Tips and Tricks
Award-winning photographer and Syngenta Photo Prize jury member,
Marcus Lyon, shares some insights into the way he works. Plus some tips and tricks
to help you get the best results.
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 How to achieve dynamic image composition |
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Most image compositions look more interesting if the main subject is not exactly
in the middle of the picture. As a rule of thumb you should respect the following:
split the picture horizontally as well as vertically in three thirds (‘Golden cut’)
making nine squares of equal size. Have the main subject so that it is in one of
the intersecting points of the lines. You will usually have a more dynamic effect
than placing the subject in the image center. In addition, if your subject e.g.
is a person or an animal, you should always place them in the picture in such a
way that they look in and not out of the picture. |
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How to frame an image |
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If you hang a picture, you do not just hammer a nail into the first clear space
on a wall you see. The same applies for framing your subject in your picture. Walk
around the subject, try out different points of view and see how it works from all
possible angles, such as the frontal view, bird's-eye view and the view from below.
Also test how the subject looks in portrait and landscape format, and think about
where the main object should be placed in your picture. This guarantees creative
and unusual views with emotional effect. |
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| How to gain depth effect with selective sharpness
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A good picture does not necessarily have to be in sharp focus. The use of ‘fuzziness’
can generate a quite special mood and also depth effect. The depth of sharpness
is, with the motion blur effect, one of the most important composition tools used
in photography. If you focus the camera on the main subject, the focus can be set
up in such a way that the areas in front or behind it on the picture are either
sharp or blurred. Please note: The area in focus is bigger with a larger aperture
value (small aperture!). The closer you come to the main subject, the lower the
depth of sharpness is, with a small aperture the distance can even be only a few
millimeters. |
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How to reflect the correct perspective
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Skewed horizon lines, buildings that look like they are almost collapsing and strange
proportions often originate from a camera that is held incorrectly. Rule #1: always
hold your camera with both hands. Ensure that you hold the camera as parallel as
possible to the subject and do not point the lens needlessly upwards or downwards.
For taking a photo of children or objects close to ground it’s best to squat down
and get as close to their level as possible. If you want to make a picture of a
building you should take a few steps backwards and try to stand a bit higher. If
you have difficulties holding the camera you can put it against a wall - or of course
use a tripod. With some camera types lines can be faded into the display. Transparent
tape stuck horizontally on the display will also help you to orient the camera more
precisely and can (as long as you choose the right tape!) be easily removed without
damaging the display.
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How to work with fore-, middle- and background
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Interesting details in fore-, middle- and background provide a well-balanced depth
effect. To really create ‘depth’ in a picture, you should follow the principle ‘large
in front, small in back’. E.g. the broader a street is to be seen in the foreground
of the picture and the smaller it becomes against the upper edge of the picture,
the stronger is the depth of the subject. Or if you position the end of a street
or path as a vanishing point in the picture middle, a tunnel effect will occur.
This will be further strengthened if you position yourself in the middle of the
path and take photos in portrait format. For depth effect you can also work with
colors: Blue and green are cold colors which step in the background all by themselves.
If you choose warm colors like red, orange or yellow in the foreground, they will
stress the foreground and ‘pull’ the picture optically into length.
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How to deal with the motive background
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Normally we are concentrating on the subject when we compose a picture and ignore
the background. Distracting elements and chaotic backgrounds tend to be overlooked
and more often than not there are photos where flowers or trees are growing out
of people’s heads. Pay special attention to what stands or walks behind your subject
while taking a photo. Good backgrounds create depth effect or complement the picture
subject. Bad backgrounds distract from the main subject, look disordered or clash
with your subject. Try moving to one side slightly or reduce the depth of focus
to fade out undesirable elements in the background. Do not try to accommodate as
much as possible in your picture. Less is more! Separate the important from insignificant.
If your subject fills the image almost completely, this looks more interesting to
the viewer than a general overview of a scene.
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How to handle auto focus boundaries
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Normally the auto focus of a digital camera is set towards the middle of the viewfinder.
If the main subject is too far on the edge, the distance to the subject and subsequently
the right sharpness setting will be off resulting in a subject that is not in focus.
Nearly all cameras have a ‘focus memory’. To use it, center the lens on your subject
and push the shutter halfway down. The correct distance is now stored in the ‘focus
memory’. Keep holding the shutter halfway, and swing the camera in the desired position.
Even if the subject is not in the middle anymore, the picture will be shot with
the stored focus value. Auto focus problems can also arise with surfaces that have
poor contrast e.g. the sky or when there are bad lighting conditions. You can solve
this by focusing on a subject which is in the same distance and shows more contrast.
