Welcome to the new year! If you are here, there is a good chance that you may have got a new camera for the holidays and you want help to master this new tool in your hands so you can start taking better photos today. Before we get started I want you to put your camera in manual mode. It single will unlock the true potential of your camera. That green box mode will do nothing but hold you back! If you want to learn more about shooting manual, scroll to the bottom of this post and sign up for our free video course! Photography Basics for Beginners: 14 Days to Better Photos! Once you've done that, here are my 5 tips for getting started with your new camera!  1: Don't Use The On-Camera Flash The flash on your camera rarely provides decent lighting. It often looks very fake and not pleasant. If you are in a dark setting, either find a new spot with better light, or change your settings to accommodate the lack of lighting.   2: Learn to SEE the Light Light comes in different colors, intensities, and qualities. Morning light is much cooler than afternoon and evening light. Light from the sun is much harder than shade from a tree. There are lots of qualities of light that can enhance your photos. Take a photo, look at the camera and study the light.  3: Change Your Angle Every non-photography inclined parent takes a photo of their children the exact same way. About 5'6" off the ground and pointed down at their child. This isn't interesting. Get the camera super low, or as high as your hands can reach. Doing something that isn't the norm will add interest to your photo!  4: Keep Your Shutter Speed Up Your shutter speed is the likely culprit to why your photos are blurry. When your shutter speed is low, you cant capture a crisp image. Shooting in manual leave you in control of your shutter speed to ensure it's not too low. If your photo is too dark with the correct shutter speed, then raise your ISO to compensate for the lack of light.  5: Edit and SHARE Your Photos When I first got into digital photography, myspace was the only place to share my photos, and they were downsized to 640x480. That's 0.3 megapixels. So they often were kept on my hard drives which are now lost or died. They are gone, which sucks. Thank god I didn't have children back then because all of those photos would be gone. The very few photos I DO have look like garbage and they were exported to JPG and I did not keep the RAW files which means I can no longer re edit them. So learn from my experience and edit your photos then share them! Then keep the RAW files because you never know what the future will bring! 

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Thanks for listening & keep shooting!