Photography tips for point-and-shoot cameras

This is for people who already don't own point-and-shoot camera or considering buying a new one.

The first thing you have to pay attention is the zoom. Choose the camera that has bigger optical zoom. I have 6 years old Canon PowerShot with 10x optical zoom. For all cameras, DSLR and compact, in most cases the bigger is better. This goes for size of sensor and size of photos equally.
So, it is good ideas to check specifications before you buy, like sensor, maximum photo size (in pixels), optical zoom.

It is never good thing to buy a camera based only on appearance, but it is possible to find great looking camera with great perfomance.

This is very important. The manual that comes with camera isn't just for decoration, it can actually help you to improve your skills. While for some situations it can be great to shoot in AUTO mode, for some isn't.

If you want to get a close-up of a flower, a butterfly, some great cake you baked or a close up of your son, daughter or grandchildren, and you want the photo to be sharp and good color, you will have to shoot in macro mode (usually marked with a little flower). And it is good idea to shoot in aperture priority mode, so that you can control the depth of field (how blurry will background get) so you can minimize distractions from your main subject.

On my camera, aperture priority mode is marked with AV, and I'm pretty sure that is the same on all Canon models, but on Sony or some other cameras it can be marked slightly different. So check you manual, get to know options and modes, white-balance setting (very important if you are shooting indoors with artificial light). And the practice, take photos with different settings. Believe me I know that all those controls and options can be confusing at the beginning. It took me some time until I got comfortable and now I can almost instantly adjust the setting that is the best for the photo(s) I want to shoot.

Reading all those boring (and sometimes confusing) pages will pay off when you see that your photos are getting better and you get wows from your family and friends.

Of course you can! The more photos you take, the better you will get, especially if you pay attention on some basic guidelines. Each photo you take you can analize and think of things you could do better.

Here are some basic rules that you should have in mind when photographing:

1. Hold the camera as still as possible, and if you have image stabilisation and vibration reduction on camera, make sure that they are on

2. Avoid shooting in the midday. You will get blown out highlits and sharp shadows. If you don't have a choise take your subject to the shade.

3. Lower the exposure if you shoot on a bright day or in the sun. It is better to shoot slightly under exposed and this is easily fixed in editing programs.
If your photos are overexposed and have blown out areas, you loose all the details that can't be recovered with any program.

4. Choose the large format photos on your camera (the ones with biggest resolution). You can always crop or downsize the photo, but it is hard to upsize it if you have a photo with small resolution.

5. Learn the basic rules of composition, like the rule of thirds. This is fairly simple rule and easy to follow, and it can make your photos interesting. You don't have to always follow it, but you can't brake the rule if you don't know it.

6. Learn to use some editing program like Photoshop, Gimp, Picassa or whatever you prefer. Some are free, and some are quite expensive, some have more options than other. But if you want to have quality photographs, at least some basic editing will be necessary: levels, curves, maybe color correction, some noise removal... I've seen very few photos straight out of the camera that wouldn't benefit from some editing. And I'm not talking about retouching, or drastically changing your photo, just giving some depth and making colors more similar to the ones we saw with our eyes. Digital photography is wonderful, and has many benefits, but photos tend to look a bit flat or washed-out, especially if taken in the shade.

7. Try not to use flash, or if you do, be careful about it. Lower its intensity and use it as fill flash if you shoot a person in the shade or if you have sun behind the subject and you don't want dark silhouette.

8. Shoot from different angles, and don't be afraid to experiment. If the photos are bad, you can always delete it

9. Be selective of your work. Discard blurred and out of focus photos, sharpnes of main subject is what makes a good photo.

10. Shoot, shoot, shoot... Take as many photos as you can, whenever you have a chance. You'll see the progress very soon and you'll start to se the world with different eyes, you will start noticing things that you didn't see before and find beauty in ordinary thing. To me, this is the most rewarding thing about photography.