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Digital Photography Composition 101
Darren writes "With the 'Rise of the Digital Camera' I suspect we will also see the 'Rise of the Dodgy Digital Photo'. As digital cameras get in the hands of more and more snap happy photographers there will be more and more average images cluttering the PC's of the world. Already there must be millions of self portraits taken at arms length (complete with double chins), countless pictures of Aunt Mildred (cut off at the knees) and just as many out of focus shots of everyday objects in the living rooms of new digital camera owners too lazy to move from the couch. Its time to learn how to take good digital images before its too late! Digital Photography Composition Tips aims to teach the world a few basic guidelines for improving digital photographer's skills everywhere."
I found that buying a camera with a rotatable LCD screen helps immensely when you try to pictures from impossible angles. Also if you know next to nothing about photography or you just need to take pictures 'at the moment' without setting your camera up (like on a crowded japanese train), I suggest getting the Olympus 5060 which is really brilliant at adapting the settings to fit your picture (and it does it in < 50ms).
Props to the GNAA.
eden.h4xx.com - whacky free for all image board
More *in focus* voyeur pics. Keep tuned in.
I don't want to see any pics of Aunt Mildred cut off at the knees!
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
Then read it again.
It's amazing how much better you can make your shots come out just by knowing what you camera can do to help you out of tough spots!
Chris Knight is my hero.
I have to say though... Sometimes I am not out to get the perfect shot with my digital camera. Therefore, my laziness sets in and I will not take the time to get the right settings on the camera, pick the right place for myself and subjects, and throw out the rule of thirds. However, when trying to make awe-inspriing pictures these are all very important tips to take heed of. However, the disclaimer on all of these tips is there are always an exception and a picture might look better if you don't follow that particular rule.
Hmmm.
These aren't tips specifically for Digital Photography, the basics of photographic composition are the same regardless of whether you are using digital or traditional media and these tips are no different to tips you'd find anywhere else for beginning photographers. How are these tips news?
Most of the books I have found assume you are already a film photographer and only cover the difference between film and digital; the books about film photography are not always entirely relevant to digital photography. The books about digital photography seem to assume you can't even take an autofocused picture with flash without help -- that's about as far as they seem to cover.
I'm looking for something that explains what all the complicated settings on my digital camera (regarding white balance, metering, aperature, and so on) mean and do.
Any suggestions?
I store mine in folders by date, in c:\photos\yyyy\yyyymmdd\DSCNxxxx.jpg, and it works very well for me.
--Mike--
HAVE YOUR PICTURE TAKEN THRU YOUR COMPUTER MONITOR !
Go to the Free Internet Photo From Your Monitor website
*Sit in front of your monitor.
*Look directly into the activated object.
*Click "Take Photo" - below with your cursor/mouse
*Don't forget to smile at the "camera."
Note: not affiliated to the website.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Will studying proper digital photography techniques get rid of my double chin?
For fast action I still use my old Olympus OM-2 but most everything else is digital.
IMO digital cameras are almost better than film for most things but not quite yet.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
All this does it talk about regular rules of composition and put "Digital" in front of it to some how expand the applicability. The digital portion never begins to enter into consideration in the discussion.
There are some differing rules for working digitally; not many of them take place at the camera though (and most there are with regards of which of your camera's features *not* to use).
Any spoon would be too big.
People with spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on technology like PC's, cameras, software, etc., but won't spend $15 on a book about how to use it.
If I could moderate a story I'd mod this as flamebait -1... I mean, who cares if we don't take "perfect" pictures. We couldnt take perfect pictures with film cameras either - or with VHS or 8mm camcorders, but who cares? these pictures of my friends and familty are good enough for me to remember the good times.
Don't Tread on Me
Given the infinite monkey hypothesis (given an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters, and time, the complete works of William Shakespeare would eventually be produced), I would assume that the total amount to 'good' pictures should be increasing.
1. The cost of developing for viewing is nil (immediate feedback).
2. You can immediately delete any bad pictures.
3. As a result you take more pictures because RAM is free.
Thus, by sheer accident of the technology, neophyte shutterbugs are finding out the secret of the pros: take as many pictures as possible - one of the bunch is bound to be a beauty!
