What Are the Most Common Photography Mistakes and How to Fix or Avoid Them

by Lina Thorne • Updated 11/21/2025 · Posted in Photography

Mastering photography is a journey filled with discovery, experimentation, and, yes, a fair number of mistakes along the way. And the difference between a novice and an expert is the ability to anticipate, recognize, and correct them.

Fortunately, sometimes it only requires awareness, a tweak in technique, or a small shift in mindset.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through the most common photography mistakes that many beginners have encountered. We’ll also offer practical, actionable advice on how to avoid or fix them.

These are lessons most amateurs and pros wish they knew when they started. Hopefully, by the end, you’ll have a clearer understanding of how exactly you can start taking better photos.

Part 1. Technical Mistakes

These are the fundamental errors that can ruin a potentially good shot before you even consider creativity.

1. Being a Stranger to Your Camera

Many photographers, especially beginners, find their camera’s menu system intimidating. But if you want to get better at photography, you have to know how to get the most out of your equipment.

You might be struggling with a problem that your camera has a built-in solution for, or be completely unaware of useful features, like customizable buttons or highlight warning.

Additionally, when a fleeting moment unfolds, you don’t have time to fumble through menus and settings. You have to be able to change everything on the fly. Otherwise, you’ll miss “the shot”.

How to fix it:

Read the Manual. It’s a boring yet effective solution. Keep the PDF on your phone. Alternatively, you can search for a detailed camera user’s guide on YouTube – it’s kind of like a manual in a video format.
Practice in a Low-Pressure Setting. Don’t wait for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to figure out your camera. When you’re at home, take your camera and change settings deliberately. Explore the menu system.

2. Ignoring the Exposure Triangle

It’s not a good idea to surrender creative control to your camera’s Auto mode. Instead, you should try to shoot in semi-manual or manual mode. For that, you’ll need to learn about the exposure triangle, of course. Without understanding how aperture, shutter speed, and ISO work together, you risk overexposure, underexposure, or introducing noise.

Here’s what you need to know:

Aperture. A wide aperture (e.g., f/1.8) lets in a lot of light and creates a shallow depth of field, beautifully isolating your subject from a blurry background. A narrow aperture (e.g., f/16) lets in less light but keeps a vast scene, from foreground to horizon, in sharp focus. Try shooting the same subject at different apertures to see the change in background blur.
Shutter Speed. A fast shutter speed (e.g., 1/2000s) freezes a hummingbird’s wings or a splash of water. A slow shutter speed (e.g., 5 seconds) turns car headlights into streaks of light. If your images have motion blur, which you don’t want, you need to use a faster shutter speed.
ISO. Getting the ISO wrong will inevitably lead to a noisy image. You need to set your aperture and shutter speed to where you ideally want them. Then set the ISO as low as possible so that the image is properly exposed. This means that you don’t need to shoot at ISO 100 all the time. Another thing to point out is that even if you’re using a low ISO, yet your photo is very underexposed, there will probably be a lot of noise in your image.

When you get the exposure right, the brightness level is balanced, preserving the most detail and information across the entire scene. Your goal is to ensure that the key elements retain texture and detail rather than being washed out to pure white or lost to solid black.

Here are a couple more things to keep in mind:

Use the histogram to check for clipped highlights or shadows.
Slight underexposure is often safer than overexposing. It’s easier to recover dark shadows than fix blown-out highlights.
If there’s a lot of contrast between bright and dark areas – bright sky and dark ground – take multiple shots at different exposure levels, then you can edit them together in post-production. If your camera offers an HDR mode, give it a try – it’ll do a similar thing right in camera.

3. Camera Shake

If your images have motion blur, your shutter speed is either too slow or your hands are too shaky, or both. Camera shake is a major issue in low-light situations or when using telephoto lenses.

Here’s how to fix it:

The Focal Length Rule. To avoid or minimize camera shake when shooting handheld, your shutter speed needs to be minimum 1 or 2 times your focal length. For instance, if you’re using a 50mm prime lens, your shutter speed should be at least 1/50 or 1/100. On a crop-sensor camera, remember to use the equivalent focal length (e.g., a 50mm acts like an 80mm, so use 1/80s or faster).
Stabilize Yourself. Tuck your elbows in, plant your feet firmly, and become a human tripod. Breath out gently and press the shutter smoothly.
Use a Tripod. A tripod is essential for night photography, astrophotography, and long exposures. And it’s vital for you to get a tripod of decent quality. It doesn’t need to be expensive, but don’t buy cheap stuff. You want a tripod that’s sturdy and reliable. Also, use the 2-second self-timer to eliminate shake from your finger pressing the button.

