Welcome in our Photo Tutorial

This is a simple, practical guide designed to help you take better photos right away. Instead of theory and complicated explanations, you’ll find clear, real-world tips you can actually use while shooting. You’ll learn how to control your camera, understand light, and recognize situations where specific techniques work best.

The goal is not to overwhelm you — it’s to give you tools that make an immediate difference.

Section 1

This part focuses on the core elements that have the biggest impact on your photos. Instead of theory, you’ll learn how to recognize situations and react quickly when the moment happens.

In this section:

  • Exposure (how bright or dark your image is)
  • Light (direction, quality, contrast)
  • Movement (freezing vs motion blur)
  • Patterns & composition
  • Dynamic range (handling highlights & shadows)
  • Depth of field (subject separation)

Exposure triangle

These three settings control how your photo looks

  • Aperture affects depth of field
  • Shutter speed affects motion
  • ISO affects noise


How to use it intentionally

The exposure triangle is built from three settings: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Together, they control how much light reaches your sensor — but more importantly, they control how your photo looks. The key thing to understand is that every setting is not just technical. It’s a creative decision.

You are not only adjusting brightness. You are deciding whether motion is sharp or blurred, whether the background is soft or detailed, and whether the image is clean or grainy. The goal is not to memorize numbers, but to understand what each setting does visually — and then use it on purpose. Once you start thinking this way, photography becomes less about guessing and more about control.

You'll find more details below.

  • Aperture

    Aperture controls how much light enters the lens, but more importantly, it controls how much of your image is in focus. At lower values like f/1.4 or f/2, you get a shallow depth of field, which means your subject is sharp while the background becomes blurred. This is what creates that clean, cinematic separation and works great for portraits, details, or isolating a subject from a busy scene.

    At higher values like f/8, f/11, or beyond, more of the scene stays in focus from front to back. This is useful for landscapes, architecture, or any situation where you want everything to be sharp and clearly visible. Instead of separating the subject, you are showing the entire environment and giving context to the scene.

    Neither option is “better” — it’s a creative choice. Use a wide aperture when you want simplicity and focus on one subject, and a narrow aperture when you want depth, detail, and a more complete view of the scene.

  • Shutter speed

    Shutter speed controls how motion appears in your photo. At fast speeds like 1/500 or 1/1000, everything is frozen — perfect for action, people in motion, traffic, or anything that moves quickly. This is what you use when you want sharp, clean images with no motion blur.

    At slower speeds like 1/30, 1/10, or even longer, movement starts to appear in the image. People may blur, water becomes smoother, and moving objects leave trails. This is not always a mistake — it can be used intentionally to create atmosphere, energy, or a sense of time passing through the frame.

    The key is control. If you want a sharp image, use a faster shutter. If you want motion, slow it down. In low light, slower shutter speeds also allow more light into the camera, which means you can keep your ISO lower — but you may need a tripod to avoid unwanted blur.

  • ISO

    ISO controls how sensitive your camera is to light. Lower values like ISO 100 or 200 produce clean, sharp images with no visible noise, which is what you want in most situations. Higher ISO values make the image brighter, but they also introduce grain and reduce image quality.

    In general, you want to keep ISO as low as possible and adjust aperture and shutter speed first. However, in low light situations, increasing ISO is sometimes necessary if you cannot use a slower shutter or a tripod.

    That said, noise is not always a problem. In some types of photography, a bit of grain can actually add character and feel intentional. The important thing is to understand that ISO does not improve your image — it only compensates for lack of light. Whenever possible, it’s better to let in more light through shutter speed or aperture instead of relying on high ISO.

Depth of Field

DOF - Common myths

  • There is a common belief that you need to use apertures like f/8 or f/11 to get a sharp image. In reality, that depends entirely on what you are photographing.

  • Depth of field only becomes visible when you have distance between elements — something close to the camera and something farther away. If you are shooting a wide scene where everything is already a few meters away, even a wide aperture like f/2 or f/2.8 can result in a fully sharp image. There is simply nothing close enough to create background blur.

    This means that in many real-world situations — travel, street scenes, architecture, museum interiors — you do not need to stop down your aperture just to get sharp results. Using a wider aperture can actually be an advantage, because it lets in more light and allows you to use faster shutter speeds, reducing the risk of motion blur or camera shake.

    Narrow apertures still have their place. They are useful when you intentionally want maximum depth of field, for example in landscapes or when you are working with a clear foreground and background. But they are not a universal rule. The idea that “f/11 equals sharp photos” is simply a misunderstanding.

