How To Shoot A Digital Photo: Part 2 Video

By: Guest More than a year ago

Just discovered your site -thank you for the education, good tips on features to seek or not, things to think about on techniques. Good Job!

Reply to this Comment

How To Shoot A Digital Photo: Part 2

Chris Pirillo: Big tip there. Now you also need to learn how to set the flash straight. Rule of thumb; at night, shoot with the lower setting and in the day time, crack it up, sounds weird, right. But if the flash is set too high in low light not only would it blind your subject that a camera want to compensate with the strong flash and the picture will come out darker. During the day, it's already bright. So small flash will not help you get rid of shadows that maybe on the face or in the foreground. Use less flash, ever try to take a picture but it never comes out looking like it's suppose to, it's amazing what you didn't get without a flash ironically in lower light. Sometimes the flash is too bright for the situation where it will only light up the closest object or will make the picture lose the field desired. Like shooting a Christmas tree, picture taken with a flash will lose the beauty of the lights on the tree or candle light dinner will look like a plain dinner with a candle in the middle. So experiment without a flash, but remember to hold your camera steady. It might be a monopod comes in handy and that's just a tripod with just one leg. Well, not really a tripod at that point but it's a one leg pod mono. Set up closer, when shooting in low light, get closer to your subject rather than zooming in because of the small sized lens, more zoom equals less light entering into the lens. So walking up closer to the subject will help with getting a better quality photo. Get a tripod, shooting in low light requires a steady hand, even a slight vibration of the hand can make a blurry photo. Instead of raising the ISO, remember the sensitivity, use the tripod. Most pros use it always. Tripod can also help while taking a picture of a baby. Similarly, mount the camera on a tripod, position to frame and concentrate on entertaining the baby. When the baby smiles, hit the button and you will get the shot. Tripod is very handy in many situations. So have one around. Another thing also under there for catching subjects like babies or pets is going to multiple like to take picture shooting mode and that way, you just basically hold the shutter down and it keeps -- that's the sound then. That's not what your camera sounds like and if it does, you probably want to take it back to store. Now what's the quality. Shoot at a highest quality setting, but not the highest pixel amount. Setting a camera to use less megapixels while setting the Superfine quality, can improve low light shots. Most cameras will set to lower pixel rates, combine pixels to create a larger ones instead of downsizing the photo, which helps in low light. Also when using a Digital Zoom, some cameras take advantage of unused pixels to help out sharpness and quality. Check to see in the menus for different Digital Zoom settings if your camera can do that. You may get less zoom than in a default mode, but the quality will be much better. But in addendum, use Digital Zoom sparingly, despite all of the advertisements, Digital Zoom should only be used in emergencies. More Digital Zoom equals less quality photo. Also, if the camera does not have the Smart Digital Zoom function, talked about in the other tip there, then consider shooting in a highest quality and highest pixel count and then cropping the photo on the computer. Some pros will argue that this is the best way to digitally zoom in, in a photo and get the best quality out of it on the computer. And trust me, 3xOptical Zoom, I held up four fingers but 3xOptical Zoom is not zoom and it will not help you get closer to your sun soccer game as advertised. Anything less than 5x Optical Zoom is basically a cropping tool that will help you cut things out of the shot when you can't move. So if you need a zoom, consider a camera with the more Optical Zoom function. Those cameras maybe a bit slower and bigger and likely more expensive and that's an important thing and just to clarify that Digital Zoom, you take the picture but what it does, have you ever cropped a picture like on your computer? You only want it to be like, you had a big photo, but you only wanted that part of it. So you took that part of it then you made it bigger, and then it did look like. That's what Digital Zoom does, it does that on the camera. It's absolutely, well I think it's worthless, other people would argue opposite, otherwise, just don't pay attention to Digital Zoom; pay attention to the Optical Zoom that is the true zoom of the lens. Of course, the quality of the lens is also important.

