Dr Layne McDonald on Blogger

Digital photography is the preferred way to take pictures.   If you are in the market for a new camera, consider the following advantages of digital over traditional film photography. In the long run, digital is less expensive.  All photos are recorder are on memory device within the camera and then downloaded straight to your computer.  You skip the need to keep buying rolls of film and paying for developing. You can send unlimited copies of the same picture to friends and relatives without spending a penny extra. You see your pictures quicker.  Most digital cameras allow you to view your photos immediately.  There is no waiting and worrying about whether or not that “perfect shot” turned out.  You can take a picture of that new baby and immediately download it to your computer to share your good good news with friends and relatives. There’s no need for anxious grandparents to wait days or even weeks for a picture. Most digital cameras have built in editin...

  Have you ever taken a picture of a beautiful winter scene and been disappointed to discover the crisp, white snow came out with a bluish tint?   This is the kind of situation your digital camera’s white balance is meant to prevent. The white balance is a sensor that analyzes the lighting conditions and colors of a scene and adjusts so the white in the picture appears white.  This helps insure the other colors appear as natural as possible. This is one advantage digital photography has over tradition film.  With film, you buy with a certain lighting condition in mind.  If that changes, you need to either change your film or hope you can fix any errors in post-production. Most digital cameras allow you to use either automatic white balance or choose between several preset conditions such as full sun, cloudy day and so forth.  Automatic white balance will work in most conditions.  There may be times, however when you want to “warm” up a picture to en...

  Today’s cameras make taking pictures a lot easier than the one’s of yesterday.   There is always room for improvement, however.   Use the following tips to help make your photos go from acceptable to great. 1. Always be aware of the background. You don’t want to find trees growing out of people’s heads or a passing vehicle to draw attention from your subject.  Sometimes moving your subject just a couple steps to either side can make all the difference. 2. Use available light. If your digital camera has an option to turn the flash off and it’s light enough outside to read a book then use the available light and turn the flash off. In general camera flashes are too harsh for human skin and make all of us look pale.  Indoors, where there isn’t enough daylight, place your subject by a window and use your fill flash feature. 3.  Aim your camera slightly down at the person’s face.  Also don’t shoot just face on to the person, try a little to the side, a...

Once you’ve taken photos with your digital camera, you need to store them somewhere.  You could always leave them on the memory card, but that would get rather expensive, so let’s explore a few other options. 1. Transfer your images onto your computer.  Most cameras come with a wire to connect your camera to your computer, a CD with a downloading program and an instruction booklet.  Transferring the images is fast and simple.  Once they are on the computer, you can delete the images from your memory card and start taking more photos. 2. Burn your images onto a CD. If you have a CD burner on your computer, you can make photo discs to store or share with others.  When it comes to pictures, it is often best to use a CD that can’t be written over.  This will save the heartache of losing precious photos.  Label the CD and store it where it can be gotten easily when you need to see your pictures. 3.  Store your images on a public web site.  Ther...

With all the features digital cameras have these days, you may find keeping batteries a problem.  This could well be your biggest expense, but there are some things you can do to increase the length of time your batteries stay charged.  Let’s start with the three biggest sources of power drain. The LCD screen takes up the most power.  It is possible to turn this feature off unless you really feel the need for it.  Using the camera’s viewfinder will conserve power.  Another big power drain is the flash.   Whenever you can, use natural lighting to take your photos and turn off the flash.  This will help save your battery for times when you absolutely need the flash.  A third drain on your battery is constantly using your zoom.  It takes more power zooming in and out than it does keeping your zoom at a steady place. Try to find a setting you like and sticking with it as much as possible. Some other things you can do to make your battery las...

