ideas for changing up average pictures

[noabeliv]

Sorry if this has been asked a million times but I can't seem to put in the right words in a search to get any answers.
Anyway, I have been to Disney World several times and have taken some descent pictures but they are all "okay". I can't afford a fancier camera with lots of neat lenses so I am hoping that someone can give me some pointers that will add excitement to my photos. I've seen many great pictures of the castle, the Epcot ball,etc. but I never know what they did to make it look different than mine, make sense?
I have a Fugi FinePix S 5100 if that makes any difference. Any help would be greatly appreciated! ThanX!

 

[Master Mason]

learn how to frame/compose better would be my first suggestion without seeing any examples. The second suggestion would be to make sure you understand all that your camera is capable of, and what making various changes will do to give you more creative control.

For example the Castle. Are you just standing there at night with your camera set on auto and pushing the button, or are you putting it on a tripod and holding the shutter open for a long exposure. Both of these methods will create a picture, but the long shutter when done properly will give you a much better picture.

Also, get yourself a processing program that your confortable with, and after you have taken your pictures, go back and just spend a few minutes cropping them, you can take an average picture and just be cropping it, make it so much better. But that goes back to the first suggestion of learning composition/framing.

 

[mabas9395]

Post an example of one of your photos, and there are people here who can tell you what would be good to try next time, as well as what can be done with editing software to punch it up.

 

[YEKCIM]

The S5100, like many Fujifilm cameras, has a "Chrome" color mode, which bumps up the saturation. I used a S5200 in 2006 and was very pleased with the colors in my pix from that visit (see link in my sig below if interested). You may also want to check out the POTD thread for some ideas on composition.

~YEKCIM

 

[jann1033]

http://www.photoinf.com/General/Geoff_Lawrence/Composition.html
i had this article bookmarked...you can find a lot more by googling composition
one article i read also mentioned don't take the photo the moment you get to the scene, walk around the scene a little and look for unusual angles, different ways the light hits etc...so maybe take 6 shots of something at different angles, etc and see which you like best. if you have a zoom, try some close, maybe a detail , some from far away, just experiment and see what you like the best. but practice practice practice...and something i think is hard to do, slow down ...i always get excited and then end up not seeing that little corner i cut off or something till i get home and then the photo is ruined so i am trying to make myself slow down and really look before i shoot
you might want to try to do somethings like framing, have something in the photo that draws you eye to the main subject, like diagonal lines( see yekim's spaceship earth photo in the cropped thread,i think he did a nice job framing in the cropped photo with the linear surfaces that draw your eye to the ball and kind of limit the edges of the photo), try to have something of interest in the front, middle and back areas of the photo ( ie maybe a nice bush or something in the front, the castle and a nice fluffy cloud filled sky or some kind of background)

and even if your camera isn't top of the line, you can still get nicer shots but putting a little thought into it imo.

 

[MICKEY88]

and something i think is hard to do, slow down ...i always get excited and then end up not seeing that little corner i cut off or something till i get home and then the photo is ruined so i am trying to make myself slow down and really look before i shoot

I always recommend shooting wide rather than zooming in too close, it's always easier to crop to remove extras, rather than trying to add stuff you cropped out by zooming to close... this happens a lot to people with hands, feet etc...

 

[noabeliv]

Thank you for the quick replys. I am playing around with it on the chrome setting now. I know some of my problem is that I don't totally understand the things this camera can or can't do. I have a small "table top" tripod. Will this help at all for castle shots?

 

[Suburbanmom]

Thank you for the quick replys. I am playing around with it on the chrome setting now. I know some of my problem is that I don't totally understand the things this camera can or can't do. I have a small "table top" tripod. Will this help at all for castle shots?

Someone at Disney was brilliant and provided us with trashcans that have flat tops!!! A table top tripod will work well at Disney.

 

[JR6ooo4]

Thank you for the quick replys. I am playing around with it on the chrome setting now. I know some of my problem is that I don't totally understand the things this camera can or can't do. I have a small "table top" tripod. Will this help at all for castle shots?

When I was learning photography (and you never stop learning) I would take a picture in auto mode then try two (or twenty) other modes and see what the difference was. Sometimes they came out better than the auto mode.

Also read the manual. Then go shoot for a week or three and read the manual again. I could read it three or four times and understand it more each time as I was learning what each function did.

But the manuals just tell you how to run the camera, not why you should choose a certain setting.

Mikeeee