Most common Composition Patterns

Look for these shapes and lines when you shoot - they will help you build stronger, more balanced images.

  • Leading lines

    Use this when you see roads, pavements, bridges, corridors, railings, walls, or any lines that naturally lead through the frame.

    Leading lines help create depth and perspective, making the viewer feel pulled into the image instead of just looking at a flat scene. They work especially well when the lines guide the eye toward your main subject or toward an interesting point in the distance.

    This is one of the easiest ways to make travel, street, and architecture photos feel stronger and more intentional.

  • Spiral / Fibonacci

    Use this when the scene has a natural curve or visual flow that pulls the eye inward - for example staircases, chandeliers, curved architecture, roads, or shapes that guide attention toward a center point.

    This kind of composition creates a stronger sense of movement and makes the image feel more fluid and dynamic. It works best when the viewer’s eye can naturally follow the curve through the frame instead of jumping between unrelated elements.

    When used well, it gives the image a more elegant and intentional structure.

  • Rule of thirds

    Use this when you want a composition that feels balanced but not too static.

    Instead of placing everything in the exact center, you position the subject along one of the grid lines or near one of the intersection points. This usually works well for cityscapes, people, buildings, street scenes, and any frame where you want the eye to move naturally across the image.

    It is one of the simplest ways to make a photo look more deliberate and less like a quick snapshot.

  • Center focus

    Use this when your subject is strong enough to stand on its own and you want all attention to go directly to it.

    Placing the subject in the center creates a clear and immediate focal point with no distractions. This works best with symmetrical scenes, portraits, sculptures, or objects that naturally draw attention.

    It is also useful when the background is simple or supports the subject instead of competing with it. Use it when you want clarity, simplicity, and a strong visual impact without overcomplicating the composition.

  • Diagonal

    Use this when you see strong diagonal lines in the scene — for example cars, streets, buildings, shadows, or any elements that cut across the frame at an angle. Diagonal lines create a sense of movement and energy, making the photo feel more dynamic than horizontal or vertical compositions.

    They work especially well in street photography and urban environments, where nothing is perfectly aligned. Use this when you want to avoid a static look and give your image more tension and direction.

  • Frame

    Use this when you can shoot through a window, doorway, arch, tunnel, or any opening that surrounds the main subject.

    It helps isolate the subject, adds layers to the photo, and gives the composition a clearer structure. This works well when the scene itself feels too open or messy and you want to direct attention to one specific part of it.

    It is especially useful in architecture, viewpoints, courtyards, and places where you can use the environment itself as a natural border.

Movement

This section shows how shutter speed changes the way motion appears in your photo.

Sometimes you want everything to look sharp and frozen. Other times you want to keep a natural sense of movement, or even turn that movement into part of the composition. There is no single correct setting for every situation. It always depends on what is moving, how fast it moves, how much light you have, and whether you are shooting handheld or with a tripod.

The key is to understand what each shutter speed range is good for, so you can choose deliberately instead of guessing.

  • Use fast shutter speeds when your priority is to freeze motion completely and keep your subject sharp.

    This is the setting for situations where things move quickly and even a small delay would create blur - sports, moving cars, bikes, birds, animals, or people caught mid-action. It works best in strong daylight or bright conditions, because very fast shutter speeds need a lot of light.

    In darker scenes, using this range may force you to raise ISO a lot or open the aperture wider, so you have to balance sharpness with image quality.

    Choose this when you want precision, detail, and a clean frame with no motion blur distracting from the subject.

  • This is the most flexible range for everyday photography.

    It works well for normal walking speed, street photography, travel shots, portraits, static subjects, and most general scenes where you want the image to look natural and sharp without pushing the camera too hard. This range is often the safest choice when nothing in the scene is moving very fast.

    It gives you enough speed to shoot handheld comfortably in decent light, while still keeping ISO under control.

    Use it when you want a balanced, natural-looking result - not frozen in an extreme way, but still clean and reliable for most real-life situations.

  • Use slower shutter speeds when light is limited or when you want to keep some natural motion in the frame.

    This range can work well indoors, in museums, during evening light, or in shaded areas where faster speeds are not realistic without pushing ISO too far. It is also useful when you want a slight sense of movement rather than a perfectly frozen image - for example people walking, water flowing, or city scenes that should feel alive instead of static.

    The trade-off is that camera shake becomes a real risk, especially if you shoot handheld. This range works best when you stay steady, use image stabilization if available, and pay attention to how much movement is happening in the scene.

  • Use this range when you want motion to become part of the image instead of something you try to avoid. At longer shutter speeds, moving elements begin to stretch and blend, creating a softer and more atmospheric look.

