Digital photos are inherently “soft” as opposed to being “sharp,” because the image is represented by pixels, or “dots,” instead of a smooth tonal range like analog or traditional photos. But that’s okay because you can sharpen an image and increase contrast in many ways. You can sharpen a photo by “editing” it with an image editor such as Adobe Photoshop 7 or Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, or if your digital camera has an “in-camera sharpening process,” you can turn it on to increase the perception that an image is sharp. Likewise, you may find your digital camera has an “in-camera contrast” feature, too.
Before you use either of these features, you need to carefully consider how you intend to use your photos, and you ought to experiment with the features before using them to shoot photos for an important event. If you don’t plan on using an image editor to sharpen your photos, you may find that the sharpness and contrast features in your camera help you get better prints when you print on some printers. Should you plan on using an image editor to edit your photos, I suggest that you not use either of these features because you’ll have much more control over your image in your image editor.
One more useful feature many digital cameras offer is an automatic file (and sometimes folder) numbering feature. You realize how valuable this feature can be after you start storing and archiving your digital photos. If you have the option, I recommend that you set automatic file numbering to “On.”When this feature is on, image files will be sequentially numbered—even when you remove the digital photo storage media and use a new one. The camera remembers the number of the last photo regardless of which digital photo image media was in the camera last.
If you don’t have, or you don’t use this feature, you will find that you have files with the exact same filename! Each time you remove a card and download the images to your computer, the digital camera starts numbering at 1 again. This means that you have to rename files if you want to put them in the same folder with another file with the same name. Additionally, sequentially numbered files just make keeping track of when you shot particular photos easy.
SETTING COMPRESSION LEVEL
If you chose the .jpg format in the previous post, you may want to check to see whether your camera allows you to choose different compression levels. A moderate amount of JPEG compression can dramatically reduce file size while only slightly reducing image quality; in fact, you may not notice any image degradation at all relative to a non-compressed or .tif “raw” format. As compression level increases, file size decreases, as does image-quality to some extent. Once again, you are faced with the trade-off between file size and image-quality. On those occasions where you have limited photo storage capacity, you may want to increase the compression level so that you have room to take more photos. Otherwise, you should use a setting that applies the least amount of image compression.
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Depending on your camera model, you can likely choose from two or more different file formats. Three basic types of file formats are offered on compactlevel digital cameras: .jpg, .tif, or a proprietary “raw” format. The most frequently used format is the .jpg format, which is a compressed file format. To make the image file smaller, a mathematical algorithm is applied that simplifies the image, thereby making it smaller. Simplifying an image also means that there is some decrease in image-quality.
Proprietary “raw” formats are file formats that are unique to a single vendor, such as Nikon’s .nef format, or Canon’s .crw format. Both are compressed, “raw” file formats. Unlike non-raw formats, where an image is taken and the camera processes it to get optimal results, a raw format image file is written to the digital photo storage media as it was captured on the image sensor without any additional processing. The advantage to these raw files is that you can use special software to adjust the original image parameters, such as white balance, contrast, sharpening, saturation, and so on. Because both .nef and .crw file formats have the additional advantage of also being compressed files, they take less storage space than an uncompressed file such as .tif, which is a common uncompressed file format found on digital cameras.
On those occasions where you want to maximize image-quality and you have plenty of digital photo storage media space, you should select either a .tif format or a proprietary format if one is available on your digital camera. Besides being compressed, someof the proprietary files use 16-bit images instead of 8-bit images—meaning that they contain much more picture information, which can be useful if you edit the image with an image editor that can work with 16-bit images. The downside of using a proprietary format is that you may need special software to convert the images so that you may view them or use them in other applications. Also, these image files can be very large.
So, pick the .jpg format unless you are seeking to get the best possible image-quality that your camera can produce and you plan on and are prepared to use an image editor to edit a .tif or proprietary image file. Be aware that the choice between a .jpg format and an uncompressed format like .tif is a decision between a relatively small file and a much larger file! Imagequality can be better but not necessarily significantly better.
For example, the same photo of a barn shot with a Canon PowerShot G2 using the “best” (least compressed) .jpg setting is 1.6MBs. The same image shot in Canon’s “raw” format (.crw) is 3.3MBs; when it’s opened up as a 16-bit image, it’s a whopping 22.2MBs!
