Digital Photography

MY  ADVICE

1.   Always force a flash  unless you are:
a)  more than 15 meters away from the subject since you will be just wasting your efforts.    4-8 meters is ideal
b)  rapidly taking many successive photos for which the flash will not be able to charge up fast enough
c)  taking a photo through the glass
d) don't want others to know you are taking photos
Eyes are much better at seeing huge contrast differences than film or digital film can typically capture.
The flash helps illuminate a subject of interest when the background is very bright.


2.   People in the foreground should take up at least 1/3 of the overall picture or you will not see their faces.
Since the background  usually can't be moved, either you or the object should move to make it happen.
 See if zoom can help.


3.    Don't ask people to pose for you unless you are ready to shoot.
If you fuss with the camera more than 5 seconds people will get bored an irritated.  The photos will show that.
Make all the setting ahead of time.  Pre-focus on the subject by half-depressing the shutter button.
When ready, press further and the picture will instantly be taken.
You can get people to tolerate your fussing about if you able to pay more attention to them than to the camera
by talking and keeping an eye contact.  Keep the camera in full automatic mode if you don't know when you
need to use it.  Always consider people first, camera second.


4.    Take many successive shots when taking a group photo or moving objects.
Just keep the shots where nobody blinked or has the best composition.
 Most digital cameras have a drive mode setting in Manual modes which allows to take a quick succession
of photos when the shutter button is kept depressed.
This works great in bright light since it doesn't require a flash which could never keep up.


5.   Do whatever is possible to make a place brighter before taking photos.
This will reduce red-eyes, reduce picture noise seen as grainy dots and prevent blurry pictures when objects move.


7.  Night photos  -- KEEP STILL   DON'T USE A FLASH!
 Make sure to be super-steady when taking these shots.
Hold your breath, lean against a wall or something, firmly and slowly press the shutter button.
You can  try a 2 sec delay mode, where you press the button and then wait to 2 sec for the picture to be taken while you freeze
your body and breath and thoughts.   Best to rest camera on something.  Serious people carry tripods or mini-tripods.
Suppress the flash or the camera will think it was able to illuminate the object and will have a short exposure with the picture
coming out practically black


8.  Night photos of people
When photographing people against an interesting background during the night use a night portrait mode.
Most digital cameras represent this mode as an icon of person and a star or a moon in the corner.
The camera will then use the flash for the person in the foreground while extending the exposure time to
get enough light from the dimly lit background.  If you wish to have a non-blurry background -- KEEP STILL!


9.   Red-eyes
Occur for
a) poorly lit areas
b) all pocket cameras since they tend to have the flash close to and aligned with the lens
c) light color eyes
d) people with wide pupils
Use red-eye reduction mode.  If it is done with a steady narrow beam of light, then it will work only for the person whose
eyes it is hitting.   It takes 2-3 sec of shining a steady light.
Some cameras use a pre-flash for red-eye reduction.
This often confuses the people to think that the pictures was already taken., so they should be warned.



10.  Color balance
The color balance is different outdoors, indoors with fluorescent lighting, indoors with incandescent.
If you wish for the same colors (skin tones etc)  regardless of illumination, or exaggerate them, you can set it in the camera.

11.  No need for more than 3 megapixels for 4x6 photos unless you planning to crop.

12.  A worst camera on you with enough memory and charged batteries is better than best camera at home.

13.  Practice, practice, practice.
You don't want to be thinking about any of this when taking pictures so all of it should be automatic in your head,
like watching both ways when crossing the street.

You can break any of the above rules if you know why you are doing it ;-)


Digital camera quality and price mostly depends on the size of the light sensor the image hits and the optics.
Read further at your own risk ....

Since Newton times no one has figured out how to make good optics cheap.  They just make them better.
Bigger is usually better but not necessarily.

No matter how many megapixels a camera has, if the light sensor chip is tiny, the photos taken in low-light will look like crap
and in bright light provide limited levels of color shading.

For smaller light sensors, in low-light, there is a small signal to noise ratio,  i.e. small amount of light hitting a sensor pixel.
The photo will have tiny specks all over.  This is similar to a hissing noise on a audio recording of a very low-volume sound.

Photos  taken with a large sensor have a larger dynamic range. 
This is similar to a powerful audio system that will not flatten out (peak out) the melody at high volumes.



PROFESSIONAL ADVICE
How To Make Great Photographs
Digital Photography Basics
DIGITAL CAMERA SENSOR SIZES
Size Matters

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