Mirrorless Camera Maniac: Take–Make–Shoot

I suspect that you need to shoot more pictures. I was recently teaching at a dude ranch in Montana (it was a marvelous week–I hope to see you next year) and the one thing each of my students needed to do was to shoot more pictures.

People often notice that when I’m talking about the act of recording images with a camera I always say “Let’s make a picture.” This is 100% intentional. I do my best not to take pictures, but to make them together with the people I’m photographing, or to be intentional and contemplative when photographing landscapes. I’m all about making pictures.

Once You Make, Shoot More

So I’m being really intentional about making a picture, and you might think I plan to press the shutter once and be done. But it’s not so. Once I’ve got a picture ready to be made, I press that shutter button over and over again, especially when photographing people. The moment builds, expressions change, and the wind blows a single piece of hair into the perfect spot and if you’re not looking through the viewfinder with your finger on the shutter you’re going to miss it.

Mirrorless cameras are famous for having crazy frame rates–I can crank out more than 30 frames per second on my Lumix. I’m not saying you need to mash it down on the highest frame rate, but you do need to shoot a lot more.

I’ve got six frames of Chelsea looking this direction while wading and fishing, but she didn’t crack up laughing until several frames, and it makes the picture worthwhile. You need to shoot more while making pictures so you don’t miss the best photograph.

The Mirrorless Camera Maniac publishes each week–check them out right here.

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Levi Sim

Levi Sim is passionate about making photographs and helping others make their pictures better, too. He's a full-time photographer making business portraits and marketing and branding pictures for a living. He spends the rest of his time practicing all other kinds of photography. Read more of his articles here. And you can see more of Levi's portfolio here.

Levi is honored to be an ambassador for Lumix cameras, Vanguard tripods and bags and Spider Holster carry systems.

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