Digital Photography for Next to Nothing

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3 Digital Photography for Next to Nothing

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5 Digital Photography for Next to Nothing FREE and Low-Cost Hardware and Software to Help You Shoot Like a Pro JOHN LEWELL

6 This edition first published John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Registered office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at w w w.w i l e y. c o m. The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Digital Photography for Next to Nothing is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Microsoft Product screenshots are reproduced with permission from Microsoft Corporation. ISBN A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Set in 8.5/10.2 Interstate Light by Thomson Digital Printed in the US by CJ Krehbiel

7 For Oi and Jonathan

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9 About the Author John Lewell is the Editor of PhotoSoftwareNews.com, the Internet s premier guide to photographic software. His previous books have included Computer Graphics (Van Nostrand Reinhold), The A Z Guide to Computer Graphics (McGraw-Hill), Multivision (Focal Press), and, more recently, The Digital Photographer s Software Guide (Cengage). A graduate of Peterhouse, Cambridge, John Lewell has worked extensively in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a freelance journalist for dozens of publications. He is married to Thai cookery writer Oi Cheepchaiissara. Acknowledgments I d like to thank my editors Kezia Endsley and Abi Saffrey for their many helpful comments and recommendations. I also wish to thank all the staff at John Wiley & Sons who have helped to bring this book to publication, especially Chris Webb who commissioned the original project and Ellie Scott for her meticulous day-to-day liaison.

10 Publisher s Acknowledgments Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: Editorial and Production VP Consumer and Technology Publishing Director: Michelle Leete Associate Director Book Content Management: Martin Tribe Associate Publisher: Chris Webb Executive Commissioning Editor: Birgit Gruber Assistant Editor: Colleen Goldring Publishing Assistant: Ellie Scott Project Editor: Juliet Booker Development Editor: Kezia Endsley Content Editor: Céline Durand-Watts Copy Editor: Abi Saffrey Marketing Senior Marketing Manager: Louise Breinholt Marketing Executive: Chloe Tunnicliffe Composition Services Compositor: Thomson Proof Reader: Sarah Lewis Indexer: Thomson

11 Contents PART I: TAKING BETTER SNAPS WITH A CHEAPER CAMERA 1 Chapter 1: Getting the Best from a Low-Cost Camera 3 How Cheap Is Cheap? 3 Getting to Know Your Camera 7 Ten Universal Questions for Every Shot 8 Chapter 2: Why Most Snaps Fail to Impress 11 Some Common Errors 12 What Makes a Good Snapshot? 13 Ten Cost-Nothing Tips for Better Snaps 14 Chapter 3: First Steps in Portraiture with FREE and Low-Cost Lighting 17 Creating One-Lamp Portraitures 17 Making Your Own Low-Key Lighting Kit 20 Creating No-Lamp Portraitures: Taking It Outdoors 20 Using Scrims to Soften Sunlight 21 Getting More Lights for Less 23 Resources 25 PART II: GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY 27 Chapter 4: Choosing a Better Camera 29 The Four Digital Camera Types 29 Shopping Around for a New Camera 30 Users Recommendations 31 Getting an Entry-Level DSLR at a Rock-Bottom Price 32 Read FREE Reviews Online: 10 Leading Review Sites 35 Chapter 5: Keeping It Steady: Tripods, Monopods, and VR Lenses 39 Blur Reduction: A Big Step Towards Better Photographic Technique 39 Using Tripods and Heads 40 Low-Cost Tricks for Reducing Blur 44 Chapter 6: Saving Money on Lenses 47 Why People Argue About Lenses 47 Recommended High-Value Lenses 50 Using Older Lenses on a New Camera 52

