Digital Photography Basics - tips to get you started.

Digital photography basics

If you’ve just purchased a new digital camera, welcome to the wonderful world of digital photography! This relatively new method of taking photographs is fun, exciting, and best of all — instantaneous.

Most of the photos on this site have been taken using a good quality digital camera.

So what is digital photography? Instead of using film, which then has to be processed, digital photography uses digital processing, which is instantaneous, which can be immediately viewed on the camera then either deleted or transferred to a computer for storage or printing. Its main disadvantage is the relatively low resolution of images, so you would probably not use this method for, say, reproducing large prints of paintings etc.

With the availability of more new cameras with higher megapixels and lower prices, there’s never been a better time to join the digital craze. Here are a few digital photography basics and tips for when you have read the directions and become familiar with your camera's possibilities.

Viewfinder or LCD? Choose your digital photography technique.

Most digital cameras today come equipped with an LCD screen on the backside. Most also still have an optical viewfinder. What you may not know,if you’re new to digital photography, is that some cameras now allow you to compose your images using just the LCD screen, so you don’t have to look through the optical viewfinder if you don’t want to. (There’s usually a button on the top that lets you switch between the two.)

When you compose your shot using the LCD screen, you can hold the camera out at arm’s length and still frame your shot without holding it up tight to your face or your glasses (or sunglasses). You also don’t have to squint anymore!

If you select "auto" the camera automatically computes the correct exposure and decides whether a flash is needed or not. You will soon get used to the way it works - for example, some cameras calculate exposure time before initiating the flash, but that takes half a second so, if you're not able to anticipate movement, for example, you might do what I did the other night and end up with a performer's back filling the screen!

Picture Perfect — Reviewing The Shot

Regardless of whether you use the optical viewfinder or the LCD screen to compose the shot, a second or two after you take the photo, a quick preview of the photo will appear on the LCD screen so you can see it. This is a great opportunity to check to see if everyone's eyes were open, if something in the photo blurred, or if someone just walked through your beautiful landscape. The image is easier to see if you view it in shade.

If the picture didn’t turn out the way you wanted, simply recompose the shot and take another photo. This is one of the digital photography basics not available with film cameras. This lack results in lots of less-than-perfect photos, a wait to have them processed — another reason why digital photography is so great!

Delete The Bad Pics

With digital cameras, you can scroll through all the images you’ve taken, and delete individual images you don’t want to keep. It’s a good idea to do this periodically to free up space for more good photos so you don’t find your memory is full at an inopportune moment. Sometimes you only get one shot at the perfect picture, and it’s really frustrating if you lose the shot because you ran out of space.

Carry Extra Batteries—And Memory Devices

Of all digital photography basics, this one might be the most elementary - and the most frequently overlooked! Some digital cameras use regular batteries and others use special rechargeable camera batteries. If yours is the replaceable type, make sure you always carry a spare set with you — and if it’s a rechargeable one, that it is recharged before you go out on a digital photography excursion.

Each camera uses a particular kind of memory device to store the photos on. Make sure you have more than one. Also, purchase the largest memory devices you can afford to allow you to take the maximum number of photos. Many memory devices now come in 4, 8, and 16 gigabytes, allowing you to capture hundreds of photos on a single stick.

Set The Size

Most digital cameras allow you to set the size of the image being captured by the camera. Naturally, if you set the camera to take large photos (using a greater number of pixels), your photo files will take up more room, and fewer photos will fit on the memory device. But you want to take high quality photos, and if you plan to print your photos, you want to be able to enlarge them as much as possible, just in case you decide to frame one and put it on your wall. So, as a rule of thumb, take large, high quality digital photo files.

File Type - More digital photography basics

For most non-professional photographers, setting the digital photo to save as a .jpg file is sufficient and will enable you to crop, edit, and enhance your photos with computer software if desired.

Lots To Learn

There’s so much to learn about digital cameras, basic digital photography, and the simple art of photography. But hopefully, the digital photography basics outlined above will help you to make an easy transition from film to the ease of the digital world.

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