Get Professional With Your Digital Camera
Do better digital cameras really give you better pictures? So many people tend to believe that once you've got a great camera, all your worries about mediocre pictures are things of the past. And from that moment on, anything they shot would only have to be great.
While this is not strictly true, there is some truth in it. If you were to look at the new age digital cameras, you will have to admit that it has definitely made life easier as far as good photographs are concerned. When compared with conventional cameras, there are definitely many advantages for digital cameras. The main thing is the great and perceivable difference in the quality. Let's take a look at some of the main advantages.
One of the biggest advantages is that the pictures can be seen immediately on the LCD screen so you can either keep it or delete it if you don't like it. Then, the cost. The recurring costs are not too much. Unlike having to keep buying film, the digital camera has a memory card or a stick which you can use over and over again. Of course, its capacity is huge too. You can store so many pictures and if the memory is large, this could run into thousands! You can send these pictures to anyone as an attachment to your email and you can also change them - make them sepia, crop them, whatever.
There are a few limitations here too. If the light is very low, you might get a granular look or it could be blurred. Yes, photo editing software does improve it but there are certain flaws that cannot be improved.
The thing to remember is that it is the person behind the camera who is most important when it comes to how good a picture is. What the digital camera does is to facilitate a better picture. So let's look at a few tips on how to make sure that picture looks good!
If it's the outdoors or landscapes with the sun falling on them that you want to shoot, make sure that you change the settings of your white balance from auto to cloudy and you'll get more red and yellow tones to make your pictures look warm and rich. For outdoor shoots you might want to keep a polarizer handy. Once you get rid of those unwanted reflections, the colors show up richer. If you don't have one, use your sunglasses instead. You can use this to the maximum degree by ensuring that the source of light is perpendicular to the subject.
The flash in the digital camera is amazing. You can control when to use the flash and when not to. In fact, if you look closely at wedding photographers, you'll find that they use the flash in an outdoors setting to advantage. The flash lights up the background as well as the subject adding up to a wonderful picture. You could get a great effect by photographing your subject in the shade and using the flash. Or try using the sun as a back light so only the rim of the hair gets illuminated. Just make sure you are not too far away when you use the flash because it might not illuminate large distances.
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You can use digital cameras very well for macro photography. Would you ever believe how wonderful are the tiny creatures all around us? Now is your chance to go digital and prove it. You can use this close-up mode to advantage to get great pictures. Go down and lie flat on the ground if necessary and shoot away. What it does is to bring the object into sharp focus and the rest of the area around goes soft.
There are times when what you thought was a straight shot looks a little 'not so erect' when it gets onto the computer screen. This happens especially when it is the horizon line so it might be a good thing to have a few alternatives - some straight and some slightly tilted either way so at least one comes out all right. It takes a lot of practice to get the framing right.
Try and see that your memory card is large and can hold a lot of pictures. Take note that for a 3 mega pixel camera, you will need a 256 MB memory card, a 512 MB memory card for a 4 mega pixel camera and for a 6 mega pixel camera, you will need a 1 gigabyte memory card.
You don't have to do high resolution shots all the time. You can do lower resolution too because you then get more pictures. Of course if you have a lot of memory, you can take quite a few high resolution pictures without losing out on the number. It would help if you had a tripod - the pictures do come better because of the absolute steadiness. Many people find it a pain to use one but the results really are better when you use it. You could try Pedco's UltraPod II™ which is small enough to fit into your pocket. You could also use the Velcro™ strap so your camera could be attached to a tree or a pole.
You can do a lot with the self timer. Most people tend to not use this facility. It can be used very effectively to get a shot that you might miss otherwise. They can be used for long exposure shots too. You can also get wonderful effects by using slow motion.
All it takes is a bit of familiarization with your digital camera and before you know it, you will be taking pictures that everyone will envy.
A great resource for learning to take professional quality photos with a digital camera.
Mastering Digital Photography