    This works especially well during blue hour or at night, when lights, reflections, and movement combine into something more dynamic — water becomes smooth, traffic turns into light trails, and people can blur or disappear completely.

    In most situations, a tripod is necessary, because the goal is to keep the static parts sharp while allowing only the moving elements to blur. This is where photography shifts from simply capturing reality to shaping how the scene feels.

Light - The most important element

Light is not only about brightness and direction - it also behaves differently depending on the environment, and that can directly affect your results. Places like museums, galleries, or indoor exhibitions, often uses LED sources with mixed color temperatures. This can confuse your camera’s automatic white balance and cause each photo to come out with a slightly different color tone, even if nothing in the scene has changed. In these situations, it is better to take control and use a fixed white balance preset, such as daylight or tungsten, to keep your colors consistent across multiple shots.

Flickering light is another common issue with artificial lighting. Many LED lights do not produce a constant output — they pulse at a frequency that is invisible to the eye but visible to the camera. This can lead to uneven exposure, banding, or subtle brightness shifts across the image, especially at certain shutter speeds. Using a mechanical shutter helps reduce this problem, as it handles these conditions more reliably than an electronic shutter.

Electronic shutter can also introduce rolling shutter distortion, particularly when photographing moving subjects or when panning. Straight lines may appear slightly bent or skewed, which becomes noticeable in architecture and structured scenes. For predictable results and correct geometry, mechanical shutter is usually the safer option in these situations.

Light direction plays a major role in how your image looks. Side light adds depth and texture, which works well for architecture and details. Backlight can create silhouettes or highlight the edges of your subject, adding atmosphere and separation. Front light is the simplest and most even, but often produces flatter, less dynamic images. Changing your position relative to the light source can completely transform the result without changing any camera settings.

Low light requires conscious decisions. You can increase ISO, open your aperture, or use a slower shutter speed, but each option affects your image differently. Instead of relying on high ISO, it is often better to stabilize your camera and use longer exposures. This allows you to capture more light while keeping the image clean, especially during night photography, blue hour, or indoor scenes.

Understanding light is more important than memorizing camera settings. Once you recognize how light behaves and how to use it, everything else becomes easier and more intuitive.

Dynamic range

One of the most important things to understand is that your camera does not see the world the way your eyes do. Human vision can handle a much wider dynamic range — you can see details in both bright highlights and deep shadows at the same time. Cameras, even modern ones, are more limited.

Because of this, every photo is a compromise. Sometimes you expose for the highlights and let the shadows go darker. Other times, you lift the shadows and accept that bright areas may be slightly overexposed. Both approaches are valid — as long as the decision is intentional.

Photography is not about making everything perfectly visible. It’s about deciding what matters in the frame and making sure that part is shown the way you want. In most situations, you will aim for a balanced exposure somewhere in between, but understanding that you cannot have everything is what gives you control.

Modern smartphones often try to “solve” this by artificially combining multiple exposures and heavily processing the image. While the result may look impressive, it is often far from what the scene actually looked like. For some people, that is fine. But if you want your images to feel real, it is better to work within the limits of your camera and make deliberate choices.

  • So far...

    We’ve covered the core building blocks of photography - exposure, motion, composition and light. These are the tools that allow you to understand what is happening in your image and how to control it.

    But in real situations, especially when traveling you also have to think what to take, use and how to make it easy to handle. And this is the place where we are goring to section 2 where we will be talking about.

Section 2

This part covers the practical side of photography - what to use, when to use it, and how to keep things simple while shooting.

In this section:

  • Camera, lenses & accessories (what actually matters)
  • JPG vs RAW (when it makes a difference)
  • Basic editing (what’s worth doing, what’s not)

Camera, lenses

Choosing a camera today is less about absolute image quality and more about how practical it is in real use. Modern crop sensor cameras are more than capable of delivering excellent results, and for most people, they are the better choice. They are smaller, lighter, and easier to carry — which matters more than you think when you spend full days walking around a city.

A typical travel setup adds up quickly. Even with a crop camera, a body, three lenses, filters, a tripod, spare batteries, and a backpack can easily reach around 5–6 kg. Add water and a few essentials, and you are carrying closer to 7 kg. That is already a lot. A full-frame setup will be noticeably heavier, and over time, that weight affects how long and how comfortably you can shoot.

Full-frame cameras do have advantages. They perform better in low light, allow more flexibility with faster shutter speeds, and give you slightly more control over depth of field. But it is always a trade-off. If you are traveling, exploring cities, and shooting throughout the day, a crop system is often the more practical and realistic choice. It gives you great quality without slowing you down.

