How to prevent and fix common mistakes with your digital camera
By Peter K. Burian
If you've just bought a new digital camera, get ready to take some great pictures. First, though, it's important to spend at least a few minutes with the manufacturer's instructions. Even the simple point-and-shoot models have settings that can help you take better pictures. For example, if you're trying to shoot an active subject, like your kids, find out if the camera has a rapid-fire mode that lets you take several pictures in quick succession.
Once you've read a little about your camera, it's important to recognize common mistakes and learn how to prevent or fix them. I've gone through this process while testing many digital cameras.
Fortunately, these mistakes have been great teachers, prompting me to find creative solutions. I invite you to learn from my mistakes. To maximize your own enjoyment of digital imaging, consider the following common errors and preventive measures.
1. Not enough memory
Most new digital cameras come with a memory card, but it's usually only big enough to take a handful of pictures.
The fix
Before you even leave the store, find out what kind of memory card your camera takes and buy an extra one.
2. Excessive contrast
If you've taken pictures on days with harsh sunlight, you've probably noticed that many of your digital images exhibit extremely high contrast. Such pictures include dark shadow areas and ultra-bright highlight areas. Excessive brightness is the most serious problem, with "burned-out" or "blown-out" highlights that obscure detail (for example, in a bride's white gown or on a snow-covered hillside).
With the image-editing features in Windows Vista, it's easy to solve certain technical problems. However, it's almost impossible to fully correct blown-out highlights. While these can be darkened, you cannot add detail or texture that was not recorded by the image sensor.
The fix
To minimize this problem, remember the following tips:
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If your camera offers a contrast level adjustment control, do not select the high option. Even in the soft light of a cloudy day, the standard setting should produce snappy contrast. If your camera does not have a contrast control feature, try to take pictures when a cloud drifts over the sun. Under those conditions, the contrast will be lower.
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In extremely harsh light—as on a sunny day—select a slightly lower contrast setting. This will minimize excessively bright highlights and extremely dark shadow areas. After downloading images to a computer, use image-editing software to increase contrast if the pictures seem a bit "flat." (The software is more effective in increasing contrast than it is in reducing it.) When taking pictures of people, ask them to move to a shady area, and use flash to maintain a bright effect.
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In direct sunshine, use the camera's "Flash Always On" option for nearby subjects to even out the lighting. The burst of extra light can moderate contrast by brightening shadows. If your camera's flash unit produces ultra-bright highlight areas, don't use it with white subjects.
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Overexposure compounds the problem of contrast by making highlighted areas excessively bright. After taking the first picture of any subject, check the exposure in the camera's monitor. If the image seems too bright, set a negative exposure compensation factor, such as -0.5. Re-shoot the picture, and check it again. A slightly dark image can be corrected later with image-editing software, using the fill-flash or lighten tools.
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3. Inadequate flash range
A flash unit simply does not provide adequate reach for a long-distance photo, such as a picture taken from the back row of a wedding ceremony or a shot of the quarterback at a nighttime football game. Nor can flash light up the vast interior of a cathedral, castle, or cave.
A built-in flash unit may have a range of 10 feet at the camera's ISO 100 setting. A high-powered accessory flash unit may have a range of 20 feet.
If you've used flash for very distant subjects, you've seen the results: underexposed, dark, and murky images. Some pictures may have been completely black. Unlike overexposure, severe underexposure cannot be properly corrected, even with professional imaging software.
The fix
First, play with the ISO setting. The camera's ISO 400 option can increase the effective flash range by about 50 percent. After taking a picture, check the image in the camera's monitor. If it's much too dark, you cannot shoot that scene with flash.
Or, turn off the flash. Virtually every digital camera includes a "Flash Off" setting. With very distant subjects, select this option. To prevent blur from camera shake during long exposures in low light, use a tripod, or brace your elbows on something solid. (And, unless you want motion blur for creative effects, avoid shooting a moving subject, because it will be blurred during the long exposure.)
For faster shutter speeds when shooting in low light without flash, some cameras allow you to select an ISO 400 or ISO 800 setting. That option can be useful, but remember that at high ISO settings, many cameras produce digital noise (artifacts resembling grain). However, you may decide that the noise is preferable to a grossly underexposed picture made with flash or a blurry picture made at the ISO 100 setting.
Electronic flash is a valuable tool, but it has limitations. With or without flash, some situations, such as the action at an indoor sports event or the distant tapestries inside a dark castle, can be impossible to photograph effectively unless you use professional equipment. Press photographers make great images not only because they set up numerous remote flash units but also because they can get close to the action. When you cannot take good pictures, put your camera away, and simply enjoy the experience.
4. Excessive JPEG compression
With most digital cameras, the default level for image quality is fairly low—adequate, perhaps, for a 4-by-6-inch print. Many camera owners use this quality level, which produces a fairly small image file (due to high compression) for one reason: They can fit a lot of images into their memory cards. This makes sense in some situations, but it's a mistake for anyone who plans to make larger prints. Before we talk about how to avoid the mistake of excessive compression, here's a little refresher on the connection between photo quality and file size.
Image quality
The better the quality, the higher the resolution, and the more pixels each image will contain. With more pixels, you get superior definition of detail. A low-quality image has a lower resolution and is composed of very few pixels. Many digital cameras offer several image-quality options, from low to super fine.
File size
In addition to choosing image quality, you can usually choose the image file size, from small to large (the larger the file, the lower the compression, and the better the image quality). A small file is extensively compressed with internal software, which produces a major loss of important image data and results in poor image quality.
These two features—image quality and file size—work together. When selecting a JPEG-capture mode, you can choose a combination that will make high-resolution/large files (for the very finest quality prints), medium-resolution/small files (for medium quality images), or low-resolution/large files (for lower quality prints).
Each camera manufacturer uses its own terminology for image-quality options and for image file-size levels. Some cameras offer only basic quality options, such as normal, better, and best. Read your instruction manual closely to determine which options your camera provides, along with their actual designations.
The mistake
It's tempting to use the camera's default setting, which provides medium-level quality and a fairly small image file. Some people, trying to maximize the number of images that their 16-megabyte (MB) memory card will hold, even select the lowest image-quality option and the smallest file size. Unfortunately, neither combination produces images that make excellent prints.
The fix
Buy a high-capacity memory card, and you'll be less tempted to use the low-quality setting or a high-compression option. A 128-MB or 256-MB card can save many large/high-resolution image files. Regardless of the card, you should frequently review your pictures and delete unsuccessful images. This makes space for new and better pictures.
With a 2-to-4-megapixel camera, use the large/super fine combination if you plan to make 5-by-7-inch or larger prints. If you rarely make prints larger than 4-by-6 inches, you can get by with the medium/fine setting. This will still produce an image file with an adequate number of pixels and a medium level of JPEG compression that should maintain decent image quality.
For the best results, always use the highest image-quality option, ideally with a large file-size setting. But what should you do if your memory cards are almost full? Select the small file/super fine combination. The JPEG image will be extensively compressed, but the high pixel count should still assure acceptable quality in a 5-by-7-inch print.
Reprinted with permission from MSN Photos.
