The Good, Bad, and Ugly: Taking Digital Pictures Effectively

presented by Leslie Fisher
Notes from the presentation
Common mistakes and advice for taking better pictures

  • not close enough –> “move in, take it again”
  • look around the edges to see if you want the things that are around
  • best multimedia cards: Sandisk Extreme 3 or Lexar Platinum 2 (get at least 1 Gb)
  • take more pictures, and more importantly, share less pictures
  • not focused –> use green boxes (when you press shutter halfway)
  • camera shake (nothing in focus) –> “lighting is too low in the photo so the camera needs expose the picture longer to take the image”; the shaking of your hand results in a blurry picture –> Fix: use a tripod and set the timer, use artificial lighting or change camera setting
  • composition –> wander around to try to figure out what is the best angle, composition, shoot high and shoot low. What do you want your picture to show? to say? – use law of thirds (get the focus in one of the central intersections- use cropping (but be careful that you not lose resolution)
  • ignoring the background –> be aware of the surroundings
  • lighting and speed are equal out of the box –>use action mode for action shot to make speed faster than lighting
  • too much flash –> use natural light in the photo
  • too little flash –> camera shake so stabilize the camera or introduce light
  • digital zoom –> turn it off (it zooms up on the pic and crops it)

Terminology

  • S – shutter
  • T – time
  • shutter priority – speed most important factor, can introduce camera shake
  • aperture priority – everything should be in
  • portrait mode – soft blur for everything except what’s being focused on
  • landscape mode – everything in focus
  • exposure compensation – make the image lighter or darker

The rest of the workshop focused on Photoshop CS3. Way cool! I’m a big open source fan, I use gimp but I have to appreciate the sleek and ease of using photoshop.

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