Photographing Finds

[Charles Cater]

                                                          Advanced techniques
If your camera provides manual control over its functions, you can get a lot more control over the resulting image. The types of advanced techniques will be different depending on the type of camera you have – smaller point-and-shoot cameras typically will have fewer options (or limit the options to common presets), where more advanced cameras will bring greater flexibility of how the picture is taken, and prosumer and DSL cameras have lenses that allow for further creative picture taking options.
Aperture.
 Controlling the aperture is an advanced technique which allows you to control the width of the lens opening (like the iris of an eye), allowing for more direct control over how much light enters the camera, and is normally referred to as an 'F-stop' or 'aperture number' such as F2.8 or F8 (a higher number refers to a smaller aperture opening, which means it is letting in less light, and a smaller number refers to a larger aperture opening - in this case, F refers to the focal length of the lens). A smaller aperture number allows you to use a shorter shutter speed (which makes it better for fast action shots), while a larger aperture allows you to use a longer shutter when there is bright light (for example, capturing the motion of a waterfall on a sunny day). Controlling the aperture also affects the depth of field within the photo (which refers to how much of the photo is in focus at the same time). For example, with landscape photography, you could use a small aperature to get a greater depth of field and have the whole scene in focus to see all the details, however with portrait or macro photography, you can use a larger aperture to get a shallow depth of field and isolate/highlight the subject by forcing the rest of the photo out of focus (DOF is also affected by focal length - the longer the focal length the less DOF, so because most smaller compact cameras have shorter focal lengths, it can be difficult for them to achieve a shallow DOF).     
Shutter speed.
Controlling the shutter speed can also allow you to change the feel of a photo – for example, you may want a fast shutter speed to capture fast action, sports, or other areas where you’d want to 'freeze the scene' like a busy marketplace, or use a slower shutter speed to capture low light shots or introduce a sense of motion into the photo - for example, capturing the movement of water in a waterfall or traffic along a busy city street.
ISO/Exposure
In a parallel to the film camera world, digital cameras uses ISO to refer to the sensitivity of the digital sensor (in the same way that film ISO refers to the sensitivity of the film). ISO is referred to numerically, such as ISO 100 or ISO 800, with the higher value meaning more sensitive to exposure from light. Normally this is controlled automatically by the camera, but by manually changing the ISO value, you can make the camera sensor more sensitive to light, allowing you to take photos with a faster shutter speed (a shorter exposure), or with a longer exposure when working with low light. The trade-off of a higher ISO value is that it is similar to turning up the volume on a stereo when the recording is quiet - you hear the music louder, but you also hear more background noise. In the same way, using a higher ISO value will introduce more noise into the photo, although there are many noise-reduction software packages that will allow you to reduce or eliminate noise afterwards.
Filters and lenses
The use of filters or lenses can allow you to completely change how light hits the camera, for example, there are a number of add-on filters that can either soften the photo, provide slight blurring around the edges to capture a sensitive mood in portraits, add light flares for a touch of drama, or a polarizer which controls stray light and glare and provides richer, more vivid/saturated photos (if your camera doesn't support filters, one trick is to use a pair of polarizing sunglasses in front of the lens as a polarizing filter - for best results try shooting with the sun behind you). Additionally, more advanced cameras can allow you to add on lenses to the main fixed lens, or change the main lens out completely; in both cases, this can let you use a macro lens, which can help you to get closer to a subject than you otherwise would be able to, like an insect or flower, a wide angle lens for landscape shots and good for capturing landmarks or other large scenes, or a telephoto lens that can give you longer zooms than your camera allows to get closer to a distant object or subject, perfect for a safari trip, that's if the lions don't get you. 

