The Sun is not always an enemy in photography! Sometimes you can use it to your advantage.

It is Christmas time and my 10-year-old son Arian wanted to wear a Santa hat to school. On the busy Monday morning, he put it on his head and we were ready to leave home. As always, we were late and we were in rush. However, I wanted to take a photo of him in the hat! I didn't have much time to take out my camera. If I tried that, he would be late to school, or he would have walked out of the home. As we say, the best camera is the one that is with you. I had my cell phone Samsung Note 4 with me. I turned it on, told my son where to stand and I quickly took 3 shots! Why not only 1? In case if eyes are closed or the face has weird expressions, I can discard those problem photos. Also having 3 photos would let me choose a better photo.

It was a sunny morning. The room had some parts very dark as curtains were still rolled down. However, near the backyard door, it was filled with morning sunlight. It was a very high dynamic range situation. As we generally try to take photos in shadows to eliminate over-or under-exposing associated with HDR (High Dynamic Range) associated with direct bright sunlight, I was thinking to take photos inside the home but in a spur of the moment, to get nice bright colors in the beautiful morning light, I had him stand such a way that the background would come darker. On the screen, I touched and held the area around his face. This way I told the phone camera to meter off of his face and ignore the total light in the frame. This 10 seconds shoot-out worked perfectly!

Arian Patel

So some quick lessons:
1) There is no hard and fast rule to avoid direct sunlight! Like all other rules in photography, this rule can be broken too!
2) You really do not need expensive cameras in all situations. There are times when a phone camera would do as good as an expensive full-frame camera!

From cell phone camera to expensive full frame cameras- does money matter?

We get a camera almost free when we buy a smartphone. On the other hand, there are cameras which cost in thousands of dollars. Does money matter in photography? My answer is: it depends. For taking photos in good light to share on social media or with friends, many times it does not matter. However, if you want to take nice photos, or want to get an award or like to get paid, yes, money does matter. Also, when the light is low, the expensive cameras can let you take some photos while a cell phone camera will fail.

I was in Athirapally, Kerala. I was staying at Rainforest resort and had a view of the famous falls from my room. Around 4 o'clock, I woke up and decided to take photos of the falls in almost dark. Luckily I had 2 cameras and a cell phone so I decided to take photos for sharing with you all.

1) Here is a photo I took with my cell phone- Samsung Note 4. (This has one has a real good camera compared to most other smartphones.)

Athirapally waterfalls.

2) Here is another photo that I took with Panasonic FZ200- it is a fixed lens camera with a Leica lens.

Athirapally Waterfalls, photo with Panasonic FZ200

3) Finally, here is a photo taken with Canon 6D full frame camera

Canon 6D Water falls photo

You can compare the photos which are taken around the same time, in the same low light. As you can see, bigger sensors, expensive cameras, are able to help better in low light.

How to take great photos at the top of the world, Burj Khalifa, or on any tall building's observation gallery?

Have you tried to take some photo of you or your family from the 125th floor of the world famous Burj Khalifa? Or from One World Trade center?

Most cameras and cellphones will give you two types of photos. If you are looking good in the photo, the background would be too dark or will wash out. It would be hard for your friends to know that you were rally out there in Dubai!
If the background is beautiful, you will be too dark. Your friends would have hard time making sure it is your photo!

How to fix this issue? Try taking some photos with Flash on. That may do the trick. However if you want to make sure you have good photos that have nice background as well as clear photos of you, here is a trick.

Take a photo in Landscape mode of only the outside. Then note down the Aperture, Shutter-speed and ISO that was used. In my case, it was f/4, 1/640 and 100 respectively.

Burj Khalifa

 Then, I change the camera mode to manual and I set above values. Then I turned on flash and took a photo of my family against the background. Voila! I had a shot that was enough to showcase to friends and prove that we did have great time on the Top of the World in Dubai!

Top of the World, Dubai

When the Sun is against you, outdoor photos can be challenging. Solution: OVER EXPOSE YOUR PHOTOS!

I was taking photos of my son's AYSO soccer game in bright Sun light. In the area where team parents were sitting, it was difficult to take good photos. Here is the first photo I took in Auto mode on my cell phone. As expected the players and refs were too dark.

The phone camera doesn't have a brain. It tried to capture the quantity of light it thought would make a nice photo. However in really, that was not working.
So once I knew the issue, I opened up settings and selected Exposure Compensation. It move it to +2. Another way to tell camera to take more lights is to touch or press on the darker object in the scene. Of select the object you want Camera to expose better. In our case, it wa the ref's shorts.
On many phone cameras, I think in new iPhones for sure, you can touch the subject and the Exposure Compensation bar comes up. You can scroll it up to tell camera to take in more light.
Here is the next photo I took. It came out well. Actually, it looks awesome IMO as the Sun creates nice rim light.

