subject: Digital Camera? Avoid a Mistake [print this page] Digital Camera? Avoid a Mistake Digital Camera? Avoid a Mistake
So, you're ready to buy a digital camera, huh? Maybe it's your first, maybe it's your fourth. It can still be an overwhelming and confusing venture. With so many digital cameras on the market today ranging in price from under $100 to over $7,000, it may feel like there are TOO MANY CHOICES!
Personally, I'm an analyzer. As a professional photographer, when I start analyzing digital cameras, it's like unleashing a sumo wrestler at an all-you-can-eat buffet... there's no stopping me.
Believe it or not, only a few common mistakes are responsible for ruining most digital photos. Learning what they are and how to fix them can make a big difference in the number of great digital photos that you take. More importantly, avoiding these common mistakes can help make sure that really important picture turns out as good as you want it to be. It is a good idea to always keep these common mistakes of digital photography in mind so that avoiding them becomes a habit. Practice makes perfect even with a digital camera.
Probably the one mistake that looks more digital photos and any other it is being too close to the subject. Many digital cameras can focus very close. Other digital cameras may not focus as close, but it can be hard to tell the subject is out of focus in the preview screen. Besides focus, there's also the problem of too much flash for close subjects. Most often, if the subject is too close, even if it is focused the flash will overexpose subject.
According to Jay Watson, in his article on "Digital Asset Management", he refers to the workflow of a photograph or a digital image as its initial downloading from the Internet, a scanner, or a digital camera; batch renaming; rating; deleting; sorting; adding metadata and keywords; creating master files and derivative files; scheduling back-ups; building a catalog for the images; editing with Photoshop (or something similar); and then getting the images outside the computer.
Some of the most common mistakes to try and avoid when using a digital camera, is the transmission and storing of images. Large and bulky transmission of high-resolution images always will block a recipient's e-mail inbox as a large attachments. To avoid this, simply reduce the image to a size that will fit a monitor screen, taking less time to download.
A photo-cataloging program that is built into Windows XP is another solution, as it resizes photographs before they are e-mailed. There are several graphic programs, such as the free version of Easy Thumbnails, that can be downloaded to resize graphics and photographs for emailing or web-sites. Alternately, you can reduce the size of your photos and send them to a photo-sharing site or to a personal web site. This is a good idea if there are many photographs for sharing with friends and relatives.