12 x Contents Chapter 7: In Praise of the 50mm Lens 55 Using a Lens Chart 55 Using 50mm with Full-Frame, 1.5x, 1.6x, and 1.7x Crop Factor Sensors 56 Five Reasons to Buy the Nifty Fifty 57 Shooting with a 50mm Lens 58 PART III: KEEPING COSTS DOWN 61 Chapter 8: Cost-Cutting Tips for Better Photography 63 Setting White Balance 63 Setting Exposure 66 Cropping: The Pro Technique Available to All 67 Chapter 9: Shooting RAW and Processing It For FREE 69 The Rise of the RAW Format 69 The Snags of Using RAW 70 Software for RAW Processing 70 Chapter 10: Shooting Macro Without a Macro Lens 81 Four Ways to Get Macro Shots 81 Lighting for Your Macro Shots 85 Using Lens Stacking to Take Macro Shots 86 Making a Tabletop Studio for Macro Photography 87 Building a Mini Light Box for Small Product Photography 88 Chapter 11: DIY: Cleaning Your DSLR Sensor 91 Common Contaminants and How to Get Rid of Them 92 Cleaning the Chamber 95 Testing Your Cleaning Method 95 Chapter 12: DIY: Making Your Own Lens Hood 97 Considering Lens Hood Types 97 Finding Lens Hood Templates Online 98 Making a Superhood for a 50mm Lens 99 Making a Flexihood for a Telephoto Lens 100 Chapter 13: More DIY Photo Fun Accessories 103 Making Pop-Up Flash Diffusers 103 DIY Accessories for Flash Guns 105 Making Your Own Lenses 107 Getting Decorative Bokeh Effects 108 Getting Soft Focus Without a Special Lens 110

13 Contents xi Finding Low-Cost Tripods for Your Compact Camera 110 Emulating Aerial Photography Without the Airplane 112 Chapter 14: FREE Photo Calculators 117 Printing, Cutting, and Assembling Your Own FREE Exposure Calculator 117 Using the Golden Ratio 119 For a Few Dollars: Photo Calculation Software for the iphone 119 Optical System Calculators 121 Print Size Calculation 124 Chapter 15: FREE and Low-Cost Utility Software 127 FREE and Low-Cost Exif Tools 128 FREE and Low-Cost Screen Capture Utilities 129 FREE Color Pickers 132 FREE Online Color Analysis 133 FREE File Archiving Utilities 133 Low-Cost Image Compression Software 134 FREE JPEG Lossless Rotation 135 FREE and Low-Cost Data Recovery Software 135 Free Scan Photo Recovery Software 136 PART IV: SCRUTINIZING, SORTING, AND RESIZING YOUR IMAGES 139 Chapter 16: Monitor Calibration for Next to Nothing 141 Understanding Gamma 141 Calibration for Windows and Mac 142 FREE Online Monitor Calibration 148 FREE Online Tutorials on Monitor Calibration 148 Chapter 17: FREE and Low-Cost Image Viewers 151 Top FREE and Low-Cost Image Viewers for Windows 152 Image Viewers for Mac: Why the Mac Is Different 159 Chapter 18: FREE and Low-Cost Photo Organizing Software 161 The Difference Between Sorting and Cataloging 161 Searching Through Untagged Images 163 Other Good FREE Photo Organizing Software 164 For a Few Dollars: More Photo Organizing Software 167 Chapter 19: FREE and Low-Cost Image Resizing Tools 171 Choosing the Right Tool 171 FREE Desktop Image Resizing Software 172

