Digital Photography

Digital Photography Tips 2

Get yourself a bigger and faster memory Card. At the present time you can get two gigabyte SD cards, and they will probably get bigger still. Find some that are faster and then you can write to the cards a lot quicker and do bursts. Look for Turbo Two or Three or something similar. Extend the life of your batteries by using the optical viewfinder as much as you can instead of the LCD viewfinder screen. Carry a spare set of batteries with you that you know are fully charged. If you have a point and shoot camera, do not just use the Automatic setting. Try out the different modes such as aperture priority or Shutter Priority. There are other modes such as portrait, landscape, night shots, and sports mode. Learn how to use these modes and what circumstances they will be best for and then have a go at custom mode if you have it so that you have full control over your digital camera.

Shutter Speed

A slow shutter speed lets the subject move during the exposure and could result in blurring. A higher or faster shutter speed will freeze the motion. Shutter speeds can range from about 1/1000 of a second to a second or so. You may get camera shake if your camera is not on a tripod. A faster shutter speed will eliminate any blurring due to camera shake or an unsteady hand. You can also control the amount of light coming in to the digital camera with the shutter speed setting. Longer shutter speeds let in more light. High shutter speeds are de rigeur for action sports such as car racing or mountain bike riding. The fast shutter speeds freeze the motion and do not blur the subject. For surf photography i generally use a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second. If you want to do a long exposure of a second or more make sure you are using a tripod or some type of support. And use the self timer so you dont move the camera when depressing the button.

Landscape Photography

Sometimes the landscape you are shooting is so awesome that you cannot convey that in a picture. One way is to convey scale that helps you see the size of things by putting something in the frame that leads the eye to understand the scale of the scenery. At places like the Grand Canyon the scale is so huge that trees may only look like tiny green dots. Putting something in the foreground will help the viewer of the photo to create a sense of the scale of the landscape. Putting people or cars in the photo may help create a sense of perspective.

ISO

ISO is a measure of how sensitive your digital camera is to light. Higher ISO settings will let you take photos in lower light. The downside is that higher ISO settings introduce more noise into the pictures. It is similar to an amplifier that makes any imperfections louder. Most digital cameras have an Automatic ISO setting and this usually works fine in most cases. You can set it manually and a standard setting is 100. For shooting darker objects against a lighter background such as a tree, then a setting of ISO might be the best. High ISO settings above 400 may be used where you do not want to use a flash and there is a low light situation.