Andrew

I guess I'm not a religious follower of the rule of thirds. After taking photography classes a few years ago I always used to frame that way, but I've since learned to be more intuitive with framing and just go with what my eye wants - the feeling of it. It's usually going to fall into the rule of thirds but not always. Sometimes it's not the best framing option. Sometimes just centering your subject really IS the best way to shoot it (but, probably not most of the time). I think this sort of framing intuition comes with years of practice and taking zillions of pictures. I still don't always frame stuff as well as I should and am kicking myself later - doh!

Sometimes I can't help laughing when people shoot pictures of skylines that are 1/2 a mile away with a flash that goes 15-20 feet at very most. Actually, a flash can still help when you want to expose something dark in the foreground of your shot that isn't lit up. Most people aren't willing to take a tripod on vacation, but if you can take one (or a monopod - tripod with one leg - or a minipod, 8" tall tripod), you can take nice shots at dusk and daybreak that are longer exposures but are STEADY because they don't suffer from hand shake.

Andrew

seasweetie

Keep your horizon level! This is particular important with water landscapes, but applies with flatlandscapes as well. Nothing throws a picture off more than a tilted horizon line (unless you're doing it for artistic purposes.) Most cameras have something within your viewfinder that you can line up to make sure you're shooting level.

TheWeasel is right about morning and early evening light - called 'the golden hours', but if you are shooting a bright scene, or a person at noontime, use your flash (even though it may not make sense to you) - it helps to even out the contrast and makes for a better picture.

Don't forget that you can move! If you see something you want to shoot, look through your viewfinder, then change your angle somewhat to see if it looks a little better from a different spot.

Look for the little things, not just the obvious shots. Everyone who's been there has a picture of old Abe in the Lincoln Memorial, but what about a picture of his shadow? And have you ever noticed the ceiling in that building? Phenomenal! Photography can help you look at your world differently and see more than what's right in front of you.

Enjoy!

Nannymer

AS the owner of a Canon Digital Rebel, I can't say enought about it. Love that I can Snap, Snap Snap with no interruptions.

I disagree about taking your time to get the right picture. With digital it is easy to just click away...the mroe shots the better. Someone told me once you increase your chances of good shots simply by taking lots of pictures.

I always wear a hat to block the sun off the lens, shoot with the sun behind me in early morn or at dusk, if I have a choice- never at noon - and you must get close to your subjects.

I do like flower and scenic shots, but try to add some little thing of interest in the scenic ones. Also, another good tip I got was once you have decided on your picture take a step back, forward, left or right, and see if it isn't an even better way to capture the scene. Enjoy! NannyJan

TheWeasel

"I disagree about taking your time to get the right picture. With digital it is easy to just click away...the mroe shots the better. Someone told me once you increase your chances of good shots simply by taking lots of pictures."

I disagree with your disagreement.

I know it's easy and really costs nothing to fire away and take lots of photos with a digital, but... I can't tell you how many times I've thought I had a good photo, then looked at it on my computer and discovered something in the corner or on the edge that shouldn't be there, and could've easily been eliminated if I'd taken a couple seconds to really study the image. Taking 10 photos of the same scene in the hopes of getting one good one is a waste of time, IMHO. I'd much rather take a few seconds or longer to study it, look at in in the larger LCD display while the camera's on a tripod, and make the minor adjustments necessary to get a good shot the first time.

I do take tons of photos, and still discard most of them, but now that I take a little more time on them, I find that I've got much better quality to select from and consequently the ones I keep are way better than I used to have. Instead of throwing away 75% because they're poorly composed, I throw away 75% because they're not quite as good as the rest.

mlgb

Nice discussion. I had not read the Fodors photo tips before, they are quite good.

The easiest way to improve your photo is to take time with composition. A friend asked why her pics look like snapshots and mine don't. I try pay attention when friends flip thru photos, looking for the "ooh" or pause. They ALWAYs pause at pictures with people. Interesting lighting effects and closeups are more interesting than flat panoramas of landscapes. Definitely put SOMETHING in the foreground, and don't just center the main subject. For a landscape, I like to put a friend (stranger) in a corner, with their back to the camera, as if they are also looking at the scene.

