5 Bad Photography Habits to Drop Right Now

[JamesScott86]

Seriously, no matter what your goals are as a photographer, there is stuff you need to stop doing. Here are five of the worst habits ever.

http://www.photographytalk.com/photo...drop-right-now

[pnodrog]

A bit of an unexpected list.

Only really guilty of #4 - not working hard enough at it.... although I have been known to have the odd envious glance at someone else's gear.

[Shadowman]

#3 until recently.

[pnodrog]

#3 until recently.

I hope you did not learn the hard way.

[Manfred M]

Another garbage list that covers the surface of the issue but in places really misses the point. As is typical with the article is that the headline does not quite match the body of the text, and while it may be attention grabbing, the real danger is that text gets discounted.

1. Comparing yourself to others - photographers should definitely be doing this. It's the only way to keep up to date on trends and techniques. Many of my personal improvements have come when I look at others work and end up trying new things.

The real truth is of course that doing so to excess is the problem because it prevents the photographer from getting out and trying new things and polishing their skills.

2. Making settings on the camera's LCD - Well, duh. One could argue that not paying attention to the subject while shooting is going to miss images regardless. I don't know about others, but I don't don't look at either the screen or the back of the camera when I change aperture or shutter speed settings; I count the clicks as I turn the dials and that lets me make changes. I do check the screen on occasion, but only when there is a low risk of missing a shot.

These techniques are fine for the experienced shooters who can operate their camera controls by feel. This advice is probably the wrong when dealing with a new or inexperienced shooter. I'd rather see them get the camera set correctly than continuing to blast away at the wrong settings and get NO usable images.


3. Not backing up - Yes, but the cloud based strategy suggested is not a good one, at least not in isolation. Proper backup solutions can (and to some extent) should include cloud based storage, but a local RAID based solution should be part of the backup strategy as well.

Frankly upload speed and data caps make this a bad solution for many if not most users.

4 . Not working hard enough - Close but in many respects wrong-headed advice. Something I see a lot of small businesses doing incorrectly. It's not so much not working hard enough, but not working smart enough. Taking more bad images or working harder to get the wrong clientele is simply not going to work and is simply another way to race to the bottom.

5. Acting like a famous artist - Huh? I guess the writer needed a #5. This is probably the dumbest suggestion out there. I have yet to meet a serious photographer that falls into this trap. This is more something that the kid next door who is blasting the internet with "selfies" is going to do.

On the other hand, if a particular piece of attire or equipment is part of your "brand", go for it. That is self-made advertising that really works. A (now retired) very successful realtor in our area was famous for driving a Jaguar and always wearing a particular style of hat. They were symbols of her brand and probably strengthened her position as one of the most successful people in the business. Any photo you saw of her, she wore that hat. Any open house she was running, had her Jag parked in front of the house. Did these gimmicks work for her, most assuredly YES!

Now let's not forget, this type of branding is only going to help you if you are already really good.

[tao2]

#5 applies fully tae the author...what a tube!

[Shadowman]

I hope you did not learn the hard way.

Unfortunately I did. Luckily it only impacted one year of capture.

[Krawuntzel]

Hello Manfred
I had the luck to read your cool and beautifully argued response to the list, before I wrote my reply.
Thank you

Erwin

[Downrigger]

I'm with Manfred too. Plus this can't possibly apply to me as I resemble the illustrative models so little as to possibly be entirely another species.

I am clear about my bad habits - going to fast, not being fully present, not composing the whole frame, deferring quality of capture to imagined heroic PP, etc. etc. - all for another post.

[Mike Buckley]

Such a lame list.

For me, the best no-no on the list was shown but not mentioned: The first photo shows a guy carrying an expensive, heavy camera system using no wrist strap or neck strap.

[Mike Buckley]

These techniques are fine for the experienced shooters who can operate their camera controls by feel. This advice is probably the wrong when dealing with a new or inexperienced shooter.

It's also wrong for people who understandably have a difficult time viewing the details displayed in the viewfinder due to the type of glasses they wear out of practical necessity.

