If you are new to photography it can be overwhelming. Terminology, settings, post processing, so much learning, it can be downright intimidating. You never think your photos will be “good enough” you doubt you will be able to climb the learning mountain… and four and a half years ago, I was right there with you.

So here are the two things I wish I had known when I first started this journey.

• It didn’t come out of the camera looking that way
• Shoot in raw format

Don’t be intimidated by the photos others post..  the ones that impress you did not come out of the camera like that.. They have been adjusted digitally for sharpness, color contrast, white balance and a variety of other adjustments and/or composited in some cases.  The only difference between your shots and theirs are that perhaps they are further along in the journey of learning to better capture in camera or have spent more time training in the digital darkroom (Lightroom, Photoshop, Elements etc).  Also remember you are NOT seeing everything they shot, only the best of what they post.. the blurry, out of focus, bad compositions, wrong exposure shots- they aren’t sharing those with you..

It seems out of reach until you try it yourself… we are always mesmerized at photos we think “we cant take”.. until we take them.  We have some spectacular photographers in our club that we can certainly learn from. Why are their shots so impressive? They have taken the time, paid the dues and spent the time learning and practicing and refining their techniques. The difference between your shots and theirs? Time, patience and PRACTICE and the ability to self edit themselves and choose their best work to show.

I got the shot I wanted…..almost! Raw is not intimidating.. you can shoot the same shot in both formats and just save that negative until a time when you are ready to learn to process it. With a jpeg what you see is what you get… with raw what you get is whatever you can imagine. Jpeg format does not allow you to modify the file very much, and when you do it destroys information. Shooting in raw gives you the ability to change settings later, without destroying your file and you can “save” so many pictures you would normally delete.  So if you have a once in a lifetime event, a grand vacation or other meaningful reason, shoot in both, and just make a folder to save those raw files for later.. You will be glad, one day soon.

So bear in mind everyone has their own style, likes, tastes etc.. but just to give you an idea of my concepts, I will share a few with you.

First is my SOC shot – ok, but the sky detail is lacking and it does not have the gritty punch my client desires. If I were shooting JPEG I would be stuck with this version or something close to it.

Second I played with exposure and various setting to grunge it up.. a bit overdone in my opinion.   When working on editing, always walk away for a moment and come back to it for a fresh perspective.

Third I played with opacity and changed some setting to scale back the “punch” in the shot, but I still don’t like the “pink” tone on my rockers, and their faces are a little dark for my liking.

So my final I played with changing color temperature etc to get something more inline with what they were after..

 

The point is if you had only seen the last “shot” realize that it didn’t come out of the camera that way… you have to learn to play and process.. and if I had shot in JPEG I would have only had the first shot, but shooting in RAW, gave me the flexibility to dramatically change my photo, multiple times, without destroying any data.. I can change it 100 more times if I want..

Things are only intimidating because you don’t understand them.. take a few minutes on google to read a tutorial, or watch a video on youtube.. once you realize how easy it all is, you will wonder why you didn’t start sooner.. Plus the HRDPC is here to help you… See you in class.