If you want to take photos through a window or a fence, you should go as close as
possible to the fence or the window pane. Then in most cases your camera cannot
focus on the distracting object. Of course opening the window solves that problem
even easier! |
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How to avoid camera shakes
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In spite of the auto focus you can still end-up with blurred pictures, most often
due to ‘Camera shakes’ e.g. in twilight. To counteract the out-of-focus picture
due to an unsteady hand, search for something to steady your camera, e.g. lean against
a pillar, and press the camera firmly to your body. You can use a trick biathlon
athletes use when they come into the range: just before you press the shutter, take
a breath and hold it. You can also lay the camera on a table, top of a wall or similar
flat subject while taking the picture. The best way to keep a steady hand while
taking a shot is to use a tripod. If you do not have a tripod, you can also use
a very open aperture (small aperture value from f2-f8). This way you make the time
automatic by choosing a suitably short shutter speed with which you won’t end up
with camera shakes. Cameras also come with different motive programs: e.g. ‘sport’
or ‘action’ that tend to use short exposure times instead of small apertures.
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How to make pictures of moving objects
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To take sharp pictures of quickly moving objects, takes timing. First, focus on
an object at the same distance as the moving object will be. Press the shutter button
only half down to store the focus setting. Release the photo only when (pushing
the button all the way) the desired object is in the position on which you have
focused. Also useful are special camera programs which provide short exposure times
e.g. the programs ‘sport’ or ‘action’. Special effects can be achieved if you move
the camera along – keeping the subject always in focus – at same speed and in parallel
with the subject. With a little practice the subject itself is sharp, but the background
is shown blurred bringing the movement alive.
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How to use the right natural light
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Photos in the beaming sunshine (direct light) will not necessarily look the best.
A midday sun generates especially very strong contrasts illuminating only parts
of the subject and showing garish top lighting while the shadows are very dark and
sharply bordered. Details in the shadow parts are hardly seen. The perfect natural
light come during the so-called ‘Golden hour’ shortly after sunrise and again with
the setting sun. These times are especially suitable for scenery photos, as the
low sun stresses the warm reddish tones and generates long shadows providing depth
and structure to the photos.
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How to handle back light
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Back light pictures show very high contrast. You must choose between two different exposure possibilities. If you decide to properly expose the bright picture parts, the shadow parts become mostly black silhouettes. If the shadows area is still in detail, the bright areas are mostly overexposed.
If you are not sure which setting is more suitable for your picture, simply do several pictures with different settings (bracketing). You can also use this effect to your advantage e.g. to take a picture of contours. If the sun shines directly on the objective lens, colored veils or color spots occur, which can be also be used very artistically in a picture. If you don’t want these spots you can prevent these effects with lens screens although most of the times the guarding with the hand is enough.
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How to use grey weather for interesting light situations
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Grey weather, cloud formations, fog, smog or thunderstorm can also convey moods very well. The sun is scattered through the fog or clouds and does not light up objects directly anymore. During these lighting conditions shadows become lighter and softer, while the light itself becomes weaker.
Landscapes can be caught in particularly special light and color shortly before or after the weather changes. Especially interesting light situations arise if the sun comes through the last rain clouds while the streets are still wet and an ideal time for taking pictures of plants is if it brightens again after a light rain, then the colors look especially fresh and luminous.
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How to use a flash
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If you are going to take a photo of single persons or a group using a flash, you should avoid using a direct flash at all costs. Faces of the persons in the foreground are usually washed out, while people in the background are not lit enough. Your photos will become better if you use the flash indirectly. Point the flash, when possible, on a bright surface like the ceiling. The light is reflected and shows the subject in a soft light.
A piece of white cardboard which you hold at an angle under the flash while releasing the shutter also helps for cameras without a directional flash. If you want to take a mood picture in candlelight, a flash would destroy the mood of the picture so it should either be regulated down or switched off completely. To prevent blurring by the necessary longer exposure time you can use a tripod or put the camera on a wall or table.
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| How to light your subject |
If you take a photo of a person in front of a bright background, the parts in shadow are often too darkly illustrated even in daylight. In these cases you should use your camera’s flash. This will make sure that areas in shadow are also well lit. Without flashgun you also can properly light shadowed areas by using an easy trick. Simply use white boards (e.g. Styrofoam board from a building material supply) as reflectors to light your motive properly.
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| How and why to work with white balance |
The brain constantly corrects what you see: bright areas are shown as neutral as possible in white, even if candlelit objects look in reality much more yellow than they do in daylight.
In order to always adapt the image to what we would normally think we see, the camera must analyze the light and correct the color, if necessary. This is when the automatic white balance (or color balance) is needed. To work correctly, a bright, very white surface is necessary in the frame. If this is missing, the automatic function has no comparative value.
Preprogrammed settings in the camera help solve this problem. The settings are mostly symbolized by light bulbs, neon lights or clouds. If you want to be absolutely sure you should hold a white sheet of paper temporarily before the camera and use the manual white fader. Then the camera determines the divergences by the surroundings light, stores it and applies the corrected values to all following pictures - even after the sheet is already removed.
