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Showing messages 1 through 18 of 18.

• A few tips
  2003-11-28 13:53:36  maarky [View]
  
  
  Here are a few tips:
  
  When I go backpacking I can easily take 150 pictures over 5 days. Actually, I could take more if I had the memory for it. But the problem is that when you get home you may not remember what your pictures are of. So I bring my palm pilot and take notes for every picture I shoot. That way when I get home I know that picture 84 is of "Horseshoe Meadow", not "some nice looking meadow somewhere in the wilderness."
  
  Another trick I use is to take mini-panoramas. I used to have a Kodak advantix camera which would let me take pictures in a panorama mode which would give you a picture just as tall as an ordinary picture, but a couple times wider. With my digital camera I take a couple of overlapping pictures and stitch them together in Photoshop using layer masks. If you have Photoshop Elements you can use its panorama stitcher (I don't recall exactly what it is called) to do this for you. You can take these pictures left to right, up and down, or in more of a square shape (that would be up and down and left to right) to get more into the picture than your camera can see. If you use an Olympus Camedia camera (or any other camera with this option) with an Olympus memory card you can use its panorama mode to make sure that all of your pictures use the same exposure settings.
  
  Ansel Adams used to take pictures on top of his car in order to clean up the foreground. If you don't have a car handy you can stand on a rock. However, I often like to kneel down specifically to get as much foreground as I can. I especially like to do this when taking a picture of a meadow, a beach, a dry riverbed, or if I take a picture from inside a river.
  
  Use the viewfinder instead of the camera's display whenever possible. You will save lots of money on batteries this way. However, when you are taking a close-up picture (and you should use your camera's macro mode for this) it is better to use your camera's display because the viewfinder won't give you an accurate view of your subject when doing close-up shots.
  
  
  Mark W

• getting good candid shots
  2003-11-25 16:00:30  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  Practice aiming the camera without looking through the viewfinder You will get more interesting photos if your subjects aren't self-conscious about being photographed. Leave the camera on the wide-angle setting and expect to waste quite a few exposures. Oh and you'll probably have to crop and rotate the resulting image.
  
  cheers
  bruce bowden

• Keeping track of spent and freshly charged batteries
  2003-11-24 18:58:55  biff314 [View]
  
  
  I have a Canon A70 that uses four AAs. I always put the spare, freshly changed batteries in the carrier with their polarities alternating, one after another; in other words, battery no. 1 has “+” facing up, battery no. 2 has “-” facing up, etc. When I change batteries, I drop the spent batteries out of the camera and slip the new ones in--if you practice you won’t have to fuss with getting the new batteries oriented right, you can just drop them right in. Then I take the old ones and put them in the carrier with there polarities matching, thus avoiding the embarrassment of putting spent batteries back into the camera.
  
  Phil Calvert

• Family Christmas Picture tip
  2003-11-24 10:46:53  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  Promise the kids Krispy Cream donuts :)
• Family Christmas Picture tip
  2003-11-24 17:18:15  Terrie Miller | [View]
  
  
  And do the photos early, not when people are on the way out the door! Otherwise you end up with photos where the faces clearly say, "I'm tired of being patient with my family..."

• Photo Tip: Level Panoramas
  2003-11-22 14:49:02  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  If you want to keep the full height of your image when shooting panoramas and not half to crop the top and bottom of it. Well, the thick to creating level panoramas every time is to combine a tripod and a three axis pan head with a two axis bubble level in the flash shoe of your camera.
  
  Charles Eaton
  eatons@art-wpag.com

• Digital camera as communication tool
  2003-11-22 10:18:31  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  While traveling in Japan I found a novel use for a digital camera. Most of the restaurants there have lifelike plastic displays of the food they serve. Since I couldn’t speak Japanese I just took a picture of wanted to eat and showed it to the waiter. He thought it was very funny but I did get what I ordered...
  
  Phil Calvert
• Digital camera as communication tool (and memory aid)
  2003-11-25 09:51:55  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  Great idea! I do something similar with the camera on my phone.
  
  If I end up in a good pub or restaraunt I take a picture of the sign outside. There are so many places to go out to in London it's easy to forget the good places.
  
  I do the same in bookshops and record shops when I see something that I may want to buy another time.
  
  I now have an archive of visual reminders that I keep in a special album in iPhoto and on my phone.

