We all get photography advice online, from fellow photographers, and from teachers. However, the occasional bit of silly technical advice also comes up.
While there are plenty of resources for photography tips and tricks out there, we also encounter some useless and absurd technical photography advice. These often do the opposite of what they’re intended to do: help us become better photographers. You can trust the folks of Reddit to discuss the matter — and keep others away from crappy information.
It all began on this r/photography thread by Reddit user thenerdyphoto. “I once saw a guy recommending to a friend that he use the pop up flash on his camera to photograph the Empire State Building,” he shared. Soon enough, others came forward with their own contributions. Below are just a selection of them. How bad they are, we let you decide.
“Turn your iso way up in bright sunlight to make your images brighter. As you can imagine, I was confused. Turns out she was cranking her iso up enough that her shutter speed maxed out, making her images brighter. Exposure compensation the hard way I guess.” –Â f_14
“‘You don’t want to get into flash photography’ and ‘always shoot wide open.'” –Â TonyArkitect
“Telling someone to shoot manual or shoot raw without explaining why.” – Skitch_n_Sketch
“‘Pros only shoot manual.’ This was from a person I respected as a photographer because back in the day, his images looked outstanding to my young and naive eyes. That advice hindered me for years. Now that I’m older, wiser and much more skilled, I look back and fully, understand why he never made it in photography.” –Â wanakoworks
“Don’t use flash for shooting portraits in daylight.” –Â mymyreally
‘You should buy lens ____ because it’s sharper.’ ‘I always shoot with ____ because its sharp.’ Sharpness is one characteristic of a lens… And frankly, modern lenses are so good that it’s usually irrelevant. Stop pixel peeping; your image is either sharp enough or it isn’t. Pay attention to the art of photography; you’ll be amazed by how many important photos don’t meet crazy standards of ‘sharpness.’ Use the lens that gets the shot.” –Â burning1rr
“I went to this beginner training at Best Buy and the ‘expert’ was telling some ladies to just use the âscene modeâ to not bother trying to use the other modes of the camera. These women had just spent thousands of dollars on equipment for scene mode?? Really??” –Â atrinityt25
“Don’t worry you’ll fix it in post.” – MalkoRM
“Worked with a camera assistant once who swore that the only proper way to clean a Zeiss lens was to use your own breath as cleaning fluid… and he proceeded to demonstrate. Had to rat on him to his boss, and his boss was just as clueless. Really made me re-evaluate my career choice.” –Â jonathan_92
Got something even worse than these? Share the worst technical photography advice you’ve heard onto the Reddit thread and share it with us in the comments below.
