No matter how good a photographer you are, there are a series of “small” mistakes, sometimes beyond your control, that could completely spoil your photography. Sometimes they are imperceptible flaws, but depending on who is looking at your photos, they may detract from the professionalism of your work.
In your efforts to get decent photos, sometimes the lens or the camera itself can play tricks on you. In today’s article I will point out 3 of these small mistakes, how they negatively affect your photos, as well as how to avoid them.
Error1: Noise
I suppose you already know (and if I don’t tell you) that in low light situations it is advisable to modify the settings of your camera (be it digital SLR or compact it doesn’t matter) raising the ISO sensitivity. This means that the camera can capture more light and therefore give us a brighter photo.
The bad thing (yes, everything has a price) is that in return the camera puts a little “noise” in the photo. Noise is that kind of small dots that generally appear in the darkest areas of the photo (here is an example). Generally the higher the ISO, the more noise, as shown in the example image.
Not all cameras produce the same amount of noise at the same ISO level. For example the Nikon D60 starts showing noise on photos when reaching ISO 562 about. In the Nikon D3100 we get noise when reaching ISO919. In the Canon 5D MarkII we can reach ISO 1815 and not suffer noise yet, and in the Nikon D7000 until ISO 1167 we can still be calm.
Don’t ask me for the maximum ISO value your camera can reach without fear of noise appearing because I don’t know, but in theory the more advanced the camera and the closer to “professional” the better ISO handling it will have.
How can you avoid annoying ISO noise? Either by investigating specialized websites where they often mention the maximum ISO value of each camera in which considerable noise still does not appear, or by experimenting yourself with your camera and observing what its limit is.
Mistake 2: Chromatic Aberration
Chromatic aberration happens when subjects and objects photographed are surrounded by blue on one side and red on the other. So that you understand me, observe this example on the right (click to enlarge). As you can see, a red line is clearly visible on the back of the shirt, while on the bottom edge of the shirt we see a kind of blue line.
This glitch is actually caused by the lens (ever wonder why some lenses are cheaper than others?), and tends to occur more at the edges of the image than in the center of it.
There are two ways to avoid this error in our photos, one is prevention and simply consists of equipping ourselves, whenever we can, with the best lenses. The reason why two lenses with similar characteristics sometimes cost twice the price of the other lies in the quality of the lenses and the optics used.
The other way to avoid this error is by applying a subsequent “correction” process which can be carried out with the help of a photo editing program such as Adobe Photoshop.
Mistake 3: Perspective Distortion
Some lenses, especially the wide-angle type, produce a secondary effect that consists of a distortion of the perspective and the proportions of the photographed frame. Here are two examples in which you can see that both the statue and the old house are slightly tilted to one side. It is a mere optical effect of the lens (I think I shot them with a 14mm lens or something like that).
It must be said that many times this distortion of perspective is something deliberately sought, an error on purpose, since it is not without its aesthetics. In some situations we may want to look for this distortion, for example to make something appear huge or grandiose.
However, if we are not looking for it on purpose, then it is advisable to use this type of objective (I would say from 10 to 18mm) with some care.
Even so, there are methods to fix this type of distortion later using Photoshop or some other editing and post-processing program.
Naturally, the list of small mistakes that your photographic team can make for you is longer. On this occasion I wanted to share with you the 3 most common. I hope you liked today’s post. I will try to tell you about more errors of this type in the future.