14 xii Contents FastStone Photo Resizer 172 FREE Software for Batch Resizing 175 FREE Online Image Resizing Tools 176 For Just a Few Dollars 178 PART V: IMPROVING YOUR IMAGES 181 Chapter 20: FREE and Low-Cost Image Enhancement Software 183 Enhancement and Editing: What s the Difference? 183 Recommended FREE Basic Image Adjustment Tools 184 Other FREE Image Adjustment Tools 186 FREE Batch Correction Image Adjustment Tools 186 For a Few Dollars 187 Chapter 21: FREE Image-Editing Software 191 What to Look for in a FREE Image Editor 191 The Top Four FREE Windows Products 192 Seashore for Macintosh 197 The Best of the Rest: All FREE 197 Chapter 22: FREE Online Image Editors 203 Online Software: The Long-Term Winner 203 Featured Software: The Top Five 204 Best of the Rest 211 Chapter 23: FREE and Low-Cost Denoising Software 219 Noise Reduction Software 219 Recommended FREE Denoising Software 219 FREE Multiplatform (Java-Based) Denoising Software 223 For a Few Dollars: Low-Cost Denoising Software 224 Chapter 24: Building Powerful Software Suites with Plug-ins 229 Adobe Photoshop Elements: The Low-Cost Host for Best-of-Breed Plug-ins 229 GIMP: Pimp Your GIMP with Dozens of Great Plug-ins 232 Enhancing Paint.NET with Plug-ins 235 PART VI: MAKING HI-RES MOSAICS, PANORAMAS, AND HDR IMAGES 239 Chapter 25: Getting Hi-Res Images from a Low-Res Camera 241 FREE Versus Commercial Stitching Software 241

15 Contents xiii Chapter 26: Panoramic Photography 251 Taking Panoramas Without a Tripod 251 Finding the Optical Center of a Lens 252 Why Is Panoramic Photography Normally Expensive? 252 The Panosaurus: a Low-Cost Panoramic Head 253 Building Your Own Panoramic Head 255 Useful Resources 256 Chapter 27: Low-Cost Panoramic and Virtual Tour Software 257 Software for Making Panoramas 257 Software for Displaying Panoramas 260 Chapter 28: Creating High Dynamic Range Images 263 Two Reasons to Use HDR 264 Commercial or FREE? Which Software Is Best for HDR? 264 FREE HDR Software 264 Low-Cost HDR Software 269 PART VII: SHARING & PUBLISHING YOUR WORK 271 Chapter 29: FREE Image Hosting 273 What to Look for in a FREE Image Host 274 Directories 275 Selected FREE Image Hosting Providers 276 Chapter 30: FREE Online Photo-Sharing Sites 281 Must-Have Photo-Sharing Features 281 Selected FREE Online Photo-Sharing Sites 283 Photo-Sharing Sites with FREE Basic Accounts 287 FREE Sites with Additional Features 289 Chapter 31: Online Photo Communities 293 What Online Photo Communities Can Do for You, and You for Them 293 Communities FREE to Registered Users 294 Low-Cost Photo Communities 299 Smaller and Specialist Photo Communities 301 Chapter 32: FREE Web Publishing Software 305 Using PHP to Create Your Online Gallery 305 FREE PHP-Based Photo Gallery Software 306 FREE Flash Gallery Creation Software 310 CSS-Based Image Galleries 313

16 xiv Contents FREE Java-Based Photo Gallery Software 314 Creating AJAX-Based Photo Galleries 315 FREE Website Design Software with Gallery Features 316 PART VIII: GETTING READY TO PRINT 319 Chapter 33: Low-Cost Image Rescaling Software 321 Why Is Most Up-Rezzing Software So Pricey? 321 Some Low-Cost Image-Rescaling Alternatives 322 Chapter 34: Low-Cost Online Printing Services 327 Cheaper Than Home Printing 327 Online Photo Printers with Opening Offers (U.S. and International) 327 Online Photo Printers with Opening Offers (U.K.) 329 Directories of FREE Photo-Printing Offers 331 Premium Printing Services 331 PART IX: LEARNING MORE ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY, FOR NEXT TO NOTHING 333 Chapter 35: FREE Online Tuition 335 How to Evaluate Online Instruction 335 Highly Recommended FREE Online Tutorials 336 FREE Video Tutorials on Photography 339 FREE Photoshop Tutorials Online 340 Chapter 36: FREE Online Photo Resources 343 Photo Megasites You Have to Visit 344 Leading Camera-Specific Websites 345 FREE Photography Magazines Online 346 FREE Art Photography Magazines Online 348 Sites for Landscape Photographers 349 Sites for Nature and Wildlife Photographers 350 Sites for Photojournalists 351 Sites for Portrait Photographers 351 PhotoStartSheet.com 352 Index 353

