50 Random Photography Tips you may not know or you just forgot.

It does not matter if you are either a beginner or expert photographer, as a person you may need sometimes, like myself, to check out some photography tips, either for new ideas or to remember forgotten things.

In this post, I am going to share you directly with no delays, 50 random photography tips that you may not know or remember.

50 Photography Tips

Photography Tips 1-10

It is much easier and better to recover the shadows in post-processing than recovering the highlights. It is better the image to be underexposed than overexposed. The overexposed light is burned into the image and cannot be recovered.

You don’t always need a tripod if the light conditions are right, or you are not looking to take long-exposure photographs

Whenever you are photographing against the sun, photograph HDR for a greater dynamic range. If you are photographing a bee ????, photograph with a shutter of 1/4000 for the best results. Crazy, right?

There are many types of ND filters on the market, but the majority are really crap. The good ones are just too expensive (over £100). Make a one-time investment into a good square ND filter than buy cheap round ones

Keep your lens dust-free, as the dust is being sucked inside every time you use the zoom or the focus ring, due to the vacuum created by the moving glass

If you are unsure how to clean your sensor, do not do that by yourself. The camera sensor is extremely sensitive and can be easily scratched. Also, consider the fact that most of the sensor cleaning kits are very bad quality, and you can damage your camera sensor. I am talking from my own experience here.

Although the rule of thirds should be used as often as possible, consider obeying this rule and create your own story with a different perspective you can take of a subject.

If you leave your white balance on auto, your photographs will look worse than picking your own scene balance. Take your time, extra few seconds to select the right white balance.

Is the photo overexposed or underexposed? The easiest way to change that is not to change your camera settings, but play with the EV (exposure value) mood. Should be next to the shutter trigger of your camera. Very handy, isn’t it?

Photography Tips 11-20

Vignette is not a flaw of the lens. Your photo can be quickly fixed in Lightroom but consider the fact that your photo may look better with some extra vignette

Barrel distortion can be checked by photographing a brick wall with straight lines on a 90-degree angle. Do it on different apertures and check the photos on a computer.

Every DSLR have a shutter life expectancy. It can be 30000 or 200000. Your shutter can also break on any moment with any photo taken. This is the disadvantage of a DSLR. You can check your shutter actuations of you camera following this tutorial HERE (external link)

Some tripods can be converted to monopods by specifically removing a leg and attaching the head ball to it. You should own one of them because having a monopod definitely helps out when a tripod is not possible to install on a specific location

If you own a photography blog, describing your photo (alt-tab on your image on WordPress) can increase its visibility on search engines and attract visitors to your website

Thinking about social media, Instagram is the number one to focus as a photographer followed by Facebook. If you focus more on promoting your photography products, turn your attention to Facebook first.

Doing product photography is extremely easy and can be done with no budget other than a camera. Put your product and photograph it on a white piece of A4 or A3 paper (in RAW, not JPEG), then overexpose it in Lightroom.

If your camera support two SD memory cards, set it up for RAW + JPEG. Like this, you shoot both file versions on the same time, with the RAW file on the main card and the JPEG image file on the backup card. Only JPEG files you can send them wirelessly on your mobile phone (at least on Nikon). Don’t know which one to shoot mainly? Read our other post “Understanding JPEG vs RAW” for more info

If your camera is a Nikon and you are using the live view mode, you are not able to see the real exposure live another way than the histograms. Switching to video camera mode, it allows you to see the actual exposure of the photograph you are taking (or video you are recording) without the need of a histogram.

GoPro cameras can be used in photography also and it works flawlessly. It may not be the ideal camera but the unique fish-eye perspective cannot be compared at all with your mobile phone camera, as we are thinking about portability. You can take it anywhere with you, whenever is not possible to take your bulky DSLR. Check our other post on HOW TO IMPROVE GOPRO PHOTOGRAPHY for more info.

Photography Tips 21-30

When you are outdoors taking photographs, don’t take only one picture to a specific scene or subject. It will be too bad when you get home to realise that your photo may be out of focus or blurred.

Panoramas taken with the camera in portrait mode not only gives the perspective of an ultra-wide lens, but the resolution of the final image can reach even three digits. Perfect for very large printings.

Did you ever hear about vertorama? it is an actual vertical panorama. Somehow, close-up vertoramas can have a unique perspective of a tall structure while creating a lovely distortion.

