Awesome Tips that will help you with Digital Photography
by Dan Feildman
The camera consumer trend over the past five years has been to go digital. The development and use of Single Lens Reflex [SLR] digital cameras has grown dramatically. The marked drop in use of large format film cameras and enlarging lenses reflects the decreasing market demand for those historically traditional film cameras. While one reputable manufacturer is still producing their flagship film cameras, most have discontinued a large number of their film lenses. While many remain faithful to the advantages of film technology, it is obvious that digital photography is going to capture the mainstream market. The increased quality in digital capture and memory capacity has been one alluring factor. For the first generation digital cameras, there was the challenging question of whether to store the digital data files in RAW or in JPEG or TIFF. Now many companies provide instant storage of a RAW image at the same time a full-color JPEG is displayed for the photographer's immediate use.
You may want to choose your low-end camera as much by what kind of storage cards it uses as by its features, especially if you're trying to save money. Even if you don't buy your storage cards on eBay, it can be a great place to compare prices and get an idea which types of cards (and capacities) are currently less expensive. Most low-end cameras use standard (or rechargeable) AA or AAA batteries, which are inexpensive for casual use and found just about everywhere. A very few cameras in this class use 6-volt lithium batteries, which have become fairly common. The lithium batteries reduce the size and weight of the camera. Obviously, flash usage reduces battery life, but many cameras allow you to turn off the LCD display, which also saves considerable battery life. You may have to think a little more about how you use the tool (many low-end cameras are slow to power-up, so that fleeting moment may not be captured, and automatic shut-off to save battery life may be as short as 30 seconds), but good photographic habits include knowing the limitations of the tool. Within those limits, a low-end digital camera is the most efficient way to get the job done.
There are many myths in this world, spread by word-of-mouth, official sources or just common assumption. It can be difficult to tell which are true and which are not. First is the common myth that X-rays damage memory cards or cameras. Some people go to great lengths to protect their gear on trips, especially from the dreaded airport X-ray machine. This is mostly wasted effort, and can even cause more problems than it solves. Airport X-rays can't damage a digital camera, or your memory cards. Your equipment and data are secure. Your only problem is that the wand-type metal detectors used by security to check when the X-ray or walk-through metal detectors indicate a problem may corrupt data on memory cards. What that means is that carrying cards on your person to avoid sending them through the X-ray machine exposes them to greater risk. Efforts to protect memory cards with something to block x-rays only flags your luggage for more careful search, possibly exposing the cards to the stronger magnetic field of the handheld wands.
It is often said that resolution is the most important factor in image quality. This one is not even close, it's lenses, hands down. That's why DSLR cameras with removable lenses are so highly valued, and why professionals spend so much more on lenses than on cameras. Even a single high-quality lens can cost more than the camera body. Poor quality lenses can impose many problems, from blur and distortion to color flaws and darkening of the image edge, that high resolution cannot hope to compensate for. I'd definitely rather have a 6 mega pixel SLR camera than an 8 Mega pixel compact. Dynamic range is the scale of light tonality from darkest to brightest in an image. The greater the dynamic range to start the more versatility you have with a photograph in post captures. Cameras at ISO 100 have a dynamic range of about 446:1. That means the digital image captures and delivers an image made from 8.8 stops of brightness. Where you capture a wider dynamic range, you have more to work with. Digital cameras provide the user the ability to change many camera exposure settings to brighten or lighten a photograph. Exposure settings such as White Balance, exposure compensation and saturation are limited in their ability to represent a photograph by the quality of raw capture provided. Many cameras now allow one to capture in RAW and in JPEG to provide one immediate true color representation of JPEG while archiving the maximum amount of material in RAW. Digital cameras increase our ability to edit more tonal characteristics of RAW files with a variety of sophisticated user-friendly software. A 6 mega pixel cameras may have sophisticated lenses and a sensor that provides 35 mm coverage with 8 to 10 mega pixel quality. The sensor and lens dramatically affect the capture quality of your camera, mega pixel or not
You will want to get familiar with a term called the "Focal Length". This term explains just how far out a shot can be taken, and still be in focus. There are a couple of different categories of focal lengths, including telephoto (perfect narrow sized photos) and wide-angle (best for wider shots). It is noted that most of the digital cameras are built with telephoto lenses, and not the wide-angle. If you are looking to take pictures of wide spaces, then you may need an additional lens.
If you want to capture incredible details and use less flash for night photos, then using a longer exposure time is the only way to go. If you are going to use a long exposure, make sure that you use a tripod, as any movement at all during the picture will cause the picture to become blurred. Also, you can capture some pretty cool effects, like car lights, when using a longer exposure. You will want to make sure that you know how to use and when to use your flash when taking a night picture, too. Most of the time, you probably will not even want to use your flash when you are taking a night photo. If youare taking a picture of an object, like a person, though, you will want to use your flash. When taking pictures of the night skyline, though, it is best to use a long exposure and take advantage of the natural lighting conditions. If you decide to take pictures at night, you will want to be able to control the photo as much as possible. Basically, you would take a shot of the area you want in your picture. Then, you take a picture of that same shot, only with the lens cap on. The reason for this is that at night, some of the pixels in the picture will not be visually good. When you take the picture with the lenses cap on, you will be recording the pixels again, while they are hot in your camera's memory. You can then use those pixels to repair the bad ones in the photo, with a photo editor. (If you don't happen to have a photo editor, you can download one for free, just search for one on the Internet.)
If you are a picture-taking nut, then you probably love to share your work with others. When it comes to sharing digital pictures, there is nothing easier! Whether you have just taken another great picture of the new baby, or you have recently found an old photo that you know someone else would love, you can quickly share it with others. There are many ways to share a digital photo and there are just as many great reasons why you should! Why do you want to store your digital photos onto a CD or DVD? So that you can have them anytime you want, and so that you can print copies that you may need in the future. You can quickly slide the CD or DVD into a computer or any player you may have lying around. You can view the CD or DVD as a kind of slide show, if you want, and everyone can look at it at the same time; no more waiting to pass the pictures from person to person this way! You can also conveniently and effortlessly copy the CD's for anyone you want, if you have a CD or DVD burner, which are not really very expensive.
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