You’ve seen the dreaded demon-eye effect that occurs when the camera flash bounces off the eye of a person or pet.  An otherwise wonderful picture can be ruined by this.  Technically, this is called red-eye and is caused when the pupil of your subject’s eye is wide open and the light from the camera’s flash reflects off the subjects retina.  In people, the color ends up red; in pets, the color is often green.   Many photo editing programs include a red-eye correction filter, but this may not allow your photograph subject to appear “normal.  These filters also do not work on the green effect produced in a pet’s eyes.  Photo stores sell pens that are used to clear up red-eye, but again they are not always natural-looking and do not work on the green.  The best thing is to prevent the demon-eye effect from the start. It is rare to find a digital camera that does not come with a red-eye reduction feature.  This feature can be turned off or on.  I...

Have you ever wanted to find a way to bring extra money into your household--yet don’t have a lot of time to spend on a full-time endeavor?  The solution is as close as the digital camera sitting there in a drawer. The following suggestions are only a few of the many ways you can make money in your spare time with your camera. * Pet photos -  Most owners won't struggle to take a photograph with their pet all by themselves. You can be the one who makes it easy on them. Not only can you charge for the service and your time, but you can offer the photograph in it's digital form or as a print that you can mail to them later - either created by your own photo printer or by a photo processing service. *Graduations - preschool, high school, or college graduations offer dozens, if not hundreds of opportunities to capture a significant moment in someone's life. If the family members of the graduate aren't located in as good a location or don't have as good a camera as your...

Have you ever wondered how a photographer gets such clear, detailed photos of things like flowers or insects?  Capturing such close-up pictures is most often done with a setting that comes as an option on many digital cameras--the macro setting.   What the macro setting on your camera essentially does is focus on a very small area.  The background often appears unfocused to further bring out your intended subject.  Getting in close to capture all the detail of a small object is nearly impossible with the regular setting on a camera.  Anything closer than about three feet becomes blurred.  The macro setting changes the distance your camera will be able to focus and often allows you to take clear pictures from as close as two or three inches. This camera mode allows for a lot of experimenting.  Try taking a picture of a bee sitting on a flower petal or a close-up of frost on the window.  You will be amazed at the details brought out.  You will ...

It helps when learning to use your new digital camera to also know what some of the more common terms mean.  Below you will find many of these common terms defined.. Automatic Mode — A setting that sets the focus, exposure and white-balance automatically. Burst Mode or Continuous Capture Mode — a series of pictures taken one after another at quickly timed intervals with one press of the shutter button.  Compression — The process of compacting digital data, images and text by deleting selected information. Digital Zoom — Cropping and magnifying the center part of an image. JPEG — The predominant format used for image compression in digital cameras  Lag Time — The pause between the time the shutter button is pressed and when the camera actually captures the image LCD — (Liquid-Crystal Display) is a small screen on a digital camera for viewing images. Lens — A circular and transparent glass or plastic piece that has the function of collecting light and focusing it on the s...

Many digital cameras offer both digital and optical zoom.   These two often confuse the average camera buyer, until you know what you’re looking at. Optical zoom works much like the zoom lens on a 35 mm film camera. It changes the length of your camera’s lens and draws the subject closer to you.  The optical zoom keeps the quality of the picture. Digital zoom works differently. It simply takes the picture and crops it then enlarges the part that is left.  It causes the quality of the photo to be reduced, sometimes greatly. What this means in terms of output is you may have a larger view of an object with the digital zoom, but chances are your image will become unfocused.  Details will become lost.  It is actually best to turn off the digital zoom feature of your camera if possible.  This will prevent you automatically zooming in too close as the digital zoom is often an extension of the optical. There are a couple of things you can do if you want a clo...

While some of the least expensive digital cameras have only automatic focus, meaning the camera does all the work on bringing your subject into the best possible focus, most SLR digitals offer three different focus modes:  manual, single auto focus and continuous auto focus.  All three of these will be addressed here. With manual focus, the camera stays out of the focus equation and you, the photographer, make all the decisions regarding this.  This is done by setting different buttons or actually using an attached focusing ring that rotates on the camera lens.  For those who like to have complete creative control of the finished product, this is the best focus mode. In single auto focus mode, the camera automatically focuses when you press the shutter button either all the way down to shoot a photo or half way down to lock the focus.  This mode is useful when shooting static objects.  In continuous auto focus the camera continuously focuses on the objects ...