amateur photography

I consider myself to be a very very amateur photographer, learning as I go & enjoying the process, however the most common emails I get from readers (I love those!) are about my photography. So while I might not know much, I am always happy to share what I got:

Today's topic: how to get crisp, clear, bright photos?

My equipment: Canon Rebel T2i, 50 mm f/1.4 prime lens, tripod & remote (see this post for more of my remote/tripod photography tips)

First off, I do a couple of things while shooting to ensure sharp photos:

{1.} spot metering (this post helped for tips on metering mode)

{2.} Hold my remote next to my face so that is the most in focus point (my remote has a  2 second delay, so I have a little time to point the remote next to my face & then hide it)

{3.} For outfit photography I stick to an aperture of f/1.8-2.8 but I have found that f/2.2 is just about my happy spot.

{4.} Because it is just me standing in my alley, by myself, I typically have all the time in the world to get the right shot (just dealing with mosquitos, creepy neighbors, & dogs that need to be walked aside) - it is normal for me to take 50 photos/outfit & only 3-6 make it on the blog.... there are tons of blurry ones that the world just doesn't ever see... but they exist!

FYI: I shoot on manual, so I set the ISO (aka light sensitivity), aperture ("f stop") & exposure depending on the day's elements (with white balance set on auto). Figuring out manual settings is a more complex topic than I want to get into in today's post, but I just wanted to show you the settings & what each element means... there are pictures below that this key will be relevant for :) (P.S. you can find this info for each photo by clicking "info" in iPhoto)

See how ISO, aperture (f/#) & exposure (read as a fraction of a second, i.e. 1/1000 = 1 thousandth of a second) work with each other in these pictures below:

As far as the post-processing photo tips I know, those are few & far between. I use Photoshop (I have an ancient version, CS3) & don't extensively edit my photos but I do do three things to every photo:

{1.} lighten it a little bit (using brightness/contrast sliders)

{2.} Bump up the sharpening (I follow this tutorial for photo sizing & sharpening... but don't use their suggestion to save as .png files, I prefer .jpg & think they load better)

{3.} Resize the image to be exactly the pixel width I want & save it in the highest quality format so I can upload the original, high-res file directly to Blogger (& pick "original size" option every time)

Personal tip: Because I know that I have the power to adjust the brightness/contrast of each photo, I prefer to shoot the photos a little darker than I want as it is easier to "fix".

The photo on the left was brightened to achieve the look I wanted:

While I attempted to darkened the left photo, & the result on the right looks a little unnatural.

Finally, the sharpening that I do is very subtle, but an easy fix because I have the whole process automated in photoshop. Can you tell a difference?

What photo processing do you use? 

I would love for this to be an open forum for us to share tips with each other. 

If you have any burning questions let me know & I will try to include them in a future post!

P.S. Enter to win a shop credit to Bella Fusion {here}