If you're shooting landscapes, there is a very easy rule to follow: the rule of the thirds. The idea is simple: 1/3 or 2/3 of your image should make up either the sky or the foreground, depending on where you want to put the focus on. This gives the photo more depth and a more dramatic look.
2. How to use aperture
somewhere on your cam, there is a manual setting that shows the options P, A, S, and M. A stands for aperture. Personally, I find this the most useful manual override on any cam. Aperture indicates how much of the stuff you see in your viewfinder will be in focus. A low aperture means that only the foreground will be in focus, whilst the background will be fuzzy. This is typically used for close-ups and macro-photography, or when you simply want to highlight a subject in the photo. A high aperture means that everything will be in focus, this is typically used for landscapes.
3. How to shoot ultra-sharp images
The key to shooting ultra-sharp images is to of course keep your camera steady. Most cameras now have automatic stabilizers, giving you some tolerance in your movement. However, even with the automatic stabilizers, upon close inspection on a large LCD screen, most of our pics had subtle blur effects in them. The only way to truly avoid this is to use a tripod.
4. Shoot in soft light
This one was kind of counter intuitive when I first heard it. I thought the best time to go shooting was in full daylight, but nothing could be further from the truth. Direct sunlight is in fact a photographer's nightmare. It causes overexposure, harsh shadows and a loss of detail. The best time to go shooting is at diffuse light, i.e. at dusk, dawn or right before/after a shower. If you have to shoot during the day, always shoot from the side, never let the sunlight be in front of you or behind you.
5. How to use ISO
ISO is a setting on your cam that determines the film speed. For beginners like us it basically means that the higher you set your ISO, the more light comes in. So, in dark settings, you can increase the ISO to capture more light. This comes with a major downfall though: it dramatically increases the noise on your pictures, and noise is hard to remove during post processing. Ideally, you should keep ISO as low as possible, only slightly increase it when shooting in dark scenes.
6. What is Shutter speed?
Out of the P, A, S, M settings, S stands for shutter speed. A low shutter speed is useful to get sharp pictures from moving objects. You can also intentially set the shutter speed to a high value in order to create a more experimental picture, i.e. to capture fireworks, or the trail light of a car.
7. When to use Automatic mode
Out of the P, A, S, M settings, P stands for program mode. You can consider this the fully-automatic setting of your cam, where it intelligently sets the aperture and shutter speed for you based on what you shoot. The best use for P is when you are not sure what you will shoot. Examples can be wildlife, or an urban scene where the scene itself changes so fast that you do not have time to manually tune your camera for the shot. Be sure to shoot a lot, so you increase your chances of having a sharp shot.
8. Keep things simple
Don't try to capture it all at once. Often it is better to keep your subject simple. Particularly complex backgrounds can really ruin a picture. Another poor example is to shoot crowds, they are simply not interesting, too complex and don't bring a clear message.
9. Never trust your LCD!
With a modern cam, you can instantly check the quality of your shot. The problem is, everything always looks sharp on a 2 inch screen. It is not until you come home and project your pics on a large screen that you will notice the blur, unsharpness and composition errors. Do not trust your cam's LCD. If your cam allows it, zoom in to the maximum to check every portion of your shot for errors, while you still can. Also, take a lot of shots in order to increase your chance of success.
10. Move around and experiment
A lot of photographers walk up to a scene and just start shooting. Often you will not get the best shots this way. It is recommended to move around the subject and see it from different angles. Also, try out various settings on your cam to experiment. Film is cheap. This tip is kind of a no-brainer, but many do not put it into practice. A slightly different angle can make a world of difference in exposure.
11. Avoid built-in flashes
The problem with this flash is that it will point directly at your subject and cause hard light with harsh shadows. Diffuse light is much better. This is why most pro cams do not even have an integrated flash, instead they rely on an external flash which they point to the ceiling or wall to create diffuse light with soft tones. Also note that you can often avoid flash by tuning your ISO and white balance settings.
12. Choose one brand, and stick to it.
If you're into digital photography for the long run, it is best to choose a single brand and stick with it. the biggest investments you will make are in lens equipment and you will want to make sure that your lenses fit when you replace the cam body. There's plenty of good brands around, but if you ever want to evolve into a (semi) pro, it seems there is little choice: Canon or Nikon.
13. Consider purchasing filters
Filters are lens extensions that you can screw onto your lens. A common one to have is a U/V filter. It protects your lens from direct sunlight. Although many disagree with this, there's one other benefit. The filter will protect your lens if you drop it. The filter may be gone, but your expensive lens is likely to survive. Other filters you can consider are the polarizing filter (to decrease reflections), colorizing filters (increase richness of color) and the IR filter (to shoot in complete darkness). I'm not much of a filter fan personally, as most filtering effects can be done during post-processing.