17 Preface Every year people spend billions of dollars on camera equipment, yet the actual activity of digital photography costs next to nothing. Go click, click, click (times a thousand) and you ve spent only your valuable time. By contrast, photographers who use film incur a significant cost whenever they press the shutter button. That s why owners of digital cameras take more shots and why they become accomplished photographers more quickly. In preparing this book, I ve kept several ideas to the fore, the first of which is the premise that your time is indeed valuable. You would be unlikely to find all the FREE software and low-cost DIY items described here unless you were to spend countless hours searching the Internet for similar information. Please make full use of the hundreds of links I ve included and look upon this book as a key that will unlock many unexpected and hard-to-find treasures on the Internet. My second governing idea is that there is a huge world of snapshot photography and a much smaller one of real photography to which millions of snapshooters aspire. With this in mind, I ve organized the book by suggesting ways you can improve your snaps without spending much money; then I ve proceeded to real photography by which I mean carefully considered shooting, undertaken with thought, care and preparation looking at all the ways you can keep costs to a minimum. The Initial Outlay When casual snapshooters get bitten by the photography bug they soon find a need to upgrade their camera. I don t blame them. While it s true you can take a great photograph with a really cheap camera, it s also true that you need to invest more to take pictures under a wide variety of conditions. What s important is not the capital cost of the equipment but the cost-per-photo, or rather, the cost-per-great-photo because great photos are your objective once the photography bug has sunk its fangs into your bloodstream. By next to nothing, therefore, I m not suggesting that you never make any sensible investments in cameras and lenses. Quite the opposite: I m recommending that you save money on all those tempting accessories and software packages which can soon outstrip the cost of buying both a decent DSLR and some great chunks of glass to go with it. Digital photography is, after all, digital and that means it is part of the remarkable phenomenon of FREE, as described by Chris Anderson in his book FREE: The Future of a Radical Price. He writes: The rise of freeconomics is being driven by the underlying technologies that power the Web... Once a marketing gimmick, FREE has emerged as a full-fledged economy. Digital photography can never be entirely FREE because you still need quality optics and various servo mechanisms to control shutter and focus. Yet by any standard, today s digital camera represents incomparable value and even more remarkably has an almost-zero running cost. When you combine this with FREE or next to nothing software, you have a value proposition that is second to none.

18 xvi Preface The Sky is not the Limit I firmly believe it s possible to devise an ingenious, low-cost way of taking practically any type of photograph. Suppose, for example, you wish to take a photo of the upper atmosphere. Most people would think it necessary to go up in a rocket to get such a shot following Guy Laliberte (the first clown in space) who paid $35 million for a trip to the International Space Station. Yet four Spanish teenagers recently succeeded in getting perfect photos showing the curvature of the Earth and the layers of the atmosphere at 100,000 feet by using a helium balloon and a digital camera. The cost? $56. Much the same approach holds true for general photography. There is the expensive way of doing it; and the cheap way. Sometimes the cheap way is equally good or even better. For example, some photographers spend money on a special lens cap to set white balance whereas others use a coffee filter and get exactly the same result. When professional photographers make their own accessories such as scrims, lighting rigs, or table-top studios, they do so because they know they ll achieve better lighting with a customized unit. DIY is an integral part of advanced photography. Sometimes a gift for improvization is as valuable as an eye for a great composition. My point is this: please don t think that next to nothing involves any compromise in the quality of the final image. In fact, no compromise is my third governing idea. Most of the DIY projects in this book will enable you to get top quality shots while all the rest are grouped together in Chapter 13: More DIY Photo Fun Accessories. Even these can yield good results, especially the various types of pop-up flash diffuser. Many of the chapters are designed to introduce the reader to particular genres such as panoramic or high dynamic range photography without incurring significant costs. If, after trying my suggestions, you become inspired to go further, then you can invest in purpose-built equipment and professional software. The Virtues of FREE Software The day has long since passed when Adobe Photoshop was the only worthwhile photo editing package. Although it remains the software of choice for professional graphic artists and you need to learn your way around it if you re thinking of a career in the graphic arts there are plenty of alternatives, all of them a lot less costly. I have been amazed at the facilities offered by FREE photo software, not least by some of the full-service editing packages and by one or two of the top online editors. There is, incidentally, a distinct trend toward placing more and more services online, such that you can now enhance, resize, and edit your images without having any software at all other than an operating system and a web browser. If, as Chris Anderson says, we are entering an era when FREE will be seen as the norm, not an anomaly, then there are likely to be many more FREE photo editing and sharing services on the web, supported by advertising, cross-subsidy, and the increasingly ubiquitous freemium business model (free basic service; multi-featured premium service). In this book I occasionally remind the reader to check exactly why the software is being given away. Whatever contemporary economists say, there is really no FREE lunch someone, somewhere, pays the bill.

