Camera Zoom – How To Get The Most From Your Lens

Nearly every camera on the market comes equipped with some sort of zoom function. What’s funny about zooms is that they are almost always used incorrectly or never used at all. Many beginning photographers consider the zoom to be the far away things functionality and never understand what an impact using it correctly can have on their work. With that in mind, here are some great ways to use your zoom lens or function the next time youre out shooting:

Crop, Crop, Crop
In a perfect world, no piece of photography software would have to come with a crop feature. If youre unfamiliar with the term, cropping an image” simply means cutting out all of the extra stuff in the frame that the photographer should have cut out while they were shooting the picture. Instead of cropping the junk out after the fact, make liberal use of your camera zoom to frame only the important parts of an image. Think of this like what you would when selecting a picture frame for your photo – you’d simply get a smaller picture frame to remove the extra stuff. Pictures of family get togethers are infamous for this as most photographers don’t fill the frame with the subject and instead take a picture consisting mostly of the background.

Get Back
No camera lens reflects the actual subject with 100% accuracy. With every kind of lens there is a tiny bit of distortion, so this should help guide your decisions with how you use your camera zoom. For example, taking portraits with a zoom lens from a little farther away will give you much better results than putting the camera right in someone’s face. Give it a shot the next time you take portrait-style photographs. Take a few up close then take a few with the zoom and see which your subject likes more.

Nicely Spy on Your Loved Ones
If you do have a powerful camera zoom or a great lens, it may be time to start being a little sneaky. Obviously, it’s not a good idea to invade the privacy of your friends and family, but candid pictures are a great way to capture people you care about as their natural selves. When you are far away with the camera, people tend to be more comfortable and act “normal” so you’ll end up capturing some great images that you would have otherwise missed.

Zoom isnt a tool to only be used when youre far away. You should use it to improve your composition, make your subject comfortable and capture unplanned moments otherwise difficult to capture. A lens that is capable of zooming is a powerful and flexible ally in your quest to become a great photographer, so try and find new and creative ways to use it. You will love the results.