Get that picture!

Posted on 18 Jul 2008 at 14:53

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Gallery

Aperture? Exposure? Depth of field? Don't be blinded by science - just learn a few photo basics and you'll soon see the results.

With a modern digital camera, you can get great pictures just by pointing and clicking. Or you can get pictures that are dingy, grainy, over-exposed, the wrong colour, or inexplicably blurred. In fact, you may start to wonder why your shiny new camera is less reliable than a £5.99 disposable.

The answer is that digital cameras are good at some things and not so good at others, and there are a few tricks you need to know to get the best results. We're not talking about light meters and f-stop calculations, and you won't need a pro camera. A few simple tips can help you push your point-and-shoot compact into taking better shots.

Feeling exposed

Photography is all about light. In a traditional camera, the film is a plastic sheet coated with a chemical goo that starts to change when light falls on it, and carries on changing until the light cuts off again. The light sensing chip in your digital camera works in a similar way.

The camera itself serves two purposes: to focus light onto the film, and to limit the amount of light. Focusing is done by the lens. Blocking light is the job of the shutter, a flap that opens when you press the button to take a picture and closes a fraction of a second later. (Most digital cameras don't actually have a shutter, but a feature of the chip does the job.) The exact length of time required depends on the sensitivity of the film, or sensor, and the lighting of the scene. The camera does the calculations automatically.

The longer the exposure, the more likely the picture will be blurred, because things have more time to move. You can avoid this by using a more sensitive or 'faster' film - the kind marked for cloud rather than sunshine - which allows a shorter exposure. Digital camera chips can also mimic different speeds, but they struggle to match the sensitivity of film, and the faster they try to be, the more 'noise' - random errors - they generate. This creates coloured speckles.

Because of this, a digital camera will tend to use a longer exposure than a film camera would. That's why, after years of taking sharp photos, you seem to have started wobbling.

Feature comforts

If you've never played with your camera's options, now's the time to move on from 'auto'. The 'program' modes also work on a point-and-shoot basis, but with certain biases:
'portrait' will give a shallow depth of field (blurred background), and 'sports' will keep the shutter speed fast to freeze action. You'll also be able to override settings such as white balance and ISO. Read on and see why it's worth making the effort.

Author: Adam Banks