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
I have a friend who takes digital pics, and then when he downloads them at home he changes them at a whim. For example, he moves Fred from the left hand side of the picture to the right to fill in a blank space in a group photo for example, or moves an outcropping that doesn't "balance" the photo. This practice seems totally bizarre, I mean if you are willing to do that to your pictures, why not just download pictures of places off the net and doctor up a whole set of family pictures in exotic locations???
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
..is the now-infamous "me taking my own picture by standing in the bathroom facing the mirror with my new digital camera".
I've never seen one taken with an analog camera. Perhaps they love the new toy so much they have to record one of their first good times together?
Takes lots of photos. Throw out the ones that aren't very good. This will be the vast majority of them, even for a professional.
Actually, this was my technique with film as well. Digital has saved me a fortune.
Here's another website that I've been going to; it's got digital as well as traditional photography forums: Photo Takers Forum.
My problem is that I can't afford an SLR. I'm generally happy with my Fuji FinePix 3800, but it's very bad in low light (my camcorder is absolutely fantastic, however, but the resolution of the still frames pales in comparison). I've bought some filters and conversion lenses, and I'm really having a great time learing with it.
Sadly, it doesn't take a digital camera to make most people lazy. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to encourage my brother-in-law to take better pictures by using sarcasm ("nice use of backlighting, there!") to no avail. Quick tip to backlighters: use a flash! It brings out your subjects in the foreground!
My wife is the queen of "shaky-cam", no matter how many times I tell her to use the flash indoors. She'll come back from an event at my childs school, hand me the camera, and I end up throwing about 80% of the pictures away. I tried to teach her how to use manual settings to compensate, but she doesn't even want to try to learn.
Still, even "snapshotters" can make prints like a champ with simple editing software (I have to admit I often use Microsoft's Picture It Express 7.0 that came free with a Kodak picture CD - red eye removal, cropping to standard image sizes, basic color/brightness/contrast editing... and free). For example, the first thing in the article is composition - very often you can fix this with creative cropping. Doesn't always make up for poor photography to begin with, but you can fix an awful lot.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
These tips are great, but i think that everyone would see a big improvement in their picture quality if they followed the #1 of photography - fill the frame.
9 times out of 10, when you're shooting someone or something, you need to prioritize what the focus of the photo is supposed to be, and fill the frame with it. The rest of the composition usually falls into place.
It's the simplest way to get better composition without a lot of extra thinking. Either use your feet, or use your zoom and get closer to your subject.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
shutter lag is the term you're looking for. and yes, everything short of DSLRs that i've used, seems to suck to varying degrees at this.
;)
however, you can get VERY good at shooting action, even with lag. for a long time, my friend Pete was shooting semi-pro photos at rallies.. using only a coolpix 5000. he eventually made the switch to DSLR. if you look at some of his old stuff, he can pan perfectly in time with a car 50 feet away going 100mph.. of course, pete isn't your average digicam user either
David Bailey, a famous British photographer, once said (something like) "The quickest way to double your skill as a photograph is to throw away half your photographs".
It is absolutely true - most professional photographers take hundreds of photographs a day, only one or two of which are likely to be actually seen. This used to be one big advantage professionals had over amateurs - amateurs couldn't afford all that film and developing. With digital cameras, now you can take as many photos as you like.
Personally I just follow three simple rules:
1) Is the light nice? This is fundamental - if you've got nice evening or morning sunlight, your change of a good photo increases enormously. If it's a cloudy grey day, put the camera away.
2) Get closer. Just a step closer would improve so many amateur photos.
3) Take lots of photos. Even if you are taking the same subject again and again, one will of them be better than the others - especially if you are photographing people. Even more so if they are children.
To summarise:
1) Good light?
2) Get closer!
3) Take more!
apart from that, what is this article telling us about digital photography?
I'm not a professional nor even a good amateur photographer. However, using some common sense I've found that I can consistently come up with some excellent shots that are comparable to my hard core photography-obsessed friends.
#1. Its digital. Take a ton of shots. Take shots you don't think will turn out; take lots of the obvious shots. Shoot your camera with reckless abandon. It costs you ~nothing~. This technique was validated by a professional photographer friend later on...he claimed that at professional shoots you sometimes have a ratio of 10:1 or 100:1 of good vs bad shots, even with an optimum setup and years of experience on his side.
