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Photo Tips Looking
After Your Camera Cameras are easy to take care of as long as you follow a few simple rules. One of the key things to remember is that cameras can never be too clean. If dirt and dust gets into a camera picture quality will decrease. Purchase a camera cleaning kit. These are quite inexpensive. In the cleaning kit should be a "blower brush" which is something that should be used for removing the dust from the camera and lens. The blower brush can be used gently before cleaning the rest of the camera. If excess dust is left over it is likely to scratch the camera lens while trying to clean it. Once this is done smudges on the body or screen can be cleaned off using a soft cloth in your cleaning kit. When cleaning the lens, more care needs to be taken. Remember the lens is just glass and this can be very easily scratched. Breathe on the front of the lens, fogging up the glass. At this point try using a soft lens cloth or lens cleaning tissue from the cleaning kit in a circular motion. Do not use normal tissues or your shirt or blouse as these materials are quite abrasive and will scratch the lens resulting in loss of image quality. Avoid dropping or bumping your camera, particularly on the lens. Protecting your camera from sand and water is also very important. Sand and water is the natural enemy of digital cameras. Cameras damaged by being subjected to water are usually damaged beyond repair. Tip - Stick on screen protectors can be applied to the screen on your camera to stop marks or scratches. Keep your camera in a padded camera bag or pouch to help protect it from minor bumps and falls.
Every computer monitor is different. There can be major differences between different makes and models. Some monitors also have adjustments for colour settings as well as brightness and contrast.Different viewing programs on the same computer can also display the same photo differently. Digital cameras can capture and computer monitors can display a wider range of colours than either inkjet or photographic prints can reproduce. This is usually only noticeable with very vivid or fluorescent colours. Digital photos are usually printed as they are without adjustments. They may look different from your monitor for the reasons above. You can make some adjustments yourself for brightness, red-eye reduction, changing to black and white or sepia with most photo kiosks prior to printing. This will not change the original image on your memory card or disc. A common problem for having photos that are too dark is simply trying to take photos inside or at night with the subject too far away for the flash to reach. Most inbuilt flashes on compact digital cameras have a maximum range of 3-4 metres, ideal for taking small groups of people. Trying to take photos of subjects further away than this will result in photos that are progressively darker and darker as the subject is further away. Tip - Red-eye is caused by the flash lighting up the retina in your subject's eyes. Many newer digital cameras now have a red-eye mode that can actually detect and remove the red-eye as you take the photo rather than just a pre-flash to help reduce it.
Different size prints have different shapes. The normal 6x4 print size is quite rectangular and was originally intended for 35mm film cameras, as it is the same shape as the negative from these (a ratio of width to height of 3:2 ). Most compact digital cameras however take a squarer shaped image (a ratio of width to height of 4:3), the same shape as most computer screens have been up until now. When printing a 6x4 print from most compact digital cameras, a small amount of the image cannot be printed as it is too wide for that size print. Most photo kiosks will show you the area that will be printed in the cropping section, which can normally be adjusted up or down to make sure that you don't cut anyone's head off in the print. It is not really a problem, just something to be aware of. Other print sizes such as enlargements are different shapes again and will have different printable areas, sometimes you may lose a little at each side of the photo rather than the top and bottom. Some photo kiosks now also have the option for no cropping. The full area of your photo will be printed but there will be white ends on each side of the 6x4 print which can be cut off if desired. Tip - Some newer digital cameras now also have what is called a 3:2 or postcard shooting mode which will give you virtually no image loss when printed to a normal 6x4 print. (Some cameras now also have a 16:9 mode which will fill the screen if played back on a widescreen TV).
Printing photos from lower resolution images than recommended for the size print selected is the most common cause. Most digital cameras have several image size settings. Selecting an image size that is too low will result in low quality prints, even small ones. Most photo kiosks will have a warning if you are trying to print from an image that is too small. The more pixels in an image mean that larger prints can be made before the quality starts to suffer. Any imperfections in focus or sharpness due to camera shake will be much more noticeable in enlargements than in smaller prints. Cameras need to use a longer exposure when taking photos in low light situations without flash. Any movement that you make while holding the camera when taking a photo under these conditions can result in blurring. Many digital cameras now have anti-shake or image stabilisation built into them to help reduce this common problem. Using digital zoom on your camera when taking photos or cropping too tightly when using the photo kiosks will have a negative effect on print sharpness. Having a camera with more megapixels simply means that you can print larger prints or crop more tightly. All digital cameras on the market now have more than enough pixels even for quite large prints. Tip - Simply having a camera with more megapixels doesn't mean that it will take better photos. There are inexpensive entry level cameras with 8 or more megapixels as well as cameras with the same number of megapixels costing much more. Better quality cameras with better lenses, focussing and exposure systems, image stabilisers etc. are more important rather than just the number of megapixels. |
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