Three Tips for taking great photos with a point and shoot camera. Monday, May 3, 2010  Visit Link  3 Tips for taking great photos with a point & shoot camera. 1. Focus. The biggest complaint I hear from people using point & shoot digital cameras is how slow they are. It takes so long from the moment you press the shutter release button to the time the camera actually takes the picture that more often than not you’ve missed the shot. Anyone trying to photograph children will have experienced this. The reason the camera takes so long to actually take the picture is that it tries to decide what to focus on each time you press the shutter release button. A simple way to overcome this is by pre-focusing. Pre-focusing is achieved by pressing the shutter release button down half-way; you will usually hear a beep or the box on your camera’s LCD which indicates the area it’s focusing on will turn green. As long as you hold the shutter release halfway down, your camera will remain pre-focused. It is important to keep in mind that if your subject moves away from or closer to you, you will need to re-focus. Now that you have pre-focused your camera, you’ll be ready to capture that special moment with ease. 2. Lighting. Lighting is one of the most important elements of photography. The goal should be to make you photograph appear as close to reality as possible. Photographers often rely on the camera’s flash when the available light is insufficient to take a picture otherwise. A few examples of such situations are: Outdoors at night, indoors when there are no windows, or even indoors when windows do not let in sufficient light to take a quality photograph. The problem with using flash in these situations is that your photographs will not look natural. By this I mean that it will be obvious you used a flash. Faces will appear shiny or too bright, people will often have red-eye, and backgrounds may appear dark or even black. The solution: Outdoors at night your best option is to use a tripod. Most cameras have settings called scene modes or something similar. While using the tripod in this situation look for a scene mode called night portrait or something similar. The camera will use it’s flash but will also take in additional light to bring out detail in the background. Indoors when there are no windows, turn on as many lights as possible and turn off the camera’s flash. You may notice when you do this that your photos will turn out orange or green depending on the kind of lighting in the room usually incandescent or fluorescent. Our eyes compensate for different types of lighting but digital as well as film cameras do not do this as well. The solution: Adjust the white balance settings on your camera. By default, your camera will be set to auto. While photographing indoors under artificial light your best option is usually “tungsten” which is closest to incandescent lighting or if you are photographing under fluorescent lighting, obviously the “fluorescent” setting is best. Play around with the white balance options and see how they affect the color of your photographs. Be sure to return the white balance to “auto” if you don’t have the time to adjust it for each different situation or you may end up with all kinds of interesting colors in your photographs. Now for some examples of when you will want to make sure the flash is on. I’m sure we have all seen a photograph taken of someone indoors in front of a window, the camera sees the sunlight and thinks it’s way too bright so it darkens the whole photo leaving your subject a silhouette. In this case you will want to turn your camera’s flash on if it does not fire automatically. One would not think that flash would be necessary outdoors on a sunny day but you will notice that the sun casts strong shadows on a person’s face. In this case, turn on your flash and this will help to lighten the shadows. You will find this works best if you are relatively close to your subject. Your camera’s flash will not have enough power to work at great distances outdoors. 3. Perspective. One of the most common mistakes made by many photographers when photographing people is standing too close to the subject. Our eyes see people as they Look when they are roughly 15 feet away from us. If we are 1 foot from someone or 30 feet away, they look the same to us. This is only because our brain works out the perspective problems. Don’t believe me? Take your camera, hold it as close to your face as possible and take a picture. Now, ask someone else to stand 15 feet or so away from you and take a picture. Which one looks more natural? When we photograph a person standing too close, their nose will appear pointier, their eyes farther apart, and the entire image will be distorted. If we stand back and zoom in, a much more flattering and natural result will be attained. Conclusion. One important thing to remember is that these are tips and not rules. Use what works for you. If you like the look acheived by photographing your subject while standing close that’s fine, it can give the photograph a fun look that cannot be had any other way. Above all remember that with photography if it looks good, it is good. www.BradOvardPhotography.com utah wedding photographer COMMENTS Sign in to comment
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