#2. Know the limitations of your camera. If you don't have an big zoom lense, don't expect long distance shots to turn out. Digital zoom is pretty useless. Most digital cameras have a good short-to-middle distance focal length. Anything beyond that and you're pushing beyond your camera's limits.
#3. Next best investment you can make to getting a good camera = tripod. Extend the exposures to get more clear pictures in low-light conditions, or dark coloured subject matter. Lots of shots I took at the time looked good in the LCD screen, but later turned out to be slightly blurred.
#4. Avoid use of the flash. Its a 'brute force' attempt to get good lighting. Work with your ISO setting and exposure levels first. (remember your tripod!). If you don't know about ISOs or exposure, who cares, just take the same pic 3-4 times with different levels...you learn.
5. Be brutal about your pics. Take 200, delete 190. Don't be the guy with the unending home movies... only keep and show the best of your best pics. You'll also get a good rep for taking good photos this way.
6. Learn the basic filters in Photoshop and touch up your digital pics if necessary. I prefer Photoshop sepia and B&W to the filters that come with the camera.
For hard core photographers this may all seem obvious, but for us beginners I found these 5 or 6 tips are what really made the difference for my pics. And they're easy to execute.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
(1) Get a good bounce flash, e.g. like the Canon 420 EX for Canon EOS cameras.
(2) Get a diffusor ($0.01 worth of milky plastic, usually $5-$10 retail). For most shots either bounce the flash off the ceiling or use the diffusor. Never use a direct-pointing flash unless you have no choice (e.g. shots from a distance).
(3) Learn how to properly use Tv, Av, and Manual modes with the flash to properly fill the image. I generally either use Av with the flash sync fixed at 1/200, or Manual mode to control how much of the shot is from natural light and how much is from the flash (on the Canon the flash exposure is automatic when operating in manual mode though for obvious reasons you have to be more careful about its exposure range capabilities).
(4) The proper use of a flash for fill is even more important in bright sunlight due to the huge contrast between shadow and sunlight (especially on faces). I almost universally use the flash with the diffusor for daylight shots.
And that's pretty much it. Most people don't use flashes properly, but it doesn't take much exposure :-) to at least double and maybe even triple the number of good shots you take in a day. As usual, I just happen to have some great examples:
The BalloonHat guy at NextFest
Results will vary, of course, but I've taken some awesome low-light shots this way. For example, this one. This technique isn't limited to digital photography either (with the exception of the setting-the-ISO part).
With the 'Rise of Oil and Canvas' I suspect we will also see the 'Rise of the Dodgy Oil Painting'. As oils, brushes, and canvas get in the hands of more and more amateur painters there will be more and more average paintings cluttering the walls of the world. Already there must be millions of self portraits (complete with double chins), countless pictures of Aunt Mildred (cut off at the knees) and just as many poorly drawn renderings of everyday objects in the living rooms of new painters too lazy to move from the couch. Its time to learn how to make good art before its too late! Drawing and Painting Composition Tips aims to teach the world a few basic guidelines for improving painter's skills everywhere.
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
Not only are they completely unaware that they're bad photographers, they don't care. Their objectives when taking pictures are completely different than those who strive to take good pictures.
RP
Ages ago I trained and worked (in the days of hot type, then offset lithography) as a graphic artist and typographer.
We joked, when Desktop Publishing took off, that all it did was enable folks to make bad designs quicker.
Likewise Digital Cameras and production systems allow one to make bad photographs faster than one could make them before.
The truth of the matter is that the medium isn't to blame. The ease of production equates to more crap. But it doesn't stop good stuff being produced; indeed the sheer volume of production should (one hopes) increase the number of good photographs over time. If one can be bothered to filter through all the crap to find them!
A deeper truth, to some, might be that the quality of most design has diminished because now "untrained" people are producing stuff the good and better design & images might simply not be produced now. As in - there won't be any Ansel Adams quality in our future.
