It doesn’t take a top-of-the-line SLR for someone to take great photos. You can have images like the pros even with a point-and-shoot camera, you just have to know how to use the thing.
Ajc.com has a nice look at how you should use your digital camera and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of digital photography. Check this out…
Advantage: You can take as many pictures of a scene as you like without added expense. And you can immediately look at the results. Many folks who grew up in the film generation have a hard time breaking the habit of shooting one or two frames and hoping it comes out well. So it bears repeating: If it’s a shot you want, take it a bunch of times, at different angles or settings. That also allows for the factor known as dumb luck. The more pictures you take, the more likely you’ll catch an especially nice shot.
Disadvantage: The camera’s tiny viewing screen isn’t big enough to show flaws that will be painfully obvious when the photo is shown on a large computer screen. With digital on a computer screen, you’re showing what amounts to a giant enlargement. Tiny flaws become giant problems. So it’s important to learn how to fix photo flaws, and we’ll deal with that next.
Advantage: In the days of film photography, most amateurs relied on the drugstore or photo shop for processing. That usually involved an automated process that produced barely adequate prints. With digital photography, you have the ability to fix mistakes the drugstore wouldn’t have bothered with.
So get comfortable with photo editing software. You’ll be able to adjust for bad exposure or even do minor surgery. What do I mean by surgery? Imagine that a particularly ugly dog wandered into the frame of little Susy’s outdoor wedding reception. Simply clone a patch of grass and — like a great magician — you’ve made a dog disappear. A great all-purpose program: PhotoShop Elements. It can be found at most computer stores or ordered directly at http://www.adobe.com/products/psprelements/.
