Taking advantage of a camera revolution

heraldscotland staff

Published on 3 Jan 2009

JOHN YOUNG Digital cameras have come a long way in the few years they have been about. The average digital camera today is able to produce results far superior to what most film cameras used to achieve.

JOHN YOUNG

Digital cameras have come a long way in the few years they have been about. The average digital camera today is able to produce results far superior to what most film cameras used to achieve.

And although the basic principles are the same whether you take taking a digital or film image, the main benefit of digital is the ability to instantly review what you have captured.

There is, in effect, now no excuse for cutting off granny's head in any of your pictures.

The other benefit is that within minutes of taking your picture you can have it winging its way around the world by e-mail.

At the beginning of the decade, film was still king. However, fast-forward to 2009 and now most amateur cameras have 10 million pixels or more of information in every picture. New cameras such as the Nikon D3 employ high-resolution CMOS sensors and are producing results in low-light conditions that could only be dreamt of in the era of film.

So if you are still a slave to film, consider making 2009 the year you move to digital. Once done, you'll wonder how you ever managed to take a picture with your old black box.

Here are my top five tips:

1 Watch your background - no-one likes to see a table lamp growing out the top of their head.

2 Squeeze the shutter button don't jab at it - more pictures are ruined by camera shake rather than being out of focus.

3 Take lots of pictures - you don't have to worry about wasting film', so take more and discard the ones you don't like.

4 Try to catch people spontaneously. Children generally forget you have a camera after it has been out for a few minutes. It's then that the best pictures happen.

5 Be aware of the limits of your built-in flash - it won't light up anything more that a couple of metres away and will certainly not light the singer on the stage if you are in the back row of the stalls.