In digital photography, not only are you faced with the traditional trade-offs between shutter speed and aperture size, but you also must choose from among a number of settings that determine file size (which ultimately is a trade-off between files that take less space to store and less computer processor cycles to edit) and image-quality. The five major factors determining image file size are image resolution, image format, compression level, ISO setting, and the subject. You can control the first four of those five factors with user-selectable settings that allow you to optimize image file size with image-quality to meet your needs.
Almost all digital cameras offer user-changeable settings for image resolution. For example, the Canon PowerShot G2 has a maximum image size of 2,272 × 1,704 pixels. It also has image resolution settings of 1,600 × 1,200, 1,024 × 768, and 640 × 480.
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The world is full of VCRs set to the wrong time and wrong date. They are owned by people who either don’t know how to set them, or by people who don’t need to set them. Unlike VCRs, where a correct date and time is not often needed, setting the date and time correctly on your digital camera is more than worthwhile.
Each time you take a picture with your digital camera, a digital image file is written to the digital photo storage media in your camera. This file contains the “picture,” plus it contains “metadata.” Metadata is a fancy term that means data or information about the picture. Most digital camera vendors conform to an industry standard; the cameras write this metadata in the EXIF format in each picture file.
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Today’s digital cameras are both rich in features and highly capable of helping you get good photos when used in one of many “auto” modes—without requiring you to know much about your camera or photography. However, learning how to use your digital camera and its many features will enable you to get even better photos and do things you never even imagined could be done.
READ (OR GLANCE THROUGH) YOUR MANUAL
Most digital camera users have proven over and over that they can take good pictures without reading most of the written documentation that came with their camera; some never read any of it at all—ever! Not reading the documentation that came with your camera when you get the camera is okay. Not reading it at all just means that you won’t be able to take advantage of many cool and useful features your camera offers.Not only does reading the manual help you to more fully enjoy your camera, but it also
enables you to take better pictures. It is also quite likely that you will be more than compensated for your investment in time because your effort may help you avoid missing good shots of those important events that you get only one chance to shoot.
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You’ll find all kinds of things to photograph when the sun goes down, and each one requires a somewhat different technique. Here are some suggestions to get you started:
The moon
When shooting the moon, remember that it is a very bright object.The Sunny 16 Rule may work for you in this situation, but I’ve found that many cameras get confused by the dramatic variation in brightness with shots like this, so you may need to experiment a bit. If you can get enough magnification out of your lens so that the moon fills up at least half of the frame, you’ll need to shoot a fairly fast shutter speed or even set the EV value to underexpose the frame. And be sure to use a tripod.
Sunset
The sky is full of rich, gorgeous colors around sunset. Base your exposure on the sky itself, not your subject or anything on the ground. And take a few extra pictures, bracketing your exposure to make sure you get the shot.
Dusk
I have found that photographing lighted buildings and headlight trails works particularly well when you can get the rich blue colors of dusk in the sky at the same time.
A friend of mine, a professional photographer, recently had decided to get a disability insurance. Disability Insurance is a form of insurance that insures the beneficiary’s earned income against the risk that disability will make working (and therefore earning) impossible. It’s a unique financial planning vehicle because it insures what is usually one’s largest asset (often forgotten) the ability to earn an income and thus one’s future income.
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Taking pictures at night is a rewarding, exciting activity; unfortunately, digital cameras don’t always make it easy to do. On the plus side, taking pictures with a digital camera is essentially free, since you’re not buying film. So you can experiment to your heart’s content without wasting any film.
Not every camera is cut out for night photography. Low-light photography requires long exposure times; if your digital camera is not capable of shutter speeds of one second or more, you will probably have some trouble getting decent night shots. In fact, your camera should have a manual exposure mode so you can dial in the shutter speed by hand. Automatic exposure settings may not give you anything even remotely interesting. If you’re shopping for a camera and are specifically interested in night shots, try to get a camera with a bulb setting—that’s photography lingo for a shutter that stays open for as long as you hold the shutter release down—or at least a maximum shutter speed of 8 seconds. Not all night exposures are measured in seconds, though. See the night picture—in the Color Insert—I captured with only about a one-second exposure, something any digital camera should be able to do.
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