5 Tips To Start With Digital Photography

If you are new to digital photography, I happily welcome you to the hobby and I believe you are going to enjoy it. I hope that the tips below can show you how to play with digital photography and take some pretty pictures. :-)

1. Know Your Camera

I know how excited it can be when you first got your digital camera. I can still remember how I felt when I open the box and how it smells once I unpacked the camera. It seems to connect with me when I hold it in my hand and I immediately slot in the battery and took it for a spin. It proved that I made the right decision to get the camera. :-)

It was only later that I heard that running your camera with minimal battery can damage the camera and I have been worried since. I am not sure how true that is, but I would like to advice you charge the battery to the full first before you start taking pictures. And since you are charging the battery, why not take the time to read the manual and understand what your camera can actually do. You might never imagine your camera can do something different than other cameras.

2. Flash

And to help you to get the hang of digital photography, you should learn all you can about the flash (link to my flash) on your camera. If you are using a point and shoot camera, the intensity of your flash might be different base on different manufacturers and it might cause your subject to look glaring. If that is the case, you will want to learn to control your flash with distance and zooming into the subjects.

If you are using a digital SLR camera, you can disperse the flash to minimize the glare.

3. Macro

The macro mode is ideal to take close up picture with your subjects and it is represented with a flower symbol (symbol may vary with manufacturers).

Once you have selected the macro mode, make sure that you get as close to your subject as possible to capture its details. You can compare taking picture with macro and normal mode and you will see that the macro is able to capture the detail of your subject better.

However, when you are using the macro mode, make sure that you have a tripod or steady hand so that your pictures don't come out blur.

4. Use the grid

It is common to take pictures that are out of proportion when you are new to the hobby and grid lines are great help to frame your picture. Most digital cameras nowadays come with this setting where you can have lines showing on your LCD screen.

You can then use the line as guide to properly place your subjects and get that tremendous picture that you hope for.

5. ISO setting

ISO is actually the International Organization for Standardization which is same as the organization that sets standard for the businesses and technologies around the world.

Digital cameras nowadays come with different ISO setting and you can now be free from taking different roll of ISO films for any photograph shooting. Although the cameras do come with different ISO setting, you will want to be careful with the high ISO setting. This is because less light will be allow into the camera (due to fast shutter speed) when you are using high ISO and you will suffer noise picture.

So, that marks the end of this post and I hope you enjoy the tips as much as I did it. Remember to go out more and take more pictures to build up your digital photography skills.

Happy taking pictures,

Michael Wong. :-)