Top Ten Rules Taking Digital Camera Shots

 

Digital Photographers Life

 Being a digital photographer makes life easier in many ways. For example, you are no longer plagued by the feeling that your film may in fact, not have connected itself with the camera spool…On the other hand, this does by no means tell us that a digital photographer can be a care less person! Lets look at some of the ways a digital photographer can make sure he delivers the goods every time –

The 10 tips

  1. DO NOT expose your camera to moisture unless you are using a protective layer. A drop of water (even just one drop) on the lens/filter will magnify itself on the image.
  2. A digital photographer, in many ways, needs to be a Photoshop artist as well! Unless you follow the rules of conventional photography to the T, which any photographer must in any case, (but even so), you need to know how to manage your image on a computer, since this is the medium of transfer. Learn about color corrections and image sizes-for web usage and for print. Try and give your clients two file sizes for each image – one for web and one for print. This doesn’t require too much time to do, just the know-how.
  3. If you are not the type of person who depends on an exposure meter and visualization, remember to calibrate your preview screen on-camera with your monitor. Do this using adobe gamma.
  4. If you are using a compact without a preview, remember to keep your fingers out of the way of the lens
  5. When using on-camera flash, you need to remember to keep your hands out of the way of the flash…a finger or part of it in front of the flash can result in a huge shadow on the whole image.
  6. Use a tripod wherever possible. At least use a support for the camera or the hand supporting it, if a tripod isn’t available.
  7. Do remember to carry an extra battery (or batteries) while shooting outdoors…. running out of power can be a frustrating situation, especially if your camera doesn’t accept standard AAA batteries.
  8. Also, it is always advisable to carry an extra memory card while shooting outdoors. Not only does this save you valuable time which you could well utilize for studying the ambience of the place, and plan shots, it also saves you the trouble of trying to delete images which you aren’t sure you want to delete! Leave the editing to later; shoot all you can using your camera! If this was conventional film photography we were talking about, id say – carry extra film! You get the point.
  9. If you are a photography enthusiast don’t leave the camera to ‘work it all out’ – use the correct ASA reading for the apt situation.
  10. Do remember this – the longer the lens focal length the steadier the camera has to remain. You can equate this with a simple rule – the shutter speed needs to be an inverse of the focal length AT THE LEAST. If you are using a 150mm lens (on a 35 mm equivalent), you need to have a shutter speed of AT LEAST 1/150 seconds to get an acceptable image with minimum shake.