Use the shutter-release button correctly
The shutter-release button on a digital camera functions differently than one on a film camera. It must be pressed in two steps: first to lock focus and exposure, second to take the photo. If you don't use it correctly, photos will be improperly focused and exposed. In addition, images will be blurred. Keep the camera steady Digital cameras, because they are heavier, are prone to camera shake, particularly when lighting is low. Keep your camera as steady as possible while framing shots. Use a camera support, such as a tripod or table top, when the camera-shake warning appears or shutter speeds are low. Brace your arm against a wall, doorway or tree. Use the manual Don't get overwhelmed learning the numerous settings. First concentrate on the basic ones, then learn others only as you need them. Use the manual! More Tips for Better Pictures After seeing their digital photos for the first time, many new digital camera users find themselves asking: “Is there something wrong with my camera?” The answer to the question is usually no! Some of the problems they see in their photos are actually caused by two things: unfamiliarity with their camera and not understanding how to obtain proper exposure and focus. Here are some suggestions: 1. Become familiar with your digital camera Just shoot away. Take hundreds snapshots and don't worry if some of the pictures turn out yucky. Become familiar with camera settings, menus and modes. Keep the camera manual nearby to use as a reference when needed. Before you know it, you'll be concentrating more on subject matter than fumbling with the camera when taking photos. 2. Understand light and how it affects exposure The key to a great photograph is proper exposure. Take plenty of practice shots of subjects and scenes in bright light, low light, and back light. Take inside photos with and without a flash, and even outside with a flash (as a 'fill-in' flash to remove shadows on faces). There are many ways to control exposure, but learning how to use focus and exposure-lock is fundamental. Learn this technique before any other. 
A digital camera may have manual as well as semi-automatic modes that let you control aperture and shutter speed. The aperture is the opening in a lens that admits light. Shutter speed is the speed at which the shutter opens and closes. Together, aperture and shutter speed, along with ISO, determine how a photo is exposed. Aperture-priority (AV) mode When using aperture-priority, also known as Av mode, you manually select the aperture and the camera automatically sets the shutter speed. The aperture is the opening in a lens that admits light onto the camera sensor and is varied by changing the size of the opening. It's diameter is stated as an f-stop. Aperture-priority mode is used when you want to control depth-of-field, the region in a photo front to back that is in focus. A small aperture will allow more of the front-to-back subject to be in focus. A large aperture will have just a small region in focus. Learn more about depth of field. Shutter-priority (TV) mode Shutter speed describes how long the camera's shutter stays open after you fully depress the shutter-release button. Shutter speed is measured in seconds, such as '1/125th of a second'. A slow shutter speed produces a longer exposure time and lets in more light, but movement of the subject may cause blur. A fast shutter speed will freeze the motion of a subject, but lets in less light, so a wider aperture or larger ISO value maybe needed. For shutter-priority mode (Tv), select the shutter speed and the aperture adjusts automatically. Use shutter-priority mode when you want to control action in a photo either to freeze the action of fast moving subjects or to create a sense of movement. Common Mistakes to Avoid Here are common mistakes new digital camera users make: They don't read the manual - it doesn't have to be read all at one time. Honestly. But do read and refer to it often until you become familiar with your camera. It contains lots of good information and tips about using the camera correctly. They keep the camera on full automatic mode – Much of the time you'll get excellent results. Occasionally, however, your camera will attempt to get a big bright image when conditions are too dark and the subject is too far away for the built-in flash. It will do this by increasing the ISO and causing image degradation. Also, if your camera is always on automatic you're not learning how to take good photographs creatively! Once you become familiar with what all the controls do, experiment! They set the camera to take low resolution/highly compressed photos – hoping to fit more images on a memory card. That's no longer necessary; memory cards are huge, and inexpensive. Set your camera to take the largest highest quality photos it will allow, and buy a large capacity memory card! They shoot with the digital zoom - a digital zoom simply pre-crops the central portion of an image and reduces its resolution, giving an appearance of zooming in. Image quality is degraded and contains increased noise. For the best possible images, use the optical zoom. Turn off the digital zoom. They edit original image files - Always edit copies of original image files, rather than the originals. If you make a mistake that cannot be undone, you will still be able to make another copy of the original. Back up favorite photos in the cloud or on an external