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| How to avoid the ‘red eye effect’ |
The ‘red eye effect’ happens usually in low lighting conditions since the pupils of the subject are dilated allowing the light of the flash to reflect off the retina. The following tips will help to avoid it:
1. Brighter lighting
Simple and effective: Raise the ambient brightness, like switching on a lamp. That way the pupils of the person being photographed will contract and the flash won’t reach the retina thus avoiding red eye.
2. Look into a light source
Ask the person to be portrayed, to briefly look into a light source, so that the pupils get used to the brighter lighting conditions and contract. However, as the pupils will react to change in light fairly quickly you must take the picture shortly after.
3. Preflash or activate prelight
Most digital cameras have a flash setting to prevent ‘red eye’. This only works if the person being photographed looks directly in the preflash or at the pulsating prelight, and the main flash is delayed for at least one second. This makes snapshots close to impossible.
4. Use of external flash
If you use a separate flash, you should move it behind the camera to increase the distance between flash and lens. Try if possible to use the flash indirectly e.g. bounce the flash off a wall. This also provides a softer illumination.
5. Reduce subject distance
The closer you are the person to be photographed, the greater the angle will become between flash and lens. Get as close as possible to the subject and use the greatest possible wide-angle setting.
6. Picture editing
With the help of picture editing programs you can work on the red eye effect afterwards and remove it.
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How to choose between shutter priority and aperture priority as well
as style programs |
Aperture priority (usually ‘A’ on your camera‘s mode dial) is especially suited for the composition with picture sharpness and un-sharpness. With the shutter speed set by the camera based on the brightness of the subject, you choose the aperture value
Shutter priority (usually ‘S’ on your camera’s mode dial) works exactly the opposite to the aperture automatic. That means you decide on the shutter speed and the camera chooses the aperture suitable to the brightness. If you want to express the dynamism of moved sports or action scenes, a long shutter speed is recommended with which interesting wisp effects can be achieved. Conversely a short shutter speed is great to ‘freeze’ the subject in action shots.
Other style programs are ‘sport’, ‘night’, ‘portrait’ or ‘scenery’. According to the selected motive program the camera measures the light automatically and fixes the values of aperture and shutter accordingly. Thus e.g. with sports pictures a short shutter speed has priority, while with portraits the open aperture is preferred.
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| How to take a portrait photo |
Portrait photography is about the reproduction of characteristic traits. Possible image displays in portrait photography are: half length portrait, down to the waistline, down to the knee or the whole figure. A mid length telephoto lens is best suitable for portrait photography, because this focal length area brings the advantage that the model does not feel crowded by the photographer being very close.
Furthermore the perspective of the person comes close to our natural perception. While taking the picture you should pay attention to the fact that the background fits, because nothing should ‘grow’ from the head of the model. It is best to keep as much distance as possible between the person and the background to put the focus on the person and to let the background become blurred. In addition, the sharpness should be on the pupils of the model as they are usually the eye-catcher. The model should also be properly lit. Hence, it is recommended to use the flash even in daylight as this lightens unsightly shadows. And of course don’t forget the tips to prevent red eyes!
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| How to make a landscape photo |
Landscape photography is about generating that impression or mood which motivated the photographer to take the picture. Therefore especially strong importance is attached to picture composition - especially the arrangement of real or thought lines like paths, rivers, tree rows, fences, branches etc. - which is likely to unite the dominating attributes of that impression in one picture and to lead the eye of the viewer. You best achieve this while working out the typical, meaning the character, including fore-, middle and background.
The dimension dynamism is controlled through the choice of the camera position and the focal length of the lens. Special light and color moods can be caught with landscapes shortly before or after weather change. Typical reliefs or the stratification of a slope can be ‘caught’ with this light, because these structures are coming especially well or at all into one’s own. According to the motive this could be e.g. hard lateral stripe light because it emphasizes structural or color differences, or soft light, which washes out shadows.
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| How to make a black-and-white photo |
Since colors are missing, black-and-white photos must be distinguished by graphic simplicity, because forms, surface structures and moods are exclusively transferred in brightness values. They can, however, appear more haunting than color prints. The key to the successful creation of a black and white picture lies in estimating the proper relations between black, white and the different grey tones of a subject.
The contrast within the picture and a silhouetted main subject against its background is important. But the tonal values of black-and-white pictures are not only dependent on the brightness of the surface colors, but also on the lighting. Black-and-white photography is almost dedicated to light and shadow plays. Hard, directed light or the low hanging afternoon sun generate black shadows and bright top lights, while undirected, steady lighting reduces the tonal value of a picture. Special effects can be achieved by using infrared filters or color screens. E.g. a red filter generates the darkening of a blue sky and increases the contrast to clouds. This lends a certain drama to the picture.