I'm inclined to think that's bullshit, though. Mass markets and accessible consumer products don't mean that the few fine art types won't produce wonders any more. Indeed the accessibility of the consumer products might even encourage a few more to take up fine art photography. Just as we've found that Desktop Publishing has raised the game overall ie there has always been crap out there, but the general level of the crap represents a HUGE improvement over what low-end jobbing printers produced before.
1) Find 1939 article on "Leica photography composition tips"
2) Change "Leica" to "Digital"
3) ?????
4) Profit!
P. S. For best results, use Digital Kodak Verichrome Film and process in Digital-76 developer.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The article leaves the "Hold the camera still" to near the bottom of the list. If you practice holding the camera still, braced against your face, a wall, frame or nearly anything, chances that your picture will have much better focus and that you will have at least a chance of a good picture. If you move the camera, it doesn't matter which brand you choose or how well you compose the picture. If you really have a problem with that, then consider a camera with automatic movement correction. (I have not tried them yet, but H Keppler gave it good marks.)(Pop-Photo)
It takes longer than pure digital, it's more complicated, it requires detailed technical knowledge, there is exotic machinery that must be mastered, every tip in this article still works, and you end up with amazing digital images with the warmth and tone of film, much to the amazement and envy of professional photographers everywhere. What's not to like?
Slow burst speed is not a problem with the firmware or the lens/focus hardware, it is a simple I/O problem. Do the math here. If your digital camera could take 5 fast shots of 4 megapixels each, where would it put the data? It can't get it through that slow CF or SD interface that fast, so it has to buffer it somewhere. What the expensive cameras have that the cheap ones lack is RAM for the buffer so that it can store the shots while waiting to push them off to the storage device.
My 3 megapixel camera takes pictures that look great printed at 8X10". Ramp up to a 5 MP camera, and you can afford to crop, rotate, and reposition the subject of the picture in an image editor. In my opinion, more megapixels mean that you can take pictures for maximum flexibility rather than focusing on taking the perfect picture.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
that one of the big improvements to come with digital was the ability to shoot countless images and just keep the good ones without the cost/delay/inconvenience of developing traditional film. Back then it mattered that each photo was good because you couldn't review the photo before several days had passed, and it was important that each shot was good. Now, I tend to just take maybe 20 or 30 shots in rapid succession and rely on one or more to be good - a quick review will tell me if it's ALL bad, and in 30 seconds the memory is erased, and I can start snapping pictures again, this time moving to avoid the backlight or whatever spoiled the first batch.
Not really arguing against learning to take better pictures - selfimprovement through learning is always GOOD (and geekish, mind you). It just doesn't seem as necessary as it once was.
Black holes are where God divided by zero
Nobody has to worry about the development house laughing at them.
This same effect also opens the world up to all kinds of quality home porn.
With the 'Rise of the Digital Camera' I suspect we will also see the 'Rise of the Dodgy Digital Photo'. As digital cameras get in the hands of more and more snap happy photographers there will be more and more average images cluttering the PC's of the world.
:)
Oh my, is that negative or what? And a bit misguided too, in that (a) digital cameras are hardly new, and (b) this is a topic from the rise of the point-and-shoot camera era many decades ago. I did get a chuckle of out "I suspect," though. It sounds like something Peggy Hill would say
WinGIMP once carried a story about a high school digital photography class that made use of the GIMP to, among other things, fix basic errors.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
Just fyi for those on the clock. The entire left hand side of the front page is Nudes. It may be just boobs but obviously many companies are going to have a problem with that.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Nerds, like normal mortals, have interests that range more widely than how to liquid-cool their overclocked cell phones. "What matters" is more about a focus on excellence than a focus on a small segment of technology, at least to me. I'd like to be able to take an excellent picture, just like I'd like to brew an excellent cup of coffee and make a excellent triple-gainer from the nine meter board.
The picture I might have a pretty good shot at.
The article is a very good summary of composition rules BUT the main reason most people's snaps are not well composed is quite simple - they don't look at the scene as a whole before they click the shutter button.
90% of people are only looking at the main subject of their photo. This is why most people put the main subject in the middle of the scene - why almost always results in bad composition.
This is where having either a SLR camera where you see the whole scene in the view-finder, or a preview screen on a digital camera is essential.
Another essential feature is exposure and focus-lock that allows you to focus and take exposure readings off non-centered objects.
