Camera 101
As painfully obvious as it may seem, the first thing you can do to take better photos, is learn to use the camera. I can feel many rolling eyes as some of you might be getting a bit angry here, but it's the truth. There are too many things you can do with your camera... plus, reading the manual, you will get a lot of tips and hints too... but for those of you who don't want to go through the whole manual, here are the things you should know about your camera... this information does not refer to model or brand, and talks about the small point-and-shoot cams (the bigger DSLR's have many things similar to them)
First, let me quickly share the different parts of interest to us: The lens, the shutter button (the one you press to take the photo), the zooming, and the flash. Needless to say you want to keep your lens clean, so try not to touch it. The shutter button works with a half press for focus, the full press for taking the image. Had to mention them sorry. The zoom however is important to keep in mind... you have usually two zooms: Manual and digital, in each camera. the manual zoom is the first step, you can see the lens move... the digital counterpart however is not so good. Though some might wish they could get closer, just cut your losses, and stick with the manual version. To understand what happens with the digital zoom, take any image you have on the computer, and zoom into it for more than 100%, you will start to see the pixels. That's the digital zoom... so skip it.
The flash is the bane of my existence. However, it is a necessary part of social picture taking so I'll indulge. First thing you need to know... if ever you are at a concert or sports game or some big event... DO NOT USE FLASH. why? because it does not reach, and it might darken the image... Now, when you are out clubbing, or in a dark location, using the flash solves the issue, but is not quite flattering for the skin tones. the easiest, cheapest and best way to solve it, is to simply take a piece of napkin, very small, just enough to cover the flash bulb and for you to hold it. Preferably you want to be able to hold it form the back and let it roll over the front to hide the bulb... point is, by doing so, you don't have the full intensity of the flash, but just enough... you will need to test different thicknesses to find the best one for your camera. Soon, you will see the skins are rendered much better and you do not have this ugly light...
There are a couple of things you can do as an advanced mode, but we will discuss these later... the last i wanna share with you is the different modes and whether you should care about them or not! Each camera has various automatic modes, usually, Sports, Landscape, Portrait, Night and others. What these do, is simply provide you with the optimum settings for what you are shooting. I would suggest you get used to selecting them, because they do improve the technical aspect of the image, without you needing to know a lot of technical mumbo jumbo. Their names are pretty obvious regarding what they do, so there's no need for me to elaborate on them further than this.
Typically, you will not need to worry about memory cards, as you would need just one with a capacity of 1-2 GB... Feel free to get more if you like... as for brand... makes no real difference for average users. so don't fret...
In closing, getting very comfortable with all of the options in your camera and how you can control them, is the first step towards better photography, and a substantial one at that. The next installment will start containing image examples, and more hands on direction. So you should be capable of at least turning it on, zooming, pressing the shutter and turning the flash on/off... if there's anything I may have left out, or that you would like to know more about... i am more than willing to help!
Cheers!
