It is almost comical when it comes to suggestions on how to improve a photograph, the most common answers are - use a sharper lens, use a certain magical camera feature, use bokeh or add some mystical LUTs, filters or film simulation effect. Most of the times, these tricks do not even work. Instead of focusing on what you can do with your cameras, lenses or even editing skills, why not pay more attention to the subject and see if you can improve the following: lighting, background, composition. Even a single change of background can drastically improve an otherwise, failed, boring shot. An example shown in the cup of coffee here.
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| The improved shot - find a darker background so the white cup pops out |
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| The original shot - boring, dull, no contrast |
The coffee was serve in a white cup on a white table. The white cup blends into the white table, looking uninteresting and flat. No matter what lens you use, no matter what camera settings you change to, or computational photography features you use, no matter what filters or LUTs you apply, it won't improve the shot a bit. Understanding visual appeal is the key here, in order for the white cup to stand out from the scene, you need a darker background. Contrast, the difference between bright and dark areas usually will make a huge difference.
In order to add contrast to the frame, I relocated the coffee cup to a wooden chair. The brown wood color of the chair matches the coffee in the cup perfectly. The light came in through the window, a dramatic side lighting, which did not fall all the way to the floor, and that created dark shadows which immediately helped the white cup to visually stand out. There was no special recipe, or hidden trick here, a harmless and easy change of background significantly made the shot of the coffee cup so much better.
No, you do not need the sharpest lens, or the most expensive 100MP camera. All you need is some common sense and artistic direction. Let your eyes and imagination do the creative work. The camera is just there to capture your vision.
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