Good morning everybody today i'm at Durdle Door on the Jurassic Coast it's
photographed a lot but it's a fantastic location and it's worthy of a visit as
well as photographing this amazing location i'm going to talk to you about seven ways
to get your photographs sharper and these are practical tips you can use
next time you're out taking photographs now the first tip is a pretty obvious one
it's to use a tripod it's amazing how many times i see people using a camera in low light conditions
handheld you can knock the iso up there's nothing better than getting your camera on a tripod
sometimes when i'm shooting cliffs like this i find that it's really hard to get the balance
you've got all of the cliff on one side and then big empty space on the other side but if
you do have a big arc like in this scene you can lead the viewer's eye around and into the point
which is basically the subject now at 6 20 the sun has just risen but it's right behind this
hill so it's going to be a while before i get some true sunlight on the scene i can see the sun is
already hitting portland in the distance so it's only a matter of time before it hits this scene
in front of me the question is do i stay here or do i go further down i think i'm going to go
further down because the sun is directly behind me it'll be quite flat light from this location
so i'm swapping out the 28 to 200 with the 15 millimeter so no electronic attachments
i'm shooting at f11 iso 100 1 15 of a second
another thing you can do to get sharper photos is put your camera in the self timer mode
when you press the shutter button you are putting movement into that camera you'll press the shutter
button and it will take the photo when you're not touching the camera at all this will stop
any adverse movement from my hands transferring into my photographs i can see the sun is just
hitting the top of the biggest hill to the west and portland is nicely lit up so hopefully we'll
get some sun on this scene soon but yeah i love being out in locations like this it's beautiful
when i'm shooting landscapes i'm normally between f8 and f11
and when you are at these smaller apertures that's when the lens
comes into its own you can buy a really fast prime and it'll be sharp in the middle really
soft around the edges wide open so close that aperture down and you will get sharper images
now one problem in shooting durdle door at sunrise is that you've got to wait for that
sun to get pretty high in the sky before it lights up the actual arch itself and this is
one tricky thing with this location this is why i like to start on the other side and work my
way along the coast but with a scene like that in front of you it's hard not to stop and get
a few shots of it the light's not quite hitting the door yet so i might go for
a walk up to the top of the hill and then come back to this location a bit later on
now if you're shooting with a dslr look for the mirror lock up function in your menus i know the
canons have it and i know the nikons have it all this does is get that mirror up and out of the way
because again that movement of the mirror will cause movement in your camera which again
could transfer into your photograph if you use a mirrorless camera there is no mirror to lock up so
basically it's already in that mode the only thing that you could do is turn it on to silent mode
so it's a full-on electronic shutter all you need to watch out for then is any motion in your frame
if you're shooting fast-moving sports birds flying through the sky you can
get rolling shutter if you're not sure what rolling shutter is just google it
you'll find out loads of videos on it i think i've done a video on it as well
this is a bad idea
now when you're shooting handheld it's very easy just to stick it in aperture priority
and just take all the shots and not worry about the settings i've done this so many
times when that light drops if you don't keep an eye on your shutter speed what you might find is
your shots will start to get blurry again and this is because that shutter speed is dropping lower
and lower as that light drops now i don't have that problem here because obviously it's a sunrise
and the light is increasing but if you're shooting a sunset and you're handheld keep
an eye on that shutter speed all you need to do is check the focal length you're shooting at
and then make sure the number in the shutter speed doesn't drop below it with a full frame
camera if i'm shooting at 28 millimeters i'll make sure i don't drop the shutter speed below 1
28th of a second now in reality you don't get 128th of a second you get 125th and i think
150th of a second and maybe a few increments in between but just make sure that number's higher
on the shutter speed than it is on the focal length if i'm shooting at 200 millimeters handheld
then i'll make sure it doesn't drop below 1 200th of a second this is just an easy rule to follow
and you will get sharper photos by following it now if you're shooting with a crop centered camera
all you need to do is double the focal length if you're not sure
the other thing to do is go out and test it put it in shutter priority take a photo drop the shutter
speed take the photo drop the shutter speed if you start at 1 100 of a second for something
like a 50 mil lens and then drop it through the range then you'll find that at a certain point
the shutter speed will start blurring your shot so just keep an eye on that shutter speed
and that focal length i just love shooting on coastlines like this there's so much to photograph
that i get so carried away i think i'll pin up this one spot for about an
hour but there's one other shot that i want to get over there before i head home
now this shot has got direct sunlight onto it and it shouldn't work but because of
the difference between the brightness of the white cliff and the blue of the sea
it does look really great so i'm just going to get one shot of this there's a massive cliff there so
i'm going to be really careful in not going too close to that but let's see what we can get here
note to self keep an eye on your settings i've had the camera in white balance shadow all morning
however this is the thing when you're shooting in raw doesn't really matter too much i can just
change those white balance settings to wherever i want them to be now if you do shoot in raw you
might notice that your images aren't as sharp as when you used to shoot in jpeg basically when you
shoot a jpeg with your camera the camera is adding some kind of sharpness whereas with raw photos
you have to do everything in post so when you do edit your royal photos just make sure you add that
sharpness and it will bring that back and it'll make your photos pop a little bit more now the one
downside to this shot is i'll show you is if you shoot wide at all and you've got any foreground
your shadow's going to be in it however if you've got a zoom you can get rid of that
when you do get conditions like this though i never really want to go home i just want
to stay out the whole time and photograph everything around me there is so much to capture
so for this last shot there's lots of people walking on the beach now
so to get rid of those i've gone for a really long exposure with a six-stop
nd and then a soft grad to take down the sky when you are shooting from a tripod if you use dslr
switch off image stabilization this is because the stabilization expects there to be movement
in a dslr and therefore it gives a little bit of a softer look to the image
if you're shooting with mirrorless this doesn't matter i did a test on this a while back and i
didn't see any differences between shooting with image stabilization on and image stabilization off
now i do have a bonus tip as well and it's basically just to slow down
think about what you're doing with your camera think about where the shutter speed is where
the aperture is and where the iso is if your iso is too high the image will be
noisier than when it's lower therefore this noise will take away from that sharpness
if the aperture is wide open then the center might be okay but then the edges might be a
little bit softer so close that aperture down and then with shutter speed if you're shooting
handheld make sure the focal number that you're shooting with which is the millimeter on the lens
is the same number as your shutter speed it's just a case of slowing down thinking about your
settings and this is why i keep going on about practicing about practicing for those moments
and practicing for when you get that fleeting bit of light if that light comes through and you don't
know what you're doing more than likely you'll get a blurry shot whereas if you've practiced
with your camera in pretty rubbish conditions when you do get those fantastic conditions you'll know
exactly what the settings need to be to optimize your chances of getting a really good shot