4. Out of Focus

What if the shutter speed is fast enough, yet your subject is out of focus? If that’s the case, you might be using the wrong focus mode.

Most cameras have two focus modes:

One-Shot / AF-S: For stationary subjects. You half-press the shutter to focus, and it locks until you take the picture.
AI-Servo / AF-C: For moving subjects. The camera continuously adjusts focus as long as you hold the shutter button half-press.

In addition, you can make use of the Back-Button Focus (if your camera has it). You separate the focusing function from the shutter button by assigning it to a button on the back of your camera. This gives you faster and more precise control, especially for moving subjects.

Here’s another tip!

If your images look too soft and blurry, your aperture is probably too wide open. Try to shoot at f4 or f6.3 instead of f2.0.

5. Oops, I Forgot!

You’re on your way to the shoot when you suddenly realize that your memory card is still in the reader and your battery is dead. Forgetting to take the lens cap off is also a classic.

How can you fix this?

If possible, don’t pack your things in a rush. Create a pre-shoot checklist and check the following:

Battery: Is it charged? Do you have a spare?
Card: Is it formatted? Is it in your camera? Do you have a backup?
Lens: Are the front and back elements clean?
Settings: Are you shooting in the right file format (RAW)? Are your settings appropriate for the scene?

Before you take a shot, remember to take the lens cap off!

Part 2. Creative Mistakes

Do you want to make your photos more emotionally impactful? Fixing the following photography mistakes can help you with that.

1. Not Experimenting with Camera Angles

Beginners often shoot only from the eye-level. But this won’t help you create outstanding images.

What’s the solution?

Move around. Don’t just stand in one spot. Circle your subject. Sometimes the best angle is a couple steps from where you are.

Try different perspectives:

Get Low. Lying on the ground can make a pet, a flower, or a child look monumental.
Get High. Climb a hill, a set of stairs, or just hold your camera overhead to provide a commanding view of a scene.
Shoot from the Hip. Sometimes, this candid approach can lead to dynamic and unposed shots.

2. Neglecting Composition

The key to your photos looking well-balanced and making the impact you want is to compose them properly. A distracting background, a crooked horizon, or a subject that gets lost because too many elements are competing for attention – all of these can really take away from the beauty of a photo.

Here’s how you can fix this:

Learn the Compositional Rules: Rule of Thirds – Place your subject on the intersecting lines of a 3x3 grid for a more dynamic composition. Leading Lines – Use roads, fences, or rivers to guide the viewer’s eye to the subject. Frame Within a Frame – Use windows, arches, or tree branches to frame your subject and add depth.
Check the Background. Before you press the shutter, take a closer look at the background. Does everything look okay? Are there any distractions? Is there a tree growing out of your subject’s head? You can try to eliminate the distraction by telling your subject to move or by changing the camera angle.
Don’t Rush. If possible, take your time and compose the shot properly in camera.
Straighten the Horizon. Use the grid lines in your viewfinder or the level in your camera to get it right. Alternatively, you can fix the horizon in post.
Crop Your Photos. Most digital cameras produce high-quality images, which means you can easily crop out at least a quarter of your photo. In some cases, cropping can really help get the most out of your image.

3. Bad Lighting

One of the most common photography mistakes is failing to recognize when the light is working against you. Many photographers see an interesting subject and immediately start shooting, without pausing to assess the quality of the light.

If you really want to become a better photographer, you must study lighting. This is the most important thing that you can do.

You must know that there are two types of light:

Hard Light is direct, focused light that comes from a small light source relative to your subject. It creates sharp and dense shadows with a very abrupt transition from light to dark.
Soft Light is diffused light that comes from a large light source relative to your subject. It creates soft shadows with very gradual transitions from light to dark.

