Of course, the screen is generally too small to really see a lot of detail but for the most part, it works pretty well. And if you really feel like going high tech so that you can tell right then and there whether or not your photograph came out well, all you’ll need is a laptop computer.

By using one of these little babies your photography abilities and skills will increase manifold, as well suddenly gaining the ability to store many more shots. All you’ll need to do is transfer your pictures to a laptop and you’ll have a fresh, empty memory card just waiting to be filled.

However, if you’re on location in the middle of Antarctica or somewhere equally cold, then you really won’t want to spend your time fiddling with all kinds of gadgets. Your only concern might be getting back to some place nice and toasty warm! But you’ll still always have the option of emptying out your memory cards while shooting out in the field.

Personally, I prefer to have my laptop with me only on certain field trips that I take. Such as the ones where transportation and storage are easy and where I don’t have to lug the silly thing along with me, on top of all of my camera equipment!

You may of course feel differently (or be exceptionally strong). But first things first though — you need to decide whether or not you actually enjoy digital photography. For many professional photographers, the difference between choosing digital cameras over films cameras is somewhat akin to the preference of choosing manual transmission over automatic transmission automobiles for the professional driver.

Although they both yield similar results and they’re pretty much the same to a large degree, in the end when push comes to shove, the manual car will always give a driver more power and control when they need it most. And that’s why you’ll still see quite a lot of professional photographers still lugging their old film SLRs to their chest, and refusing to ever part with it.

That reluctance to change has nothing to do with the inability to change or adapt as much as it is the simple knowledge that film cameras -– for the moment at least -– will yield far better photographic results in the long run. For new photographers though, digital is just as good a way to go as any, and if you’re mostly an enthusiastic amateur, you’ll get along just fine with a digital camera.

It’s when you start upping the stakes that you need to make a decision whether you want to upgrade with digital all the way, or whether you want to get a film camera.

Then again, I should point out that the advancement of technology is occurring nonstop, so there’s a large possibility that you’ll see more and more people abandoning their archaic film cameras for the power of a digital camera.

About the Author

By Jack Landry
Are you looking for information about the disadvantages of digital camera or digital camera problems? If you want to learn some amazing digital photography secrets that the gurus won’t tell you, then visit http://www.digital-photo-secrets.info for more information.

source: ezinearticles.com

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These weren’t senior portraits. They were mug shots.

Today’s Progressive View

Today’s high school senior portraits are much different. Schools may still have a contract photographer, but many allow more casual portraits to be submitted for inclusion in the yearbook. You can hire a professional photographer or shoot them yourself. If you’re inclined to do it yourself read on.

You’ll want to check with your child’s school and get specific instructions for image submission. There will be certain rules on image size, posing, clothing allowed, or other restrictions. Be sure to get some details before you venture out to shoot your own portraits.

Please Talk to Your Kids First

The first thing you need to do is talk to your high school senior. They may have certain ideas about their picture. They may want that formal portrait only a professional studio can provide. Many local photographers will specialize in high school senior portraits.

If your senior is willing to let Mom or Dad do the portrait be sure to discuss every aspect with them. You may want to shoot a certain style of portrait, but make sure you shoot it their way too. Relaxed portraits with their guitar, sporting equipment, new car or other personal item makes for a memorable photo.

Location

Look around your house and yard. You may have the perfect spot for a portrait. Be sure to watch for clutter in the background. Move furniture or other items in order to create that perfect setting.

If your child has a favorite local park or garden consider going there. Don’t go in the middle of the day when the light is harsh. Light from straight above causes dark ‘raccoon eyes’. Early morning or late in the day is better. The light casts more pleasing shadows and gives a warmer more golden glow to your photos.

If midday is your only option you can place your child in the shade under a tree or building roof line. Change your White Balance setting to Shade or your photos will turn out too blue. Be sure to keep them toward the edge of the light and shadow. Using a simple reflector (white foam core board or commercially produced reflector) can help fill in shadows and make the colors pop.

Equipment

Generally speaking, a P&S camera won’t give you the best results. A digital SLR with a slight telephoto lens and external flash will provide optimum results and give you the most flexibility. Using a telephoto between 70mm and 105mm will help separate your subject from the background.

A flash will help fill in shadows when shooting outdoors or potentially provide all the light if shooting indoors. Bounce the light from your flash off the ceiling or side wall for softer more pleasing light. This may take some experimentation if you’ve not tried it before.

Armed with the right equipment and techniques you can produce a great portrait of your high school senior. Of course, a happy smiling face will help too.

