It’s weird that photographers spend years or even a whole lifetime, trying to capture moments that added together, don’t even amount to a couple of hours.  ~James Lalropui Keivom

It is just few months that I have been into photography and day by day it is really interesting field to explore. I am involve into many photography forum where I post my photo and also ask for critics and any comments. Comments and critiques is really helps me and build me to improve my skills in photograph, and also my character on how I take comments.

There are 3 main factors that I discover after using my nikky for half a year to capture great moments.

1. Make full use of your equipment.

Buying a Nikon doesn’t make you a photographer.  It makes you a Nikon owner.  ~Author Unknown

If you possess DSLR camera or even the highest and the latest Nikon (I am a fans of nikon so I use nikon ) DSLR, like D3x, it does not make you very professional photographer but makes you D3x owner. Getting latest camera and fastest lens would not make you become very good photographer. Some lucky fellow, they use D3x as learning camera with very expensive lens, like 24-70mm and 70-200mm, as they can afford it like buying peanuts but it makes me sad that they use it like using point and shoot camera.

If you have thinking that buying latest and most expensive camera will make your photography skills improve, what I can say is the image quality will improve a lot but not your skill. I have seen few blogger in internet that they use Nikon D3000 and the photo they put on the blog really good and superb. I admit some of the photo taken by D3000 is much better than mine.

One great tips once you owns DSLR camera, first read the manuals as most people skips this steps, and after that do lots of experiment and errors. There are many times that I need to use reset functions in my DSLR as I mess up the setting, but that process is really fun as I can learn something once I made mistake. I am a slow learner, so it takes me quite lots of time for me to use manual mode in D90. Once I learn manual, it gives me freedom to control everything, from shuttle speed, aperture, ISO, and even white balance.

2. Have lots of curiosity

I began develop lots of curiosity in photography. Almost every time I took a picture, I begin ask myself that what can be improved, either my composition, lighting technique, or proper angle or some weird angle to make the photo looks more interesting, and there are many more questions.

There are two common style in photography, one is they take tons of picture and then select the best from it and the other one is they really careful to take picture as one picture they will spend some time even hours to take one picture. There is nothing wrong or right in both style, it is just which one that suits you.

For my style, I may combine both style, first I will take picture with proper setting, then after that I will try from different angle, different setting, and also different lighting technique to capture more possibility. That is how sometimes I end up shooting quite number of picture from one subject, but most of the time I will really careful before I press my shuttle button as I want to get correct setting, composition, and also timing to make a snap shoot become something special.

3. Enjoy what you are doing

Enjoying taking picture in photography is something crucial point. If you are not passion in this field, you better give up as the equipment for photography is really expensive, unless you have big fat cash in your bank. It is really struggle for me to own my D90 and some lens that I need to have for my project but could not afford it for time being.

Taking photography is become more than hobby for me, It also represent my character from photo that I took. I have read many books regarding photography and put it into practice once I gain the knowledge. I am a slow leaner so I need to repeat some of the technique many times and with many failures until I satisfied with the result, and every mistake I took it increase my interest on taking superb picture.

That my personal three points from me throughout this half year, and I believe each person have different point or perhaps different idea, please post it into comments and I will be really happy