I find it inefficient to take lots and lots of photos and keep only the best few. Makes for too many photos to review and evaluate before deleting the crap ones...
This is what I do... I take my time, and I visualise what I want to get on the final image BEFORE even looking through the viewfinder or lcd screen.
Then I try to make everything fit in the frame.
I don't really follow the "rules" of aesthetics as defined by pros and critics, since the photos I take are for my own personal enjoyment and for decorating some walls, most of the time.
Then there's also the issue of too many people deleting perfectly good photos because they personally dont like "how they look" on the photos, due to being way too self-conscious. This will lead to a biased of what the past really looked like, in the future, when looking at those carefully selected pictures.
another big problem is that in digi-cameras where the viewfinder is optical (not a small screen inside the viewfinder like a camcorder) what is seen through the finder is often different from what is recorded by the ccd (or cmos). this can lead to compositional errors that are not fully the fault of the user. i guess most people with consumer digi-cams use the lcd anyway, so this may not be as a big a problem as it could be.
The real trick is take lots of pictures.
Improve your odds through the power of statistics. Some are bound to be good through sheer luck, so take more.
It may not up your % of good pictures, but it can up your # of them...
ee
Antiquated competence won't be a job skill forever.
This is true, but I don't think he was saying taking hundreds of pictures indiscriminately is the way to get a few good shots. I think it was implicit (though, admittedly, not necessarily obvious) that one should be choosing one's shots rather than firing off the camera at every turn. The real wisdom is to choose your shots and not just take one picture.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Here is a site that I started to frequent often. It has a load of small articles on taking pictures, everything from lighting, to composition, to types of photographs. Fodor's Focus on Photography Enjoy!
I think that 1 of 10 is a pretty good number. Most people aren't getting published, they are just taking pictures for themselves and friends.
Look through Joe Random's 64M compactflash card that has 500 pictures on it and I bet you could find 50 pretty good ones. The trick is to take those 50 out of context (ie, delete all the other crappy ones and merely 'good' ones) and all of a sudden it looks like he took 50 really good pix. He did, actually, but you need to learn to only go public with the good ones and not show all the ones that aren't as good as those 50.
Hence the rule.
And the biggest reason I can't take pictures as good as the photographers for Penthouse / Playboy has nothing to do with technical merits or ability and everything to do with that pesky restraining order.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
The camera has to work.. It has to have a good lens, but in the overall analysis it has little to do with images. I've taken great pictures with a cheap manual focus ae-1 and a fixed focus 55mm lens and crappy photos with a better camera. Sometimes technology helps but its not the be all end all to taking pictures. People have been holding cameras over there heads and taking pictures without the benifit of that screen for a long time.
Ken rockwell has a good summary of this philosophy, called You camera doesn't matter
..since the basic principles are the same whether you're using digital or film (i'm suprised people don't realize this more often - there's all sorts of articles about how to become a "better DIGITAL photographer", as if one can be a master with a 35MM SLR but pick up a digi and instantly forget everything...sorry, going off on a tangent there).
lord knows my digital shots got a lot better after i took black once you've been formally schooled in composition, even just for a semester, it all just sort of subconsciously falls together in the viewfinder (or on the LCD as the case may be) and you get a lot more passable pictures.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Sure, it needs to be learned. But the effect is not all bad - actually it works both ways. I am an avid amateur photographer who has swapped his SLR's for digital SLR's. All digital now and loving it. Here's the compensating effects:
- I shoot ten times more so the chance of great pics is ten times higher. I actually produce a lot more good shots now.
- Four letters: PS CS. Photoshop CS allows you to take raw images that are terribly underexposed, and push them to get excellent exposures. Also, skin blemishes, things that you just did not notice in th epicture, etc: all vanish with Photoshop.
Andyes, the printing press alloed bad writers to write, and the same will happen here - but the net effect will be a hack of a lot more great photos worldwide.
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
Lots of agreement to lots of previous posts...my $0.02:
Back in the day I shot lots of black and white with my Canon F1. The B&W file was cheap (bulk loaded) and I could develop it myself. The great thing about B&W is that it teaches you composition. No pretty flowers to distract the eye...you look for shadows and highlights, an emotion, some action.