[Charles Cater]

                                                                        Touching up photographs.
A major advantage of digital photography is being able to easily rewrite history – you can make changes to the photos before printing or displaying. There are a variety of software packages that will allow you to do this - some photo album software will allow simple touch ups, like Google's Picasa, Apple's iPhoto or LView, while more complex packages offer more diverse editing flexibility and more professional results, such as Adobe Photoshop, or Corel Paint Shop Pro. Most software packages offer inline help features and tutorials to guide you through these techniques and more.
Post processing
Common edits to photos include the elimination of red-eye, which many software packages can do with a simple click of a button, and the removal of an unwanted item from a scene, like a stray swimmer or unwanted car on the road – this is called cloning, where the software samples one section of the image to replace the other. By using parts of the original image, the colouring and texture are the same, so results are good enough to fool almost anybody. Another common touchup is to adjust the amount of light that was available when the photo was originally taken – literally, changing how bright some colours are in relation to others, and how bright the image looks overall. For example, this can make a dark photo look brighter, or a dull photo more vivid.
Adjusting the horizon
Another simple correction that can be made is to rotate the photo so that the horizon or objects captured appear straight. This is often more than simply rotating the image 90 degrees one way or the other, from portrait to landscape, but instead leveling the photo so that it looks straight. Because of the perspective of the photo, it may not be possible to make everything level at once, so you should use the horizon as your ruler, or take a dominant object in the scene, like a person or building, and use that as a guide.
Cropping.     
Cropping can be another powerful editing tool, especially with newer cameras that have greater resolution (giving you a larger source image to work from). Cropping trims off unwanted parts of the photo leaving you with the parts you want to keep. This can have a significant effect on the photo, since you can change the balance, composition and drama of a photo, for example, in a photo where a subject was centered, you can crop off more on one side to align objects with the rule of thirds, or remove portions of the background, like a building, tree or stray person. You can also crop a photo to change it from landscape to portrait, leading to a more interesting picture than the one you originally took. I use www.irfanview.com for cropping.

[Charles Cater]

                                                                        Printing photographs
One by-product of the digital photography revolution is that photographers no longer need to rely on traditional film processing or darkrooms to enjoy their prints. Understanding the relationship between camera resolution and final print size can help you make decisions on what pictures are the best to print, and how to go about printing them. Normal snapshot prints can be made of images that are 2 to 3 megapixels, but you will normally require a higher resolution to print larger photographs.
 
Traditional printing   
Fortunately, most traditional film photo printing services also provide printing services for digital camera users. To take advantage of these services, you have flexible options: drop off just your memory card or stick, bring in your whole camera, bring in a copy of your pictures on a CD - or submit them electronically over the Internet, bypassing the lines, the wait and most of the hassle. These services allow you to either pick up the resulting prints at the store or have them delivered through postal mail. Submitting photos electronically can be a convenient option if you plan on doing a lot of editing of the images (to crop, or correct for colours, etc) before getting them printed.    
 
Home printing   
Another convenient option, which can yield professional looking results, is to simply print photos at home. Fortunately, many standard printers have entered the market combining both everyday use with specialized photo printing capabilities . If you choose to print photos at home on a colour inkjet, be sure to use the specialised photo printing paper, as that can have a big impact on the final result – with the right equipment, there can be little difference between printing at home and printing using professional traditional photo printing services.    
 
Types of printers   
To really get the most out of printing photos at home, there are specialized photo printers that can either connect directly to the camera or to your PC, and use a specialized printing process that is similar to what the professionals use in photo labs. The cost per print is higher than what you would see with a multi-purpose colour printer, however, the end result is of far higher quality and will last longer, with the convenience of printing whatever photos you want, on the spot, at any time.    

[Charles Cater]

                                                                 Sharing your photographs
One of the greatest conveniences of digital cameras is being able to easily share photographs after you’ve taken them. Your options are almost as varied as the kinds of cameras you can choose, so you can be sure your favorite memories are seen. A tip on how to have the greatest impact with your photo albums is to resist the tendency to show every picture you’ve taken. With digital cameras having fewer space limitations, you often end up with several similar shots, so trimming out the duplicates will ensure that your friends and family will only see the best and most memorable shots. When you want to email pictures to friends, you can hand over the top few pictures that you really like, and archive the larger collection on your computer.
Digital Albums
After a big trip, you can collect all your pictures and group them all in one directory or folder on your computer’s hard drive – one folder for each trip will keep your pictures nicely organized. There are also a variety of software packages available to help you organize your photos, enter captions, search through the stored photos by date or caption, and do a number of simple editing adjustments - this allows you to use your computer as a digital photo album.
Online photo albums
Another option is to use one of many online photo album sites or your own website to display your photo albums online. You can either add photos to your own galleries that you create, or you can use one of these online services to your advantage, which may charge a monthly usage fee to offset storage and bandwidth costs. The advantage of using an online service is that they will optimize your picture sizes, provide storage and bandwidth, and provide photo album organization software of your pictures. I find  http://www.photobucket.com a very useful image host. It is free to download and free to use.
Television viewing.
Another great way of sharing digital photos is to display slideshows directly using your television. There are a variety of ways to do this, including directly connecting your camera to the TV using a docking station (normally using standard RCA or S-Video cables), displaying via a laptop and connecting the laptop to your TV, or using an integrated memory card slot if your televisions provides it . This can be a great way of sharing images with larger audiences - not to mention helping to break the ice at parties.

