Digital Cameras - some reference notes

Here you will find some general notes to help you get away from the 'Auto' setting on your
Compact Digital Camera. The notes are not in any particular order.

White Balance

Adjustment to the colour balance used as a reference by your camera.
Digital cameras will render a neutral grey correctly in good outdoor light. Our eyes will see that
neutral grey as the same correct colour under a whole variety of light conditions, but your camera is not so clever. You have to tell the camera about the light conditions, so that the camera knows what colours to adjust to make that neutral grey correct.
For example, incandescent (tungsten) bulbs throw more yellow and orange onto the scene, so your camera may well take pictures under these lights with an orange 'cast'. Setting the White Balance to 'Incandescent' tells the camera to move the colours slightly towards blue in order to get the colours correct. Similarly, snow reflects blue light better than other parts of the spectrum, so snow shots may well have a blue 'cast'. Setting the white balance to 'Fluorescent' (if there is no 'Snow setting), tells the camera to move the colours away from blue so as to get a more natural colour in your shot.
So, adjust your camera's White Balance setting according to shooting conditions, such as 'Sunny',
'Shade', etc. NOTE: for interesting effects, try setting White balance to 'Fluorescent' for sunny, midday outdoor shots in order to fool the camera into thinking there is more blue light, the camera will adjust towards the red end of the spectrum and – magically – you get a 'sunset' shot. Similarly, if you were to set the white balance to 'Incandescent', you would get a more 'moonlight' shot.

Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority

1. Both Aperture-size (size of the 'lens-hole') and Shutter-speed (length of time the 'hole' is open) control the total amount of light hitting the film (= digital capture unit).
2. They should be kept in balance; that is the bigger the aperture, the smaller the shutter-speed.
3. Aperture is important for 'depth-of-field' (the length within the shot which is in focus)
4. Shutter is important for sharpness (the quicker the shutter, the less the camera shakes and the
sharper the picture. The question is one of balance for the shot you are taking.
5. With a smaller aperture (f/6 and higher numbers) more of the shot will be in focus. This is good for Landscape shots and crowd scenes, where you want both foreground and background to be reasonably in focus.
6. With a larger aperture (f/4 and lower numbers) less of the shot will be in focus, so you can
concentrate the focus on a small part ('macro shots') and let the background be out-of-focus.
7. So, in effect, you want the largest Aperture f-number for the largest shot (= landscape) and the smallest Aperture f-number for the smallest shot (= macro).
8. If you set your camera with the 'A' setting, you may need to remember to use a tripod (or
steady the camera against something) with landscape shots, because when you choose a high
f-number (small aperture), the camera will choose a slow shutter-speed to compensate.

To Flash or Not to Flash

Whilst it is obvious that a flash will help illuminate the subject in a dark space, there are more uses
for the flash than that. Remember that 'artistic impression' is individual – that is, the picture result
which is 'in tune' with the result you see in your mind's eye before you take the shot is correct for
you. Another photographer may 'see' a different picture or effect. As long as you get the picture you wanted, it must be correct – for you.
So, you might want to achieve a silhouette against a window – no flash. Or you might like to see the same shot with some detail, in which case use 'fill flash' (or 'forced flash'), which may over-expose the window area, but bring back detail in the darker areas, so long as you are near enough.
Generally flash tends to lose its effect (using compact digital cameras) if the subject is more than 15 feet (4.5m) away.
Another use for the flash is to fade out the background (by making it dark) when you want to
emphasise a smaller item which already is well lit. For example, a light-coloured china object might
look better emphasised by flash if the background also is light-coloured, so use fill-flash to fool
the camera into thinking more light is available. In this case (assuming you are using 'Auto' setting), setting the flash will do one or more of:- decrease the aperture, increase the shutter-speed or select a lower ISO – all of which will make the background look darker.
You could, of course, select all those in 'Manual' mode, but try on 'Auto' first, then look back at the
picture to see what setting the camera selected. (to see what your camera has selected, when
reviewing a picture, keep pressing the 'display' button to cycle through its options)
You might like to try using flash in macro mode – sometimes your own close shadow blocks the
ambient light so you could compensate by setting the flash. The results can be spectacular when the entire background disappears into blackness. Note that this option will not be available on all cameras.
Remember that the flash on your compact camera is not the only 'extra' light source available. You
could use a powerful torch (especially effective when the light is bounced off the ceiling), or shade
part of your camera-flash with some white paper taped to the camera. This will 'diffuse' the light
and make the shadows a little softer, if that's what you want.
As always, experiment and take notes for the future.

The 2-second rule

Camera-shake results in slightly blurred pictures because the camera moves whilst it is taking a
shot. This may be when you are taking shots in less-than-perfect light (the camera chooses a slow
shutter-speed) or because of a heartbeat coursing through your hand at the wrong moment, or as a result of slight movement when physically pressing the shutter.
If you are taking pictures of people or landscapes, you have the option of reducing 'camera-shake' by using the 2-second rule.
Nearly all compact cameras will allow you to set a timer of 2 seconds or
10 seconds. The 10 second timer is there for you to get yourself posed and into the picture after the shutter-button has been pressed and before the camera actually takes the shot (best use a tripod....).
You can use the 2-second timer to hold the camera firm and steady after pressing the shutter-button– hold your breath and count to two – or to let go of the tripod after having pressed the button.
Either way, the camera is less likely to 'shake'.

Blurring the Background

In order to make the foreground subject stand out, sometimes it is best to 'get rid' of the background by making it blurred. This is especially true for portraits, posed or casual. There are two main ways of achieving this....
The 'official' way is to use the 'Aperture' setting on your camera (may be 'A', or 'Aperture priority').
By setting your compact camera to this setting, you now have two main choices... The smallest
number you can set (probably around f/3.3) gives you the biggest aperture, and this is best for a
blurred background. The biggest number you can set (probably around f/6.3) gives you the smallest aperture, and this is best for a sharper background. Either way, if the background is a long way behind the subject – and you correctly focus on the subject – you have a better chance of the background being out-of-focus (blurred).
The other way of reducing the sharpness of the background (especially with compact cameras) is to make better use of the zoom. Try this: set up your subject 10 feet (3m) from the background –
hedge or trees or something with lots of detail – and take a close up shot with no zoom which shows both subject and background. Now try to get the same amount of the subject in your viewing screen from much further away by zooming in, and take that shot. Provided you get your subject in good focus, you will find that the background has started to lose its detail. The further away you can get (and still keep the same amount of your subject in the screen view by zooming more) the less detail will show in the background, and the more the subject will stand out. However....the more zoom you use, the more the camera will suffer from 'camera-shake, so you may have to resort to a tripod, or using the '2-second' rule.
If it is the background of an action shot you want to blur out, you could try 'panning', that is,
moving the camera (so that the moving subject is in constant view) and pressing the shutter at some point on the 'pan'. This takes a lot of practice. As our compact cameras have quite a bit of shutter - lag (the time between pressing the shutter and the camera taking the picture), you would have to follow through after pressing the shutter. Also, with the slow auto-focus on our cameras, it might be better to pre-select the point where you want the action to be, half-press the shutter to establish focus to that point and, with the shutter held in that position, do the panning shot so as to fully press the shutter at the pre-selected focus point (I said it takes practice!!).
Our digital compact cameras have an aperture range of around f/3 to f/6 – not very much when you compare that with a DSLR with a range of around f/1.6 to f/16. However, there is the small matter of £1000 difference in price!
So, in summary, for the best blurred backgrounds, use 'Aperture priority' with the smallest aperture
number, have a decent distance between the subject in focus and the background, and move further away in order to use zoom.
Good luck and good shooting.