19 Preface xvii Why FREE? Finally, I must explain why I ve decided to capitalize the word free in most (but not all) instances. If I say FREE, the software or service really is FREE, without a lot of strings attached. Software that comes on a FREE 30-day trial is not FREE in any meaningful sense because it expires at the end of the period. Likewise, software that leaves a large watermark on your finished images can scarcely be called FREE. I think hobbled would be a better word. In turn, this is distinct from crippled software that suffers from having useful features cut deliberately from a supposedly FREE edition. Here again I ve reduced FREE to free so readers can lower their expectations. Whatever your style of photography and especially if you are still developing a style of photography you will find something helpful in these pages. Photography can be one of the world s most or least expensive hobbies, depending on how you approach it. I think it is true to say: the more you know, the less money you need to spend. By providing this information I am aiming to save you money and help you take better and more varied pictures. John Lewell, April 2010

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21 PART I Taking Better Snaps with a Cheaper Camera Chapter 1: Chapter 2: Chapter 3: Getting the Best from a Low-Cost Camera Why Most Snaps Fail to Impress First Steps in Portraiture with FREE and Low-Cost Lighting

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23 Chapter 1 Getting the Best from a Low-Cost Camera If you read what great photographers have to say about cameras, you will find two apparently conflicting opinions. Some place emphasis on buying the most expensive equipment. Edward Weston, one of whose vintage prints sold for over a million dollars, said: I was extravagant in the matter of cameras anything photographic I had to have the best. Others play down the need for it. No photographer is as good as the simplest camera, said Edward Steichen, whose photograph The Pond-Moonlight (1904) sold for $2.9 million in In fact, they were both right. If you want to get serious about photography, invest in a good camera. That s why I ve written this book for the reader who decides to buy a better camera but doesn t have a budget left over for expensive lenses, software, and accessories. However, you don t need an expensive camera to get some great shots. As photographer Brooks Jensen points out, All the great photographs in history were made with more primitive camera equipment than you currently own. Even a cheap digital camera is a miracle of high technology, capable of producing a masterpiece of fine art if you use it properly. How Cheap Is Cheap? The least expensive digital cameras cost about twice the retail price of this book. Some disposable film cameras cost even less. There has even been a craze for toy cameras such as the Chinese Holga brand, the Diana-F, and the four-lens Lomo Action Sampler. These are all much loved by enthusiasts who strive for a certain look that actually emphasizes the poor quality of the image for artistic effect similar to wearing tatty, secondhand clothing to show a sense of style. At the time of writing this book, I have settled on $100 as being a very low-cost price point for a compact camera. You can take this to mean just over $100 in the United States and in the United Kingdom throughout the book, I don t show the equivalent on every mention of the $ price, and prices are always taken to be approximate. Although some cameras are even cheaper, at this price level you can currently get 10 megapixels and reasonable quality optics in cameras such as the Fujifilm A100 or Canon PowerShot A480 (see Figure 1.1).

