Shoot Like the Pros - First Put Your Digital Camera on the Right Settings
To experiment, test, tweak and screw up to your heart's content is the best way to get to know how to take a good digital picture, with the cost of another shots at nothing.
Why hold back? The Pros typically take dozens of shots to land a few keepers.
Now you can do the same.
Instant feedback is one of digital photography's most powerful advantages.
Do read your camera manual as soon as you can, digital camera are sophisticated devices with capabilities you might not anticipate from your past film experience.
You don't have To memorize everything right away, just keep an idea what it got to offer, always come back when you need it.
Practice make perfect! So practice every chance you get.
The more you do it the better you'll get.
Camera Settings Some critical settings need your immediate attention, and they won't necessarily be same from your past photography experience.
Surround resolution and JPEG compression level can affect your picture quality, so play it safe: Set your camera to highest available resolution and the highest JPEG compression Setting for now and work out the details later.
When in doubt, don't hesitate to take advantage of auto-exposure and auto focus.
Avoid auto-ISO for anything other than low-light action shots.
Try the lowest ISO setting your camera offers before venturing higher.
Higher ISO settings bring more images noise.
Many digital cameras behave like colour film-the best images are often slightly underexposed, particularly when bright scene elements are involved.
Use exposure compensation to feel out your own camera's exposure sweet spots, but count on some variation with photographic conditions.
When in doubt, bracket your exposures.
Sooner or later, you'll have to deal with other purely digital recording mode issues like White balance and in-camera sharpening, but it's usually safe to accept camera defaults on those fronts for starters.
If u use your camera's micro focus setting for close-up, be sure to turn it off right away.
Many a non-close-up's been blurred by a camera carelessly left in micro mode.
If your shots come out badly exposed, even in auto mode, make sure that exposure compensation hasn't been left at an untoward setting.
One of the most difficult parts of digital photography that new users have trouble getting Used to is the inevitable time delay that occurs between pushing the button on camera and capturing the picture.
Digital camera have more to do in preparing to take a photo than do film cameras.
Like film cameras, they have to focus the lens.
However, they also have to take a pre-exposure to get proper colour balance.
The good news is that they are able to achieve better exposed, better colour-balanced, and in many cases better focused images than film cameras.
The bad news is that this takes a fraction of second and could cause you to miss a great picture.
What can you do about it? There are a couple of approaches that are very effective.
The simplest is to just push the shutter button down half way as you are waiting for action to develop.
Keep it there until you ready for the photo, and then press the rest of the way.
Pressing half way signals the camera to immediately choose focus, colour balance, and exposure.
The subsequent delay when you take your shot is now quite small, comparable to film camera.
When I am shooting basketball games, I always keep the shutter button half depressed, and I get great action shots.
A second approach is to switch to manual exposure to focus.
If lighting is stable, as it is indoors, this works rather well.
Most digital cameras have tremendous depth-of-field, so focus is not critical.
Set your focus for a typical distance, and you will probably be happy with the results.
If this is an indoor sporting event, you will want the shutter speed as high as possible, so choose maximum aperture and adjust shutter speed for proper exposure.
Why hold back? The Pros typically take dozens of shots to land a few keepers.
Now you can do the same.
Instant feedback is one of digital photography's most powerful advantages.
Do read your camera manual as soon as you can, digital camera are sophisticated devices with capabilities you might not anticipate from your past film experience.
You don't have To memorize everything right away, just keep an idea what it got to offer, always come back when you need it.
Practice make perfect! So practice every chance you get.
The more you do it the better you'll get.
Camera Settings Some critical settings need your immediate attention, and they won't necessarily be same from your past photography experience.
Surround resolution and JPEG compression level can affect your picture quality, so play it safe: Set your camera to highest available resolution and the highest JPEG compression Setting for now and work out the details later.
When in doubt, don't hesitate to take advantage of auto-exposure and auto focus.
Avoid auto-ISO for anything other than low-light action shots.
Try the lowest ISO setting your camera offers before venturing higher.
Higher ISO settings bring more images noise.
Many digital cameras behave like colour film-the best images are often slightly underexposed, particularly when bright scene elements are involved.
Use exposure compensation to feel out your own camera's exposure sweet spots, but count on some variation with photographic conditions.
When in doubt, bracket your exposures.
Sooner or later, you'll have to deal with other purely digital recording mode issues like White balance and in-camera sharpening, but it's usually safe to accept camera defaults on those fronts for starters.
If u use your camera's micro focus setting for close-up, be sure to turn it off right away.
Many a non-close-up's been blurred by a camera carelessly left in micro mode.
If your shots come out badly exposed, even in auto mode, make sure that exposure compensation hasn't been left at an untoward setting.
One of the most difficult parts of digital photography that new users have trouble getting Used to is the inevitable time delay that occurs between pushing the button on camera and capturing the picture.
Digital camera have more to do in preparing to take a photo than do film cameras.
Like film cameras, they have to focus the lens.
However, they also have to take a pre-exposure to get proper colour balance.
The good news is that they are able to achieve better exposed, better colour-balanced, and in many cases better focused images than film cameras.
The bad news is that this takes a fraction of second and could cause you to miss a great picture.
What can you do about it? There are a couple of approaches that are very effective.
The simplest is to just push the shutter button down half way as you are waiting for action to develop.
Keep it there until you ready for the photo, and then press the rest of the way.
Pressing half way signals the camera to immediately choose focus, colour balance, and exposure.
The subsequent delay when you take your shot is now quite small, comparable to film camera.
When I am shooting basketball games, I always keep the shutter button half depressed, and I get great action shots.
A second approach is to switch to manual exposure to focus.
If lighting is stable, as it is indoors, this works rather well.
Most digital cameras have tremendous depth-of-field, so focus is not critical.
Set your focus for a typical distance, and you will probably be happy with the results.
If this is an indoor sporting event, you will want the shutter speed as high as possible, so choose maximum aperture and adjust shutter speed for proper exposure.
