Imagine taking pictures and printing those moments later. Unleash the power of digital photography and this is what happens. All that are required for taking a digital photograph is a digital camera, a PC, a USB connection to the computer, a printer and a photo-editing program. The first step in taking a digital photograph is to familiarize yourself with the digital camera. Now, do not get frightened! Here is how you can deal with it.
All about a Digi Cam
Pixel This is short for picture element, the smallest piece of a digital image. A pixel is also referred to as a single point in a graphic image. These elements are the building blocks of your picture, similar to floor tiles or the squares in a mosaic. Put millions of these tiny squares together and you have a digital picture. In fact, "megapixel" is a simple way of saying one million pixels.
Resolution This refers to the number of pixels in an image. The more the pixels in a digital photograph, the more detail the digital photograph can contain and better the image quality. It also refers to the sharpness and clarity of a digital photograph. It is measured in Mega pixels. One Mega pixel is equal to one million pixels. A low resolution refers to less than 1 mega-pixel, high-resolution refers to greater than 1 mega-pixel and advanced high resolution is 4 mega-pixels or more. In Digital Photography the resolution of the camera is the most necessary feature to produce first class photographs.
Auto Focus A good choice for general picture taking is auto mode. This setting, allows your digital camera to automatically set the exposure, the focus, and the flash. With auto mode, you may override the automatic options of the flash and choose to turn the flash off, use fill flash, or red eye reduction.
Digital Zoom This crops your image and magnifies the result of the cropping. This magnification process is called interpolation. Sacrificing image quality to capture the moment is more important than not getting the picture at all.
Optical Zoom This physically tends to magnify the subject. A motor controls the lens movement. When you press the switch to W or T, the subject is either magnified or reduced in size. They are wide-angle (reduce) and telephoto (magnify) respectively. This allows you to view the subject before taking the picture.
Memory It denotes the number of images stored in the camera.
What is up next, regarding the components that are drawn in with Digital Photography?
Items associated with Digital Photography
Computer Keen to know the task of a computer in Digital Photography! The Computer is the vital component in Digital Photography. It does the most important task of storing and displaying digital photographs from the digital camera. It allows those digital photographs to get printed onto an array of digital printers that are available.
The display monitors The display monitors shows you the images in a broad range of colors. However the image can be seen in different looks when viewed on various display monitors. It is for this reason that it is advised to set the settings of the monitor to the default values as set by the manufacturer.
Printers used for Digital Photography
This prints the image on a photographic paper. Inkjet, Dye sublimation and Thermo Autochrome are few of the Printers used in Digital Photography.
Now you know it all. Digital photography is no longer a stranger!! So, start clicking away.
So, you bought the best digital camera you could afford, with every intention of finally learning to take better photos. All those features sounded great while you were in the camera shop. Then you took one look at that inch-thick manual, full of technical terms and complex detail, and thought 'Maybe I will stick with auto after all'. After all, if you make a mistake, you can just delete it, right?
Does this sound like you? Don't worry, you are not alone. Camera manuals reflect the technical power of modern cameras, but they are intimidating to any beginner who just wants to take a decent photo.
Digital cameras are like most computer programs; you may only need to learn about 10% of the functions on offer. So don't get tied up in knots trying to understand everything. Just learn what you need to know, and learn it well, and you will be well on the way to being a better photographer.
Here are a few tips that may just take the complexity out of photography for you.
Tip #1. Stick with the basics. In the days of film, good photographers used SLR cameras with two main settings; aperture and shutter speed. These were the ingredients of all great photography. Today, cameras come with hundreds of features, but guess which ones you really need to understand? That's right, aperture and shutter speed.
If you can understand these two settings, you are halfway to becoming a better photographer. Your manual (I never said you could throw it away) will tell you which buttons to press on your camera. However, to really understand what these settings are all about, don't rely on the manual. There is plenty of information out there; workshops, websites, books and ebooks can help.
Practice has never been easier than it is today. Most cameras have semi-automatic settings, called 'aperture priority' and 'shutter priority,' that allow you to operate one setting while the camera takes care of the other. This is a great way to practice a skill without fear of getting too many failed exposures.
Tip #2. Learn from your mistakes. If you just delete every photo you are not happy with, you are missing a golden opportunity to learn from your own experience. Photos you consider 'rejects' actually contain useful information - you really can learn from your mistakes!
Let's say you are experimenting with aperture. Try photographing a scene three times, with three different aperture settings, for three slightly different results. Instead of keeping your favourite and deleting the others immediately, you could transfer them to your computer and take the time to examine them properly. You can see how each setting changed the look of the picture, and which setting worked best for that subject. Now you can learn from your own results, not from some theory in a book.
Did you know that if you right-click your mouse over a photograph on your computer and select 'properties' you will find a lot of information embedded in the file? You don't have to keep a note of the aperture/shutter speed information; your photo does it for you!
Of course in the long term you don't want to keep every single photo you take, but you might want to keep a folder of 'learning photos' to refer to later, with maybe two versions of each subject you experiment with. To make it even easier, rename the pictures with relevant titles, for example: Wildflowers/Small Aperture, Wildflowers/Wide Aperture; Waterfall/Fast Shutter, Waterfall/Slow Shutter.
Tip #3. Learn The Art As Well As The Technique. Every problem in photography cannot be solved by the camera. Experienced photographers know that good lighting and creative composition is often more important than up-market technology. A poor photograph is not always the result of poor technical ability; more often it is the result of bad lighting or lack of creativity in the composition. Yet daily I meet people who think that all their problems would be solved by a better camera, or some mysterious technique they are yet to learn.
Remember what I said in Tip #1; aperture and shutter speed are the fundamental skills, and with a little practice, they are not hard to learn. Master them and you are halfway there. The key to becoming a really good photographer is a balance of technical knowledge and artistic skill. Practice both, and soon your friends will be coming to you for photography tips!
Both John Darby & Andrew Goodall are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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