24 4 Part I: Taking Better Snaps with a Cheaper Camera Figure 1.1: Simple, but effective. The Canon PowerShot A480. Image courtesy of Canon How Much Camera Can You Get? The two key components of a low-cost digital camera are the lens and the sensor. Today you can find both of them integrated into mobile phones, but it is still better to buy a dedicated camera because the lens will almost certainly be superior, even if the sensor is identical to the one on your phone. For around $100, you can obtain a camera that has a resolution of 10 megapixels, a decent lens with a three-times optical zoom, built-in flash, automatic focus, motorized zoom, continuous shooting mode of about one frame per second, and shutter speeds up to 1/2000th of a second. This is all you need for great snapshots. If you pay more, make sure the money is going into a better quality lens and not into the styling of the camera. Bigger Cameras Deliver More for Less Despite being smaller in fact, because they are smaller ultra compacts cost more than ordinary compacts. Avoid them. Why pay more for less? You may as well use the camera on your mobile phone. It is far better to get a compact that has a bigger lens, a larger battery, and a better LCD screen. If size and portability are not issues, you may opt for a larger pointand-shoot at the low end of the superzoom range. This type of chunky, all-black camera with a large, permanently attached zoom lens weighs twice as much and will cost you twice or even three times as much, but it s a very good option from a photographic point of view. One example is the Panasonic Lumix FZ38, superbly specified with an 18x optical zoom, 12.1 megapixels, and a powerful movie mode (see Figure 1.2). Lowest-Cost Models All the major manufacturers have extensive ranges of compact cameras, with prices to match. You can buy the cheapest which are perfectly adequate for great snaps or pay two, three, or four times as much for a model with more features. Check out Chapter 4,

25 Chapter 1: Getting the Best from a Low-Cost Camera 5 Figure 1.2: Bulky, but brilliant. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ38. Image courtesy of Panasonic Choosing a Better Camera, for advice on how to buy at a rock-bottom price. Here are some of the ranges: Panasonic Lumix Fujifilm FinePix Nikon Coolpix Kodak EasyShare Canon PowerShot See What Other People Achieve with Each Camera Before you buy a very low-cost camera, check out the kind of pictures that other people have been able to achieve with it (see Figures 1.3 and 1.4). How do you do this? Easy. Visit one of the FREE online photo galleries that categorizes images by the make and model of camera. One of the best in this respect is PBase.com go to the Camera Search page ( to find the right set of images. The first point to notice is the number of photos in the database that have been taken with your model (or intended model) of camera. This is not a completely reliable guide, but it does at least give you some idea of how many people have chosen this camera. You can also look at the Most Viewed table, which gives you an indication of the level of interest being generated by a particular model. Don t take too much notice of it. Everyone wants to look at images from the latest camera not necessarily the low-cost model you have in mind. Some of the PBase camera index pages have hundreds of entries, so you may have to use Ctrl+F to bring up the finder and make a search. Insert the model number and there (most likely) you are. If your model is missing, which is improbable but not impossible, it may be because it s new and no one has gotten around to uploading any pictures from it. Popular

26 6 Part I: Taking Better Snaps with a Cheaper Camera Figure 1.3: With a $100 camera (Fuji, 10MP, at max aperture f/3.1), picture quality is great but it s hard to isolate any part of the subject. Figure 1.4: With a DSLR (Fuji S5 Pro, 6MP, 50mm lens at f/1.6), you can throw the background out of focus and make the subject stand out. models may have tens of thousands of sample images, a random selection of which is displayed each time you click More. When you view the images, remember that some may have been taken by incompetent photographers, so examine the better ones for sharpness, clarity, contrast, and depth of color. To do this, choose one that has been shot in natural light on a bright day with light

