When starting a new business, you may not have the money to hire a photographer for better website photos. But using these 10 tips and a little patience, you can produce outstanding photos every time.
Using techniques to create eye-catching imagery, you’ll be able to highlight your product’s best features. Whether a picture of your store front or a photo of your friendly staff at work, careful attention to some basic concepts will ensure you achieve the results you’re after:
Here’s how. Check these when you take your next photo:
- Camera Settings
- Lens Selection
- Lighting
- Background
- Using a Tripod
- Exposure and Bracketing
- Depth of Field
- Composition
- Image Editing
- Image Type and Size
Today, I’ll talk about “Camera settings” and future posts will cover the remaining subjects.
Camera Settings
Current camera technology is engineered to capture a decent photo automatically under a variety of lighting conditions. But to get an exceptional image, I prefer to use manual camera settings for better control.
If possible, set your camera to manual. With a little practice, you will easily see the advantages when taking pictures of subjects that are not moving and where lighting is constant. Of course you’ll need to handle some exposure setting which we’ll cover later.
The ISO setting determines how sensitive your camera chip is to light. This setting works together with F-Stop and shutter speed to control exposure, which we’ll discuss later. But for now, assuming a motionless, adequately-light subject, use an ISO 200 setting. I find this sensitivity level to be suitable for most website subjects, and it’ll yield excellent image quality.
Next, set your image type to RAW. You won’t get as many pictures on your camera card as with JPEG, but the larger RAW image files give you the complete data the camera records without any compression. These uncompressed images are especially designed for later editing to make the sharp and sparkling JPEG pictures you’ll need.
Lastly, for stationary subjects, don’t forget to set your camera’s anti-shake button to “on”. This useful feature gives you sharper pictures by offsetting camera motion which occurs when you press the shutter button. We’ll talk more about this under the subjects of exposure and using a tripod.
Good luck with your photography, and next time we’ll talk about “Lens and Subject”.