About the Author

Karl Peschel runs TeachMeToShoot.com, a website for people who want to learn about digital photography techniques. Karl loves to teach people about photography and strives to explain things in plain English instead of techno babble. Check out the website at http://TeachMeToShoot.com and see for yourself. Sign up for the http://teachmetoshoot.com/nl_signup.html ShootLikeAPro Newsletter and get the free mini-report
Top 10 Tips for Better Digital Pictures
Copyright © 2007 Karl Peschel

source: ezinearticles.com

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Fixed focal length lenses are the cheapest and simplest to use. Designed for those on a very tight budget, children or real novices, fixed focal length lenses typically offer only a wide angle view, which can be perfect for landscapes and group photos. The quality of the pictures taken using this lense, however, is not that great. Fixed focal length lenses can’t zoom in distant objects and they don’t accept converters. An autofocus lens, with a selectable macro or landscape focus mode, is often a better selection.

Retractable zoom lenses extend whenever the camera is turned on and retract when it is shut off. This type of lens is reasonably priced and takes decent pictures. A retractable zoom lens gives you a very compact digital camera style while fully protecting the lens. It offers a limited zoom range that magnifies two to three times. Retractable zoom lenses do not support filters or converters and slightly delay the start-up time of the digital camera. They also have limited manual focus controls.

A fixed zoom lens will accept converters, filters and flash rings. These extra features will allow an experienced photographer the ability to take beautiful close-ups, wide-angle and telephoto photography. A fixed zoom lens allows a magnification of up to 12x. Fixed zoom lenses offer advanced and precise zoom and manual focus controls through rings on the lens instead of buttons. This type of lens might be a bit complicated for a novice and it might be a bit bulky to be convenient.

A serious amateur or professional will use a digital SLR with interchangeable lenses. These fully detach from the camera and are replaced with a different lens. If you already own lenses for a traditional film camera, you can usually find a digital camera with a compatible SLR body. A digital SLR is the most flexible lens for all shooting situations. An added advantage is that if you want to upgrade your lenses, you can do so without buying a new camera.

Of course, the lenses can be quite expensive. They can also be quite heavy and inconvenient to carry. If you are not very knowledgeable about camera lenses, the options may be confusing and if you understood your lenses on a traditional film camera, you may be confounded by the focal length on the digital. The learning curve is a bit steep and long, but the picture quality makes it well worth it!

About the Author

Tim Gorman
For more information on choosing a digital camera lens and how a digital camera works try visiting www.digital-photo-tips.info, a website that specializes in providing digital photo tips, advice and resources to include a digital camera buying guide.

source: ezinearticles.com

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1. Determine Your Budget. Before you start swaying your judgment, set a limit to the amount of money you’re willing to spend. This will help you narrow your search. I set my limit at $1000.
2. Determine What Type of Lens You Want. The main categories of lenses are: fish-eye, super-wide, wide, standard, telephoto, super-telephoto, and macro (there are other specialty lenses too). Most of those categories can also be split into prime and zoom lenses. You might know exactly what you want, or you might just narrow it down to 2 or 3. I narrowed my search down to super-wide zooms, super-telephoto zooms, and prime macros. My definition of each type is as follows:
   1. Fish-eye: Creates a hemispherical image and is typically less than 16mm in focal length.
   2. Super-Wide: Less than 20mm focal length.
   3. Wide: 20-30mm focal length.
   4. Standard: 30-50mm focal length.
   5. Telephoto: 50-200mm focal length.
   6. Super-Telephoto: Greater than 200mm focal length.
   7. Macro: Capable of creating 1:1 or greater magnification.
   8. Prime: Fixed focal length.
   9. Zoom: Variable focal length.
3. Make Your Wishlist. Go to your favorite online lens source and create a wishlist for each type of lens you are thinking about. Then go shopping and find ALL the lenses that are offered for your camera that fit into your categories. Filter out your selections by dropping anything over your absolute budget threshold. I found 9 super-wides, 8 super-telephotos, and 4 macros– but I included primes and zooms.
4. Prioritize Your Options. Start sorting your lenses based on the information at hand, your intuition, and any cost criteria you may have. Typically, the more expensive lenses are also the better quality lenses (aside from price differences of around $100). My advice is to buy the best you can afford and you’ll never be disappointed.
5. Pick Your Flavor. Do it now or do it later, but if you have more than one type of lens you want, you’ll have to choose at some point. If you do it now you’ll save some time with the research. I decided to leave my options open — I couldn’t decide yet.
6. Do the Research. You want outside opinions and evaluations on each of the lenses you’re thinking about, and it’s best if you can find those evaluations from the same source — but this isn’t always possible. Get multiple reviews too.
7. Make Your Decision. At this point, you should have a good idea of which lens is the best one for you from any given category. If you had more than one category to decide between, pick one. I had 3 categories to decide between, and after my research I had one lens from each category. Based on my budget, I could either get the super-telephoto OR the macro and the super-wide. I chose to get two lenses instead of one! There’s no rule against that!

