Every novice photographer can make mistakes, but some of them may transform into bad habits. How to get rid of bad professional hobbits, improve the quality of your photos and make them more interesting?

Not only newbies but also professional photographers can have bad habits. Unlike pros, newbies often don’t even aware of bad habits they may have, and that often don’t let them make really high-quality photos.  Here are eight the most common mistakes, that most newbies usually make. 

Some photographers had this habit since those times when digital cameras didn't exist, and the bright light was necessary to take a good photo. Also, those photographers whose camera don't have a viewfinder may develop such a habit.  The brighter is the light; the brighter and clearer will be an image on LCD-screen in daylight.

But bright lighting whitens some parts of a photo and hides details, creates sharp shadows and decreases the brightness of colors. If you take a photo of a person, bright light can make him/her close the eyes or blink.

Try to shoot on cloudy days, early in the morning or late in the evening, when the lighting is not so bright.

It can't be denied that photos in JPEG take less place on your PC, in comparison to RAW format, but now the data storage devices are rather cheap, so you can buy several of them to store your material in RAW format.

The RAW format contains a lot of information relating brightness of light, taken by camera matrix, and this means that after taking a photo you will be able to change its brightness to reveal new details that were unseen previously.  

You won’t be able to do this in JPEG format, as when you press a shutter button,  the exposure and color balance of your photo is predetermined by a camera. What's the point of letting your camera decide how to process your photos if you can make high-quality images using modern, easy-to-use programs?

This perhaps is the worst habit of newbies, that is not very easy to change. Yes, sometimes it is necessary to place objects in the center, but such a necessity occurs more rarely than you can imagine. Just follow the rule of thirds, and everything will be fine. 

In time, you will learn how to take excellent photos not using standard composition rules, but you should experiment a lot to achieve this. And this is much more complicated than just follow the rule thirds and get good photos.

This is one more bad habit, that can turn your photos into unremarkable “snapshots.” Most of the time we see the world at the eye level while sitting or standing. Photos taken from these two angles show us nothing new, only those things we already know.

If you try to take a shot, squatting down or on your knees, this will add freshness to your photo. You can also take photos from other unusual angles, for example from the balcony, from the top of the stairs, from the window of the second floor, etc.

Utility lines are the real bane of street photographers. They pay so much attention to the object of their photo that doesn't notice the surroundings, and as a result, a background may spoil the whole picture.

Even the shade of photographer on the ground can spoil the best photo. So, if you can, it's better to choose the most simple background with minimum buildings and other utilities, especially if people are the main object of your photo. In this case, there won't be any lampposts "growing" out of somebody's head and other troubles of such kind. The second solution is to use a focus distance when the main object is sharp, and the background is blurred.

Even on the exhibitions of professional photographers, you may find a lot of similar photos. They are of high-quality, beautiful and perfect regarding composition, but they show nothing new.

At the same time, each object can be photographed differently, even the most done to death theme can become something new. So look for uncommon decisions, for example, if everyone shoots a beautiful church during the day, try to photograph it in the evening, from a different angle, and the weather conditions may be varied as well, etc.

In spite of the miracles of stabilization that almost every camera has, this function has its limits. You won't be able to reduce too fast or too strong camera shake, stabilization won't work if exposure is too long or too short, and sometimes may even spoil everything.

That’s why it’s better to get a tripod and use it when possible. So the photos will be more sharp and clear, and you will find more opportunities to try different techniques.

Previously to print a photo you had to pay or buy all the required staff to do this yourself. Now in the era of digital technologies, you can make as many photos as you like.

One of the tricks, why the images of the National Geographic photographers seem something really awesome and beyond reach, is that pros take as many photos of the same object as possible.

You can try to do the same, but you should be ready to spend a lot of your time trying to choose the best pictures. However, this process of examining your images will help you to become more experienced and critical regarding your shots.

Many may not agree with this and say these are not the worst habits, but if you try to get rid of them, you will see how your pictures improve.