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I am not going to tell you that I can take better photographs than you, what I am going to do, is try to dispel a few of the myths, that surround the taking of digital photographs.
Firstly, as of this date, Tuesday, June 19, 2007, only three of the photographs on this site, have been taken with a camera of more than 4 megapixels.
None of the photographs have a file size larger than 200 kb----1/5 of a meg and most have been taken on Canon 4 meg compacts or a 4 meg Panasonic super zoom and the 1/2 dozen that Paul supplied I know were on a compact, possibly a Fuji but I would have to check with him to be sure. ( he has it in his hand in the picture of him and Jan sitting outside a cafe in France }
Of the remaining three, two were taken by my mate Ian Tab on his Canon 400D and one by myself on my Olympus E500, both of these are SLRs. One of them is 8 megapixel and the other 10, can you tell the difference, I doubt it.
The widely advertised fact that more pixels is better is not quite true and a lot more considerations have to be made, for printed images, of up to about A4 using the full file size, 4 megapixel is more than adequate. using this reasoning , if you only print up to 7x5, 2 megapixel will do all you require and if all you do is view them on screen, you could use even less, this picture of Cardigan bay is only 111kb and the average file size of a 4 megapixel camera is about 1.5--2.0 megbytes. (1.500---2,000kb)
One of the most common problems is caused by using the camera in landscape mode for all types of shots and as a consequence not filling the frame with the real subject, in the following three frames you can see how much of the original file is wasted.
We have to believe that the young lady in the foreground was meant to be the main subject of this picture,
If she is the main subject, would it not have been better taken in portrait mode like this.
And she should really have legs and feet.
How much of the original file has been wasted to get the picture?
If this photograph had been taken with a nice new 6 meg model, why would you only want to be using about20% of the file, this equates to 4/5 being wasted.
If it was just a general landscape with people in the foreground, is this not a better balanced composition? less sky and the young girl on the right hand side, not past the middle on the left. If the people in the frame appear to be looking or moving out of shot, the viewers eyes will also look out of frame. She should still have legs and feet though.
The idea that you need to spend a fortune to take good pictures is not true, if you can't see the photo as a finished image in your mind and you have a mind set that see's snap shots, you can spend your fortune and still get rubbish.
Remember a few basic rules and techniques then you can produce photograph's and not snap shots.
Horizon's need to be straight.
You need a point of interest that is obvious, you should not need to explain what its a picture off
Stick to the rule of two thirds.
If you take photos in flat light you get flat photos.
Angled light shows texture.
If your view finder has a focusing aid in the center, do not use it to aim with, focus and then re-frame.
Highlights should not be burned out.
Shadows not blocked out.
Focus on the closest eye when taking portraits.
Blurred foregrounds, most of the time do not work well.
Do not cut feet or heads off unless there is a reason.
Look around the frame for distractions before you press the button.
People don't have Lamp posts , Telegraph poles or trees growing out of there heads.
Focus accurately .
Camera shake spoils more pictures than you think, make sure you can hold the camera still at the shutter speed you are using.
Use your legs and move to get the correct composition.
Zoom's are handy but don't forget your legs. they are the most useful things you have got,
Back lighting, ie light source aiming at you, not the subject, is all well and good as long as you light the subject somehow. ( fill in flash or reflector ) If you do not light it you will get a silhouette.
A 6 meg camera with a 64 meg card will only give you about 25-30 shots, to get more shots buy a bigger card, DO NOT turn the camera resolution down.
What is the point of using a 6 meg camera and setting it at 2 meg, you might as well save the money and buy a 2 meg camera to start off with.
Its a bit like buying a 6 cylinder car and then to save fuel taking 2 plug leads off. WONT WORK!!
You can buy most types of memory card in the 1 gig form for less than £20. 1 gig = 500 x 2 meg images. ( near enough)
14 rolls of 35ml film gives you 504 images at a cost of ???????????????? a lot!!. And you can only use them once, makes memory cards cheap!
The following image is an example of how to use the Rule of 2 Thirds, buy composing the image around the intersecting thirds you achieve good balance and perspective.
As you can see my lines using the mouse are not very straight but you get the idea.
For the average person using a camera for, holiday's, birthday's, party's, family visits etc, a digital camera costing no more than £150 is quite possibly all you will need, a 3X zoom optical zoom is normal and most will also have a digital zoom, Do not use it, some of the later models have a 4X zoom ( if you go up in price you can get 10X zooms ) if you need more than the standard 3-4 X optical zoom, use a graphics program to obtain it, the digital zoom in the camera will degrade the image a lot more than your computer will. Good deals can be got on most of the internet discount sites ( Misco, E buyer, Dabs, Play.com even E bay ) the only suggestion I would make , is that you stick to a known camera make, one definite myth is that you need the piles of disc's and program's that come bundled with most new buys.
Just an example of the kind of camera I am talking about.
To down load your image files to the computer you will need a card reader and to work on the images a graphics editor of some type.
Graphics editor's range from many hundreds of pounds ie Photoshop CS3 down to nothing, buckshee, free, nowt, but don't expect everything for nothing.
On the download page of this site is a free program called Xn view it has got basic tools to control, contrast, brightness, colour hue, saturation , image size, red eye and a lot more, you can also use it to make presentation slide shows etc.
On the internet links page you will find a link to the Gimp, this is an open source graphics editor of the Photoshop type, it is very powerful and contains a massive range of tools but is very complex to use, just the same as Photoshop.
The difference is whereas Photoshop costs in excess of £500 The Gimp is free, it does not have the polished appearance of the commercial product but believe me it does work, but for all of the basics XN view will do.
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