drive, in case your hard drive ever fails. External back-up drives are relatively inexpensive. Note that external drives and USB sticks will occasionally fail. It may still be worth backing up do DVD discs, which are indestructibe. Plug-in external DVD drives are very inexpensive! Personal note: I have had more than one hard drive failure, and multiple failures of external storage drives and USB sticks. I've lost irreplaceable data! I now use multiple back-up methods and a good automatic backup program. Camera shake  Camera shake is evident in the first photo above. There's some amount of camera shake in every hand-held shot. Using a fast shutter, you can minimize it, but it's always present to some degree. Your beating heart causes camera shake! The right photo is the result of using a faster shutter speed. Pay attention to your shutter speed. If it's as slow as 1/60th of a second, your picture might come out reasonably sharp, especially if you're bracing your arm against something. But if you're using a telephoto lens and you're zoomed in on a subject, you might need to go as high as 1/250th of a second or higher But no matter what the shutter speed, if you want optimal results, use a tripod! This is a good reason why photos should be edited on a computer, rather than your camera or phone. Fuzzy photos are often not evident on a small screen! One of the most common causes of camera shake is failure to use the shutter-release button correctly. It is a two step process: first lock focus and exposure by pressing the shutter button halfway. When focus is locked, press the shutter down fully. The second most common cause of camera shake happens in low-light when the aperture is wide-open and shutter speed is slow. The best way to prevent camera shake in these conditions is to use a tripod or other flat, level support. When using a tripod, use a remote or the self-timer to trigger the shutter button without touching the camera. If you don't have a tripod, hold the camera with both hands and steady it by leaning and bracing yourself against a wall, tree or pole, car roof, anything. Or brace your elbows against your body while holding the camera firmly. Another way to minimize camera shake is to use the viewfinder, if your camera has one, instead of the LCD when composing shots. Bracing the camera against your face helps steady the camera. Digital cameras are more prone to camera shake when taking hand-held shots that are zoomed in on a subject. To help prevent blur, shutter speed should be set faster than the focal length. For example, a lens set at 200mm requires a shutter speed of at least 1/200 second. If your DSLR camera has Image Stabilization, turning it on can help reduce camera shake. To help prevent blur when photographing a fast moving subject, select a fast shutter speed. A fast shutter speed “freezes” the action. If your digital camera doesn't have the option to select shutter speeds, use the Sports or equivalent mode. However, a fast shutter speed won't work indoors beyond the range of your (built-in) flash … you'll either get a too-dark image, or a low quality noisy one because the auto feature has turned up the ISO. Misplaced focus Most of those soft, dreamy pictures don't look artistic, just out of focus. It's caused by the camera's auto-focus system locking onto the wrong element in the picture. This is a mistake that's easy to do when you've zoomed in on subjects. Properly focused subjects are very important for close-ups, where clarity is the first thing a critic will look for, and sharp focus on the eyes is essential for portraits. Read the manual on the various modes of auto-focus your camera offers, and use the one that will place primary focus where it will do the most good. Tilted Horizons 
Watch the horizon when composing in the camera viewfinder. A tilt of as little as half a degree in the horizon can throw a fine landscape out of kilter. That's why pro landscape photographers buy expensive tripods that have built-in levels. Digital photo editing programs make it much easier, since there are leveling tools built into them. But make checking for a level horizon a top priority. Bad Backgrounds 
You don't want trees and other 'stuff' growing out of people's heads, bright objects drawing attention away from the subject, or a cluttered background that takes attention away from your subject.This is the classic error in photography, and you'd be surprised at how often it happens when you're intent on getting the composition just right. It's important to compose for the background first, and then figure out how to insert the subjects into it by changing your position or having the subject move, or both. No Clear Subject This may be the single most common mistake made when taking photographs. The photo is of something, but no-one is sure what. You don't really know what the photo is about. Here are two examples. (Neither are mine, fortunately) 
