It’s that time of the year again. Thanksgiving, Christmas, holidays galore.
Many of us will be dusting off that digital camera and pressing it into service; a lot of service.
This short article while not a highly technical article, will explore those tiny little wonders, the digital point & shoot camera. I’ll also offer a few tips to take better pictures; you know, all that stuff like composition, how to use the flash, when NOT to use the flash.
Point & shoot cameras, or (P&S) are aptly named. We just point the camera at our desired subject and press the trigger. Pretty easy huh? Well; I’ve been getting a lot of mail (and pics) from some great people who still struggle with all sorts of odd problems...The good news is that most can be cured.
 | ||
| P&S Camera w/ built in flash |
These cameras today are really little wonders as technology has given them many features unheard of just a year or two ago. Advanced metering programs, smart flash, built in panoramic modes to shoot really wide vistas. While I don’t want to make any endorsements of one brand over another, there are a few models worth looking into if you don’t want to break the bank. Canon and Nikon continue to lead the pack with both producing great images.
 |
| Hi End P&S w/ advanced manual options |
HERE is a link to a few Canon products and HERE is some of Nikon’s offerings.
You’ll notice a few of these camera’s have the ability to attach a external flash on top of the camera. This is a good thing. Any professional photographer will tell you the ability to get the flash (away) from the camera is the way to go. I agree with this.
FLASH
Ever see that nasty little effect called “Red-Eye?” It makes aunt Bessie’s eyes look like they have red light bulbs in them. Yuck! While some post processing editing programs attempt to reduce this problem after the fact, wouldn’t it be better to prevent it?
 |
| Red-Eye...Yuck! |
Enter the (HOT SHOE FLASH) The “Hot Shoe” is simply the place where the external flash attaches to the camera. So why is this better?
Flashes that “pop up” from the camera are notorious for producing that “Red-Eye” effect. This is primarily due to the light from the flash projecting directly into the retina of the eye. What we see is the reflection of the back of the retina back to the camera.
 |
| External Flash controls |
By placing a external flash a little higher up in the vertical plane, this effect is drastically reduced if not completely eliminated. Pretty cool huh? Easy too.
An added benefit to using a flash in the hot shoe is the ability of the flash itself to “ratchet” upwards towards the vertical AND to rotate left and right.
Why is that a benefit?
Have you ever seen those pesky shadows behind your subject when you get your pictures back? Yuck again; right? By tilting the flash up, we have the ability to BOUNCE is off something; ummm; like the ceiling? Ya; the ceiling.
Doing this not only avoids the dreaded red eye thing, but produces a much nicer quality of light; we photogs like to use the word “softer” here. Bouncing the light from the flash also causes the shadows to fall behing and lower than your subject, so the shadows almost magically disappear. I say almost as this will depend how close your subject is to the back ground, like a wall etc...
A word of caution: If you have colored ceilings other than WHITE, don’t use bounce flash! The color of your ceiling will reflect (Bounce) that color onto your subject. Another yuck! There are ways to overcome this, but I’ll save that for another article that deals with shooting RAW. No; not naked! ;)
TIP 1)
If you can get a camera that allows a external flash to be mounted; do so.
They are a little more expensive, including the added expense of buying another flash.
 |
| Point & Shoot Camera w/ Hot Shoe Mount |
TIP # 2)
RTM! Read The Manual!
These new point and shoot camera's have become fairly sophisticated, so reading the users manual front to back is paramount to get all you can out of your camera.
“I don’t want to spend that much”
No problem.
Don’t use external flash. That’s right; don’t use the flash.
In a brightly lit room, you can probably get away with NOT using the flash. There should be a button or menu item that allows you to turn it off. Try it; see what happens. If the result is not what you expected, turn it back on.
TIP #3) White Balance
Huh? White Balance?
Sparing us all the boring details, light has color, lots of different colors. Remember I said not to use bounce flash if your ceilings are not white?
Without flash, we depend on the available light. If we are in our homes opening gifts with the family, no doubt we have the lights turned on; unless you don’t want to know what you’re getting.
The light from a light bulb is a different color than light from the sun; different than light from a fluorescent bulb. The light bulbs in most of our homes are kinda’ orange-yellowish. Our eyes; the miracles that they are are able to adapt to this change automatically...Our camera can not.
TIP #4) Turn on the Incandescent White Balance
Even the small point & shoot cameras have a button or menu item that will allow you to (Force) the camera to compensate for indoor lighting color. This is usually incandescent in our homes.
The result? No more orange-yellowish looking pictures.
Remember, this is only if you are NOT using the flash.
The flashes in or on our camera try to mimic the same color of light that we see in the day around noon time. If you set your camera’s white balance to incandescent and then use your flash, the pictures will all look very blue.
“Pete; I tried this w/o flash and my pics are blurry”
If this happens, it simply means there is not enough light. The camera tries to compensate by using a slower shutter speed. Shutter speed is the duration that the lens is allowed to record light. If the duration is too long, usually slower than 1/60th of a second, we get subject motion that looks like a blur and we also have camera shake. In other words, we could not hold the camera perfectly still for a sharp image.
Now what?
In the menu items of your camera you will see something called (ISO) It stands for International Standards Organization.
By setting the ISO to a higher value, we have increased the camera’s sensitivity to light.
Now the sensor in the camera does not need a long shutter speed to capture the image and expose it properly.
Try setting your ISO up to 400. Most Point & Shoot camera’s start with about ISO 100 as a default, and this is for good reason. Read below.
WORD OF CAUTION:
Setting the ISO above 400 in most point & shoot cameras will result in your pictures having a grainy look to them. Digital photographers call this (Noise).
The term “grainy” or grain is a left over word from the days when many of us used film.
Even though your camera may have the ability to go higher, I recommend against going over ISO 400 for any point and shoot camera. For those who own a DSLR, you can surely go higher.
Don’t forget to set your ISO back to 100 or whatever it’s default value is.
TIP #5)
PRACTICE... PRACTICE... PRACTICE!
Take a lot of test shots before you carve the turkey or start unwrapping that new HD television.
Even the most seasoned veteran with all that fancy gear will take practice shots before the actual shoot. We like to say they are “Test Shots” Yeah right! ;)
My next installment which I hope to have ready be this coming Sunday will be all about composition.We may have the best camera in the world, but as we all know,
“it’s the photographer, NOT the camera”
Just to whet our whistle, here’s a sneak peek tip for composition.
1) When photographing little children, get down to their level and shoot. Towering 4 feet above them makes our photos look like; well; you know what I mean... (BORING)
Get creative, get low.
As always I will try to answer as many emails as my time permits.
I can always be reached from my web page HERE.
Happy Shooting.
Pete
No comments:
Post a Comment