Light defines the mood in your shots and evokes emotions. The same scene can tell a completely different story based on the light alone. Light directs the viewers’ eyes since the human eye is instinctively drawn to the brightest part of a scene first. Moreover, the only way to create the illusion of depth, shape, and volume in your 2D image is by using light properly.

Part 3: Editing & Workflow Mistakes

Post-production can also make or break your photos.

1. Shooting in JPEG

In most cases, especially if you’re a beginner, shooting in JPEG won’t do you much good.

Shoot in RAW. Always.

You’ll have a better chance at saving your photo in editing:

Recover overexposed highlights and underexposed shadows.
Correct white balance without degrading the image.
Achieve a higher level of sharpening and noise reduction.

2. Over-editing or Under-editing

Cranking Clarity, Saturation, and Vibrance to 100, resulting in an oversaturated look, is not a good idea. It looks too amateurish and unnatural.

On the flip side, barely editing or even skipping editing can leave your photos looking flat and unpolished. Keep in mind that your camera won’t record the scene exactly as you see it. For instance, if you captured a beautiful sunset, yet in your photos it doesn’t look as colorful as you remember, you can make those colors richer and more vibrant with the help of editing.

How can you fix this?

Remember that editing should be like good seasoning – it should enhance the flavor, not overpower it.

It can be a good idea to take a break after you’ve finished editing. Get back to your photos after a while and, with a fresh look, assess whether colors look too saturated or not.

3. Always Back Up!

Don’t keep all your photos on a single hard drive or, worse, just on the memory card.

Implement the 3-2-1 Backup Rule:

3 Copies. Your original files plus at least two backups.
2 Different Media. Don’t keep all your backups on the same type of device (e.g., two external hard drives). Use a combination of hard drives and cloud storage.
1 Copy Off-Site. Protect against theft, fire, or flood by having one backup in a different physical location (cloud storage counts as off-site).

Back up your files as soon as possible after a shoot. Before formatting the memory card, check whether you’ve backed up everything.

Part 4: Mindset & Habit Mistakes

Your growth might be limited by your mindset.

1. Focusing On the Gear Too Much

Believing your next purchase will be the magic bullet that finally makes you a great photographer. But in reality, it won’t.

Surely, expensive equipment can make things easier. It can produce images of better quality. But truly pro photographers can take a great shot on pretty much anything. Photography is about your vision.

Here’s what you can do:

The One-Lens Challenge. Go out for a day with only a 50mm prime lens (or any single focal length). It will force you to think creatively about composition and movement. Master your current gear before thinking about upgrades.
Invest Your Time and Money into Your Skills. A workshop, an online course, or a trip to a picturesque location will do more for your photography than a new camera body.

2. The Ego & Expectation Trap

Don’t expect to create masterpieces from day one. Don’t treat constructive criticism as a personal attack. And if your non-photographer friends and family call every slightly sharp photo “amazing”, it doesn’t mean that you’re an exceptional photographer.

Here’s how you can get out of this trap:

Find a community of photographers you respect and ask for honest, constructive feedback. Learn to separate your personal attachment to a photo from its technical and artistic merits.
You will take thousands of bad photos. Every great photographer does. The key is to analyze why they are bad and apply that lesson to your next shoot.

3. The Creation vs. Consumption Imbalance

Are you spending more hours scrolling through Instagram or watching gear reviews on YouTube than actually shooting?

Prioritize doing over watching:

Never Stop Learning. Instead of reading a lens review, study the work of a pro photographer like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams, or Annie Leibovitz. Try to figure out what they did to get such great photographs.
Carry a Camera. The best camera is the one you have with you. Every moment can be a learning opportunity. Use your smartphone to practice seeing compositions in your everyday life.
Create a Project: Give yourself a personal assignment – “Street Portraits,” “The Color Blue,” “My Neighborhood at Dawn.” This gives you purpose and direction.

Conclusion

The photography mistakes outlined in this guide are not failures but stepping stones on the path to growth. Each blurry photo teaches you about shutter speed. Each cluttered composition hones your eye for simplicity.

Don’t try to fix everything at once, though. Learn gradually.

Remember, what truly matters is your vision, your curiosity, and your willingness to learn. Embrace the process, be kind to yourself when things go wrong, and celebrate the progress you make.