How to take really good pictures?

I wanna take some really good picture of anything, and I want it to look really good but I the only things I have are a blackberry and a Nikon camera to use, I know I can edit them but some I don't want to just make them look good without editing any ideas!

By "good" photographs, do you mean interesting? I hope so, because you can take interesting phtos with any camera. There's a fun book called "Hot Shots: How to Refresh Your Photos" by an author called Kevin Meredith (you can find him on Flickr as lomokev, link to book on Amazon under Sources).It's easy to read, good to just pick up for a short read and it contains plenty of ideas for interesting photographs.

I study photography and I find that the best images come out on a 35mm camera, you can buy then off ebay for a few quid, if your school/college has a darkroom you can develop the photographs yourself and create some really cool effects. If you're using a normal SLR camera look into depth of field and using the desicive moment in your images, if you google them you will see some pretty cool stuff. If you change the shutter speed on your camera to the longest shutter speed and wave objects like torches and glow sticks you can create images where you are drawing with light which are pretty cool too, and if you change the shutter speed to the shortest you can capture people jumping etc, there's so many different techniques, have a search around on the internet for some inspiration.

For really good images the camera is probably the least of it. Your Blackberry has a tiny 0.5Mp sensor interpolated up to 5Mp, pretty much useless for print, and serious photography, the only advantage they have, and it's a big one, is that it's always with you.

But for really good images you have to pay attention to what your photographing, at least 80% of what makes a good image happens external to the camera, the most important one is lighting, but composition, subject, the moment etc.etc., it's a long list matters much more than the camera settings.

The only things you can alter in camera are shutter speed to either eliminate or exaggerate movement blur and aperture with depth of field in mind and that's about it. Everything else can be altered in post processing especially if you shoot Raw.

Exposure should maximise data then you can any exposure you want in post. In other words your camera is just a data recorder, the Nikon will record better, more accurate data with less noise than your Blackberry. Get everything right the subject your pointing your camera at and it can't help but record a really good image.

Spending a fortune on camera gear does not guarantee good images, just lower noise, wider dynamic range and more accurately recorded poor ones.

I'm very glad that you asked the key question, and that is how.

How to take good photographs is down to technique and understanding photography, though I must warn you it's not something you can simply switch on. Photography is a lifetime's journey, on which you will explore and discover.

Perhaps some tutorials will be helpful for you to find your feet: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/...olour.com/

Also you don't necessarily have to have a system camera to take serious photographs using a compact camera with some basic semi/manual control. Scott Kelby's Digital Photography Book (volume 1) stresses this greatly).

Finally it's important to find photographers you admire, it's good to get some books that collect together a selection of great photographers.