[shuttertalk]

Here's a tip for better composition from Dpreview (actually a double tip), that will increase your ratio of keepers:

1. Examine the scene through the viewfinder for 5 seconds before taking the shot. If you don't like anything the scene, don't take the shot and recompose.

2. Take 5 shots of the same subject, but from different perspectives, angles and using different techniques.

Good advice? I think if anything it will force you to slow down, and making sure you think about the image that you are creating. Next, it will also encourage you to think differently, try new things and techniques.


What are some of your tips on composition?

[Toad]

Good advice, but assumes a static target, of course...

[shuttertalk]

Good advice, but assumes a static target, of course...

Haha, true that. Five seconds later, my toddler will be out of the frame and running circles around me.

[Zig]

Sorry, missed this.
I'd say 5 minutes more like: walking around for angles, edges, metering, dynamic range, deciding why you're taking it;... am convinced even "candid street" shots (er, as if it's a genre, which it probably isn't except by hindsight), whilst awaiting the right human at the right time, are generally better and more succesful if thought about. "Slowing" down as per 5x5 is still pretty much like having an AK47 with 2 taped mags, then spraying and praying for some law of averages to deliver up a killshot by lottery. In Zigworld(in which I would be dictator, of course), the populace would not be allowed digital cameras unless they had written proof of darkroom experience and O level Physics. And oversharpening a jpeg for web output would incur capital punishment. Cruel but fair, as Mony Python would say....

[Warren]

I always walk left, right around to see which is going to give me the best shot then I compose the image

I "may" take more than one shot in a different composition but prefer to do it like that as I find I get one straight out of the box as I have looked around beforehand.

Then again I have done similar and had to edit, that was and is due to the fact that you cant keep the weather the same unless you do it in the camera