Before You Shoot The BIG EVENT!

While I am writing this in the dog days of summer, advice on getting your camera ready for "the big event" could apply to the holiday seasons, spring flowers or fall colors...or a special birthday.

PDF Version of this document

Regardless of when, it's important to check your camera carefully before you take important, or in some cases irreplaceable pictures.  And for many casual users, it's also very important that you again familiarize yourself with some of the most common operations you'll be using.

The first things to check are the basics.  Is the camera resolution set to the largest available?  Is the camera quality set to the highest setting?  Are you sure you know if you are using digital zoom, or is it turned off?  It's especially important to check these things if someone else has been using the camera.

Let's briefly recap the reasons for these settings.  First, the original reason for cameras to use less megapixels than they were capable of supplying, or to reduce quality by compressing picture files, was to save space on expensive storage cards, and speed up getting the picture from the camera into the card.

With 2GB cards selling for under eight dollars, there's no longer a need to conserve storage card space.  And modern cameras process files very quickly, so there is no need to compress them to further speed them up.

Being aware of digital zoom is another quality factor.  Unlike optical zoom, which enlarges the photo before it reaches the camera sensor, digital zoom merely crops away part of the image already received, and enlarges what is left.  Aside from the fact that this can be done more creatively at home or at a one-hour lab, it cuts away megapixels.  For example, a photo taken with an eight megapixel camera and digitally zoomed may result in an image with the same resolution of a camera with only three megapixels.  Any print made from this  smaller image will not be as  good as the full-sized  image.

But how do you adjust all these things?  Generally the size and quality settings are found by pressing either a menu button or a function button on the back of your camera.  Digital zoom is  turned on or off with a so-called setup menu.  Your instruction manual should give you specific directions to find these menus.

Now lets look at a few of the most common control buttons on your camera.  The little lightning bolt on or near a button cycles through your flash selections.  Depending on the camera, they will include the obvious ones: on and off, plus automatic, red eye reduction, and a few others involve night shots or slow shutter synchronization. While many people tend to leave the  flash set to automatic, this uses more battery power and sometimes results in flash being fired when a shot taken without flash would be more flattering.  Cycle through the choices and pay special attention to the one that looks a bit like a no smoking symbol.  That's the one that turns off the flash.  Try taking some shots without flash and see if you like the results.  You may have to hold the camera a bit more steady, but I think you'll like what you see.

One of the items of operation that I consider critical to good photography is what I call the "plus/minus exposure control."  On many cameras this is represented on or near a button that has a small plus and a slash mark and then a minus sign  (+/-). Depending on the camera, this feature may or may not work on the "fully automatic decision free" mode.  If nothing new appears on your camera screen when you press the plus minus button, you may have to switch over to the programmed or "P" mode.  This mode exposes your pictures exactly the same as the decision free mode, but allows a few more options to be used.

The plus minus exposure control does exactly what it sounds like.  It brightens or darkens the picture!  The classic situation involves the subject being strongly lit from behind, resulting in what is known as a backlit photo.  In these cases, the subject ends up silhouette.  If you are in that situation, move the plus minus exposure control towards the plus side to lighten up the main subject.  On the other hand, with a picture that is simply washed out looking or too bright, move the plus minus exposure control towards the minus side to darken the image.  This may work particularly well with fall foliage, or any time  you need more saturated color.

For portrait work you may find the plus minus exposure control useful if you're attempting so-called high key lighting that emphasizes the highlights in the photo and minimizes the shadows.  Simply dial up the exposure, that is the plus side, until the tones shift to the upper levels.  On the other hand, moving the plus minus exposure control towards the darken side may produce a more moody photo.  These adjustments may also work to compensate for light or dark complexions.

Another area to be familiar with is the ISO setting.  The ISO determines how sensitive your camera is to light.  In most cases it's OK to leave the setting on automatic, which allows the camera to set the sensitivity anywhere from normal to slightly high.  This means that outdoors there will be a sensitivity similar to that of ISO 100 film while indoors it may jump to 400.  But again moving the dial off the so-called decision free setting will allow you to select specific ISOs, some as high as 1600, 3200 and even 6400.  There is  usually some kind of compromise of image quality or size with these high sensitivities, but using them may be the only way to provide you with a shutter speed that can be handheld.  In other words, it may make a difference between a shaky picture indoors without flash and one that is relatively sharp.  It's a good idea to take a few test pictures at each of these ISOs and compare the quality.   Then you can decide how high and ISO is acceptable for you to use.

If you have command over resolution, quality, and digital zoom, and if you can set your flash, ISO and exposure compensation, you will have greater control over your digital camera that many users. But these controls are easily forgotten.  That's why it's important to review them before any important event.