[PhilT]

3. Not backing up - Yes, but the cloud based strategy suggested is not a good one, at least not in isolation. Proper backup solutions can (and to some extent) should include cloud based storage, but a local RAID based solution should be part of the backup strategy as well.

Frankly upload speed and data caps make this a bad solution for many if not most users.

Well said Manfred,
I'm one of these users. I'd some tries to backup on cloud, but when you have few giga of pictures it can take weeks to upload my prefered solution is an external HD.

[DanK]

One good thing about the internet is that anyone can publish anything easily. One bad thing about the internet is that anyone can publish anything easily. Most of it is not worth much if any attention.

Proper backup solutions can (and to some extent) should include cloud based storage, but a local RAID based solution should be part of the backup strategy as well.

Frankly upload speed and data caps make this a bad solution for many if not most users.

I'm one of these users. I'd some tries to backup on cloud, but when you have few giga of pictures it can take weeks to upload my prefered solution is an external HD.

Doesn't a simple synch or backup to an external drive provide the same backup as a RAID system, just with more work?

I agree that backup up to the cloud alone is not a great idea. I do a local backup plus a cloud backup. However, with the choice of a good vendor, speed is only an issue for the initial backup, and unlimited-storage plans are cheap. I pay $59/year, I believe, for Crashplan. It did take many days for the first backup, but the incremental backups are reasonably fast, and I don't even notice them.

My own solution is an immediate sync to an external drive, followed by an automatic backup to Crashplan.

[flashback]

FWIW - this person has previously started a thread with a similar theme, and directs the viewer via a link to a photography site. Check out his posts (this is his second) and his comments, a pat list of responses. He is about the third person to post in CiC that links to the same website. He's simply trolling for views, his posts are click baits only and he's spamming this site.

[Simon Garrett]

Yes, I'm with Manfred too.

When you read lists of the "x" things you must do / mustn't do, or the "x" characteristics of a successful something or other, you know that most of them are common sense and the rest are make-weights. The hard-of-thinking like lists like that, because they think that if only I read an easy-to-understand list then I too shall become great. Easy! Job done.

As for backing up: another well, duh. However, I would not rely on the cloud. If you read the small print (and consider the law in some countries including the US) then you will find that cloud storage isn't as secure as you might think. At the very least, cloud storage should only be considered as a second storage form, and you should also have some non-cloud storage (or at least, not stored on any third-party storage).

In any event, at the broadband speed I get (upstream a mere 450 kbit/s) cloud storage is unusable.

[Manfred M]

Doesn't a simple synch or backup to an external drive provide the same backup as a RAID system, just with more work?

What the RAID solution adds is redundancy if a single drive in the array fails. I've definitely had this happen. so the RAID unit signals a bad drive, remove it and pop in a new one and the data is safe. If you have a single drive backup and the disk fails, you have to go to your primary storage and rebuild your backup.

The only downside I see to RAID is cost, as the RAID boxes cost more than single drive enclosures and in many configurations you need twice as much storage as data. Even in simple units, the minimum configuration is two hard drives; although I'm running 4-drive units.

[Mike Buckley]

The only downside I see to RAID is cost

Doesn't managing a RAID system require system-management skills that are not needed when using individual external drives?

[chauncey]

When I first read the list, my reactions were much the same as Manfred's and others.
That photographer with no strap that Mike mentioned...he show nuf is a pretty one, maybe a
model but not a photographer.

Anyway, perusing the site show that there are some habits that we all use at some point.
My habits might work well for me but not for everyone.

[Manfred M]

Doesn't managing a RAID system require system-management skills that are not needed when using individual external drives?

No Mike - the software on the RAID boxes (I use a DataRobotics Drobo unit and one Vantec 4-disk RAID). The firmware manages everything and the boxes look like any other drive to the end user. Drag and drop, just like on a regular external drive.

The RAID software reports disk issues that need to be addressed.

[Mike Buckley]

Ahhhhhhhh, that's good to know. Thanks, Manfred!