When it comes to lenses, most people start with a standard zoom that comes with the camera — and that is perfectly fine. From there, the simplest way to build a complete setup is to add a telephoto lens for reach and a wide-angle lens for architecture, cityscapes, and tight spaces. This combination already covers almost everything you will encounter.

If you want to expand further, adding a fast prime lens (around 35mm equivalent) is a great step. It is usually smaller, sharper, and performs better in low light, while also giving you that natural-looking perspective. Today, there are many third-party manufacturers offering high-quality lenses at very reasonable prices, so building a solid setup does not have to be expensive.

Filters

Filters are one of the most underrated tools in photography, but they can completely change how your images look. The most useful ones to start with are ND filters, polarizing filters (CPL), and optionally diffusion filters like mist.

ND filters reduce the amount of light entering the lens, which allows you to use slower shutter speeds even in bright conditions. This is especially useful for creating motion blur during the day — for example smoothing water, capturing movement in crowds, or adding motion to city scenes that would otherwise look static.

A polarizing filter (CPL) helps control reflections and improve contrast. It can reduce glare on glass, water, and shiny surfaces, while also deepening colors and making skies look more defined. This is extremely useful in cities, where reflections are everywhere — from windows to streets after rain.

Mist or diffusion filters slightly soften the image and spread highlights, creating a more cinematic look. They are optional, but can work well in night photography or scenes with strong light sources, where you want a softer, more atmospheric feel instead of a perfectly sharp image.

Accesories

A tripod is one of the most important tools you can have, even if it is small and simple. It allows you to shoot in low light without raising ISO, use longer shutter speeds, and capture scenes during sunset, blue hour, or at night with much better quality. Water becomes smooth, lights become cleaner, and your images gain a level of precision that is impossible to achieve handheld.

It does not have to be expensive. Even an affordable tripod can make a huge difference if you use it occasionally. Compact travel tripods are more convenient if you want something that fits into a backpack, but even a basic model is enough to unlock entirely new types of shots.

One small accessory that makes a surprisingly big difference is a rubber lens hood. In many locations — especially observation decks, rooftops, and museums — you will be shooting through glass. Reflections quickly become a problem and can ruin an otherwise great shot.

In practice, almost every city you visit will have this issue. Finding a viewpoint without glass is extremely rare. One of the very few examples is the Montparnasse Tower in Paris, where dedicated openings for cameras are available. Everywhere else, you are dealing with reflections. A simple rubber lens hood, pressed against the glass, eliminates most of them and allows you to get a clean image. It is a small, inexpensive tool, but in real-world conditions, it is one of the most useful things you can carry.

RAW vs JPG

Both JPEG and RAW have their place, but they serve different types of users. RAW files contain more data and give you more flexibility in editing, especially when it comes to recovering highlights, shadows, or adjusting colors. This is useful in professional workflows or in situations where lighting is very difficult and you need maximum control after the shot.

However, this flexibility comes at a cost. RAW files are larger, require editing software, and take more time to process. Straight out of the camera, they often look flat and unfinished. They are not designed to be used immediately — they are meant to be edited first. For many people, especially when traveling, this extra step quickly becomes a burden rather than an advantage.

For most everyday photography, JPEG is the more practical choice. A well-exposed JPEG can look great straight out of the camera, ready to be shared, viewed, or used without any additional work. Modern cameras process images very well, and if you take the time to get the shot right — good light, proper settings, stable camera — you can achieve results that need little to no editing.

Personally, I shoot almost everything in JPEG. I prefer to focus on getting the image right in the moment rather than fixing it later. Using tools like film simulations (for example on Fujifilm cameras), I can achieve a specific look directly in-camera. This approach saves time and makes the entire process simpler — you can review, share, and use your photos immediately.

That said, RAW is still a valid choice if you enjoy editing or need maximum flexibility. But for a typical user — someone traveling, exploring, and taking photos for personal use or social media — it is often unnecessary. Simpler workflows usually lead to more consistent results.

Editing

  • You do not need advanced software to improve your photos. Most devices today — whether it’s Windows, Mac, or even your phone — come with built-in editing tools that are more than enough for basic adjustments.

    With just a few sliders, you can correct brightness, balance highlights and shadows, adjust contrast, improve colors, sharpen the image, or crop the frame. These simple adjustments can fix small imperfections and enhance a photo without changing its natural look.

    If the photo is good to begin with, this kind of quick editing covers the majority of real-world needs. Instead of spending time learning complex software, it is often more effective to focus on shooting better photos in the first place and using editing only as a finishing touch.