Well, this might be asked by many new photographers. There is no fixed answer to it but here are some basic tips that guide you onto the happy path to quickly taking good photos. Here we go!

Measuring light

You know what, decades ago when digital cameras were not invented, photographers could only measure light with their long-time experience and you as a fish would never know whether the light was enough for image until print out. We may call that “black time”.

Then light meter was invented to measure the amount of light needed to successfully capture an image on sensor. Old fashioned light meter gives you a number with which you can get a set of combinations of aperture and shutter settings. It not complicated but time wasting. This is “DIY time”. Throughout a lot of hard work, light meter became automatic and set into cameras. Nowadays every camera has a light measuring system, you even don’t have to know where they are, but they are working on each photo you shoot.

Lighting

We all know that photography is the art of capturing light. It’s never too aware of your lighting! When you take a photo of a man but his face is too dark to see, the image won’t work. Each camera is slightly different on how it measure or read the amount of light in a scene. But there are some general rules, be careful of dark shadow and harsh light behind your subject, watch out for whites of flare in your view.

Depth of field

DOF determines how much of you image is clear. This is an important tool which allows photographer to control over what is in or out of the focus range. Half-press your shutter release button to execute the DOF determining process.

Taking Care of Your Lens

Lens is the eye of a camera. High-qualified glass will allow you to take wonderful images. Once you own it, take good care of it. Usually photographers will add a UV glass in front to protect an expensive lens though it’s not its only function. Keep your camera off long time direct sunshine, rain, dust etc.

Which kind of lens is needed

Since we already know how to take care of our lens and the necessity, so we don’t beat around the bush anymore. But here comes another question, there are hundreds of thousands of lenses of every kind and brand out there, what do I need? Usually the type of lens we need depends on what subject we want to shoot and under what kind of condition. Is the subject near where you stand or very far from you? If far away you’ll need sth with long focal distance.

If you shoot with low light or at night, you are sure to own a fast lens which carries large aperture(here we don’t talk bout flashes). If you are to shoot landscape, a lens with a wide field of view can be very supportive. Does what you want to photograph stay or move? If the subject moves fast, it’ll be better for the lens to born with fast responding electrical focusing system. However there are still some photographers prefer manual focus when shoot still life.