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| How to choose between view-finder and SLR (single-lens reflex) camera |
There are digital cameras in all different shapes and forms mostly base on the usual construction methods of analog (film) cameras. Thus there are view-finder and SLR cameras.
A view-finder camera has a view finder that lets you look at the object to be photographed along the lens. This means you look along the side or above across the lens. There are also a few very costly view-finder models which take this parallax into consideration. View-finder cameras are often relatively easy and inexpensive cameras which are used by amateur photographers.
SLR cameras are mainly used by ambitious amateur and professional photographers. With these cameras you can see the picture exactly how it will be taken, as you are looking directly through the lens. To make this possible a mirror is inserted behind the lens and before the picture window. This mirror reflects the light coming through the lens onto a focusing screen. Above the focusing screen a pentaprism is placed which enables the viewer to see the picture straight and the right way up.
Only at the moment of taking the picture does the mirror folded up, the shutter is opened, and the light can reflect off the object through the lens and on to the film or sensor. With this construction it is possible to see the image exactly how it will be photographed. In addition, you can see the focal depth just how it appears later in the picture. With almost all reflex cameras you can change lenses also achieving a wider array of desired picture effects. |
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| How to avoid parallax in view-finder cameras |
The main disadvantage of view-finder cameras, digital and analog is parallax. This is why, especially in close-ups, the view you see in the viewfinder is shifted and does not correspond exactly with the exposed picture. A positive point with digital cameras is that you can see the picture as you take it while using the camera’s display instead of the view finder. Unfortunately many cameras only show a part of the actual recorded image, meaning your printed image will have more than you expected around it.
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| How to take advantage of different lenses |
With a lens you can usually choose the distance and the aperture. Lenses are divided into normal, wide-angle and telephoto:
Normal lenses reproduce the subject, its context and the proportion in such a way as a person would see the scene. Thus while taking a photo you can keep about the same distance to the subject as if you were just looking at the scene. The perspective remains fixed.
Wide-angle lenses give a spatial effect to the picture, as they stress the foreground in proportion to the background. While using wide-angle lenses you will benefit from more sharpness throughout your whole picture (fore-, middle- and background) and you will be able to work with longer admission times without support.
Telephoto lenses bring the subject closer as with a telescope. These lenses give a flatter, more compressed, more graphic perspective to the picture due to the fact that it can connect distant objects. The advantage of using telephoto lenses is that you can play with selective depth of focus.
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| How to use special lenses for special effects |
There are a big number of different special lenses which help in achieving special effects. In contrast to ‘normal’ lenses macro lenses allow to take an extreme close-up picture of the subject and achieve pictures of a 1:1 ratio or greater. This is especially of interest when taking pictures of insects.
To correct the effects of perspective, which mostly appear in architecture photography, some camera manufacturers offer shift lenses. Here the lens can be moved in parallel with the film level (camera back wall). Fish-eye lenses are very extreme wide-angle lenses which can bring everything that is in front (and with some also what is behind) the camera in to the picture.
There are two different types: One develops as a circular picture on the film, the other one fills the whole format with its picture, so that the maximum point of view is only reached in the diagonal. Very interesting and special effects can be achieved e.g. when creating a close-up of a cow’s face.
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| How picture resolution affects image size and picture format |
One of the most important criteria when choosing a digital camera is the resolution of the pictures it takes in mega pixels. Digital pictures are formed from many small pixels and the more pixels there are, the better the result as there is more detailed information available.
With a higher resolution camera you are able to print the pictures in bigger formats and have more leeway if you want to use only one portion of the image later on. The disadvantage, however, is that the higher you set the picture resolution, the more storage space is required for a single photo.
Don’t forget that if you have an extreme reduction of the resolution settings, typical JPEG-effects will become visible: where the colors change only in small steps, the picture will resolve in square compression blocks, while in high-contrast contours ‘ghost images’ will appear. Please see in the following table how the picture resolution affects image size and picture format:
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Image resolution (pixel)
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Image size in mega pixels
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Max. picture format (optimal quality)
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Acceptable max. quality
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640x480
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0,3
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9 x 13 cm
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800x600
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0,4
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9 x 13 cm
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1024x768
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0,8
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9 x 13 cm
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10 x 15 cm
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1280x960
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1,2
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9 x 13 cm
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10 x 15 cm
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1600x1200
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1,9
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10 x 15 cm
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20 x 30 cm
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1800x1200
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2,1
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13 x 18 cm
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30 x 45 cm
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2048x1536
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3,1
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20 x 30 cm
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50 x 75 cm
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2272x1704
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3,9
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30 x 45 cm
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50 x 75 cm
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GLOBAL
