Digital Photography Tips For The Beginner

The first of the digital photography tips is to get to know what settings your camera has. Perhaps where most people fail when trying to master digital photography is that they leave their camera set on the automatic setting. Now the camera companies have done amazing things with trying to get you the best exposure for the majority of pictures. And while this will usually get you good shots, it just isn't the best for some outstanding photography.

You need to be aware of what kind of shot you want. Do you want a small depth-of-field or large? Are you trying to freeze action, or show movement? The answer to each of these questions may require different settings on your camera.

Now many digital cameras have several pre-set modes, besides automatic. The common presets include portrait, landscape, sports, and nighttime. Each of these modes change the settings of the camera automatically - giving a best guess of what you are trying to capture.

If you set your camera on sports, it will try to get the fastest shutter speed for the available light condition. The portrait mode with give you a small depth-of-field so that only your subject is in focus, along with softening the picture by adjusting the white balance.

Digital photography tip #2 - get a basic understanding of photography terms so you know how to use your camera to get the shot you want.

So now you know there are different modes (automatic, sports, portrait,...) that adjusts your camera settings for you. But what exactly do they mean? That's where learning some key photography terms come in handy.

Aperture is the lens opening - and just to confuse you - a large aperture number, such as f/11, is small lens opening. A small aperture number, such as f/4.5, is a large opening. But what does this mean? Besides limiting (with a f/11) or increasing (with a f/4.5) the amount of light, it also dictates how large the depth-of-field is, or how much of the picture is in focus. A small lens opening has a larger depth-of-field (think landscape) while a large opening has a narrow depth-of-field (think portrait).

Shutter speed is how long the camera shutter is open to expose the picture. These numbers are represented inverted. 1/1000 (of a second) is a very fast shutter speed and will freeze most action, while 1/30 is rather slow and can cause blur.

ISO or film speed is the virtual 'film' light sensitivity. For photos taken in the bright sunshine, ISO 100 usually does rather well. For nighttime photos, you may need to bump the ISO up to 800. However, the higher the ISO the grainier the picture.

White balance is how the camera interprets and stores the colors. If the white balance is set to outside and you are taking pictures indoor under florescent lights, your photos will have a greenish tint. If you adjust the white balance for florescent lights, the colors will look more like how your eye interprets it.

Again, there are some great digital photography guides out there that will explain each of these topics so they are not as confusing.

First thing you need to do is look at your digital camera's user manual and learn what kind of pre-set modes you have available and which, if any, settings you can manually change.

Then start taking photographs using different combination to see what kind of pictures you come up with. For instance, having a shallow depth-of-field while taking sports shots really lets the subject standout among other players.

Mastering digital photography isn't hard, with these digital photography tips. Personally, I find it a lot of fun. And when you come up with that GREAT shot, you'll be glad you took the time to develop your digital photography skills.