25 digital photography tips for better pictures

8/13/2019 25 Digital Photography Tips for Better Pictures

1/13

25 Digital Photography Tipsfor Better Pictures

By Kevin James


2/13


3/13

About This Document

In 25 Digital Photography Tips for Better Pictures you find twenty five (25) very useful tips toproduce better digital photography. This document is free-of- charge and released in portabledocument format (PDF) only.


4/13


5/13

Download the most up-to-date Version

You will find the most up-to-date version of 25 Digital Photography Tips for Better Pictures on theweb site of the mart schnd ebooks publisher (http://www.ebooks-ms.com/). Moreover, weappreciate your comments regarding this e-book. Please let us know any errors or omissions of thepublication as well as your proposals to upgrade the quality of this publication. Please use our emailaddress given below to contact us.

http://www.ebooks-ms.com/[email protected]

Thanks
http://www.ebooks-ms.com/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.ebooks-ms.com/


6/13


7/13

Distribution

We encourage you to freely distribute this document as it is, among your friends, colleagues, familymembers, customers or any other person who you think interested in or relevant to, in any form asyou wish. If anybody who wants to republish this e-book in any from and need us to make changes tothis version, please contact us by means of the email address given below.

[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


8/13


9/13


10/13


11/13

1. Most zoom lenses give you larger apertures at wide-angle settings than at full telephoto. If 1:2.8 -4.8 is engraved on the lens ring, the cameras maximum aperture of f-2.8 at full wide will shift to f-4.8 (about 1.5 stops) as you move to the extreme telephoto setting. So in low light conditions, shootwide.

2. Digital zoom is a worthless feature; all it does is enlarge a section of the image with a resultingloss in resolution. You can do that in any imaging program with better results.

3. To light small objects without producing harsh shadows or overly-bright highlights, build a smalltabletop tent using part of an old bed sheet with an opening cut for the camera lens. Then placethe object inside it and aim your light through the side of the tent.

4. To maintain image quality, convert pictures youve shot in JPEG to TIFF. You can then work andre-work them in an imaging program without having them degrade. And if you screw up, the originalJPEG is always there to make another TIFF from.

5. Heres how to figure out what resolution to scan at: dpi to set for scanning = final image widthdivided by the original image width x the final ppi desired. So if you want to print an 8x10 inchenlargement from a 4 x 5 inch photo, divide 10 by 5 which gives you 2. Then multiply that by, say,200. The result, 400, is the scanner dpi setting to use. To end up with 300 ppi youd have to scan at600 dpi.

6. Unless your camera or lens has image stabilization built in, heres the rule for getting shake-freeimages when using zoom lenses at telephoto settings. Use the focal length of the lens as yourshutter speed. So if you are shooting with the 35mm equivalent of a 400mm lens, set your shutterspeed to 1/400th second or faster.

7. To reduce camera shake when shooting at slow shutter speeds, put your arm through the camerastrap so that the strap crosses your back and ends up under your right armpit. Then adjust the strapso the cameras at eye level when you pull it forward. Result? Rock-steady shots.

8. Dont use lens tissue to remove smudges from your lens. It only redistributes the dirt and oil. ALensPen will get rid of everything without harming the optical glass or its coating.http://www.lenspen.com

9. Memory cards do go south so trusting all your pictures to one humongous card is a bad idea.Depending on the resolution and compression ratio you shoot at, use cards that hold about 50images so all wont be lost if the card takes a dive.

10. If a memory card goes bad, and gives you a message of doom, dont mess with it. There aremany recovery programs that will save your images and the less you do the better your chances arethat you can retrieve them unharmed.

11. When doing long exposures with a single lens reflex camera on a tripod, dont forget to coverthe eyepiece or light will get in through it and usually put a blurry round circle right in the middleof your image.
http://www.lenspen.com/http://www.lenspen.com/


12/13

12. All digicam optical viewfinders show you less of the field of view than will be recorded. If youwant to frame your images accurately, run a few tests to see how much more will actually beincluded and compensate for it, usually by moving in.

13. Much ado is currently being made about shooting in RAW mode, which eliminates in-camera

adjustments for color and sharpness, among others, and lets you fiddle with them yourselfafterwards in an imaging program. But shooting in RAW inflates file sizes, slows down certaincamera functions, and requires more work. If your exposures and white balance are correct (andthey usually are) stick with JPEG. The quality will be virtually the same without all the hassles.

14. Bracketing is a great feature to use when youre shooting under difficult conditions (extremelylow or bright light). The camera will shoot one picture at what it thinks is the correct exposure andthen two more, one overexposed and the other underexposed. Among the three, one should be righton the nose.

15. Cameras vary in their compression ratios (the smaller the better). The best on one brand may

be 1:2 while on another it may be 1:4. Anything up to 1:8 will produce acceptable images; in fact,youd have a hard time telling the difference. The Canon Digital Rebel, for example, uses 1:7 at itsbest setting and huge prints from its images look just fine.

16. To make sure the colors you see on your monitor print out correctly, you must calibrate it so itaccurately displays the colors in your image files. The printer uses that file and not your monitor forits output. Calibration assures that the monitor is displaying exactly the same colors that are in thefile and that any changes you make to the image on your monitor will be made to the file which, inturn, will be reflected in your print-out.

17. Use the right paper for your inkjet printer. Epsons shoot cold dots of ink while most others

shoot hot ones. Its perfectly OK to use third-party papers (Red River has a huge selection) but makesure they are compatible with the type of printer you have.

18. Start off with a good imaging program. Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 is the worlds greatestbargain and thats what you should use. Dont spend a fortune on the full version of Photoshop tobegin with; in fact, it might be a bit overwhelming. Photoshop Elements is probably all youll everneed and for under $100 its a steal.

19. You may be a techie and love all that geeky stuff, but photography is still about makingpictures that say something. The finest equipment is worthless if you cant use it to expressyourself. Read a few books that emphasize the creative side. One to get is Bryan Petersons"Learning to See Creatively."

20. Sometimes its hard to just aimlessly wander around looking for good pictures to shoot. Alwaysgive yourself a mini-assignment to stay on track. Like kids at play, people at bus stops, interestingdoorways, afternoon shadows, and so on. That way, you have a direction in which to go and thechallenge of trying to interpret things in your own unique way.

21. Move in. Most pictures have way too much extraneous junk in them. By taking a few giant stepsforward, your pictures will become more dramatic and go from ho-hum to ooh-ah.

22. Shoot, shoot, and shoot. Shoot a few pictures a week and it will take you forever to become agood photographer. But shoot a couple of hundred shots a week and youll progress a lot faster.


13/13

23. As a rule of thumb, never shoot less than six to ten pictures of a subject. Explore it fromdifferent angles, go for different poses, stay with it, trying with each new shot to make a betterpicture than the one before.

24. The worst pictures you can possibly make will be with the cameras flash. Unless youre

shooting "record" shots (your possessions for insurance purposes, for example), stash the flash. Startshooting with available light and youll begin to feel the magic.

25. Try new points of view. Get down and shoot up or up and shoot down. Tilt the camera to inducesome dynamic tension. Come in ultra close or shoot from really far away. And guess what? If youturn your camera 90-degrees to the left or right you can shoot exciting vertical images. Its a built-in feature on every camera use it.

25 digital photography tips for better pictures

Documents