As I keep saying, it is not a rocket science to be able to take good photos there days. Take one photo, find a problem with it and then try to fix the problem!

Enjoy photography!

Eyes closed in a group photo? TAKE MULTIPLE SHOTS!

Some times, we take group photos at party or some event. It takes time to gather everyone and when they are there in front of the camera, we have few seconds. Most of the time, you will find that eyes of some of the people are closed. If the eyes of the key persons in the group, like bride or groom, are closed, the photo becomes sort of useless.
To make sure I have one good group photo, I take multiple shots. On most cell phone cameras, it is simple. Just keep the shutter release button pressed. This will take 5 to 10 photos in a second. Or, just press and release the button quickly. For cameras, you can change the setting to Continuous shooting mode. Then, you can keep the shutter release button pressed and camera will take few pictures. After you are done, view the photos. Keep the best one and delete all others! It does not cost anything these days with digital cameras! You don't waste film so make it a habbit to take few photos when you are shooting a group of more than 2-3 people! For a bigger group, even with multiple shots, there will be people with eyes closed. However, you will have some photos in which those people have eyes open. You can share good photos selectively!
Note: There is also some software which can help you open eyes in problem photo from a good photo!

Can't get it right in night photography? CHANGE THE MODE TO NIGHT PORTRAITS/NIGHT LANDSCAPE AND/OR USE FLASH!

I took my son and some kids to enjoy Christmas lights in our city, Simi Valley, CA! There was a house which had amazing decoration. I wanted to take a photo of the kids against the decoration.

The photo was okay. I could see the kids but the Christmas lights were too dull. I wanted a good photo but really didn't know how to get it done! I had few seconds as kids are not patient to wait.. I knew it. So I started random trials. First I turned on the flash. The photo was a bit better but not the way I wanted.

I changed the camera to Scene mode. I found a mode about night photography! I set the camera in that mode and took another photo! The background was nice but kids were too dark!

Now I knew what I needed to do! I turned on Flash too and took some photos! There were exactly as I wanted. Photography is not that difficult as long as you are willing to help the camera!

Don't you agree that Trial and Error Photography can help you make your photos look better without getting into technical details of the camera or learning photography?

If you have any tips to share, we would love to hear from you, and share them with our other readers! Our mission is simple: help everyone take better photos in a simple easy way! 

Can't fit it in one frame? Need a wide angle photo? EASY, TAKE A PANORAMA PHOTO!

Sometimes, we have too many people  in a group and we can not fit them all in one photo! Outside, sometimes, you can't go too far to bring everything in one single photo.

Few months ago, we hiked on the Mt Lee that hosts world famous Hollywood sign. On this hike, you can behind the Hollywood sign. If you don't know, each letter is around 40-45 feet tall. The whole sign is difficult to fit in on frame/photo. I had a friend from India with me and he wanted me to take a photo. I took a photo with my Samsgun Note 4 camera. I couldn't fit in all letter!

What was the issue? The sign was too wide for my phone camera or for any regular camera.

What is the solution? I thought of the Panorama feature! It is available in most cameras these days.
I put my phone in Panorama mode and swiped it from one end of the Hollywood sign to the other end of the sign! Voila! I had what I wanted!

If you know some tips about easy photography and would like to share with the world, please write us back or post a comment!

Is your subject not coming clear, or is too dark? and you can't use flash? USE EXPOSURE COMPENSATION!

This is a photo of one structure at Disneyland, California. I wanted to take a photo from the line I was in for another ride there. The sun was in front so the first photo came very dark. As this structure was far away, using a flash would be of no use. What should you do to make your photo better?

The issue was with the object being too dark. Solution was to provide more light. Flash would not be useful as flash light does not work beyond 15-20 feet.
Solution: I needed to tell camera to take in more light. Most cameras and even smartphone cameras have EV (Exposure Value) compensation. You can access it with the button or symbol that reads like +/_



I clicked on it and moved it to the right, towards positive value. I sent it between +2 and +3. How did I choose this number? There is no rule. With Trial and Error photography, remember, we use our brain the least when it comes to photography? LOL. If I need too much light in the new photo, I would select +2. If I want only a little more light, I would select +1/2 or +1/3. By choosing +2.7, I wanted the camera to take in more than double the light than what it was thinking was correct light (exposure).

See the magic! As camera too more light, I was able to get the structure and colors better than what I had got in the first photo!

Similarly, if your first photo is too bright and you want to make it darker, press the EV compensation button and set some negative value. The more negative value you choose, the darker the image will be. What will be the correct value? Try 2-3 different values and you will have one photo you like!

Too much light behind your subject? TURN ON FLASH!

This photo was taken inside Luxor (Pyramid) casino, in Las Vegas. There was very strong backlight so camera was fooled. In Auto mode, it gave us following photo. It was a disaster!

