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Articles: Electronics
- Using Digital Cameras
By Kevin
Rockwell
Point and click. The new life of digital cameras
gives us all the opportunity to capture images as we go. Whether you
simply hit the shutter button to take pictures of your friends and
family or if you want to have your camera with you at all times in
order to capture the beauty of life wherever you find it, getting
the most out of your digital camera can be easy.
Let's
imagine ourselves with the perfect set up of digital camera and a
few accessories to make things just right. My personal and
professional recommendation is that we start with memory. Get more
today. If you only have one memory card for your camera it is time
to add to the collection. If you have more than one then good job!
The more memory you have for your digital camera the less likely it
will be that you get stuck wanting to take more pictures and have no
more room on the storage. Memory is relatively cheap, takes up no
space in your kit and gives you total control over creativity.
Your camera comes with a variety of quality settings to work
with when taking images. Don't use TIFF, leave it on one of the
medium quality level settings and your camera will take fine images
for you and not eat up all your memory. If you use the highest
setting you will get very few images onto your card. They will for
the most part be of very high quality but you would only want to
shoot at that level of quality if you are intending to make high
quality large format prints of your images.
Now if that
child of yours is just so incredibly cute and your wall is aching
for a portrait of his or her shining face then by all means do it on
the highest quality. The key will be to use good software to process
the image and then a printer that can make a large format, high
quality print of your image. They exist and for not unreasonable
prices I might add.
I was stunned at a recent art show in my
neighborhood to be looking at a photographer's exhibit of large size
prints (18x24 and up in size) to find out that he shoots exclusively
in digital now. He was a former film photographer who switched over
in recent years and now makes stunning prints from his digital
images. His landscape images were simply amazing and to find out
that he shot them on a good digital camera made me very curious
about the process, but that is fodder for another article.
Juice is the answer to your next question. Always have more
juice. I spent 20 years in the TV news business and my mantra was
always have extra batteries ready to go and an extra tape under the
back seat in case of emergency. For TV cameras the batteries were
always big and heavy rechargeable NiCads. Lithium batteries are the
rage nowadays as they are lighter in weight, have no memory
problems, and run longer. Digital still cameras can take advantage
of Lithium batteries but the cost is often slightly prohibitive for
most of us. Some camera systems use proprietary battery systems. I
would recommend not buying into that sort of system. Try to buy a
camera that uses universal types of batteries such as AA's. I use a
camera that takes AA's and I have three sets of rechargeable
batteries so I can rotate through them and never be caught short.
Total cost for three sets of batteries is about $30, and they will
last you several years if you treat them right. If you just buy
regular AA batteries and shoot a lot of images your battery cost
might triple that over a like period of time.
Edison did it
and now we consider him a genius. Experimentation is the name of the
game. Digital images cost you nothing but time and a little battery
life. Play around and take lots of shots of things, people, events,
you name it. Look at magazines, newspapers and notice what images
look cool to you. Try to take shots like that yourself so you can
see how it is done. This will get you thinking about how to make
your everyday shots better. Look for new and different ways to frame
things, take both a vertical and a horizontal shot of the same thing
and see how it changes perspective. Get closer to your subject, or
get farther away to see which looks better. Find something unique
about your subject and look for a way to exploit that for a better
image. Here is and example, say for instance you have a great
looking car you want a picture of, well don't stand across the
street from it and zoom in on the car, get right up close with the
sun behind you so the car is sparkling shiny and fills the whole
frame of the image. Find it's best feature and center that in the
shot say the awesome lines of front of the car or snazzy wheels.
Print something from your camera every week to remind you of
the beauty of everyday things. Take shots all the time, pick one and
print it out and then put it in front of you for a day or a week.
Live life as though you want beauty around you all the time. If you
are madly in love then surround yourself with pictures of that love.
If you live in a beautiful place then take pictures of it all the
time to make sure you never forget how special it is to be there in
your life. Don't let those images hide away and not be seen.
Wallpaper on your computer can be another place to put your weekly
image, change it regularly with images from your family, work, life,
hobby and you will get more smiles and more joy out of your camera
than you know what to do with. My current wallpaper takes me back to
a wonderful day on a mountain lake this past summer paddling kayaks
in the afternoon breeze. What about yours?
Kevin Rockwell worked
as a network TV cameraman for 20 years shooting news. Now a devoted
fan of digital photography and video he works to gather information
and news for digital camera users. Free reports http://great-digital-cameras.com/gdcj.html
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