Ryan

Sorry if I'm repeating what someone else said, but bring your old 35mm along. Except load it with black and white film.

Some of the best photos I've taken over the years were B&W.

Nannymer

TheWeasel

I think I take tons of shots because I tend to crop nearly everything when creating a slideshow. With 6.3 MP, I can zoom into a flower in the lower right hand corner, crop it and have a great detailed photo. I can use the same photo to frame just the treehouse on the left. In fact, I sometimes takes several shots just walking - at eye level - around a flower display and am amazed at the detail in the final cropped pix. While I believe wholeheartedly in time and compostion, there is something to be said for snapping away, especially when it is a people event...you catch some great expresssion! NannyJan

Andrew

I have to agree that it helps to take your time to take a good picture, even with a digital. Having a digital is not an excuse for poor composition or bad lighting. Snapping 10 different pictures isn't going to necessarily help you if you haven't taken the time to compose a good shot, unless you get lucky.

Event pictures (which we presumably were not talking about in this thread) are not the same as travel pictures. I agree, when you are shooting people at an event, you have to keep shooting, shooting, shooting, and delete the ones where people have their eyes closed or a stupid expression on their face and hope you get a few good ones.

Andrew

RaleighLaura

I suggest you think about taking photos of the smaller items that will bring back specific and detailed memories of your trip.
For example, when we went to Florence I took photos of the feet of some of the statues and the iron railing of the balcony of our hotel. I also took photos of the posters on the wall beside the construction site we walked by every day we were there. The fact that I don't speak italian made it more fun when I got home.
These little things give a sense of place that will be a nice contrast to the many wonderful landscape photos I know you will take. Look for "don't feed the wildlife" posters and funny roadsigns and snap them. With digital, I take many more photos (and yes, I do compose most of them first) than I did with film, and I find that using picasa2 (free from Google), I can either edit or delete those photos that are not great when I take them.
Best of luck on your trip-
Laura

gr8yt

Pick up a copy of "Understanding Exposure" bt Bryan Peterson. It is a must have for any serious amateur. Then just shoot, shoot, shoot.

Andrew

If you live near a community college that offers a basic course in photography and you've never had such a class, by all means, take it. You might be amazed how a few things you learn can greatly improve your photos.

Andrew

earlxx

This is a great post and so many helpful ideas. Trying to read through all posts here on digital cameras

I just got my first digital SLR (Nikon D200) and wondering whether, in your opinion, type of memory card influences quality of photos?

What and how large memory card do you use for your digital SLR? What do you recommend for a new owner?

dwooddon

The type of memory card will be dictated by your camera. As to size, I'd advise at least a 1G card. 2G cards are available and relatively cheap. With the large image files capable of being taken by the newer digital cameras, these sizes are not excessive.

I'd also advise to have a backup card. They are quite reliable but are capable of failure. It would be a shame to be at a location where replacements are not available, not have a spare, and have your card fail. At that point, your camera is nothing more than an expensive paperweight.

On another board, we have been having a similar discussion. Many of the people there were not aware of the drawbacks of JPEG files so I'll briefly recap the discussion.

JPEG is one of the most common formats digital cameras use. They are excellent but with one big drawback. Each time you edit a JPEG file and save it, you lose a portion of the file density because of data compression. For example, if you take an image. save it as JPEG, then edit it and save it again, the second generation may have only about 80% of the pixels of the first generation. It doesn't take many generations before you can see significant image degradation.

To overcome that problem, my practice is review all the photos I take to decide which are keepers and which can be discarded. For the keepers, I save the original image with as high a density as possible. After that, I never, ever, edit and save that image with the same name.

Whenever I edit an image to crop it, sharpen it, enhance color saturation, or edit out distracting features, I save the edited image using a different file name. That way the original image is unchanged and the edited image is always no greater than generation 2. This will result in nice, clean printed images with the highest possible resolution.

The other factor that came as a surprise which many of the posters had not considered is the risk of loss. Digital images are nothing more than data files and, if your computer or hard drive fails, they may be irretrievably lost. for that reason, it is critically important to have a regular mode of file backups so you don't lose irreplaceable files should your system fail (and it will!)

