• Beginners Guide to Digital Photography

    Beginners Guide to Digital Photography

    Prasad Naik, Mar 09, 2010 1539 hrs IST

    Tips to better your photography skills

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Turn off the flash

Flash can be useful when photographing in low light, but many a times it will just ruin your shot by placing a bright white spot on your subject. Flash also has the nasty ability to reflect off shiny objects such as glass. It's best to keep the camera flash in Off mode. If you keep the flash in Auto mode, the camera will automatically fire when it thinks the light on the subject is not enough. In Red-Eye mode, the camera fires the flash successively several times. This constant flashing reduces the size of the iris of the human eye (something that cannot happen with a single flash, as it happens too quickly). When the final flash is fired and the picture is taken, the iris is small and the light from the flash won't hit the retina of the eye and reflect back, which is the cause of the red spots in eyes in pictures taken with flash.


Original Image by Lentzstudios

There are some cases where a flash can be useful. One is of course when you are in pitch dark conditions and have no other source of light to rely on illumining your subjects. Another scenario is where the source of light is behind your subject, which means the front side of the subject will be in its own shadow, causing a silhouette. Now, if you are looking for an artistic shot this may look nice but if you want to see the details in the shadowed area, it is wise to use the flash here to illuminate the area. But apart from these few situations, remember: do not use flash while shooting.

Adjust white balance

Unlike our eyes, which perceive white objects as white, no matter which light we view them in, digital camera sensors often get confused in tricky lighting. It is for this that your camera comes with white balance adjustment. Usually all cameras will have an auto mode, which will try its best to change the white balance according to the current conditions, but many a times it does not give accurate results. The best thing to do is then use one of the manual options instead. Most of them are self explanatory and describe the situations in which they should be used. You usually get Sunny, Cloudy, Fluorescent (to be used under white tube lights), Tungsten (for use under light bulbs), etc. By choosing the right white balance manually you ensure that your images don't get a wrong color cast.


Original Image by Bala K

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Discussion Board
(17) Comments
Pradeep Kumar
,Hyderabad, on May 29, 2010 03:31 PM
Too good for fledgling photographers.
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Ajay
,Bangalore, on May 28, 2010 05:42 PM
Nice artical its very helpfull to me, thanks to editors
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Bonny Sharma
,Patiala, on Apr 02, 2010 11:47 AM
Thanks for shating this very useful piece of information for beginners like me! Hope you would keep writing such tips for novices like me!
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Ravi
,Pune, on Mar 30, 2010 07:54 PM
Hi, Thanks for the basic knowledge that required while taking the Pics.. This is very simple and easy to understand. Once again thanks for post this kind of info.
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Bharat Acharya
,Barmer, Rajasthan, on Mar 18, 2010 04:40 PM
Good.
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Prateek Tambi
,Bangalore, on Mar 17, 2010 11:46 PM
this is what i needed exactly... thanks will keep learning more. hope to find a deeper set of lessons.
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Jay
,Kolkata, on Mar 16, 2010 08:29 PM
Really a good article. It is very well described the basics of the photography for the beginners. Thanks. Need more this kind of article.
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Vinod
,mumbai, on Mar 15, 2010 10:57 AM
@ Rohan - Got the article in PDF format. Thanks!
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Dhaval.
,xyz, on Mar 15, 2010 10:18 AM
Good article. Nice little handbook for beginners. Good job and thanks.
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Karthick
,Chennai, on Mar 12, 2010 11:14 PM
Hey, can someone tell me which batteries are best for Canon powershot a460 ?
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B_D
,Coimbatore, on Mar 11, 2010 09:15 PM
Good post; very informative for beginners. Continue the good work
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Rohan Naravane
,Techtree TechLabs, on Mar 10, 2010 06:08 PM
Vinod, that's a good suggestion. We will see if its possible to get it working. In the meantime, follow these steps to achieve the same effect: 1) Click the Print button right below the article head-line. 2) Google for a site called htm2pdf. Copy-paste the URL of that print preview window of that site. 3) Click the convert button...then click the download button You'll have the entire article downloaded as a PDF. Cheers!
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Vinod
,mumbai, on Mar 10, 2010 05:40 PM
Good stuff, keep it up! One request - could you make the article available as a PDF for download. It be a handy reckoner.
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abi
,blr, on Mar 10, 2010 11:23 AM
pleasant to read..keep it up. cleared some doubts i had
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Bharat
,Hyderbad, on Mar 10, 2010 11:05 AM
After a long time, a great article guyz, thank you... If you could add the cameras with the shutter speeds and their ratings this would be complete.. otherwise its an informative fine article..
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Deepak
,Mumbai, on Mar 10, 2010 05:45 AM
thanks for the lovely guide. Like they say "Just what the doctor ordered"
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s.f.s
,hk, on Mar 09, 2010 08:25 PM
Good article with explicit explanation on some basic knowledge about digital camera.
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