Be Camera Smart
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Experiment with Exposure: Digital cameras typically work best in sunlight, just like film cameras. Once you step inside or into dim light, things get a bit more difficult just like with film cameras. Experiment to know how to handle these situations.
If you can shoot your subject from different angles, with different lighting, do so. If your camera allows you to turn off the flash, try it. If your camera allows “fill flash,” try that, too. Sometimes a perfectly exposed picture is made even better with fill flash. Sometimes turning off the flash and leaving the subject somewhat underexposed adds drama.
Every once in a while, you’ll take the same picture three different ways, with three different exposure options, and get three radically different pictures — and all of them will look good. But you’ve got to experiment.
Bracket your shots if you can, with one shot slightly underexposed, one slightly overexposed, and one “just right.” Even though some digital cameras will do this automatically, you still need to practice. The last thing you want is two of your shots to look as if they were taken accidentally or by a surprised photographer who was expecting only one shot instead of three.
Special features Many digital cameras have some interesting in-camera special features. Some will allow you to take short QuickTime clips, some will allow you to record sound annotations, and some will allow you to experiment with special effects, such as shooting black and white or sepia-tone images. Ignore the special features until you learn the basics.
Keep in mind that some of these tricks, such as black and white or sepia-toned images, can be done without the camera. Just load up a normal color image in Photoshop and, in a few minutes, you can have perfect black and white or sepia-toned photos. In other words, if you can do it easily in Photoshop, you might be better off concentrating on taking a good color photo, and worrying about special effects later on at your leisure.
On the other hand, you should try out other special effects. For example, if you pan your camera to track a car moving at high speed, the car will be in sharp focus but the background will be blurred, making an interesting picture. Or you can do the opposite: focus on a particular stationary object — a child flying a kite, a freshly-painted fire hydrant — and allow a speeding car to enter the frame. You’ll then have a sharply focused center of attention with the added benefit of motion.
Silhouettes are another nice special effect. Try taking a photo with your subject in shadow, eclipsing a brightly-exposed object in the background. The reverse — a brightly exposed subject against a dark background — can be just as interesting. Getting a good silhouette with film is expensive: you shoot a lot of frames with little or no reward. With a digital camera, however, the only cost is your time and patience, and your patience will be rewarded.
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