The picture on the left above is poorly composed, with respect to the people, who are barely visible. It's possible that it's about the drum set. But who really knows? The photo on the right is way too 'busy' ... too much is going on here for one photo. Trying to pack too much information into a photograph is like cramming too much into your suitcase: It only makes the thing you're looking for that much harder to find. A good photograph - travel or otherwise - should reveal a single subject with as little clutter as possible. Problems like these can often be fixed by cropping out an interesting part. Direct Flash in People Pictures Harsh shadows, a washed out look and red-eye are all caused by direct flash. Skin, eyes, lips, and teeth are all reflective surfaces. Fire a flash directly at them, and you'll have a maze of distracting harsh highlights and shadows. A camera's internal pop-up flash is like a half-sized spare tire useful only in emergencies. For quality results, use natural light or buy an external flash than works in bounce mode. Getting the most out of a DSLR camera If you've used a compact digital camera, you're already familiar with its automatic capabilities. In 'green mode' the camera, whether compact or DSLR, selects the ISO, aperture, shutter speed and even the image quality. The camera also determines when to turn on the built-in flash. The better option is to switch to program mode. The DSLR still does most of the thinking for you but program mode provides menu settings for more creative control. Let's take a look at some of them. DSLR focus points As of this writing, DSLRs have between 3 and 45 focus points. They are all active unless you opt to choose only one. Which focus point you select depends on the Auto Focus mode used. In One Shot mode, use one point, usually center. In Servo mode, use all focus points. In One Shot the camera will focus faster and more accurately. Servo modes work best when the camera uses all targets to track motion and predict where the subject will be. RAW or JPG images? Digital cameras store images in a compressed format called JPG or JPEG. These are the most commonly used file formats. Some cameras also have uncompressed formats (TIFF and RAW). When images are compressed, their file size becomes smaller so more can be stored on a memory card. However, if compression is set too high, image quality degrades. Low compression = better image quality. For best image quality, select your camera's least compression and highest resolution (highest number of megapixels) settings. Digital cameras provide a variety of compression levels: Super Fine, Fine, Normal and Basic. The terms vary among manufacturers. The Super Fine or equivalent setting produces the least compression and best image quality. If you plan to use a good photo-editing program like Photoshop Elements to improve your pictures, set the camera to shoot both JPG and Raw images simultaneously. When shooting RAW, most settings such as white balance and exposure can be changed with little or no harm to the original image, and other properties of your images can be improved more so than with JPGs. This is important if you plan to make big prints. The downside is that RAW takes up a lot of space on a memory card and usually takes more time to process at the computer. Buy a big capacity card with fast transfer time! If you shoot RAW as well as JPG, leave the camera set on 'auto white balance'. With RAW files, you can correct white balance even if it's wrong. It can be more difficult to correct JPGs. ISO number Keep it low, and you will get higher quality images. A setting of 100 gives the best results when there's lots of light. But increase the ISO in low light situations in order to get 'impossible' shots. Newer DSLR cameras will produce very good results even at higher ISO settings like 1600 … and DSLRs produce much better quality images with less noise at high ISO numbers than compacts or phones do. If you find that your pictures are 'noisy' in the dark areas, turn the ISO down. I shoot manually at ISO 1600 for almost all indoor photos. Find out more about ISO here. Light Metering modes Use 'matrix' metering. Matrix metering lets the camera compare different zones of the image area to decide how to get the best range of tones. Use Spot metering when the subject is in shadow and the rest of the scene is too bright, or when the subject is in spotlight and the rest of the frame is dark. DSLR focus modes Digital single lens reflex cameras have three main focus modes: One Shot, AI, and AI Servo. One Shot is the basic mode … you push the button half way down and the camera focuses. It will not change or refocus until you lift your finger completely and repress the shutter button. AI focus acts the same way as One Shot but is more intuitive. If something moves, or if you move, AI can choose to refocus. AI Servo is active all of the time that the shutter button is depressed. This would be the mode of choice for fast action or tracking a moving subject, especially if using the high frames per second drive mode. Aperture Priority mode Besides the automatic green and Program modes, DSLRs have other modes including Shutter Priority (Tv), Aperture Priority (Av), Manual (M). Some DSLRs with multiple focus points have an A-dep mode, which adjusts depth-of-field. I find the most useful mode to be Aperture Priority. I select the f-stop and the camera adjusts the shutter speed automatically. Why should you care about Av mode? Because it allows you to take your first steps toward true creative control over the camera. For example, if you want to shoot the little one's outdoor baseball game, set the camera to Av. Set the widest aperture your lens has (small numbers = wide aperture = more light). This will force the camera to use a faster shutter speed, which should stop the action and prevent motion blur. Of course this works best in daylight. Changing the aperture size, also gives a photographer more control over depth of field. |