Play with your digital camera

The world is changing too fast! In human history, we visually express our abilities, functions, speed, and control. You can pick up a digital camera, take a photo for your child, and input the image into your computer within a few seconds. You can use the image editing software to process the image freely, then you can print out the image or send it to a friend in the distance over the Internet. All of this can be done without leaving home. When we record images in the digital magic box, we also share the same characteristics as traditional cameras: they require sufficient exposure and require a stable method when exposed for a long time in the dark. Shooting with a long focal length lens also faces the same problem: they bring us closer to our sight and also increase the vibration of our camera. In other words, in the case of low light or long focal length, you need to use a tripod or a single tripod. Otherwise, the photos may be blurred.

Make digital cameras "cool"

Digital cameras are very delicate and hot. So it is best not to expose them to the sun or put them in a car during the summer. But if you do, it is best to let them cool down before shooting, otherwise it will damage the thermal-sensitive electronic devices inside the camera.
Limitations of LCD

The LCD screen on a digital camera allows you to immediately see the effect of the photo, but it also has limitations. Here we only focus on its definition. LCD screens generally only have a certain number of pixel values, and their diagonal lines are generally 1.8 to 2 inch. In other words, it can only show the approximate appearance of the image, so if you want to know whether the photo you just took is clear, you should immediately switch the camera to the playback mode, and then enlarge and move the image, check whether the image is clear.

A little flashlight

Standard Color FLASH: You will often see the flash mode: Automatic Flash, force flash on and off, or similar mode. These modes allow you to use the flashlight under any conditions. During daytime shooting, you can also flash the dark shadow part or fill the face in the shadow.

Effective flash range: In most digital cameras, the effective range of the built-in flash is generally about 3 to 5 meters. Beyond this range, the brightness of the flash is not enough, the image is dimmed, as if the film was not exposed. Some advanced digital cameras can use an external flash. Adding a large index flash will naturally help digital cameras.

Slow synchronization FLASH: the slow synchronization flash mode is mostly used for night scenes or portrait shooting under some dark conditions. In the slow synchronization mode, the camera will increase the exposure of the foreground object with a long shutter opening time as the background while flashing. The slow synchronization flash mode can bring the foreground and background exposure closer to balance as much as possible. However, since the exposure time of the slow synchronization flash mode is long, the tripod is very important.

Reduce the flash of the red eye: the anti-red eye function can minimize the reflection of the human eyes and retina. The red eye protection function can automatically pre-flash before shooting, so that the pupil of the eye is reduced in advance, so that the red reflected light of the retina is minimized, then the flashlight will again be the exposure flash.

Turn off the automatic flash mode: Sometimes the indoor or dark photos look good on the LCD screen, the flash will reduce the level of the subject, the picture will look very dull. In this case, turn off the automatic flash mode and believe that the light is soft and natural.

Practice makes perfect

Digital shooting allows us to practice shooting freely. Because you don't have to be afraid of wasting film, you can repeatedly observe the images taken at any time. If you are not satisfied, you can delete the replays.

White Balance brings fun

Have you ever noticed that a photo taken from a traditional camera under a fluorescent light will turn green? Will the photos taken under incandescent bulbs become red? This is because different artificial light sources have different wavelengths. Human eyes can quickly adapt to these artificial light sources, but traditional films cannot adapt to human eyes. Most digital cameras have automatic white balance and manual white balance settings. Common options include daylight, cloudy, fluorescent, tungsten lamps, and shadows. These modes can affect the color balance of the image under the corresponding illumination conditions. You can try various modes to find out your experience from the fun.

Do not blur the screen when the shutter is delayed

Most digital cameras have a delay from pressing the shooting button to releasing the shutter for a period of time. They often miss wonderful moments and sometimes make the photos virtual. Unless you are used to pre-focus the things: before you take a shot, align the auto-focus indicator box in the context box with the camera, and enable the auto-focus, white balance, and correlation of the camera with a half-shutter.Program, You need to wait until the camera is ready and then press the shutter completely. You need to develop the habit of pre-pressing the shutter and master the best shooting status of your digital camera.

