Tips for better photos

The number one thing to remember: Watch that little green light!
  1. Aim at your subject.
  2. Then push the shutter button halfway down to make all the automatic settings for the camera such as white balance, focus and exposure.
  3. When the green light (on Sony Cameras and many others) stops blinking, push the shutter button the rest of the way down to take the picture.
Lighting
"The Language of Light" -- a Kodak web site with lots of good info
 
  • Outdoor lighting
  • Outdoor lighting is best early in the morning and just before dusk because the light is angled low and not as bright. Photographers refer to those times as the Golden Hours
  • Place the subject facing the sun and use fill flash.
  • Move out of direct sunlight and shoot in the shade.
  • Indoor lighting

    • Lamps from KMart or the hardware store will work

  • Flash
  • Reflectors
    • Fomecor
    Aluminum foil
    Composition
  • "Beginning Photographic Composition" -- another good site from Kodak
  • Rule ofThirds
  • Balance
  • Framing

    • Portraits
  • Rotate the camera: people are taller than they are wide.
  • Shoot outdoor portraits in the shade for even lighting
  • Get closer
    • "Taking Great Pictures" -- another good Kodak web site

    Printing your pictures

  • What resolution means - - an article from PhotoAlley called "Pixels, Dots and Inches"
  • Epson recommends 240 ppi for photo quality from their ink jet printers
    • Shooting a picture with two subjects:
    To use an automatic camera to shoot a picture with two subjects in the frame
    1. Frame your subjects in the view screen;
    2. Rotate the camera, press the shutter button halfway down to focus on one of the subjects;
    3. Keep holding the shutter button halfway down and move back to the original way the picture was framed; and
    4. Push the shutter the rest of the way down to take the picture.

    Here's an example:

    I want to take a picture of the two frogs together.

    When I frame the picture so that both frogs are in the picture and I press the shutter button halfway down to set the auto focus, the fish in the background is in focus because it is in the center of the frame.


     

    To correct for this problem,

    Frame the picture;

    Move the camera to center one of the two subjects in the frame and push the shutter button half way down to set the auto focus; and


     

    Keep holding the shutter button halfway down, reframe the picture with both subjects in it and push the shutter button the rest of the way down to take the picture

    Both the subjects in the foreground are now in focus and the object in the background is out of focus even though it is in the center of the picture.

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