Having pictures of your projects is priceless. If you are looking back for memories, or for an insurance claim, it's always a good idea to keep high-quality photos of your ride.

No matter if you have a pocket camera, or professional setup, these two things can render your photos useless.  

No matter if you have a pocket camera, or professional setup, these two things can render your photos useless.  

Light
Too much or not enough can be bad. Taking pictures in the dark usually makes the camera use a harsh flash or a long exposure. For pocket cameras, try and get as much ambient light as possible. This will help keep the closer objects from looking washed out from the flash. For cameras with remote flashes, try bouncing the light off something first or using a diffuser. Too little light and no flash with a camera functioning on aperture priority, will make your exposure very long. If you don't have a tripod, you will never get a nice shot.

Focus
If your camera is not in focus, your photo will only look good from far away. Pocket cameras are almost always auto focus, so you don't really get to play with it. However, a less-than-steady hand or movement can blur the shot. The display windows are so small that you may not be able to tell unless you zoom in. On all important pictures, be sure to double-check the focus before moving on. On manually focused cameras, be sure to zoom in as far as you can on the closest object you would like to be in focus, focus the lens, then zoom back out to frame the photo how you want.