As per Trial and Error Photography system, what is the problem here? Camera was fooled by very bright sky (backlight). I needed light on the faces so I turned on Flash. (If your camera does not let you force it to use Flash in Auto mode, please change your camera to P or Program mode. This is an Auto like mode but here Camera would work like your slave instead of acting like your boss ;)

Here is the new photo with the flash. Maybe this is not a great photo. I know. I am not entering this photo in any contest. I wanted to share this photo with my guests and I am pretty happy I have a photo which would stay in their memory and albums for years!

Photo is Blurry because of low light? TRY BOOSTING ISO!

Well, on this blog I promised that I would keep my tips simple. I have to bend that rule a bit, at times. There are situations when easy tips do not work. You have a choice though. You can accept the limitation and give up or learn a bit more and try to make your camera more useful even in more demanding situations.

I was inside one cathedral. It was a bit dull light inside. I tried to take a photo and the photo came very blurry. I noticed that my camera was set to ISO 100 and hence the Camera had to have shutter speed of 4 full seconds! No one has that kind of steady hands! Blur was a definite by product in this situation. Look at the horrible photo I had.

Problem: Blurry photo. Low light. Shutter open too long for a hand held camera

To solve the problem, we have few alternatives.

1. If the object is within 15-20 feet, turn on Flash. However, in my case, it was more than 30 feet away. Also Flash would not be desirable as it would have created reflections from some bright reflective spots.
2. If I had a tripod, I would have loved to use it. I rarely carry tripod. (Remember, I don't do photography to get paid! I do photos to please myself, my family, my friends and my contacts on Social Media. Carrying a tripod does not really help me!)
3. If you don't have a tripod, you can still find a bench or a table to put camera on, or a wall to lean against or hold the camera against some steady thing so there is no shake.
4. Be familiar with ISO. ISO is camera's sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO, the faster shutter speed you get with everything else being constant. If that is the case, you would ask me, why would we ever work with a lower ISO. Well, the higher the ISO, there are more chances for noise in the photo. Don't ask me what is noise. Please google it LOL. In simple terms, noise is the graininess in the photo. One good thing is most modern cameras are able to produce nice images even with ISO as high as 3200 or 6400! (If you use a smartphone camera or an iPhone camera, your images are likely to be too grainy above ISO 800! However, their screen so so sharp and bright, your high ISO images will still look good. The problem is when you print them or look at them on a computer or a laptop!)
   In my situation here, I had no tripod. Light was low. Only option I had was to bump up ISO. I set it 6400 and took the photo again. Don't you think it worked well?

Here is my new photo with high ISO, at 6400!

Indoor, low light, photos, coming out blurry and you can't use flash? USE A TRIPOD OR HOLD CAMERA NEXT TO SOME STEADY OBJECT!

I was inside Natural History Museum in Los Angeles.  There was beautiful pattern on a wall. I wanted to take a photo of it. In Auto mode, I clicked on the shutter. The photo was blurry.

What is the problem? A blurry photo, low light.

I though of flash but it would not work as it would create reflections. Also, it was bit far and not whole art was at equal distance. As light falls of exponentially (Inverse square root law of light..or something they call it!), the fan end would get darker anyway.

I didn't have tripod either! What was my fix? There was a wall next to me. I held my camera against the wall. I just had to press it against the wall and this would help keep the camera steady. 

It did the trick! My photo was sharp and clear!

Don't think TEP is a great way to fix your photos? If  you do, please share this tip and other tips with your friends on Facebook! If you friends are able to take better photos, your eyes will thank you too when you look at their photos! This way we can together make the world a better place one thing at a time, one photo at a time.

Indoor, or low light, photos are coming out blurry? USE FLASH!

In a relatively dark room, I was trying to take photo of my son who had put artificial mustache, and dark shades. As there was no light, the camera had to keep the shutter open too long. Little bit of technical details- when shooting human beings, the shutter should generally be no slower than 1/70 or 1/50 second! If you are shooting kids or pets, it needs to be even more faster like 1/100 or 1/150 to avoid any blur because of the breathing or movement by the subject. The shutter in this case was open for almost a half second! 25 times slower than 1/50 second that I would have liked!

What is the problem here? The light is too low. Plus, the subject is within the range of camera flash (within 15 feet). I turned on Flash and took a new photo! Problem fixed. The photo came out very well.
My mission reached! I am happy. Maybe this is not a great photo to enter into a contest or get paid but for my needs, and to share on Facebook or WhatsApp, this is a great photo!

You can't change the world (light I mean); CHANGE YOUR POSITION/DIRECTION! MOVE YOURSELF!!