Various buttons and other control functions

Digital cameras generally have a variety of features, including those that are rarely involved. These features can help us take excellent photos.

Definition: an in-camera mode that provides optimal clarity when recording a screen, similar to the sharpness function added in the computer's image editing program.

Use the optional ISO parameter: ISO is a standard metric for film photosensitive speed and light sensitivity. Digital cameras also provide ISO parameters for film imitation. In the case of low light or motion object shooting, the is0 sensitivity can be raised to the highest level, so that the photosensitive sensitivity of CCD increases, and the shutter speed increases accordingly. In turn, you can use a lower ISO value to slow down the shutter speed and increase the dynamic effect of a moving object. Note that the higher the camera sensitivity or ISO number, the higher the possibility of "noise" in the photo.

Image Quality and resolution: digital cameras provide different resolutions and image quality settings. With the increase in storage capacity and the increase in portable storage, it is not a good idea to take low-resolution photos. You should take high-resolution and high-quality photos as much as possible. However, if you want to transfer photos over the network, the smaller resolution and the lower quality will be very helpful for the network transmission speed.

Photo storage formats

JPEG, raw, and TIFF: Generally, digital cameras compress photos into JPEG files. In addition, many digital cameras provide raw and Tiff formats, which are uncompressed files. Raw is neither processed nor compressed. Like tiff, raw is a "no loss" data format.
TIFF files are much larger than JPEG files. For a 3 million-pixel digital camera, the size of each tiff photo is about 9 MB, if the same photo is stored in the same resolution JPEG format, it is about 1.5 MB. In addition, Tiff and JPEG photos are processed in the camera, while raw format is "original" unprocessed photos.

Why use raw format? It can provide a deeper digital depth for each pixel. The quality of the entire photo is higher, and the file size is only half the size of the corresponding TIFF file. However, you must use the image editing program on your computer to obtain raw files and then use them to produce the final high-quality images.

Which format is the best? This is an issue of "adapting to local conditions. Tiff and raw can achieve the highest image quality, but JPEG files only occupy a small storage space. For most photographers, JPEG files with the lowest compression ratio (the highest quality) are the best choice. For those who are particularly pursuing high quality, the tiff and raw formats are more suitable.

Macro focus: most medium and high-grade digital cameras have macro shooting functions. This is a very cool feature that allows you to take a bee or a coin very close to each other, sometimes it is much faster to take photos or files than to use a scanner.

Remain in the charging status

Digital cameras are powered by batteries, especially those with powerful zoom, recording sound, and LCD screens. These functions "suck the power of the camera battery like a vampire. There are three things to remember about the battery of a digital camera:

1. Use a rechargeable battery. Note: rechargeable batteries increase their power usage during the first 5 or 6 times before they reach their maximum charging capacity.

2. At least two batteries should be prepared for the camera, and three batteries should be recommended (one set is in the camera, one set is ready for use, and the other set is in the charging status ).

3. If your camera can use a rechargeable lithium battery, you 'd better prepare one more. The lithium battery work time is about five times of the alkaline battery and ordinary rechargeable battery, and the weight is also very light.

In addition, some digital cameras can use external chargers. These chargers are usually very small, and they can be recharged by inserting them into the DC-in port of a digital camera. These built-in batteries work about 10 times the normal rechargeable batteries.

Conflicts between daylight and LCD screens

Bright daylight makes the LCD display almost unable to observe photos. Some cameras (such as Sanyo VPC-z400) on the LCD screen has a light cover, in the strong sun light environment can put light cover open, you can use the sun to increase the brightness of the LCD screen. If the camera does not provide this function, you can also find a daylight mask mounted on the LCD screen to cover the strong daylight. The easiest way is to use clothing to block sunlight, just as if a photographer drilled into the big camera's Captain brie in the early years. The updated Digital Camera also has menu options for you to increase the brightness of the LCD screen.

The above describes the common usage and basic skills of digital cameras. If we can learn to make full use of more functions of digital cameras, we can use them to do more things. Let's explore digital imaging and fully explore the potential of your digital camera!