Candid Photography tips for Beginners

Basic Candid Photography Tips for Beginner

Candid photographs are tough at some time, it’s not like capturing the best moments, here you must capture the best moments, at the best time. At candid timing matters, even you can miss the moment in a blink of an eye. Candid is mostly unplanned shots of un-posed subjects.

Candid shots are unpredictable one, you have no other option or one more take like other traditional photographs. Family time and friends gathering are the best for candid shots. For capturing the best candid shots, you need more training and experience, if you are Beginner you can utilize our basic tips, which may help you to learn a bit about candid photography.

The basic tip is you should learn how to take a candid shot of the person before they know you are capturing them?

You can start focusing on a subject from the group of people in some conversation, if you focus the person while talking, they will forget about your camera and they will show their real emotions in the facial expressions. This is the basic natural way of shooting candid photography.

girl taking a candid shots

Basic Technical Tips for Candid Photography

  1. Aperture or Shutter Priority Mode

For candid photography, semi-automatic modes are best, manual mode may get slow while capturing the immediate shots. For proper exposure set the ISO and aperture value so, your camera automatically adjusts the shutter speed. Same for the shutter priority set your ISO and shutter speed, then the camera easily adjusts the aperture value.

In candid photography, the situation and subjects will get change continuously in a fraction of time. For example, if you are shooting a wedding, you can shoot a group shot and suddenly changes into the bride and groom and to focus on the guests and again back to the bride.

  1. Don’t Use Flash

 While taking a candid shot, try to avoid flashes and utilize the natural light as much you can. So, you can get good exposure for your camera accordingly. If you use the flash it will harsh the person’s face and they will immediately change their reaction, you will miss the moment of reality in the fraction of second. Some flashlights create unnatural effects, so it may be better to low light the flash while taking the candid shots.

Girl posing for candid shot

  1. Get Close to your subjects

The basic technique of taking an authentic candid image is you should closely understand the subjects. For example, while you are capturing the photography of kids playing near the garden, you may plan to capture the natural behavior of playing kids. But the kids are excited to give poses for your camera, so you can wait for a few minutes when they will return to playing area is the perfect time to capture the candid shot.

  1. Try to shoot in Raw format

To add more natural to your candid photography you should avoid taking photos with some additional settings like bright modes available in your camera. 

  1. Don’t Let your camera Down

 The candid photography is unplanned and unpredictable, so you never wait for the perfect time to capture the candid shots, have your camera with you all the time and never let it down.  Keep the camera in the right position to avoid shakes and blurs.