This is all I can tell you, I hope ou did not find it too boring but you never know, it may help you.

[Chef Geoff]

Well written Charles
It's always difficult explaining apertures, just think of them as fractions (as that is what they are) and that solves the confusion of larger number=smaller hole.
I just wanted to add that Adobe is the industry standard as far as photo manipulation software goes, but at nearly £500 it is out side the budget of most amateur photographers. The link below will take you to a freeware software package that is just as good and in constant development, make sure you download the instructions.
http://www.gimp.org/

Chef

[Tafflaff (Rob)]

Thankyou very much Charles for taking the time to share your vast knowlege

[Charles Cater]

Chef,
I use Photoshop.6 and irfanview for all my needs. They both seem adequate.

[Chef Geoff]

sorry Charles, I meant the info regarding Gimp for everyone. As i said Adobe Photoshop which you use is the best, it's just this one is a free clone of it.

Chef
Yeh!!! That's fine Chef. Well one. Anyone that has info on freebies to improve ther lot are welcome.

[Malcolm.mtts]

Excellent post Charles.

I will duplicate what I posted elsewhere on this site because this may compliment your own post and clarify a few other points worth mentioning.

The main problem with large Megapixel cameras is that most people have absolutely no idea of what it does in reality... but it sounds good to own one.

Taking photographs large MegaPixel cameras results in the photograph being far too large to display on a computer monitor unless it is resized or the picture is taken as a jpeg image which actually defeats the object of having such a camera unless you require professional pictures with fantastic detail and have the right programs to resize the photograph to suit your requirements.

By all means take 8 MB or larger pictures but remember that these size pictures can take ages to print even after you resize them, they use larger quantiies of ink and take up lots of space on your computer.

On top of this they can be an absolute nightmare if you want to send them as an email because of the time it takes to send, the receiver will not be able to view it on their monitor unless they are preapred to scroll up, down sideways and never see the complete picture unless they resize it etc which as we all know is a pain in the butt when we receive such a picture.

Even if you use a large MP camera and take pics as jpeg image it still uses up a lot of memory which again can be a pain to email to someone and often exceed the limits on their inbox.

Who on earth wants to save a picture 3264 x 2448 for example unless they have an absolutely huge computer monitor or 42inch TV to view it on without having to resize it?

Even if they take that same picture and save it as a jpeg image it would probably be around 2.5 Mb in size and saving these will soon eat up space on your hard drive.

For an ordinary person wanting good quality photographs to view on a computer monitor taking photographs at 3MP is good enough and  can give good results when printed.

Another thing you should remember is the larger the MP you take photographs at reduces the number of pics you can save on your memory card.

As examples .. if you use a 1 GB memory card.

Using 7 MP ... size 3072x 2304 pixels .... 270 pictures can be saved on card

Using 3 MP  ... size 2048x1536 pixels  ....1180 picures can be saved on card

Another thing to remember is to set your camera to suit your monitor otherwise you may get distortion when displayed on your screen. Nothing worse than getting a picture which is squashed to fit making things look skinny or elongated making people etc look fat and smaller than in reality. Use 16:9 for widescreen and 4:3 for ordinary monitors or TV's.

One way of saving space etc on your computer, especially if you do not wants to print them out later as highly professional photographs,  is to download your pictures... look at them.. select the ones you want to keep and save them in jpeg format.. this will  result in the picture still being a good quality to view on your monitor, give good quality pictures if printed on A4 photograph paper and only take up Kb instead of Mb on your hard drive.

If you want professional photographs printed, just download the pic in it's original MB size, resize the picture to suit your paper and set your printer accordingly.

Same as detectors.... learn how to use your equipment for best results..