Minnesota Fall Wonder
Last Friday my wife, Pat, and I took a fall drive to look at the wonderful fall colors, which are spectacular this year. Of course, I took my camera, a relatively old Canon 5G, and took a few shots and couldn’t resist posting this one. While today’s post is not about editing photos I will say that, like all photos, this one required a little cropping and color correction. But, more about that another time.
Let’s continue with the presentation on Digital Camera Basics with a discussion about Taking Pictures and What to Do with the Pictures.
Taking Pictures-Basic Stuff
First, I always set the resolution to the highest setting and the jpeg compression (this controls the size of the picture file and the image quality) to the best quality. These settings will give you the highest quality image and even though the file size is larger you will be able to crop portions of the image and still maintain a nice sharp photo. The cost of memory cards and sticks is so low today that you can afford a high capacity card so file size won’t be an issue.
I always set the camera to Auto Mode and let the camera decide on the settings. I find that this works well for most photos taken by amateurs like me. BUT, check to make sure the Auto setting is selected. I learned this lesson the hard way when I screwed up the photos of an important event. (My friends still give me a hard time).
The same suggestion applies to the red eye setting–set and leave it ON. I rarely have a red problem in the photos I take.
Please, if at all possible, use two hands. You used two hands with your point and shoot film camera so use them both with the digital. You will get a better and straighter picture and it will be sharper because you didn’t move the camera. I would also use the distance to the subject and the optical zoom (I never use the digital zoom) to frame your subject. And, set the focuse (generally by pushing the button half way down and waiting for the indicator to set) before you take the shot. Following these simple steps will result in nice sharp photos of the subject you are trying to capture.
And, take as many shots as your subject will let you get away with. Why? Because with a digital camera you can and they are FREE.
Okay, now that you have take a bunch of pictures what do you do with them. There is more to digital photography than shoving a camera in someone’s face to show them the photos of your grandkids. This morning a friend of mine told me about his aunt who kept buying memory sticks so she could continue to take pictures and show them to people. Don’t laugh-it is a common practice.
You can also go to Sam’s Club or a photo store and stand in line to use a photo kiosk to edit and order prints. But, with the price of gas and the time involved that is not a very attractive solution.
What you should do is transfer (download) you photos to your computer. It is really not that difficult and once you do there are a bunch of things you can do. But, enough for today. I will cover getting the pictures into your computer in another post. In the meantime, if you can’t wait you can view or downoad the presentation at
http://www.correctphoto.com/publications/Digital_Camera_Basics-1.pdf
