My Daily Adventures: Photography Failures

I know you’ve been there: the perfect shot just slips away as you grab your camera, and what do you get instead? Some old guy eating ice cream. Great.

Seriously though, even after all these years, photography isn’t perfect. For example:

• Weather affects battery life. We should never forget this fact.
• Lighting affects automatic shutter speed.
• Direct flash can cause color loss. It’s best to bounce the flash, but I’ll get into that later.
• You (your hands) can affect the stillness of a picture. I mean, you don’t want your hands shaking all the time. This is the number 1 cause of blurry pictures.
• Your camera cannot control what it sees (That’d be really great though)

So yeah, we got that covered, some basics on why photography isn’t perfect. So, here are some tips that would help you in the long run:

• When it’s cold, bring extra batteries. Cold temperature robs batteries of their battery life. That is another reason why my NDS dies quickly when I go to the snow.
• Make sure you’re on manual in low light. Usually, this presents the best quality, unlike automatic, which is most likely give you a really weird exposure… Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it isn’t. Go ahead and try your luck. Just make sure to bring along a tripod.
• Direct flash. It sucks. Buy an external flash bulb, and let the light bounce off an object onto your focus. We need indirect light here, because you’ll be losing precious color without it.
• Your hands… Only on shutter speeds above 25. If it’s any lower, use breathing techniques, or use your tripod.
• Your camera can’t control what it sees. You can’t rob a bank with it, so quit trying.

So, those are a few basic tips on your camera.

Oh and do me a favor, If you’re gonna try to rob a bank, don’t call me.