When you’re picking out lenses, there’s no right or wrong choice. You have to balance out your wants/needs with your boundaries. Just remember, whatever you get will be a good choice and open up the possibilities for your photographs.

About the Author

Brian Auer

Epic Edits Weblog
A Photography Resource for the Aspiring Hobbyist
http://blog.epicedits.com/

Auer PhotoWorks
High Quality Fine-Art Photography Prints
http://www.auerphotoworks.com

source: ezinearticles.com

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These are some of our most valuable possessions, if not the most valuable! My friends mom says what she really misses most is all the family photography they lost.

Let’s rethink the way we go about our photography. Look at it from a new perspective, one that places the proper importance on these family treasures. There are many things that we can do to ensure quality images for generations to come.

First of all always use the highest quality setting your camera has to offer. The more mega pixels you shoot with the better your photos will look when they are enlarged. Even if you like 8×10′s today fine, in 211 years they may want to make a 20″x 24″. Shooting at the highest resolution also allows greater flexibility editing your photos. You can crop and zoom more to compose a better picture without the image becoming to pixelated.

Use high quality long lasting photo paper and inks. When putting photos in albums, always use archival quality materials. Also display your photos under glass and out of the direct sun to protect them from fading.

You don’t need a fancy camera to record your families heritage. Today there are several point and shoot compact digital cameras available that approach the quality of the digital SLR.

These new little cameras from Casio, Nikon, Canon, Olympus and other companies sport from 7 to 9 mega pixels and fit perfectly in a purse or pocket. Many of the features are the same ones offered on their bigger models. If you have an older digicam replace it right away, with one that’s at least 7MP your ancestors will thank you and you will notice the difference too.

Back Up Your Photography. Set aside a saturday and scan every photo you own, even the ones on the wall. These images are what make a house your home. Pull out all your old negatives and get those in the computer immediately and preserve them. They are way too valuable to be deteriorating somewhere in the house. As you did with your framed family artwork carefully take apart your photo albums and scan those too. Next time you are visiting a relative, call ahead and ask if you can bring your photo scanner with and scan some family photos while you are there.

If anything were to happen to their photos, they would be able to replace their cherished memories with a simple call to you. Also give them a cd of the family photos that you scanned on saturday to hold as a backup for you just in case.

After you have your photo collection together, look for an online photo sharing web site such as SmugMug that allows you upload every photo you own, with no limit. Once you’ve uploaded to your own private gallery at your own web address on the internet (Ex. johnsonphotos.smugmug.com), family members can order copies online anytime and any size they want. You can even order a burned CD of all of your photos and have it delivered. Having your family pictures in a few locations is very smart.

Compare online photo sharing providers. Many are free like Kodak EasyShare and some are not, they all have different features to compare.

Take your camera with you everywhere you go. Bring it out and use it. Take it to the kids sporting and scouting events and capture them participating in activities. The only thing more tragic than losing a photo you love, is missing the shot to begin with. It’s not like you have to pay for film and developing anymore. Shoot it up!

Read books to learn more about photography, a few tips here and there will really improve your photos, which will be enjoyed for generations to come.

Have your families photo taken professionally on a regular basis. Every photographer has their own style including you. It’s always good to sprinkle another artists interpretation of the family into your photo collection. It makes it richer and more interesting.

Get one of the new photo viewers, like the Archos AV500 with a 100 GB hard drive. Store all your family photos on it and when you visit family, they can look at your photos on the built in screen or hook it up to the TV, for a show everyone can enjoy. Then exchange photo files. Upload your files to their computer and download their images to the Archos.

A photo from the photographer at the scenic overlook in Vail Colorado, of your family skiing together, is $35.00. The same photo, 20 years from now, framed on your wall, is worth more than money! In the long run, the investment in professional photography services is worth it.

Instead of washing the car on Saturday, take control of your photos. It’s really much more important. Our photos are our most valuable family heirlooms. Great photography enhances your families legacy.

About the Athor

Brandon “flowski” is a professional photographer from Lake Tahoe California. Visit digital photography website to compare the features of several online photo sharing plans, with our handy comparison chart.

source: goarticles.com

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