• Conny Svensson
  2003-11-22 08:46:32  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  I try to not use the falsh inddors, but the problem is your camera might have a hard time focusing if it's low light. I try two different techniques to solve this problem:
  1. Try to focus on something at the same range as the subject but which is better lit. Maybe close to a lamp. Continue holding down the shutter button halfways and point at the subject and take the shot.
  2. I use a flashlight to light up my subject to get the camera to focus and then turn it off before taking the shot.
  Depending on your camera and in what mode it is the flash might react differently because the subject you were focusing on was differently lit than the target subject. For this I use manual mode and set the flash level. Usually the auto mode works like magic and it ends up being a very good shot.

• Portable
  2003-11-21 23:22:58  jonblock [View]
  
  
  The most important thing to remember with any camera is that it's no good sitting at home. If you only buy one camera, make sure it will fit in a pocket without causing discomfort (or "unsightly bulges"), and then make sure it's in that pocket when you need it.
  
  Can't resist a second suggestion: I stumbled on this trick last summer, on a small boat with a group of people trying to see an eagle's nest on shore. Some people were having trouble finding the nest among the treetops. I pulled out the camera, used the optical zoom to get as close as possible, and snapped a picture. Next, I switched to the camera's preview mode, zoomed in on the photo, and found the nest. Now, by zooming back out in steps, others could see exactly where to squint when they looked back up into the trees.

• Press the Shutter Release.
  2003-11-21 13:13:58  dconroy123 [View]
  
  
  I mean it. If you want to get more great pictures, press the shutter release, and press it often. As often as you can. With film, it is a good day if you get one good shot per roll. With digital, you can shoot as many rolls as you like.
  
  D. Conroy.

• Question about the 2nd edition
  2003-11-21 07:31:04  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  For those of us that bought the first edition of the guide, what would be the reasons to upgrade to the second edition besides being in color?
• RE: Question about the 2nd edition
  2003-11-21 08:47:43  Derrick Story | [View]
  
  
  That's a great question.
  
  Basically what I did was go through the text and make changes where things had evolved in digital photography. Items such as acknowledging the new 4:3 format by Olympus, the Foveon sensor, and stuff like that.
  
  I also added some new discussions based on topics that have been popular in my workshops, such as Jpeg vs, RAW.
  
  As for the pictures, not only are they in color, but I actually went out and reshot over half of them, often with the same models. I think the current batch illustrates the techniques better than in the first edition. Second edition is also easier to read because of the redesign.
  
  All of that being said, the first edition is still quite current and useful. I'm sure the sales dept won't appreciate me saying this, but if your original book is still in good shape, then so are you.
• RE: Question about the 2nd edition
  2003-12-01 14:24:32  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  Derrick,
  
  Thanks for being so honest about this. I did not write the question, but it is nice to hear such an honest answer. I can tell you that my current version will be going to a friend and I'll pick up the new 2nd edition, just based on the honest of your comment here.
  
  Thanks, and the pocket guide is definitely a great resource!
  
  --Thomas
  

• Flash flat pictures?
  2003-11-21 06:54:46  charlescantin [View]
  
  
  You don't like the result of your flash on the pictures? even at set at low, some flash are to hard on the subject. So try this: take a small bit of a kleenex ou very thin white paper cut it to the size of the front surface of the flash, use some scotch tape to stick it on the flashing surface. It will act like a professionnal screen and give you softer light. And it's cheap ;-)
  Charles

• Manual Focus for Action
  2003-11-21 06:40:44  safdahl [View]
  
  
  Since most digital cameras are slower than film cameras, I find using the manual focus mode for action shots. I focus on something at about the same distance as the action before I shoot.
  
  Along with using manual focus, I usually use the aperture priority mode and set the f-stop to f8. This increases the field of focus and helps guarantee that the subject is in focus.
  
  You don't get results like they do in the newspaper (with the background out of focus), but at lease you get a picture of the action.
  
  It also helps to zoom out. You can always crop the photo before printing or sending.
  
  Steve Afdahl

• Tungsten white balance
  2003-11-21 05:25:33  ianbaker [View]
  
  
  Manual white balance is so effective on my camera that indoor shots look sunlit. Use a slightly blue target for the white balance to get a more indoors look for the photos.
  
  I must admit that this is theory only. I have experienced the problem but have not yet tried the solution.
  

• Counterintuitive use of flash
  2003-11-21 02:31:59  johep [View]
  
  
  One of my favorite tips is to turn the flash on for midday portraits (where it fills in shadows and puts a sparkle in people's eyes) and off for indoor shots (which tend to be very flat).
  
  -Julio Ohep
  Caracas, Venezuela