how to take good photos?

In photography you do not have to go to formal school and have a degree to be a photographer but you have to learn it some how.

1. You should learn the technical aspects of photography and your camera (composition, shutter speed, depth of field etc), once you understand these you will be able to create better images.

2. Shoot in "M" (manual mode) because you will have more control over your camera and not the other way around. When you are in one of the "Auto" modes the camera will just read the highlights and shadow areas and try to get you a picture. The camera is not smart enough to know what you are shooting.

3. You can start reading all kinds of books on this subject and get information from the internet. This includes web based classes, manufactures web sites to personal blogs.

4. Buy the best DSLR camera that you can afford this also includes good lenses. Take out your camera and manual sit down and go over all the buttons and knobs etc.. this is the best way for you to learn what your camera can do.

5. Start shooting with your camera to get practice and from what you are learning from reading and doing you will get better. Practice does make perfect. Take notes while shooting and then look at your photos on the computer find the best one from that set and see what you did to get the shot.

6. My suggestion is to find a part of photography that you would have an interest in and point in that direction.

Here are some links to look at:

http://www.photonhead.com/beginners/
http://www.betterphoto.com/home.asp
http://www.shootsmarter.com/
http://www.webphotoschool.com/

Hope this helps,
Kevin

Most of your camera shops will have a course for intro to photography. If you buy one of their cameras they usually toss in a few courses for free. The link bellow can give you a few pointers.

ISO is the sensitivity to light. The higher the number the more sensitive but more prone to digital noise (specks of color that aren't supposed to be there).

Exposure compensation is used (by me at least) when the camera says you have to go at a certain shutter speed or aperture to get a correct exposure. If you don't like what the camera wants to do for you it basically tells the camera to shoot darker or lighter.

Aperture is the amount of opening your lens is set to. A wider aperture (lower number) lets in more light, letting you shoot at a faster shutter speed. A wider aperture gives you smaller depth of field, and a smaller aperture gives you a greater depth of field.

Shutter speed is just that, the speed the shutter opens and closes. To freeze action you need to set a quicker shutter speed. To shoot in low light (and you'd be amazed at what a camera thinks is low light) you will need a slower shutter speed. To make that waterfall blur like the water is all soft and puffy (you know what I mean) use a slower speed.

Now if you are even more confused don't worry, its alot to take in all at once. Just keep shooting and eventually you will have an epiphany.

To start, I would suggest using an automatic mode on your camera. Look at what the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO it used and start from there in a manual mode like shutter priority or aperture priority. If your pictures come out to dark or bright then set the exposure compensation to + or -. If they are still too dark bump up the ISO (assuming you have a digital camera).

Good luck

2

Try www.kodak.com, they had a very good beginner's tutorial. Also betterphoto.com, nyip.com, or Google photography tips to find other sites.

Let it be Natural don't Try To hard Take a hole roll of different Object's with a cheep camera and remember what you did to that picture angle sun variation's etc write it down. Try Again and look at other Art Work.

Go to:

http://www.takegreatpictures.com/

I hope this helps!

But first, you need to know the basics. The easiest way to do it is to purchase a digital camera or a disposible one. Your main key to to concentrate on one focal point and making sure both sides of the focal point balance. Good pictures would be to take a picture of your subject facing away from the bright sun, but the sun should be behind you. Afternoon pictures with flowers, trees, and shrubbery make great color resolution to you camera.

See mine, I took this at a nearby window next to an office pantry.
http://collect.myspace.com/reloc.cfm?c=18&fuseaction=viewImage&imageID=10578640&friendID=69231426&id=


I hope this helps too.

Find a digital camera with good quality and just start taking photos of things you find interesting and scenes that seem beautiful to you. That's what I do, and people tell me I'm a pretty good photographer.

Dude you have asked two loaded questions that don't necessarily relate.
You could learn all about the techniques of photography - iso, aperture, shutter speed etc from many sources.
http://photography.about.com/od/basics/a/simpleguide.htm
is a good place to begin.

But as every good photographer will tell you that all this is just the science and taking good pictures is an art. And to learn to take good pictures you need to study the work of people who have taken good pictures, examine them carefully, study their styles and figure out what area of photography you feel most comfortable in.

For example if you want to be a street photographer study the works of Cartier-Bresson, Charles Moore, Andre Kertesz, etc. For portraiture you could study Diane Arbus, Karsh, Annie Leibowitz ... The list is endless and as someone said the secret to learning to become a great photographer is to surround yourself with great photography first.

Photography is all about what you see and when you click not how to click your shutter button.

So best of luck

ok good stuff above, i can only add a few things but feel they are important:

STOP TAKING PHOTOS!

AMETUERS TAKE PHOTOS

PROFESSIONALS MAKE IMAGES

what does that mean:

an ametuer runs around taking snapshots of everything they think is pretty or new or something, then they spend hours in photoshop on a few of them

a professional thinks about the light, is it right, should it be defected, defussed, increased, bounced, the direction the intensitiy, key light, fill light, backlight, ratio, reflections,

the depth of the image, any speed issues, oh there flash as well and i could go on and on

and on

and on

i take at least half an hour to make an image - sometimes i plan and work out how to do it for weeks before hand, so in a few hours i dont shot many but they are all top and dont need alot if any photoshop

so do what photoace said goto school, day, night , both

i did it for a few years, ive worked a few and im still learning, and relearning things ive forgotten,

photography where science meets art

im a photographer im hopeless at photoshop but can make any image in the camera (well almost)

so keep going your asking the right questions!


a

in my experience, you should choose a right digital Camera for you, with your own choice and your own work, I am using Canon G7 with very good color quality- a good starting point for a new one.
First, taking pictures by "Auto" program in your camera, check the quality after that through computer, check any error of the picture makes you think that the picture is not good. Try other ones in other scenes... pay attention to the light of the Sun (you can't take good ones in the dark, even when you use flash on), The Green of trees will help you take good pictures about people. So you can take some good pictures about people in the Nature...
First is that!
You must try and pay attention to each picture you take. If you don't pay attention to the error of the pictures, you can't take good ones in next taking...
However, to take good pictures in each time you shoot is not easy, you must know about Shutter Speech, ISO,Aperture... but you can learn that in a long time, not very easy but not extremely hard.
If Photos is your hobby, try, and you will know that Photos is a very wonderful world!!!
Good work there!