I always always figured that 10% of my pics were good enough to print, the rest was junk.
My brother in law just got a fancy Canon Digital SLR (his mom came into some $$ and bought it for him). He's a nice guy, but doesn't know a THING about photography. I'm always explaining f-stops, and shutter speed, and lighting conditions, depth of field, etc. He needs to learn the basics...and at least in the digital realm, he can do it cheaply.
A good friend will help you move. A really good friend will help you move a body.
Sorry, been there, done that. Was trying to do something "artsy" for my high school photography class back in the late 70's....
And no, don't ask for the pic. A) I ain't that good-looking, and B) Heaven only knows where the negative & print is.
Those average shots are practice for the shutterbug. Do you think everyone starts out shooting rhinos in the African jungle? The post sounds borderline elitist, along the lines of "people who use Garageband are not really musicians". Can't you be happy for people who want to learn how to do things? These are your potential contemporaries.
I have a Nikon Coolpix 5000 with a rotatable screen, I ditch all of my average shots and keep the ones I like. I have been told I have an eye for composition and what makes a good shot, and I set pretty high standards for myself. It is figuring out flash, shutter speed, length of exposure, aperture, zoom, focus, white balance, that comprises most "average" shots.
The last set of film photos I took, I developed a total of 98, and thought that about 15 were keepers. I have a much higher rate of keepers with my digicam, because, for the most part, what you see is what you get. This is even more the case with an SLR.
If you are truly a student of the game, take a class at a community college, read all the magazines you can afford to read, hit the library for books. There are tons of resources out there for those serious about learning photography.
Photography, like any other form of art, is purely subjective. What may look good to one person, may look horrible to another. Maybe to some people the picture of their Aunt is very special to them, while some may ridicule it, there was a reason the picture was shot. To capture a moment in time. And that is all photography is, an attempt to stop time in it's tracks.
I hate sigs.
My method of photography is "Start shooting before whatever you want to shoot happens, and keep going until after it's over".
I was so happy when they came up with fast-forward-winding film cameras. The more pictures you can shoot, the more chances of a serendipitous shot you'dve never have been able to set up in a million years.
Digital imaging greatly reduces the cost of this method - I was getting two or three awesome pics per roll of file, so I couldn't afford to do very many - but unfortunately many of the digital cameras have a slow cycle time, and you'll find yourself between clicks when the pie hits the President.
Check out camera speed before you buy!
Lead the eye. One of the basic objectives of a good photograph is to keep the viewer looking at the picture. Using lines to lead the eye works well to draw attention to parts of the picture. Fences, roads, coastlines all create interest as well as leading the eye around the picture. Conversely, lines going out of the picture will lead the viewer outside of the picture, and make them feel less interested in it.
Frames, as discussed in the article also help to create interest for much the same reason, because they also try and stop the eye from leaving the image.
One low light trick I use in low light conditions (I don't like flash in crowds and because it flattens the image): Set the 2-second timer. A lot of camera shaking comes from the act of pressing the shutter. That shaking is gone after 2-seconds. Doesn't work for action shots, but your shutter is open too long for decent action shots anyway. Bonus tip for arms-length self portraits. My Canon ELPH has a little silver logo-button on the front. When I see my reflection in the logo, I can compose the shot. Fun for vacations.
Here'a a digital photo course using the GIMP published under the Creative Commons license. You might find it interesting.
Most camera manufacturers provide converter software as part of the package, and in some cases it's of a higher quality than the stuff built into the camera. This shouldn't be surprising, since there are fewer time and processing power constraints in off-line processing.
AFAIK, though, the best available software is Dave Coffin's dcraw program. It's available as free software under a non-advertizing BSD-style licence. It can be used either as a standalone converter (with Windows, Mac, and Linux versions available) or as a GIMP plugin. The author also claims that the program, or at least parts of it, is used in many commercial programs including Photoshop. I've been pretty pleased with the results so far.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I have been doing photography for almost 10 years and there is no way I will trade my film Nikons for anything digital short of digital SRL because everything else is simply crap. From what I've experienced, digital cameras are divided into crappy and very crappy. Here is my opinion on this matter.
