Three (FREE) Things Every Photographer Can Do To Get Better
This is a two-part series. I will post one article today and the follow up tomorrow…
If I wrote an article called… “The three camera lenses that will guarantee you deliver professional caliber photos” it would get tons of views. Unfortunately, it would be mere clickbait.
Instead, I am writing an article that may not get tons of views, but it won’t cost you a dime and if you read my advice and follow it, a year from now, your skill as a photographer will have grown 10X.
How can I be so confident that I can help?
I’ve been teaching this particular set of lessons for 30 years. I have shared this advice with tens of thousands of photographers. NOBODY has ever contacted me to say these tips didn’t work.
So there’s a pretty great chance they will work for you too. The newer you are at photography, the more these three things will help but they will help ANYONE and everyone — no matter how much photography experience they have.
I have 50 years of photography experience and I still — to this day — practice all three of these things on a daily basis.
These are three of the things I think every photographer can do to dramatically improve their photos.
RTFM — or read the manual. Read your camera manual. You paid for it. The cost is built in to the price you paid for your camera so why not get your money’s worth.
NOW HOLD UP — this next part is important. I’ll teach you HOW to read your camera manual so it’s effective and advantageous and so it will give you the highest return on the time you invest in it.
Read just one page of the manual each day. Read a different page each day. You don’t have to read the manual in sequential order. Start in the middle if you like. But read ONE page EVERY day no matter what — NO MATTER WHAT.
You have to do one more thing in concert with reading a page in your manual. Pick up your camera and do the thing(s) described on that page.
For instance — if you read a page that shows you how to set up back-button focus on your camera. . . grab your camera and set up back-button focus.
NEVER MIND if you don’t think you’ll ever use back-button focus. Never mind if you hate back-button focus. Do it. You can then set your camera back to the way you had it but the important thing here is to actually develop the brain and muscle memory involved in setting it up just in case you find yourself in a situation where you need it. It might be something as simple as a pal at the local camera club has the same camera and asks you how to do it — and you can be the hero and show them how to do it.
Now repeat this for every page in the manual. When you get to the page that shows you how to set up rear-curtain shutter sync for your flash, grab your flash and test it. Set it up.
It doesn’t matter if you think you will need to do this in the future — read about it and practice it now. That way, in the future, if you need to do it — you will be ready.
This is the best way to really know your camera inside and out and knowing your camera inside and out so it just disappears in your hand when you are out making photographs is a surefire way to help improve your photographic vision. You won’t have to stop and fuss with the camera. You will already know how to do anything it can do so you will be ready just to look and see and feel and express yourself. The camera will become part of you — an extension of you.
What happens when you read through the entire manual? You start over. And you keep doing it. I once had the same camera for five years. I did this exercise for five years and when it came to that camera (A Hasselblad 501C) I knew everything there was to know. I could field strip the camera if I had to. I made myself an expert on that camera.
Now I’m using the Fuji X100V as my main camera and you guessed it — even though I’ve read through the manual before — I am still doing this page a day exercise and it really works. I am becoming so comfortable with the X100V that it just seems to be another part of ME.
I know you are skeptical. I know this is not a sexy assignment. But if you do it, and stick with it, I promise your photography will improve and not just a little, but a lot.
Learn to use the camera you have instead of buying a new one and you will go far.
I’m rooting for you.
Part two in this series tomorrow….
Remember, toys are joy.
