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How to: Take better photos using zoom a new way

Too often photographers use zoom to save walking up to the subject. Try thinking of zoom as a composition tool.
1:01 /
Transcript
^M00:00:01 [ Music ] ^M00:00:09 >> I'm Brian Cooley with a quick How-To on taking better digital photos by using your zoom the right way. Now too often photographers use zoom to avoid walking up to the subject or just because it's fun to play with. There's a better way to think of zoom and that is as a composition tool. If your lens is in the wide position, you tend to gather a lot of background and junk and everything is in focus. That can make your picture busy and sort of unfocused in the compositional sense. But if you step back from your subject and then zoom back into it, you narrow the amount of the annoying background and tend to throw it all out of focus a bit and your subject really pops. If you've got aperture control on your camera, you can force that to a larger aperture or a low F number to amplify these effects. So think of zoom differently and you'll get some great photos.

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