|
9. Shoot at High Quality
You can squeeze more photographs onto a memory card by adjusting the image quality.
Lower-quality settings apply higher amounts of JPEG compression, which, loosely defined,
reassembles an image's pixels into a grid of square blocks. This reassembly saves space, but
it makes the image look less natural as well. Most cameras let you select from three
compression settings, usually defined using comparative terms on their settings' menus. For
example, Kodak uses the terms Best, Better, and Good, and Fuji uses the terms Fine,
Normal, and Basic. Sometimes they vary on this theme a little. Epson, for example, uses a
series of stars. Whenever possible, stick with the highest-quality setting. If you desperately
need to squeeze more images onto a nearly full card, switch to the second-highest setting. But
don't go any lower than that--if you do, your pictures will suffer.
8. Get in Close
Ever wonder why all the vacation shots of you and your companions taken by other tourists
look terrible? It's because the stand-in photographers step back half a mile away when they
take the shots. With a digital camera, that means you end up taking about 15 pixels in the
center of the image. Pixels are scarce, so you need to devote as many to the subject of the
photograph as possible. When photographing a person, turn on the LCD and close in until that
person fills up the screen. Don't take the shot until you see the whites of their eyes.
7. Shoot in Pairs (at Least)
When shooting important images--staff parties, family functions, vacation photos--don't settle
for a single shot. Like butterflies, digital pictures are free, so go nuts. The rule of thumb is to
take no fewer than two pictures of virtually everything, four or five if the scene is even
moderately interesting. Think fashion photographer: keep moving that camera and firing off
shots. With lots of variations to choose from, there's a higher probability of getting a good
photograph.
6. Shoot Big, Obvious Forms
Pixels don't treat all objects equally. About the worst thing you can photograph with a digital
camera is a tree. If the camera captures about a million pixels, and the tree contains a few
hundred thousand leaves, you end up with three or four pixels per leaf, so it all smears together
in a big, gummy mess. The same goes for lawns, gardens, distant mountains, hairy surfaces,
or anything else with scads of intricate details. For the best results, photograph clearly defined
subjects with smooth, distinct outlines. People photograph well, as do cars, buildings,
furniture, and most man-made objects. Stick to obvious foreground subjects that stand out
clearly from their backgrounds, and you should be fine.
5. Eliminate Red-Eye
If you've ever shot a picture with a flash, you've no doubt encountered red-eye, in which
everyone's pupils turn bright red, giving them a mildly demonic look. The culprit is dilated
pupils. In dim light, the pupils are nice and big, permitting the flash to bounce off the inside of
the retina and reflect back into the camera lens. One solution is to turn on your camera's
red-eye reduction flash. This provides a preflash, which reduces pupil sizes so that the second
flash is reflected harmlessly off the iris. The problem with a preflash is that it causes people to
blink--and most of us would rather get red-eye than a bunch of closed eyelids. A better solution
is to turn on a few lights or to shoot in a shaded area outdoors. By shining some light on a
situation, you reduce pupil sizes naturally and limit your risk of red-eye.
4. Shoot Outside in Indirect Light
Most digital cameras offer built-in flashes, but they're not very good. When shooting in a dimly
lit room or at night, a subject a few feet away will appear as a luminous ghoul against a
pitch-black background. For the best results, shoot outside or in a naturally lit room during the
day. A little cloud cover or tree shadow helps to soften the harsh color transitions you often get
in direct sunlight. Counterintuitive as it may sound, low contrast is better than high contrast.
There's nothing worse than a large area of white (called a hot spot) or black in a photo,
because there's no way to fix it.
3. Use the Flash in Backlit Conditions
The best use for a cheesy consumer flash is to fill in shadows in full daylight. When you
photograph a person against a bright sky--a condition called backlighting--the camera averages
the light from the person and the sky and comes up with an intermediate exposure. But that
exposure is too brief for the person and too long for the sky, so you get a dark silhouette
against a blindingly bright background. The solution is to turn on the flash, a technique called
fill-flashing. This not only lightens up the person, it also reduces the exposure so that the sky
appears less bright.
2. Avoid Digital Zoom
Many digital cameras offer two kinds of zoom: an optical zoom and a digital zoom. Of the two,
the optical zoom is the only one you should use. An optical zoom uses a system of lenses to
refract light and to magnify an image onto the CCD. The result is expanded detail and clarity. A
digital zoom crops and enlarges images, inventing pixels through interpolation. The result is a
magnified but fuzzy image. If an optical zoom doesn't enlarge an image sufficiently, walk closer
to your subject, but try to avoid the digital zoom.
1. For Close-ups, Use the LCD
Very few digital cameras under $1,000 offer single-lens reflex (SLR) viewfinders, the kind in
which you and the camera see through the same lens. Far more popular is the rangefinder
design, in which you see through one lens, the optical viewfinder, and the camera sees through
another, the primary lens element. Although these lenses are designed to converge at the
same point, they can't help but vary slightly as you zoom in and out. And they may vary
dramatically during close-up shots, a phenomenon known as parallax. Therefore, most optical
viewfinders are highly suspect.
The more accurate framing device is the LCD screen: turn it on and you get a live video feed
directly from the CCD. Consequently, what you see on the LCD screen is more representative
of what you'll get. Be aware, however, that the LCD requires scads of power and quickly drains
the batteries. A standard set of rechargeable AA cells will last about 50 to 80 shots with the
LCD turned on, compared to four times that many with the LCD off. So limit your use of the
LCD to close-up shots, and keep an extra set of batteries fully charged and close at hand.
|