27 Chapter 1: Getting the Best from a Low-Cost Camera 7 cloud cover (ideal conditions). Download the largest size, and look at the corners as well as the center. Is it still sharp at the edge? Is there any color aberration such as purple fringing, typically found around foliage taken against the sky? Can you detect lens distortion at the edges of the image, such as barrel distortion (straight lines bowed outwards) or pincushion distortion (straight lines pinched towards the center)? Is the image noisy, especially in the shadows where the speckled effect of image noise, caused by insufficient data reaching the sensor, is most likely to show up? By looking at several examples, you will soon get a feel for the camera s capabilities. You can trust well-composed shots more than those that lack artistic qualities. They have probably been taken by people who have some technical ability. Getting to Know Your Camera Once you re in possession of a camera any camera you need to familiarize yourself with it before taking it on the road. The first step is to read the manual. It s surprising how many people refuse this obvious task, but every camera has unique features and even if you ve handled something similar you need to know what they are. Finding Your Camera s Limits When you ve discovered what all the buttons do, the next step is to find out the camera s limitations. You ll need to bear these in mind when you re taking pictures. If you go beyond them you may or may not be able to rescue the photo at a later stage. For example, if you blow a few highlights because you ve gone beyond the camera s dynamic range, you may be able to darken them satisfactorily using software. But if you get too close to the subject and step inside the minimum focusing distance, nothing can remove the blur from the photo. So, what limitations should you look for? First, consider the lens that s permanently attached to your low-cost camera. What is its angle of view when fully zoomed out or in? Only optical zooming provides any real magnification. Digital zooms simply fill the live viewfinder with a cropped portion of the image, significantly lowering the resolution. Second, consider how powerful your flash is. If you exceed the range of your flash in dull conditions you ll get dark images one of the most common faults of snapshot photographers. With an inexpensive camera and low-powered flash, you are very likely to fall into this trap when the subject is more than four or five steps away. Cameras can automatically reduce the amount of flash, but they can t increase it above the maximum rating of the flash unit. Third, think about the focusing distance. Luckily, focus is one of the least of your problems with modern digital cameras. They are all good at identifying your likely subject and then adjusting the focus automatically for you. Make a note of the minimum focusing distance and don t go any closer. With a typical wide-angle lens on a compact camera you will not have to worry too much about depth-of-field (the depth of the scene in sharp focus). In fact, you may often have too much depth-of-field, which is a major limitation of compact cameras, preventing you from throwing the background out of focus by opening up the aperture of the lens. The relatively small lenses on compacts are not large enough for this kind of effect. There are other limitations to bear in mind, for example: the resolving power or sharpness of the lens; the ISO setting (such as ISO 400 or ISO 800) at which the images become noisy;

28 8 Part I: Taking Better Snaps with a Cheaper Camera and the start-up speed from when the camera is switched off. Once you know where the boundaries lie, you can operate safely within them and take many great pictures. Playing to Your Camera s Strengths I have examined thousands of images on PBase and I m constantly struck by how the same low-cost camera whether it s a Nikon Coolpix or a Sony Cybershot can produce mediocre images on one occasion and brilliant photos on another. Most experts explain this by saying it s the person behind the camera..., which is partly true but it s not the whole story. Every modern compact camera can take great snaps in natural light under ideal conditions. As long as you don t want enlargements, say, beyond 5 x 7 inches, you can get results that rival those from any camera, especially if you tweak the image in FREE editing software. But if your subject is a long way off, or if the light is failing, or if there is a lot of movement within the frame, you will soon start to wish you had more expensive equipment. Most users get good results occasionally, when the camera is suited to the situation (by which I mean the subject and lighting conditions). Yet only by playing to your camera s strengths and not going beyond its limitations can you get terrific results consistently. Ten Universal Questions for Every Shot Whenever you take a photo any photo there are some questions you can ask yourself about the shot. It s hard to think about them all at once, but experienced photographers can come up with the answers almost automatically. The more you practice, the sooner you ll be able to do the same. 1. What Is in Front of the Camera? This might seem obvious, but a camera can only take what s in front of it. Yet time and again a photo can surprise you, even though you saw the identical scene when you pressed the shutter release. Why is this? It s partly because there s often too much happening in front of the camera for you to take it all in until you ve frozen the moment; and partly because the camera interprets the scene in its own way instead of reproducing your experience of it. What may seem ugly or ordinary in real life may look striking and even beautiful in a photo. 2. How Is the Subject Framed? Even after all the experiments of modern art, the rectangular frame remains predominant in photography. The digital era has partially liberated photographers from standard sizes because you can now reframe the image in software. When you take a snap you need to consider whether holding the camera horizontally (landscape) or vertically (portrait) is more appropriate. Use whichever is likely to be least wasteful when you crop the image later. 3. What Is the Camera s Lens Angle? You can fill the frame with your subject by standing close and using a wide angle, or by moving back and zooming into the subject. When you move your position backward or forward you change the perspective (that is, the size of objects in the frame change in

