Just getting started in digital photography? What are the important aspects of this growing field? This post will introduce the basic concepts of digital photography and get you shooting great digital pictures in no time.
Shoot Raw!
People don’t like to shoot in the raw formats because it takes up too much room in the memory device. But remember the negatives of a film roll? If you threw them out after you got your 4×6 prints, how would you make enlargements of the picture? Think of the raw file as your original negative. You can always go back to it to make your pictures better.
Composition
Get the composition right. It is essential to crop in the camera and not on graphic design software. Positioning of the camera is crucial to getting the correct lighting and depth in the picture. Fill the frame with all that is required in the picture. Rules of third must be religiously observed. The composition makes all the difference in the overall tonality of the picture.
Lenses
The lens is the bread and butter of the photographer. Lenses don’t have to be expensive, but if you have a 2.8 or better, you will give yourself a better start in shooting vivid, colour-rich pictures. This is why it’s better to go into the forefront and get better. Many photographers have made the mistake of thinking they can take great pictures with inferior lens technology. A good 35mm camera with decent lenses can do justice to that great shot.
Post-processing
This is just as important as any other aspect of digital photography. What the photographer does with his/her raw files after he/she has taken the picture can speak volumes about the skills of the photographer. What techniques can be used to make that picture stand out from the crowd? They range from simply changing the hue or saturation of the image, to completely changing the tone of the picture with state-of-the-art airbrush technology. A lot of great pictures that we see today are actually ordinary images that are made great in post processing. Unfortunately, photo development software has been misused so often that people mistake any digital enhancement as a manipulation. In reality, they work just like a darkroom, only in the digital space.
Graphic design software
Some photographers choose to spend thousands of dollars in buying the support and customization capabilities of commercially available software such as the hugely popular Adobe Photoshop. Others, who posses little technical knowledge of computer applications choose to download free, open source image editing apps such as Gimp, DigiKam, PhotoRec and Greenshot among a host of free photography-related apps available on the internet.
What would be recommended is to start out small and go big. Get your composition, light & shadows, colours & black & whites right without thinking too much of the post-production process. Try to click as you see the final output. As you go along, learn the required skills from a trained professional for post-production of your photographs, so that you can use the software as a digital darkroom and not a manipulation tool.
What else are you waiting for? Ready, get, set & click.