This is a collection of pieces of advice to make your everyday photos more enjoyable to look at; a little more with every post. These are only bits which do not claim to be complete, but are rather all you need to know at that moment.

I assume my readers are non-professionals who are interested in capturing their memories in the way they have experienced them, instead of how their camera device automatically suggests an output, thereby speaking of using anything from a mobile phone to an auto-set DSLR.

About the author: I am Mareen Fischinger, a professional photographer, living and working in Düsseldorf, Germany.

If you would like to submit texts to the site, you can do so via this form.
You may also email to snpsht@ google's mail service if you have topic suggestions or feedback to give.
(Please note that I know nothing about certain camera models and do not see myself in a position to give any shopping advice.)
April 3

Why we don't like ourselves in photos

I keep hearing sentences like “I never look good in photos”. This originates from the reality of how we usually see ourselves. We look in the mirror every day and the person looking back at us is someone we know like our mother or siblings.

We are “used” to that look, speaking of the angle we take at ourselves, the height of the view (eye-level) and most importantly, the reverse sides. No face is symmetrical, and a sudden horizontal flip of our whole self, as it is in photos of us, is double the change of unsymmetricality to us.

No wonder we like the look of ourselves in Photobooth pictures taken with our Macs: They act like mirrors. Ever noticed?

Just as it is possible to get used to your own voice in a recording, you can get used to your look in photos. It just takes some time and practice. Release your muscles and put on a genuinely happy face.

In ten years, you will be happy you didn’t hide from every photo taken. 

April 2
Let’s talk about sensor sizes! Sensors have different sizes, as you can imagine by taking a look at the different camera sizes and models. The smallest ones are smaller than a fingernail and have the same 12MP resolution as a APS-C (22,5 x 15,0 mm) sensor built in in a semi-pro DSLR. The smaller a sensor is, the higher is the effort required to amplify the information it gathers from the scene it is photographing. But more calculation leads to more errors, which means more noise. The bigger a single physical “pixel” on a sensor, the less noise it produces. Take a look at the different sensor sizes. (graphic above from wikipedia.org) —- (first contribution from Martin, edited by Mareen)

Let’s talk about sensor sizes!

Sensors have different sizes, as you can imagine by taking a look at the different camera sizes and models.

The smallest ones are smaller than a fingernail and have the same 12MP resolution as a APS-C (22,5 x 15,0 mm) sensor built in in a semi-pro DSLR.

The smaller a sensor is, the higher is the effort required to amplify the information it gathers from the scene it is photographing. But more calculation leads to more errors, which means more noise.

The bigger a single physical “pixel” on a sensor, the less noise it produces. Take a look at the different sensor sizes.

(graphic above from wikipedia.org)

—-

(first contribution from Martin, edited by Mareen)

March 31
How to translate a color photo to a better black and white You probably know the bad attempts on bw conversion, where the saturation is taken out of an image. There are several complicated explanations of Photoshop procedures to make it look better. But all they do is increase the contrast in your photos in one way or another and bring out certain before-colors darker than others. What you can do when desaturating an image (grayscale) is simply increase the contrast afterwards. Additional Tip: If you take a photo of a girl and intend to make it black and white, you can do the silent film trick and ask her to paint her lips dark red before you take the photo so they stand out from her skin later.

How to translate a color photo to a better black and white

You probably know the bad attempts on bw conversion, where the saturation is taken out of an image. There are several complicated explanations of Photoshop procedures to make it look better. But all they do is increase the contrast in your photos in one way or another and bring out certain before-colors darker than others.

What you can do when desaturating an image (grayscale) is simply increase the contrast afterwards.

Additional Tip: If you take a photo of a girl and intend to make it black and white, you can do the silent film trick and ask her to paint her lips dark red before you take the photo so they stand out from her skin later.

March 30

About leaning in

Oftentimes when I take a snapshot of people who are not used to being photographed, they tend to lean into the center of the photo or group, with their head or upper body.

This never looks good, not even when the photo shows only their faces. All it does is enhance the look of a fake situation, staged happiness or closeness.

Therefore, I generally advise to be turned and sit in all sorts of directions, bent back, curled up, however you were before someone pulls out the camera, possibly going a little more to the extreme of that position to make it clearer.

The one taking the photo can still tell you whether you guys fit or not, or just step back a bit. 

Summer Feeling 2 

(This post contains embedded pictures, view it on snpsht.com to see them)

March 29

Why digital zoom is bad and optical zoom is good

On most snapshot and bridge cameras, it is possible to turn off the so called digital zoom in the settings menu.

I advise you to do so, because the digital zoom is nothing else but artificially cropping the photo you would take without it and fake-repeating the pixels (called interpolation) to get back to the original size. (more on Wikipedia)

Optical zoom is something that you should look for when buying a camera. Because this time, your camera’s optics are actually making physical movements to acquire a real zoom.

+

About the difference between wide-angle and telephoto

If you are wondering why your face or body looks so distorted in a close-up picture, there is an easy solution for that one, just zoom in slightly to get away from the wide-angle your camera (except a DSLR) usually starts with when being turned on.



While wide-angle (small mm) is helpful when you want to photograph a room or a landscape, it makes more sense to step back a bit and use the optical zoom if the space is there.