The blue sky, a lake or a waterfall will always look better if shot with a polarizer filter. The polarizer blocks a specific lightwave while letting the other to get through.

Portrait photographs will always look better when taken with a telephoto lens. Same does some landscape photographs in some cases.

Keeping an eye on histogram while on live view mode will always give you a better perspective over the dynamic range.

Not everything worth being photographed, but still you should do it. You never know what you can capture.

When you are taking long exposure night photos or astrophotography, close the eye-finder to avoid the unwanted light to come through there on the camera sensor.

The original camera straps are painful to carry the camera around your neck all day long. Even for an hour. There are on the market plenty of good quality and comfortable camera straps which can make your life easier.

Use the sun flare reflected on the lens on your advantage to create an artistic photograph.

Photography Tips 31-40

Did you ever take macro wildlife photography? Set up your camera on the ground level and try attracting some squirrels by putting some food in front of the camera. Use a wireless shutter release remote. Leave the autofocus on. When the subject is close enough and in position, try taking some shots. It is not easy but you may get a lucky shot 🙂

Take a look back at your old photographs which you skipped processing for some specific reason other than blurry or out of focus. Try retouching them by either creating a black and white photograph or a specific spot colour photograph, if possible. Like this, you may be able to add some extra photos to your portfolio.

Learn when to use the flashgun. Using flash while taking portrait photographs against the sun is the best choice to create a greater dynamic range which can be easily controlled in post-processing. The results would be actually lovely.

Improve your photography by creating a 30-day photography challenge. Or maybe 365-day photography challenge? Share it on your blog or social media, people usually love those kinds of things.

Create a story to write to your photograph. People tend to read more a beautiful story at a photo description than looking at the photograph itself.

Increase the sharpness of a photograph in Lightroom for brilliant results. It simple like ABC. Check THIS GUIDE for more (our guide).

When taking a landscape photograph with your camera on the tripod, switch to live view mode and digitally zoom in to the point you want to focus (on the screen). Switch from AF to MF (manual focus) and fine-tune with the focus ring until you get the best results.

If you own a large aperture lens, create special bokeh effect during the night with some background lights and a subject to photograph. People love bokeh photographs.

Usually, the quality of a PRIME lens is far superior to the one of a zoom lens and relatively cheaper. Check our guide PRIME VS ZOOM LENSES to read more about.

When you want to take drone photography in UK, you can use an app on your phone called Drone Assist which shows you if you can fly your drone on your location and where are near hazards. Read more about How to fly your drone safely in UK

Photography Tips 41-50

As a photographer, you can have success in less than a year in this business if you are consistent and good. The time can differ from photographer to photographer and is just a fact based on some personal statistics.

How are your videography skills? As you may be good at photography, you can learn some filmmaking skills and try to create some short films. You already have a camera, right?

Follow some tutorials on how to set the best picture control on your camera. In concordance with post-processing, setting the right picture control can increase the overall quality of the photograph.

You love travelling but you cannot afford for some reason to travel further than the local area or nearby? Create a social media page promoting your city or town pictures or your county area. Or a website. The public loves to see their own town in professional photographs, even to buy prints!

Before exporting a photo out from Lightroom, add keywords to that photograph, so wherever you are going to upload it on the web, even on microstock websites, the page is going to automatically read the keywords, improving your SEO and making your life easier than setting the keywords after.

Do you live in an area where storms are more spectacular than it should? Become a storm photographer and you can have instant success in photography.

Take a photo reflected in a puddle from the ground level and then flip the photo. It will look like you see the real world on the reflection while what you see, is the world at first reflected.

Are you vaping? Use vape clouds to add special effects to a still photograph.

GoPro may not be the only camera to take underwater photographs, but it can be the quickest and the best way with no huge investment in gear.

Consistency is the key to success. In photography being consistent either posting regularly on your blog or social media will bring you success. As a photographer, be consistent and create a mailing list of subscribers. That’s all you need, with a bit of imagination, of course! And time. And patience!

Sweet&love my camera! Conclusion on 50 Random Photography Tips

50 Random Photography Tips are just a few of the hundreds if not thousands of tips you can find on internet about photography.

If you know any good extra tips please leave a comment below and I may add it to the next random tips post with a proper tag.

Feel free to stick around for more similar posts. In fact, you can check some of them below:

• Understanding JPEG vs RAW
• 7 Tips to take sharper photos with your DSLR
• 8 Tips for mastering your favourite lens