Things I Wish Somebody Told Me...

Things I Wish Somebody Told Me When I Got My First Digital Camera by Jerry Whiting.

Jerry is a Seattle Washington artist and friend who has more engery and passion for photography than most people I know. Most of Jerry's work is found street photography and flowers. This is the first of many articles written by Jerry about digital photography. Enjoy.

There are just a few things I wish someone had told me when I first began doing digital photography. Not that I haven't learned a few tricks along the way but I'm as impatient as the next person. If nothing else, this article will help jumpstart your learning curve. You can thank me later.

"But I've been taking snapshots my whole life. How different can using a digital camera be?" In a word: quite. Your new digital camera can be a one-for-one substitute for your old film camera it you want it to be. Digital or not, digital cameras are just that: cameras. [I heartily admit that this contradicts my previous piece, Digital Cameras Don't Do Photography. We'll ignore the obvious conflicts for the moment.] Things like composition, lighting, framing, and color balance are still the fundamentals of taking good pictures. Get thee to a library, talk with other photographers, and practice, practice, practice. A new digital camera won't magically transform you into Cartier-Bresson. While gadget and genius both begin with "g", that's probably all they have in common.

Shopping for a new digital camera? A camera's resolution or how many pixels it captures and saves is the first thing to consider. In general, the more pixels it captures, the more it costs. 1- and 2-megapixel cameras are the equivalent of point'n'shoot, disposable film cameras. Fun, casual, limited.
Snapshot boxes. Consider a minimum of 3-megapixels for good 5x7 prints. 4- and 5-megapixel cameras are what you need for semi-serious photography.

Cameras like these allow you to print up to 8x10 (and larger).
I always say, you can never have too much RAM, too big a hard drive, or too many pixels. Always shoot at the highest resolution your camera supports.Why? Because it's better to downsample than upsample. Better to throw away pixels you don't need than to try and make up ones you never captured in the first place. Trust me on this one.

While I don't claim to have played with every camera out there, the optics tend to be more than adequate on medium to high resolution cameras. Optical zoom is the only thing you'll want to use. Avoid using digital zoom because all it does is blow up and multiple what you already have. It's cheating and results in blocky, chunky images. If you want to do macro photography, use telephoto lens, use filters, or attach your camera to microscopes or telescopes check to see if the camera in question takes adaptor rings. The better the camera, the more likely it is to accept filters and lens.
Buy features you don't think you need. It gives you something to grow into.

Like my father used to say, "better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it." Then again, features often equal more money. Your choice. For me the ability to move from automatic mode to manual mode gives me a level of control that I sometimes want. My first digital camera was fully automatic which seemed like a blessing at first but as I learned more about photography, my camera didn't keep up with me. I soon found myself more sophisticated than my camera.

So now you've got a new digital camera. What next? Repeat after me: without charged batteries and storage, your digital camera is just dead weight. You can usually buy batteries on the road wherever you are. Conserve battery power. The first step is to turn the LCD off. Don't get hung up on looking at the LCD every time you take a picture. Trust that you got it. Painting the CCD when you take a shot takes lots of power. Don't double the batteries' burden by powering up the LCD unnecessarily.

Use the best batteries you can. I've found that Duracell Ultra's really are better than other batteries. Look for the on sale. I tried rechargeable NiCads but found that they can't keep up with the power demands of digital cameras. I should clarify that: they can't keep up with how I shoot my digital camera. I tend to take a series of multiple shots in quick succession. I'm not a casual shooter. For example, I may hit a greenhouse and shoot 20, 30, or 40 shots in 15 or 20 minutes. Eats up batteries. Your mileage may vary.