When you get a digital camera for several hundred bucks you are getting robbed by the manufactures because most of cheap consumer point-and-shoot cameras (film and digital) come with a non-replaceable lens. To make the matters worse, these lenses are tend to be on a shitty side. They have less-than-average capabilities, no special effects and if you scratch it, you are shit out of luck. The camera will need to be repaired which may cost you a good chunk of money. Will you ever buy a car that has an engine that you cannot replace? What if this engine happens to be not so good? And there you have it, my problem #1 with digital point-and-shoot cameras: crappy, irreplaceable lenses that make you handicapped when it comes to special effects. In fact, the lens should be the most expensive part of your camera becase it is that important. If you ask professional photographers what to get, most of them will suggest to spend more money on the actual lens because lens is what matters! You can have an all manual old Nikon with a superb lens that will outperform any digital camera that is full of features but lacks what is absolutely necessary: a good lens.
Then there is an issue of color. If I want to manipulate colors, I use different film, filters and ask for different processing. With a digital camera, the hardware can do everthing for you. The problem is that hardware is not perfect. In fact, there is a fair amount of guess work involved when a chip inside your digital camera tries to calculate the color. As a result you get too many digital cameras that are thrown off by reds. Do not believe me? Take a picture of something red on grey background. Then compare it to the real setup. Most of the times reds come out over saturated. If you think that this is not a big deal, take pictures of people with rosy cheeks. Chances are, your subjects will never ask you for a re-print. That is problem #2.
Problem #3 is shot specifict. In particular, very few digital cameras can produce clear nigh shots without making certain things purple. The best way to find out is to take a picture of street lights and objects close to them. In many cases you will see a rim of purple around the lights. Does it matter? Well, if you spend $300 on a camera, don't you think that you deserve a camera that can take good shots at night? Do not get me wrong, if I were to spend fifty bucks, I would not bitch about it, but if Fuji wants me to get their FinePix, they better fix those fuckedup color schemes that come up in night shots!
Problem #4 is zoom. None of 10x zoom cameras that I've seen so far had lens stabilizers. In plain English: when lenses were zoomed out, you could giggle any extended part of the lens. To my best knowlege, only certain Panasonic cameras were able to stabilize the lens and prevent it from being shaken.
Problem #5: accessories. Most of cheap digital cameras do not offer hot shoes or metal tripod mounts. I use tripods in a good fraction of my shots and I would hate to repair my camera's plastic tripod mount every once in a while. In my opinion, a good tripod mount must be mandatory for every camera. If your camera comes without a hot-shoe, you might as well throw it away, because you will not be able to use a flash. I am sorry to disappoint you, but a little flash that comes with your camera is nothing but a fill-in flash. It is not suitable for distant objects, it is not suitable for a large scene. If you want to be serious about photography, you'll have to spend at least $150 on a good flash.
Problem #6: manual features. I believe that every camera's feature must be available in "manual mode." Users must be able to override everything from focusing to shutter speed
I think that one of the best things to come out of the widespread adoption of digital photography is the fact that it has become so much easier for people to (inadvertantly in most cases) document their lives.
What's valuable about this is that the quantity of pictures has increased - and this includes all the crappy candids that capture the moment, instead of the scene. And it's the moment that matters in candids, not necessarily the anal-retentiveness of making sure that the best shot possible is taken.
This being said, the better a photographer knows the fundamentals of photography and the ins and outs of the camera, the better the pictures will be, but when a person starts fiddling with the camera at the expense of the moment, the spontenaity simply goes away and that moment is lost.
*shrug* some of my most valuable pictures are ones taken on a crappy camera, that aren't totally in focus, and that are plain bad pictures. But to me, and to my friends that identify with the moment that was captured, and to my son who will grow up and learn something about me from the pictures that he would never see if the pictures (crappy though they be) didn't exist....none of that matters.
Knowing you don't have to pay for the tossed photos makes it really easy to push the button a few extra times.
It's a trick that's worked since chemical photography was invented, and it still works with digital today. (I've done it with outdoor night photos.)
One problem with extremely long exposures in the dark that is peculiar to digital is that noise in the sensors becomes extremely apparent. You might see "static" or "snow" on extremely long, dark exposures. If that's a problem you encounter, try keeping the camera as cool or cold as possible (don't put it in the freezer and frost the thing, though!) That means leave it out in the cold rather than tightly held in your jacket, for example; and spare the LCD display as much as possible as the EL panels really warm them up.
