Best Photography Tips For Bloggers and Website Owners

Best tips for improving photography for bloggers
I currently have a variety of flowers in the house and they range from those “borrowed” cuttings that I talked about in my previous post to some wilting but still lovely {in my eyes} flowers from last week…
But this post isn’t about florals, it’s about the best photography tips for bloggers…which is something that

is close to my heart. I shared some photography tips in the past, so if you are interested in a few other techniques you’ll want to check that out…

beautiful photography tips and how to photograph flowers

Before we get into the nitty gritty of showing you how I set up for these shots, I thought that I’d toss in a couple of my pretty pictures that I captured in shooting for this post. If you are indeed a blogger, a website owner or conduct any sort of business on-line those pretty shots or “money shots” are so important!

I had a successful e-commerce business for a number of years and I owe a good amount of that success to the fact that I learned how to style and shoot decent photos. It’s always a learning process, continuously! DSLR cameras keep advancing and I’ve been able to move up the camera food change over the years, so I try and improve every day. Practice, practice and then practice some more!

tripod for bloggers
The all important TRIPOD. You seriously NEED one and although I do sometimes get lazy and not follow my own advice, it’s going to make a big difference in clarity if you do. If you have a small camera like a point and shoot or a small DSLR like a Canon Rebel, you can sometimes get away with hand holding. To up your game though and if you shoot indoors (like for a blog) you’ll be able to keep your ISO turned down, slow down the shutter and use a timer for BETTER PICTURES!
I use an older model of THIS ONE, but you can find something more budget friendly to suit your wallet and camera weight. My camera and my lenses are HEAVY HONKERS, so I kept that in mind when I bought my tripod. It’s always all about balance in life…right? :~}
how to shoot with a timer

Timers…I have one around here someplace (actually I have a couple…but always lose them!). Today is one of those days that I couldn’t quickly find them, so I decided to show you that you might not need one if your camera has a self-timer mode available. Most do, and here is the back of my Canon shown in LIVE VIEW MODE to show how that looks…

I shoot in RAW and use BACK BUTTON FOCUS…another post for another day if you’d like to know more. It’s important to make all of your adjustments before you focus and THEN press the shutter release to start the 2 second timing. You DON’T need to shoot in Raw or use BBF and can use AUTO or another setting of your choice and still use the timer function. Make sense?

 

back of a camera live view

 

See the grid? If you use LIVE VIEW when your camera is on the tripod see if your camera has a setting for showing a grid. I find it so helpful for seeing if my camera is level and then making adjustments so that I don’t have to straighten my shot out in post production…

 

best level iphone app
If you have an iPhone (or Android) another helpful tool is a LEVEL APP. Here is what mine looks like on my iPhone and I was surprised to see that my vintage mantel is so out of whack! Sit that baby on top of your camera and see if you are straight on…
focus for photographers

If you are learning to shoot in manual, play around with your focal point selection (among other things). In this shot I have the aperture set to 2.8 to let in maximum light and create background bokeh, and I’ve set my focal point on the flowers…

Although I shoot in manual I don’t set my lens to manual focus because I wear glasses and just can’t get it as crisp as I’d like since my vision is compromised that way. As long as all of the settings are correct it works well…

 

vintage trophy cup 1925

If you have your camera on your tripod it doesn’t mean that you should set it and forget it…so move it around, raise it up and down and look for different angles.

In the top photo I’m not only closer to the trophy cup, but I allowed some of the light from the French door behind to get into the shot and create a lighter photo. I tend to purposefully overexpose my photos because it’s become my signature style, but you don’t need to do that if it’s not your thing…

vintage trophy cups

I love natural light photography and although I do have some studio lighting and an external flash, I don’t use them a whole lot. THIS is the lighting kit that I do use when necessary and it’s very affordable…A book that can make you much more of a photo taking rock star in understanding that all important idea of light is THIS ONE. I can’t recommend it highly enough and for $16 it’s well worthwhile!

Shots can’t always be perfect and almost every photographer that I know does some sort of post processing…
Back when I was in college {a gajillion years ago:-} we had film cameras as art students and YES…film is processed. I don’t feel badly about lightening things up if necessary and adjusting warmth, etc…
before and after photoshop pictures
The photo on the left was sooc (straight out of the camera) and on the right with some adjustments in Photoshop. I prefer Photoshop over Lightroom (although I do have both), and a great alternative that is much faster to master is PicMonkey…(I sometimes use it myself for various purposes)
If you want a wonderful on-line course, I highly recommend CREATIVE LIVE for their selection, affordability and professionalism…
Best photography tips for bloggers and website owners with camera settings lenses and equipment

If you enjoyed this post, here are a couple of other photography articles: Photography For Bloggers & Makers I Must Have Photography Gear

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