Photography Mistakes: How to Stop Screwing Up Shots

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(Success Tip:Take better photos with this simple deck of cards)

You'd expect a beginner to make mistakes while learning the art and craft of photography. It's a totally normal thing to screw up when you're first starting out. But who's to say you're not going to make mistakes a few years down the road? From my experience, it sometimes seems like the better you become at photography and the more your career is flourishing, the more childish the mistakes are, and obviously the higher the price you pay is higher.

One of the best ways to prevent making such mistakes is to be prepared. If you're the kind of guy I am, who forgets a lot, you're going to want to develop a prepping routine. Before every shoot, check, double check and triple check if your batteries are charged, if your memory cards have been cleaned and formatted, if you have every little piece of equipment you're going to need. Trust me, this needs to become a habit. I've made some embarrassing mistakes in my time, but some of them, like forgetting my memory card pouch at home, made me look really bad. I had to learn the hard way.

Preparing is one part of the deal, but not all of it. There are a ton of mistakes you can make during the shoot. Some of the most "popular" are not screwing your tripod tight enough, forgetting to clean the front of your lens or the filter and not cleaning the dust on your camera sensor regularly. This errors will cause you to lose shots, and that might not be such a big deal if you're shooting some landscapes in the weekend. But if you're paid by a client to deliver professional quality images, these slips are not tolerable.

Always check your histogram for the correct exposure and make sure to zoom in on the LCD screen to see if everything is nice and sharp.

For a longer list of possible mistakes, check out this video made by Professional Photography Tips and remember, it's better to prevent than to repair.

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