I was at my son's school taking photos of kids on a bright sunny afternoon! Probably you already know that most professional photographers don't like to take photos outdoor on a sunny afternoon! However, we are not professional photographers ;) We can't tell the school office to schedule the event in early morning or in the evening. We don't have many choices.
There were some mom's, my wife and her friends, who wanted me to take their photos. They were in the shade, under a tree. I took one photo and it came a bit darker. Faces were not clearly visible. I knew my problem. I needed to get faces exposed better without washing out the background completely. I needed better reflected light on the faces.

I didn't want to change settings on the camera so I made a quick decision. After taking first photo, I moved on the other side and asked them to turn around. Them I moved 90 degrees and took a third photo. I wasn't sure which direction offered better reflected light! So I just took photos from 3 different angles! I knew one of them would be better then the other!
So sometimes, when you can't change the light, change yourself ;) Change your position or direction.

Don't you agree Trial and Error Photography helps you take better photos?

To summarize: Take a photo. If it is not good, find the issue. Once you know the issue, try to fix it and retake a photo.

Is someone's face too dark in the photo? TURN ON FLASH!

We love to take our photos against some man made or natural backdrop, like in front of  Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty or against some great natural landscape.
Here I wanted to take a photo of my friend during a hike. The background was filled with low clouds, mountains and the town underneath. However, when I took the photo in Auto mode. my friend was too dark as he was under the shadow. Once I can determine the issue, I can work on fixing it. I needed to change camera a bit. Now in such situations, if you try to expose the photo, as per my previous post on adjusting exposure, based on the light on the face of my friend, the camera will overexpose the scene and the background would be washed out (too bright). So what do I do?

I turned the flash on and asked camera to fire the flash. The flash provided light for the 20-25 feet from me. This was enough to brighten the face of my friend and the the shrub that was right behind him. The result was a beautiful photo!

Is your photo too dark or too bright? TELL CAMERA WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN THE PHOTO!

Most modern cameras work great in the Auto mode most of the time. However, there are times when our photos are too dark or too bright. Sometimes, this can be blamed on the camera but most of the time, such issues arise because we are taking photos in a situation where some parts are too bright and some parts are too dark. Too dark does not mean literally too dark. It is relative. On a bright day outside, the sky is normally blue and bright but trees or things in shadows are considered relatively too dark. Any camera can capture the brightest area and the darkest area only if they are reasonably apart in brightness level.

Take an example of the landscape here. The plants, shrub at the bottom of the frame is relatively too dark compared to the sky. So when you take a photo in Auto mode, any camera would get confused. It would not what is important for you. The details in the dark area or in the bright area.

How can you use Trial and Error photography in such situations? Simple. Take a photo. If it is darker, tap (or touch for 1-2 seconds) the screen in the darker areas of your phone or a touch screen camera and it will take photos to take details in that part. To make an Auto mode photo darker, I would tap/touch the brighter area of the frame, and to make a photo brighter, I would tap on the darker part of the frame on the screen.
Note: For some phones, you just need to **tap** the dark/bright area for the camera to meter off of it, and for some other cameras, like my Android Samsung Note 4, you may have to touch for 1-2 seconds.

If you are using a camera, you can use the EV compensation or focus on something that is in the dark/bright part of the frame to make the photo brighter or darker. As most smartphone cameras and compact cameras keep most of the things in focus, this simple trick will work well most of the time. However, if you are worried about focusing too, find the EV compensation button on your camera. Move it to negative to make a photo darker. Move it to positive to make a photo brighter.

This is how the EV button looks like on most cameras.

Press that button. Then click on the left or right scrolling button to change the value to negative or positive. The more you move the value away from zero (center), the photo gets darker or brighter. 

Is your photo blurry? TELL YOUR CAMERA WHERE TO FOCUS!

I want to highlight importance of proper focusing and want to show you how easy it is!
On my walk, I came across a tree full of beautiful yellow flowers. Each flower was very beautiful. I wanted to capture every flower and also wanted to highlight that there was a tree full of such flowers.
As we do in TEP (Trial and Error Photography), I took my photo. I didn't like it. What was the issue?The flowers that I want to show clearly were blurry. The problem was that the camera didn't focus the way I wanted it to do.

How did I solve the problem? I was taking photo with my cell phone so when I was viewing at the screen, I tapped my camera where the nearby flowers were displayed. This told the camera what I wanted it to focus on. Then I took the photo. Voila! The photo came out very well. 

Tip: When using a camera that has touch screen, do the same as you would on a smartphone. Just tap the screen to tell the camera where you want it to focus. If you camera is not touch screen, just press the Shutter Release button (well, this is the button you click to take photos!) half way. This will give camera time to focus. If you don't like where the camera is focusing, release the button and try it again. Most cameras keep focusing on different objects in the scene when you half-press the button again.

Do you think it is that difficult to take better photos? If you like this simple tip, share it with your friends on Facebook or any social media sites.