Digital Camera Master

Many digital cameras come with a control for something called white balance. White balance is important because different light sources have different color temperatures, meaning that a scene will appear to have a slightly different color tone depending upon how it is illuminated.

You have probably noticed this yourself without really even paying attention. You may have seen, for instance, that ordinary light bulbs appear more yellow than the light that streams in from outdoors. And other sources—like candlelight and fluorescent lighting—are certainly a very different color than sunlight.

Photographers and scientists have gone to the trouble of cataloging the different color temperatures exhibited by various light sources. Higher temperatures appear warm, or slightly reddish, while cooler light sources tend to add a blue tone to your pictures. It’s not at all unlike the way a flame has different colors at its outside and center. Why? Because those different parts of the flame are different temperatures.
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Different light sources, such as tungsten light bulbs, produce light at different color temperatures than normal daylight (different temperatures often result in pictures that are “cooler” or “bluish” in some situations, or “warmer” or “reddish” in others). Your optical/nervous system compensates for these variations in color, but cameras need a little help as you move from outdoors to indoors.

Film cameras rely on color correction filters to capture natural tones under a variety of conditions. Digital cameras make things easier by providing a built-in white balance adjustment. This control not only allows you to capture pictures with accurate tones, but also enables you to preview the effect on your LCD monitor before you take the shot. Think of the white balance control as your own personal filter collection, built right into the camera.

The default setting for your camera is auto white balance. This mode works amazingly well most of the time. To test for yourself, point the camera at a different light source, such as a regular light bulb, and watch in the LCD monitor as the image slowly goes from very amber to a less surreal off-white.

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The default flash mode for most cameras is automatic, and that’s where it stays for most folks. But even the most basic of digicams offers multiple flash settings that can help you take engaging photos under a variety of lighting conditions. Some of the typical flash settings that you might encounter on your camera are:

1. Auto
The camera activates the flash as determined by the light meter reading. If you’re indoors in low light, the flash fires. Outside on a bright sunny day? The camera turns off the flash.

2. Red eye reduction
Many digicams have some sort of red eye reduction mode. Red eye occurs when the subject’s eyes are dilated (in dim lighting), exposing the retina. When the light from the flash reflects off the retina, the resulting color is red. Most cameras tackle this problem by shining a light at the subject before the flash goes off. The pre-flash causes the pupils to constrict, which may reduce the chance of red eye.

The challenge for a photographer using red eye reduction flash modes is coping with the extended delay from the time the shutter button is pressed until the actual picture is recorded. If you use red eye reduction, remind the subject to hold the pose until the final flash has fired, and remember to hold the camera steady during this entire process.

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Whether you’re using the LCD monitor or the optical view finder, the composition of your picture determines a large part of its success. Composition is the arrangement of the elements in your photograph. The subject, the horizon line, and back ground elements all play a role in successful composition, and this is just as true with basic point-and-shoot cameras as it is with a top-of-the-line Nikon digital SLR.

The first step to creating great photographs is to consider all the elements in your viewfinder. Here are a few questions to consider when framing your picture: Where is the subject placed? Are there any distracting background elements, such as telephone poles? Is the horizon line straight? Should you raise the camera angle, or lower it?

Most photographers keep five rules of thumb in mind when composing their shots. These are not hard and fast rules, but they are worth remembering and applying as often as possible.

1. Get closer.
Use your feet and your zoom lens to frame your subject as tightly as possible. Once you get closer and com pose your image, take a few shots, then get closer again. Your pictures will improve dramatically.

2. Remember the Rule of Thirds.
Don’t always put your subject dead center in the frame. Instead, divide the frame into thirds, both horizontally and vertically (like a tic-tac-toe board), and position the important elements along those lines. Your compositions will be less static and more interesting.

3. Eliminate busy backgrounds.
Trees are great, but not when they’re growing out of the tops of people’s heads. Look out for busy patterns, bright objects, and other distracting elements.

4. Go high, go low.
Change your camera angle when working a shot. Get low on the ground and shoot upward. Raise the camera over your head and shoot down—swiveling lenses and LCD monitors make this easier than ever.

5. Simple is better.
Try not to clutter your compositions with nonessential elements. Keep things simple, move in close, and find an interesting arrangement.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLE - Analyzing a Landscape Composition
When you first look at Figure below, you’ll most likely find the image pleasing. But why? There are a number of compositional rules in effect here that contribute to the success of this photograph. Notice the first place your eye goes to in the image—the gun tower. By placing it in the left third of the composition with a diagonal line leading to it (the fence), you can actually direct the viewer’s eye to where you want it to go first. The solid background of trees doesn’t distract from the fort, yet provides some nice color and texture for the shot. Two large Eucalyptus trees on either side of the fort serve as a frame to help direct the eye inward. Also notice that the foreground, which is composed to also help pull the viewer’s eye inward, is slightly soft. If you prefer a sharper foreground, simply increase your depth of field by choosing an aperture of f-16 or so, and focus on the bend in the fence.

This image seems simple when you first look at it, but there are many compositional rules in effect that contribute to its success

All but the most basic cameras have some sort of burst or continuous shooting mode. The icon, shown in figure below, looks like layers of rectangles. Typically this mode is a menu option, but some cameras display it as a button option that you can access at any time. Either way, it allows you to shoot a series of pictures while holding the shutter button in the down position. The number of pictures you can record in one burst is determined by the capacity of your camera’s RAM buffer.

Most people use this continuous shooting feature for recording sports events, and it is a great choice for capturing a base ball player’s swing or a quarterback’s touchdown pass. But burst mode can also help you compensate for shutter lag—that diabolical delay from the moment you press the shutter to when the picture is actually recorded. Some digital cameras have shutter lags as long as one second, which is a lifetime in action photography.

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Many intermediate and advanced cameras allow you to choose the aperture setting, and the camera sets the proper corresponding shutter speed. This setting is sometimes denoted as Av, which stands for aperture value. (Some cameras just go with a simple “A” for aperture priority.) You can typically access this setting via the mode dial or as a menu option.

Choose the aperture priority mode when you want to control depth of field. In other words, how much of your picture, from front to back, do you want in focus? Shallow depth of field is often used for portraits—your subject is in focus, but everything else is a little soft. Choose an aperture value of 2.0, 2.8, or 4 for this type of shooting situation. The lower the value, the shallower the depth of field will be, and less of the image will be in focus (see Table for specific depth of field settings).

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