To all budding digital photographers, I offer you one extremely basic tip which will save you being one of the many who have spoilt photos because they haven’t observed the following:

When taking a digital photo… SQUEEZE the shutter release, don’t jab it. It is especially important when shooting without flash in lower light situations because your camera shutter speed it slower and any camera movement will cause smearing of the image. You can imagine that if you were to jab the shutter release, you move your camera and voila; a disappointing digital image.

Wishing all readers a happy and safe holiday season, and as always, experiment with your digital camera as experience is a wonderful teacher.

Well, the other day, I heard of a really nifty and inexpensive gadget, a clip-on flash diffuser. How does it work, you may ask? If you have a camera which has a pop-up flash mounted on the top, then this little number will clip in front of it and produce a softer lighting effect for those important portrait snaps.

Should you be the proud owner of an SLR with an attachable flash gun, you may be aware of a similar clip-on flash diffuser device to suit your particular gun. They are quick to clip on and improve the lighting noticeably.

The only down side is that flash range may be significantly reduced, so they are only suitable for closer work.
Where might you obtain one of these wonderful clip-on flash diffusers, you may ask? Basically, any of the better camera stores or outlets catering for enthusiasts should stock a range of them or be able to order them in for your particular flash gun.

As always, enjoy this wonderful hobby of digital photography and never be afraid to experiment a little. Any mistakes we make will show us what not to do. Anyway, I mentioned this interesting device to you as it is a great little extra for your digital photography kit.

It is fairly common these days to present photos in sepia form in order to create an antique look and feel. For instance, selected wedding photos are digitally given a sepia tint and placed in a setting of older farm buildings or scenes contrasting with the fresh newness of bride and groom. Many people these days are interested in genealogy and copy photos of ancestors. These are quite often in faded black and white, so it is an enhancement to digitally select sepia after one has scanned and downloaded to their computer.
Another creative presentation in the digital realm is to select sepia for instance, a photograph of a child and then to add on a color item, say a flower on a hat, a ribbon or toy.. looks inventive and very impressive! Or, alternatively, you may have a scene which you wish to make look more dramatic. You could choose to change it to sepia and then add to the contrast, thereby creating the desired effect.

Most digital cameras these days have a built in setting which allows you to select a digital function. However, it is often easier to down-load to your computer and digitally create this effect with a fairly easy to use editing program. One such program which we enjoy using is Picasa, provided by Google. If you choose to change an image to sepia, you simply need to double click on the image to bring it into edit mode (this function is also available at the top bar of the program) and then after this, simply click on the effects tab and then the sepia icon. Sometimes it helps to sharpen the photo a little after which, voila, you have created the desired effect. Such is the beauty of digital photography and digital editing programs which all computer users have access to. As always, experiment and enjoy this wonderful hobby!

Taken in beautiful Bright at a friend's home using a Pentax K10

Personally, I love using a digital SLR as it just enables those few extra options which enhance the subject and add to the fact that digitial photography is such a wonderful hobby. The setting used in this photograph was using moderate aperture which in turn creates a shallow depth of field and an out of focus effect in the foreground and background. Experiment yourself using the different settings mentioned in the last post, and you create a great professional looking digital photograph.

If you’re feeling creative, then you can experiment and try some special effects. Most people are aware that this can be done quite easily within a wide range of editing software. As well, there is generally an option to create these different effects on your camera, in particular with digital SLR’s . You can select a mode for black and white or sepia or even for special filter effects. For instance, you can have color-toned pictures in green, yellow, purple or red. One tip is to take the photo you want as is, and then one of the filtered shots as one can’t re-create the original picture once the color information has been removed. This is how the effects work on a digital camera. All the color information from the photo is removed and you’re left with the color effect that you wanted.

In the days of 35mm cameras, the keen photographer would use filters. Today, this is all built-in to your digital camera or you can be very inventive with your editing software program.

As always, I suggest that you experiment with your digital camera. There is definitely no better teacher than failure and success. In the meanwhile just enjoy!

An optical viewfinder was always used by film cameras, and is a wonderful added option for digital cameras. I find it particularly handy when trying to photograph on a very sunny day as it enables you to see more clearly than it would with bright sunlight obscuring what you’re viewing on the back screen. On a digital camera, other than SLR’s, the optical viewfinder is completely seperate from the camera’s lens. It is used to frame the picture you intend to shoot, but has a couple of effects that the keen photographer needs to be aware of. One is that as a result of the physical seperation between the viewfinder lens and the camera lens, the image does not exactly match up. The technical name for it is “parallax phenomenon”. It is much more evident when taking close up shots. If you are aware of this, then you can make the adjustment to compensate for this error. The second issue to be aware of is that the optical viewfinder sees about 80% of what the camera lens sees and as a result you will often find that unwanted and unattractive content around the borders. Once again, awareness of this enables you to realize that a small amount of cropping may be necessary. This camera knowledge helps optimize your chances for really great photos. Good luck!