Years ago I used to teach photography at a local community college. Whenever that pops up in a conversation, I immediately get questions on how to take better questions. The asking party usually starts off with my photos really suck, how can I take better photos? After answering this question 100’s of times I have consolidated the answer down to two basic recommendations.
Most people have never even looked at their camera manual. In order to get the most out of your digital camera you have to at least know the basics of it’s operation. Even if it’s a point and shoot that has all the auto functions for exposure and focus there are probably some adjustments you can make to improve your photos. You should at least know what the limits are on the flash; most will give you a range of feet (anything farther away than say 12 15 feet are out of flash range usually). Even though there are auto functions they often have some adjustments based on indoor or outdoor shooting. The manual often offers very short but necessary information on how to get the best photos and believe it or not this is normally very good advice.
Point and shoot digital cameras also have modes for specific conditions. Modes may be called outdoor, indoor, cloudy days, people, or fast action and etc. These modes set up many adjustments to compensate for the shooting conditions and can improve the results. Spending 20 minutes experimenting with the different mode settings can help you figure out which work best and when you should use the setting.
Which also brings up the point that you should practice with your digital camera to see what works and what doesn’t when shooting in different conditions. Learning how to operate your camera is necessary to get the best results. Taking a little extra time to learn how to operate the basic controls, knowing the limitations, and doing a little hands on experimentation will certainly help you improve your photos.
The second biggest complaint I here is about focus or that their photos are blurred or not sharp. This is caused by a number of problems. First and foremost on auto focus digital cameras is that when you press down on the button to expose the shot the camera needs a few milliseconds to focus before taking the shot. If you move around or if the subject matter changes, there can be a problem. A classic example of this issue is when several shots are taken in quick succession. The first is OK, then the next two are out of focus or you didn’t capture the shot that you wanted.
One way you can often overcome this problem is to partially depress the exposure button (about half way) and this allows the camera to focus and compute the exposure. So when you depress all the way for the exposure the camera is ready. Almost all cameras have this feature but check your manual just to make sure it’s on yours.
Another focus or blur problem is caused by holding the camera steady on digital camera models that use an LCD on the back to show the area to be captured. People have to hold the camera out from the body and have a difficult time in holding it steady. And if you are in low light situations where the exposures need to be longer there is a greater chance that this problem will produce poor results. Some of the more current (and expensive) digital cameras have what’s called exposure stabilization to help overcome this issue. If your model doesn’t have the stabilization feature you can hold your arms in to your body or rest the camera on some available surface to help steady your camera.
Taking good photos is both an art and a science. And there are many different factors that come in to play to get that perfect photo. But if you familiarize yourself with the basic functions and limitations of your digital camera and practice you can certainly improve your results dramatically. Making sure you pre focus and support your camera when possible will help a great deal in the out of focus and blurring problems too.
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