Checking your photos on your PC and they look like…

You’re wondering why your pictures are unsharp or to blurry. Take a look at this article to prevent amateur mistakes.

All of you know these things when taking pictures. Blurry or over exposed pictures, bad focues or just the wrong composition. Withing this article I list the most common mistakes in photography for you to keep in mind when you go on your next photo tour.

1. Photos with to much contrast

The spectrum of light cannot be picked up by the cameras sensor in some situations and that lead to wrong exposed pictures. If you don’t want to manipulate your pictures afterwards by post-production you have either the option to change the part of your scene wich is exposed correctly (which can be very difficult in some cases) or you use a graduated ND filter.

2. Photos with to less contrast

If you take your pictures in bad lighting conditions (this can also be snowy landscapes) a low contrast can be the result. You can easily fix this in Lightroom or Photoshop when adjusting the Levels to give it more contrast. I recommend to use a lense hood and a UV filter for better pictures.

3. Under exposure

In most cases of under exposed pictures you can avoid this by using a larger arperture, slower shutter speed (think of a tripod) or higher ISO (higher = more noise), or a comination of all of them. For small and quick correction you can also use your EV  (exposure value) button for increasing or decreasing the exposure.

4. Over exposure

In this case you got to much light on your sensor. You can avoid this by using a lower arperture, higher shutter speed or lower ISO, or a comination of all of them. For small and quick correction you can also use again your EV button. This is also useful when shooting photos of snow or white sand since the meter bases exposure on 18% gray which is the reflectance of an average scene. Since we don’t want completly white areas in the picture we can use -0.7 or -1.0EV depending on the scene.

5. Vignette

This are dark corner you see on your picture, which occur when the light is not evenly distributed on the sensor or when the flash just lights up the center of a shot.

When the lense is opened wide (highest aperture) nearly every lense create this effect. To avaoid this effect simply stop down the aperture a few stops. In some cases the vignette could be wanted by the photographyer to focus on the center of the picture.

6. Lense flares

If you take a photo  in front of stray light you will get lense flares. It depends on your zoom how much and were the flares are visible. To prevent this always use a lens hood.

7. Lens disortion

When photographing architecture witch a wide-angle lens you will create some distortion.  If you have a lense below 50mm you will not recognize this in most cases. But if you’re taking a picture of some straight lines and you’re standing close to the object (such as a street with  buildings) ,  pointing upwards with your camera you will see these distortions. Just  make some steps backward and you will be avoid of this in most situations.

8. Blurry images caused by bad focus

If your photos are not sharp it could be because of a bad focus. You or the camera didn’t focus correctly on the target. Check the focusing point(s) when using AF or the focus mode (automatic, single, continous) to re-focus the target. If you do your focus manually it’s all on you.

9. Blurry images caused by camera shaking

If your lense has a VR (vibration reduction) function you should use it when  taking pictures without a tripod. In most cases the image is blurry because of camera shake or a too long exposure time. You can change the shutter speed or make your exposure time shorter. But keep also an eye on your ISO setting if you don’t want to change your aperture. The higher ISO will create higher noise but this is even better than a blurry image.  For long time exposures always take a tripod.

10. Motion blur

The result of photographing a moving object with a too long exposure time is a motion blur. To avoid this take a faster shutter speed and maybe change your ISO (depends on the light). You can use speeds like 1/1600 and above to take sports pictures for example.

11. Noise

Noise is unwanted an most likley caused due to a high ISO setting or to long exposure. To prevent noise you can use a lower ISO setting if possible or remove it in your post-production. But keep in mind if you remove noise from your photos with a software some details will also be lost.

12. Color tinted image – red/orange

First of all I have to say, if you take your pictures in RAW format you don’t even have to think about this problem, you can correct this afterwards with Lightroom or Photoshop.

But why does some pictures have this red/ orange tint?

This is because of a miscalculated white balance. If you’re not shooting in RAW check your W/B settings (choose indoor , outdoor , light or custom setting).

13. Color tinted image – blue

These pictures look cold and are most likely due to a miscalculation by the camera and just like the previous topic discussed, you can fix it the same way.

You can also get a blue tint if you have a large amount of UV-light. You can prevent this by using a UV-filter which reduces the UV-light to reach the cameras sensor and giving you a good picture quality.

14. Dust on sensor or objective

If you see some gray spots on your pictures this is usually caused by dust on your sensor or your lense. It is easy to clean you lense but cleaning your sensor  is causing risks. You need to do this in a dust free  area and be very carefully. Aditionally you need the right tools. I recommend you to  give your camera to a professional store for cleaning. In may case I paid about 36€ and got may camera back the next day. You can simply test if you have dust particles on your sensor. Just take e.g f22 and take a picture of some homogen texture. If you notice something similar to the picture on the left then there’s dust on your sensor.

15. Chromatic aberration

This is an optical effect where you can see purple or sometimes green edges around an object that is reflecting light. In situation with strong contrast like sunlight against dark object the effect is most common. You will get this effect more often when using zoom lenses and it can be prevent by using smaller aperture.