Frequent Photo Flubs: 15 picture pitfalls and how to avoid them

By Lori Grunin on 31 January 2006

Tags: 15 | avoid | diy | flubs | frequent | how-to | photo | picture | pitfalls | camera

Frequent
Brighter brights and whiter whites! Find out how to get the best pictures in our handy guide.

You know the feeling: you've just snapped that once-in-a-lifetime moment, and you're already thinking about how big you want to print it. It looks great on the camera's LCD, and everyone in the room wants a copy of it. When you get home, you eagerly load it up on your PC, only to discover it's too blurry to even make out the faces. We've all been there.

Thanks to our friends at Webshots, we had a boatload of photos to browse through in order to pick examples of the most typical mistakes that snapshooters make. For instance, a camera phone is fine for the occasional spur-of-the-moment shot, but if you know you're going to be at a party, an event, or some other venue where you'll want to take photos, please -- use a real camera. The only truly bad photos we saw were clearly taken with camera phones. So, by remembering a few simple rules and taking a few minutes to page through your camera's manual -- if necessary, by trashing your old clunker and buying a new camera -- you'll increase your odds of shooting photos that impress, not distress.

Avoid these picture pitfalls:

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Sergei Plishka
11/02/2006 01:21 PM

If you do notice a reflective surface in the background, simply take the shot at an angle to the surface so that flash reflects away from the camera instead of right back at it.

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