P#5 Q#7a: What Exercises Can Our Listeners Do to Improve the Wow! Factor in Their Photography?

with your lenses

Rob Sheppard: One exercise I like to give people that is really great is to take a zoom lens, and then set a number of photographs -- I used to do this with film, so I'd do 36 exposure.

With digital, you could just say, "I'm going to shoot 30 pictures, I'm going to shoot 40 pictures," whatever, but you need a set number.

Now what you do is you go out and you take a picture, the best picture that you can -- you find an interesting area where you're going to feel happy photographing for an hour or so -- but you take the best picture that you can with your zoom at its widest setting.

Then, after you take that picture, you take your zoom and make it to its most telephoto setting, and you find a new picture, and you try to make the best picture you can. Then you take the next picture at your wide setting again. So what you do is you alternate every picture.

One is wide, one is telephoto, then the next one is wide, then the next one is telephoto, the next one is wide, the next one is telephoto. You try to make a good picture each time.

What that does is it teaches you to work with your lens, it teaches you to really look for photographs because you can't simply find a subject and then just zoom in or out until you get the best picture.

You've got to actually move forward, backward, and so forth to get the framing that you want because you can't zoom, because you have to go back and forth. It's a really good exercise to really get you to try some new things.

To summarize

Do this exercise of taking alternate photographs at the widest and most telephoto setting of your zoom lens to improve your photography. By taking multiple shots of the same subject with your zoom lens at both widest and telephoto options, you'll see differently and it will improve your photography.