I found NiCad chargers to be a pain in the *ss. I found a quirky Japanese battery charger that claims to "freshen" alkaline batteries. Reverses the crystallization methinks. Whatever it does, I can cycle Duracell Ultra's through it up to 5 or 6 times. Even at $50 or $60 bucks this particular recharger long since paid for itself. One key is to pop the batteries in before they're completely dead. And digital cameras, like PDA's, will suck the life outta batteries something fierce.
While batteries are easy to find, I doubt you can buy additional storage, as in SmartMedia cards, at 7-Eleven. Moral of the story: always buy the biggest storage card(s) you can and take extras with you. Sure you can delete shots in the camera to make more room but that's not the kind of thing you want to do during your kid's basketball game or in the midst of a birthday party.

Larger cards tend to be cheaper per meg. The good news is that unlike film, storage cards can be used over and over and over again, making them a one-time expense. After that, each shot is free.
Which brings me to my next point. When in doubt, take the shot(s). Always.

If you have the battery power (see above), the additional pictures are free, unlike film. Take the d*mn shot and worry about whether you want to keep it or not later. This is one of the biggest advantages of digital cameras. If you don't take advantage of additional shots being free, you deserve to miss The Perfect Shot. You've been warned earthling.

Repeat after me: Digital cameras are not camcorders. Therefore there's no reason to hold yours like one. That is, while it has an LCD, use the viewfinder. And hold it steady up against your body. Holding at arm's length to try and see the LCD while you're shooting means you're not bracing yourself. Minor camera movement makes for blurry pictures. Remember: while camcorders have stability features, digital cameras don't. I cringe each and every time I see someone holding their digital camera with their arms outstretched. I can only imagine how disappointed they're going to be with the shot and they're going to blame it on that darn camera, not their technique.
Probably the best idea is to brace yourself against a steady support like a pole, fence, wall, etc. or better yet, use a tripod. And if you're serious and do use a tripod, then use the camera's remote to trip the shutter, eliminating the vibration from your finger depressing the shutter button.Failing that, use the camera's timer. Someone passed this on to me and it makes a world of difference.

Most digital cameras are not SLRs which means what you see in the viewfinder is not exactly what you get. The good news is that this parallax error is only a problem with close-ups and macro shots. For medium to long range shots, the difference between what you see in the viewfinder and the picture that gets taken is a minor offset. Try it for yourself: shoot a rectangle like a TV screen or a window or some sort of bulls' eye. Compare the picture with what you saw. Over time I've learned to correct for this discrepancy in my head as I compose a shot.

The one thing that takes some getting used to when switching from film to digital cameras is the time it takes after pressing the button before the picture is actually taken. There's a lag with digital cameras that takes some getting used to. Accept it and adapt your style accordingly. I find it takes some anticipation to do action shots. I find it challenging to photograph my kids' basketball games for instance. I haven't practiced enough to anticipate the lag and get the shot.

A strong point of digital cameras over their film cousins is that because there's no film to develop, the learning curve is much shorter. Take a shot, review it, learn from your mistakes, improve the next time. Shoot, review, learn, improve. The immediate feedback afforded by digital cameras means you can learn quickly from your experiences. Take the time and do it.
There are several things you can do with the pictures you take with a digital camera. Not all your shots are destined to be printed as 4x6's.

Perhaps some of them will end up as email attachments, others on a web page, or incorporated into a homework assignment. The key is to prep the image correctly for the desired output. For example, email attachments and web page images need to be as small as possible. Even if you use a relatively high-resolution camera, there's no sense putting a 1 meg image on a family web site. Use your image editing software to resize and compress it. The smaller the file, the faster it will download.

On the other hand, when printing photos either on your own printer or through an online photo service, more (pixels) really is better. Read your printer's documentation and consult your online photo service for the ideal size and image resolution.

When it comes to online photo services, no one beats Ofoto. Upload your JPGs and they print real photos on real photo paper. The results are nothing short of spectacular. Use Ofoto for those pictures that are too good for your inkjet printer. These are what you want to mail to Grandma or get framed for the mantle. I use Ofoto all the time and have written up a white paper on how to get the best output from Ofoto. Ignore me at your own risk.
Now you know what I wish I'd known when I first started doing all this!