Are you an adventurous photographer? A bit of a photography thrill seeker maybe? Well we have ten great ideas for your camera to help you get the perfect shot. If you are looking for new, inventive ways to capture photographs or camera hacks, we have you covered. Below are our top ten tricks and tips to help you take more creative photographs easily and relatively cheaply.
- Sandwich Bag Hack
If you place a sandwich bag over your lens you are able to create a really dreamy and surreal edge to your images. These are great for a more abstract, hazy effect on your photographs. If you close the sandwich bag over your lens, avoiding it actually touching it, then it is a great tip to create some truly unique shots.
- Anamorphic Lens Flares
Most companies work really hard to reduce flares, but some are looking for a more artistic shot. These are especially useful when capturing a sunset or other landscape pictures. An anamorphic flare is a horizontal flare; these can be made with fishing line or translucent strings placed close to your lens. It is important to ensure that it doesn’t interfere with your cameras image or quality. You can secure the string or fishing line to your camera with tape or a rubber band. See more at Photo Seminars.
- Using Shiny Surfaces
Reflective surfaces are a great way to split the up your frame. This can be on a shiny countertop, tablet or even a smartphone! If you ensure that your shiny surface is held in the light, underneath the focus of your shot the image will reflect to the top of the image with ease.
- Make it Rain
If you are hoping to create a rainy day shot with your camera but you do not want to actually get wet this tip is for you. You can easily recreate this effect by using a spray bottle and a steady hand. The best way to capture the droplets is by placing the light behind the sprayed water, this will add some sparkle. This can be used as a background or for a shot through a rainy window, whichever scenario you are hoping for it will help you create it.
- Free Lensing
By using a broken lens that lets a lot of light bleed into the edges of the frame a unique colour and flare can be captured. These allow you to capture some great photographs that have a completely unique spin, it makes most photos sunnier and more antique looking.
- Tilt Shifting
Tilt shift lenses throw the focus of the picture off, this allows for multiple focus on many subjects in the shot. It can help create interesting focuses or change the perspective of the photo completely, allowing for juxtaposition to be captured with ease. Whilst these lenses are quite difficult to navigate, once you have trialled them they can completely change your shooting style.
- Shoot Through
This technique requires you to think outside the box, creating an add-on to your camera depending on your location. If you are creative enough, or lucky enough to be in an interesting shooting location, you can find some great objects to shoot content through. These will allow for some very unique compositions and perspectives.
- Shapes of Bokeh
By creating out of focus orbs of light, these can add a magical touch to your shot and create something completely new. You can use your lens cap as a guide to draw out a circle on a piece of card then score it and attach it to you lens with a rubber band. Once you have mastered this you can explore other shapes too.
- Lubricate your Lens
Want to create a completely unique look this can be don by lubricating your lens. If you have an old, or unused lens, you should coat it with Vaseline to give your pictures a truly unique glow. Your images should have a soft, dream like glow making them extra interesting.
- Try out Cross-polarisation
This is a fun project that will exploit the effect that polarised light has on some plastics. To do this successfully you will need to have two polarising filters. This gives your shots a very futuristic, glowing look to them.
Closing thoughts
These ten ideas are only the tip of the iceberg, there are so many other outrageous ideas that you can do with your camera. You should think about the best tips and hacks that are most suited to your personal style and work your way through the line up. Nevertheless, all of them are really interesting so any avid photographer should give them a go.