John
Is that the mode where you hand the camera to someone nearby and say, "Here, I'm too stupid to use this."
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As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
I started out with a Pentax K-1000, taking photos for Journalism in High School and developing my own B&W film.
I still have the K-1000, but I got rid of my Kodak Color Lab a while back. Chemicals are expensive...if I don't take any photos for a year, I have to buy all new chemicals (certainly a major cost problem). Film (I mean good film) really costs. Photoshop is so much easier/cheaper than having to buy new filters/equipment.
In the digital darkroom there is no real cost for film, and not much trade off for Color vs. B&W, so all of your pictures can be taken in color and changed via Gimp/Photoshop to set the "mood".
I currently own (and use as my primary camera) a Canon Powershot A70. You don't need a SLR to take good photos, if you're just taking photos of a skyline, trees, etc...you can still get good results with a well built snapshot camera.
The things to remember are the following:
Learn the limitations of your camera. Know how to get the best photos using the manual settings. A good start is generally setting the ISO Rating to ISO 50, set a fast shutter speed and a higher aperture. Set the highest resolution and quality setting. Turn off the flash unless it's absolutely necessary (your subjects will look "dead" otherwise) and don't get too carried away with zoom (digital or otherwise)...
Now, why am I using a snapshot camera and not an SLR??? Some people want you to belive that because they spent $1000 on their camera, they somehow take better photos than those of us spending $300 for a camera. Despite what others would have you belive, you can still take bad photos with an SLR and you can certainly take great photos with a snapshot camera.
Don't belive that good photos can be taken with "cheap" cameras...Look at this site...where all of the photos have been taken with an Aptek PenCam (earlier shots were taken with the $30 PenCam VGA)...
I don't know which country you live in, but I believe in the modern world those are not considered dirty pictures, and non suitable for work, if spending your work time on the web is allowed in the first place.
In my city, we have a reproduction of the Michaelangelo's David at the door of the City Hall, and he is nude there.
I believe in most places, it would be more troublesome to be caught all day slashdotting than watching some [wannabe] artistic pics, nude or not.
One of the best tips I've ever received is think FAST
Focus
Aperature
Shutter
Think
It's like a checklist that is now a habit. Works well in the darkroom, too. (The darkroom was a magic place where we would develop film and make images appear on paper.)
OK, I'm quite the avid photographer, and there is a supurb site for posting your pieces and getting critiqued, and you can end up selling them there too, it's www.deviantart.com Which is always amusing to me when I tell people my page there (spoco2.deviantart.com ) as they assume it's all about porn or other such 'deviant' behaviour... it's a great site, with digital and film photographers and all sorts of other artists as well... a great place to hone your skills
And yet again, I see the idiocy that the so-called "digital revolition" has spawned ... composition for digital. How is composition for digital different than composition for film? I could understand lighting for digital or something of that nature...
The "digital revolution" has caused people who never would have had any interest in photography to get involved in it - and I'm all for that. But many of these folks are very techno-savvy, and probably lack artistic ability.
Digital photography is great for convenience. It helps out people who don't care enough about their photos to wait an hour to see them. It has spurred a market of technology-hungry consumers who want the latest and the greatest, and who usually care little about "composition." Don't believe me? Then why does Joe Blow go out and buy that 1GB CF card to hold a jillion images, everyone one of which he is going to go home and edit in PhotoShop?
Any other book on composition will give you as good or better information - anyone who concentrates on equipment as a defining characteristic of composition knows little about the art of photography.
I just do what we used to do at the TV station: I carry a piece of 96 bright laserjet paper with me. Put it down, aim the camera at it (from an angle...no shadows please) and hit the auto white balance button. No issues.
The coffee filter idea doesn't work quite so hot, since they aren't really white either. But that 96 (or brighter) paper almost GLOWS, even in low light.
Oh, and today at the arena, I was having trouble getting a good balance because of smoke from pyrotechnics. So I zoomed in on the abdomen of a woman in a white shirt. Look at the shots I took after that, there's a noticable difference in the color histogram.
Hey freaks: now you're ju