a very simple photograph and before you know it you will be so unborn of photography that you'll be ready to move on to tip number three the third one is simple but when I figured it out about six years ago into my career it completely blew my mind and changed my photography life forever if you are looking to capture photographs that look like this aka portrait mode type photos or if you're a more experienced photographer a photograph with a shallow depth of field if you're trying to capture these type of photos and you are failing chances are you might actually just be using the wrong type of lens I know it's that easy like that that that's what it is this is a kit zoom lens that comes with most entry-level canon cameras now because this lens can shoot wide or zoom in it is called a zoom lens the lower number of the f-stop the more light comes into the lens usually the more depth of field you can get so zoom lenses are really great for all-around photography but if you're looking for a photograph with an extremely shallow depth of field what you're actually looking for is what they call a prime lens this is an 85 millimeter lens which means you can't zoom in if you want your subject to be closer you actually have to walk closer to them now because the lens doesn't have to cover different variations of zooming it means it gets to do 85 millimeters really really well but for everyone at home that only has a kit zoom lens don't be discouraged there's a way to get closer you will not be able to get the exact same type of image as you would on a prime lens with the shallow background but you will be able to get closer all you have is the zoom lens that came with your camera here's what you're gonna want to do in order to try to mimic the look you get on these prime lenses you're gonna want to zoom as far in as possible now the next step is very important in order to try to maximize the blurriness in the background of your image you're going to try to create as much space as possible between what you're taking a photo of and the background I want you to take quick note that I'm taking a picture of him the background is far far away you were gonna want to get as close to the subject as possible while keeping the background as far away as possible on the prime lens it doesn't really matter where you stand I'm gonna get the blurry type of background I'm looking for so now that you can completely achieve creamy background goodness let's move on to the fourth mistake I can almost guarantee you're making if you're not congratulations because even I only stopped making this mistake a few months ago is you're not using nor do you maybe know how to use a variable ND filter which is this little have you ever walked outside on a bright sunny day and all of a sudden you had to shield your eyes and squint to try to even see what was out there well your camera is actually experiencing the exact same thing that your eyes are only your camera's eyes just can't adjust so so in order to be able to take light out of your image you have to put an ND filter on the front of it ND stands for neutral density which stands for I don't really know but I know it basically works like sunglasses so here's an example yesterday I took a photo of Angelique without an ND filter it was so bright out that the lowest I could get my lens to go was like f/4 any lower than that the photo would have just been white and you wouldn't been able to see what was going on but then I screwed on my variable ND filter which is sunglasses for my lens and then I just turned the filter to cut out more and more light until my camera was finally able to go down to F 1.4 I took the exact same photo on the exact same settings but look how much better it came out for an example look at some of these cool creative ways people have used long exposures to help tell the story behind their photograph none of these would be possible without nd filters okay I hope that wasn't too confusing moving on to the fifth and final mistake that you might be making now the fifth and final mistake is one that needs to be heard by creators everywhere I know social media is partly to blame the other half is based on inspiration but we've got to stop copying each other's content because there is a better way to stay inspired now everyone you know including myself has seen a photograph on Instagram or on the internet and gone dang I really really wish I could take a photo like that it's one thing to like a photograph and try to recreate it it's another thing to like a photograph and figure out why you like it and then use those aspects in your own work this is how Quinton Tarantino has made some of the finest films in history this is why Martin Scorsese has watched he claims almost every movie ever made so here's the tip here's the trick here's what you should be doing now there's multiple ways to do this but what you need to do is create an inspiration board I personally use an app called curator on my tablet just so that it's always with me but occasionally I'll even print out photos and on a poster board so I can get a bigger idea of what I'm into now to be able to give you guys an actual valuable example let's just talk about black and white photography this photo is one that I loved on Instagram and I thought I would love to have a photo like this but instead of grabbing my camera and going out the door and trying to create that photograph what I'm gonna do is create an inspiration board this means that I continued my search for black and white photography I started looking every single place I could to find black and white photography that really inspires me and then I took all of that data and put it in one place aka my inspiration board but I might look at this and go hmmm this one this one this one in this one really have great use of shadows on the face I would love to do something with shadows on the face which then leads to inspiration of going what could I use for shadows on the face in my photograph by figuring out all the little nuances and photos that really speak to you as a person and speak to your creativity you're gonna start finding the things that you constantly incorporate into your work that right there is exactly how you define your name as a photographer and remember as if this channel wasn't evidence enough it's all about growing as an artist no one expects you to be the best you're ever going to be in your career today they just expect you to try your hardest and one day work towards wherever the hell you're going and well that pretty much wraps up this video guys if you enjoyed it if you want to become part of our little camera community please make sure to give this video a thumbs up as well as feel free to subscribe for a brand new episode every Thursday and Sunday but as well all the links to everything I've talked about as well as my brand new photo filters are right down in the description so feel free to check that out whenever you want I hope you learned something I hope you're growing as a content creator yourself but before I go remember stay motivated stay inspired and never stop creating I'll see you guys on Sunday peace

Channel: sawyerhartman

Views: 143,623

Rating: 4.9549484 out of 5

Keywords: How To, Photography, Beginner, Tips, Tutorial, Camera, Sony A7r iii, sawyer, hartman, sawyerhartman, sony, canon, 1dx mark ii, review, 5 Beginner Photography Mistakes, PeterMckinnon, 10 Beginner Photography Mistakes

Id: 3gcb42-JQgQ

Length: 10min 52sec (652 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 30 2018