29 Chapter 1: Getting the Best from a Low-Cost Camera 9 relationship to each other). However, if you remain where you are and simply zoom, the perspective stays exactly the same. 4. What Depth-of-Field Will You Capture? Don t worry too much about DoF for snapshots, but just bear in mind that people or objects on either side of your subject will be in focus, whereas those in front or behind may not. There are plenty of FREE ways to work out the depth-of-field (see Chapter 14, FREE Photo Calculators ), but they are normally beyond the scope of snapshot photography. 5. What Is the Dynamic Range of the Scene or Subject? This is a key question you need to consider in order to shoot decent pictures. If there is a huge difference in the values between the darkest shadow and the brightest highlight, no digital camera least of all an inexpensive one can capture detail in all parts of the scene. You can reduce dynamic range by lighting the shadows ( fill light ) or by filtering the sun s rays with a translucent material. 6. What Is the Quality of the Light? Is it harsh or soft, warm or cool, unidirectional or multidirectional? Light makes photography, said George Eastman. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography. In landscape photography you have to rely chiefly on light from the sun, but the actual quality of light changes dramatically according to the sun s position in the sky, the amount of haze or cloud cover, and reflected light from clouds, water, and large objects. The best light for landscapes and natural light portraits is often when the sun is low in the sky, while clouds form a giant light tent overhead. 7. Will Color Play a Major or Minor Role in the Image? On an abstract level, a photo consists of form and color. It is mostly light and shade that delineate form (shape, pattern, rhythm) while color plays a secondary role. But color can also define form quite independently of light and shade. Once in a while, you should forget content and think about these abstract elements when you take snaps. 8. Is the Exact Moment of Capture Significant? Sometimes the exact moment of capture is the whole point of the shot: especially in sport. Yet whatever the genre, if your snapshot says this is a unique moment, it is bound to be successful on one level. Viewers will even forgive technical imperfection if you have a great capture. 9. Is the Exposure Right? Although you can often create several successful versions of (for example) a landscape using different exposures, many snaps would be improved had the exposure been longer

30 10 Part I: Taking Better Snaps with a Cheaper Camera or shorter. If the most important feature is washed out or too dark, the exposure is surely wrong. Understand which parts of the image your automatic exposure system samples. This is especially important when the subject is off-center. 10. Is the Camera Stable? The typical snapping technique of arms extended camera waving in the air is the worst for taking sharp photos. Flash will freeze most camera movement, but try turning it off and keeping the camera steady. Where possible, rest the camera on something solid. If you don t have a tripod or monopod, try new positions. Squatting on the floor and resting your elbows on your knees is a good position. When you no longer have to ask yourself these questions, but instead start to provide the answers instinctively whenever you take a snap, that means you re well on the way to becoming a photographer. Summary You can take stunning photographs with even the cheapest digital camera, but not in all circumstances. If you have an inexpensive camera, you must understand its limitations. When you buy any camera, always examine photographs other people have taken with that model. Full-size images from most camera models are easy to locate on the Internet. Even before you start to get really serious about photography, you can improve your snapshots by asking yourself simple questions each time you press the button. Bear these points in mind and you will soon be taking better quality shots. Even so, sometimes you ll be in the right place at the right time, but fluff the shot because of a technical error. Chapter 2 identifies mistakes that occur all too frequently, but are easy to correct if you know what they are.