Featured Links:

Digital Tv: the New Golden Age of Television

In less than a year, digital TV will be everywhere. Are you prepared for the transition to digital television? Learn what you need to know to make the most out of this new age of television.

http://www.articlesbase.com/cable-and-satellite-tv-articles/digital-tv-the-new-golden-age-of-television-623008.html/9461024403

Chris Pirillo: Big tip there. Now you also need to learn how to set the flash straight. Rule of thumb; at night, shoot with the lower setting and in the day time, crack it up, sounds weird, right. But if the flash is set too high in low light not only would it blind your subject that a camera want to compensate with the strong flash and the picture will come out darker.

During the day, it's already bright. So small flash will not help you get rid of shadows that maybe on the face or in the foreground. Use less flash, ever try to take a picture but it never comes out looking like it's suppose to, it's amazing what you didn't get without a flash ironically in lower light. Sometimes the flash is too bright for the situation where it will only light up the closest object or will make the picture lose the field desired. Like shooting a Christmas tree, picture taken with a flash will lose the beauty of the lights on the tree or candle light dinner will look like a plain dinner with a candle in the middle.

So experiment without a flash, but remember to hold your camera steady. It might be a monopod comes in handy and that's just a tripod with just one leg. Well, not really a tripod at that point but it's a one leg pod mono. Set up closer, when shooting in low light, get closer to your subject rather than zooming in because of the small sized lens, more zoom equals less light entering into the lens.

So walking up closer to the subject will help with getting a better quality photo. Get a tripod, shooting in low light requires a steady hand, even a slight vibration of the hand can make a blurry photo. Instead of raising the ISO, remember the sensitivity, use the tripod. Most pros use it always. Tripod can also help while taking a picture of a baby. Similarly, mount the camera on a tripod, position to frame and concentrate on entertaining the baby. When the baby smiles, hit the button and you will get the shot. Tripod is very handy in many situations.

So have one around. Another thing also under there for catching subjects like babies or pets is going to multiple like to take picture shooting mode and that way, you just basically hold the shutter down and it keeps -- that's the sound then. That's not what your camera sounds like and if it does, you probably want to take it back to store.

Now what's the quality. Shoot at a highest quality setting, but not the highest pixel amount. Setting a camera to use less megapixels while setting the Superfine quality, can improve low light shots. Most cameras will set to lower pixel rates, combine pixels to create a larger ones instead of downsizing the photo, which helps in low light. Also when using a Digital Zoom, some cameras take advantage of unused pixels to help out sharpness and quality. Check to see in the menus for different Digital Zoom settings if your camera can do that. You may get less zoom than in a default mode, but the quality will be much better. But in addendum, use Digital Zoom sparingly, despite all of the advertisements, Digital Zoom should only be used in emergencies. More Digital Zoom equals less quality photo. Also, if the camera does not have the Smart Digital Zoom function, talked about in the other tip there, then consider shooting in a highest quality and highest pixel count and then cropping the photo on the computer. Some pros will argue that this is the best way to digitally zoom in, in a photo and get the best quality out of it on the computer. And trust me, 3xOptical Zoom, I held up four fingers but 3xOptical Zoom is not zoom and it will not help you get closer to your sun soccer game as advertised. Anything less than 5x Optical Zoom is basically a cropping tool that will help you cut things out of the shot when you can't move.

So if you need a zoom, consider a camera with the more Optical Zoom function. Those cameras maybe a bit slower and bigger and likely more expensive and that's an important thing and just to clarify that Digital Zoom, you take the picture but what it does, have you ever cropped a picture like on your computer? You only want it to be like, you had a big photo, but you only wanted that part of it. So you took that part of it then you made it bigger, and then it did look like. That's what Digital Zoom does, it does that on the camera. It's absolutely, well I think it's worthless, other people would argue opposite, otherwise, just don't pay attention to Digital Zoom; pay attention to the Optical Zoom that is the true zoom of the lens. Of course, the quality of the lens is also important.

Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services