I backup my data files to a CD and my image files to a DVD once a week. Monthly, I rotate a set of backup files to my safe deposit box in my bank. That way, I always have a recent backup at home and a fairly recent backup in the event my home is destroyed.

jannieween

mark

LarryT

The best thing for digital photos is a really good editing program such as Adobe Photo Elements 4. It is only about $80 and offers many great features. The 'Straightening Tool' will take care of those slightly 'off level' photos and the 'Lighten Shadows Tool' is great. Well worth the investment. About saving as JPEG; another poster mentioned that each time you Save, it degrades the image quality. Can Save as TIFF and Save any number of times without degrading image quality. Be sure to set up your camera to take the best quality images offered. These are generally quite large so do get a couple 1 GB memory cards and be sure to have spare batteries or charge permanent ones before any trip out. Take lots of shots and get used to the 'Shutter Lag' that most digital (other than SLR type) have. Try the exposure lock using the 'Half Press' of the shutter button and then taking the photo. Can get much better results with some experimenting. Also get familiar with the various flash options. There is usually one for 'Automatic' but that is not for every occasion. Be sure to know the 'Always Flash' option that is great for fill-in shots. The 'Never Flash' option is usefull for shots in Museums where flash is prohibited. Enjoy!

bobrad

I can't disagree with any of the above advice , it's all good. My favorite thing is once home from a vacation I will up-load the raw images to my computer. Then I download them to a DVD. That way once I start my editing and tweaking if a mistake is made I still have the unabridged "raw" images as a safety.

A 2 gig card is great and affordable. If your camera has video capability 18 minutes will fit nicely on a 1 gig chip. I also suggest a waterproof carrying case.

I personally take a lot of shots with a keep ratio of around 25%

Andrew

I now have 3 2GB memory cards, Compact Flash type, (and the size/type of card has nothing at all to do with the quality of the final photos). I just bought the 3rd 2GB card from Fry's for $9.99 after rebate - kind of silly not to have a few extra at that price.

Regarding the above advice about JPEG files: it's true that each time you re-save a JPEG (JPG) file its quality is reduced slightly. One good way to avoid this is to use a different file format besides JPEG when you save the changes. I usually use the PNG (Portland Network Graphics) format, which is completely "lossless" so that you can save and edit and resave as many times as you want and the image quality will not change. Unfortunately, most companies/organizations that use your photos (e.g. to make prints at Costco or something) only take the JPEG format. So you will need to re-save a PNG file back into JPEG (yes, use a different name!) before you give it to someone, make prints, etc.

I use an external hard drive to backup my photos. My current photo archive is about 160GB in size. Yes, I have more than one copy of it in case the hard drive fails. DVD and CD discs are unreliable too and can deteriorate over time so you should NOT rely on them to keep your only copy of important photos!!! My rule is to have AT LEAST two copies of any photo file you have. And if you could maybe make one or two DVDs of the REALLY REALLY important ones, then put those in some other location, at least you won't worry about losing everything in case of a fire/flood/whatever. Digital photos may be the last thing you worry about in an emergency, but they often do save treasured memories.

rkkwan

earlxx is getting a dSLR. I highly suggest you shoot in RAW. Yes, it takes up more memory, but CF cards are cheap now. RAW gives you so much more flexibility in adjusting exposure, white balance, etc after you get back from a trip, without losing detail and information.

On my 10MP Canon Rebel XTi, I can get about pictures in RAW per GB of storage. If you check closely, you can get CF cards for about $20/GB now, like from www.newegg.com. I carry one 4GB and two 8GB cards on my trips. That's enough for 2,000 pictures in RAW.

rkkwan

Sorry, I meant to say I can get about 100 RAW files per GB of memory. So, 400 pictures on a 4GB card (~$80), and 800 pictures on a 8GB card (~$160).

Buy the faster ones like 80x, which should be fast enough to write files. I mean, you're traveling, not shooting action spots.

mcnyc

A tip for when you cannot avoid taking a loved one's picture (person is in the shade, photog's back is towards the sun):

Use flash. but make sure your person isn't too close (washed out colors) or too far (flash can't reach that far). You should be able to get a relatively decent picture.

Also, get 1GB memory cards instead of 2GB. My Canon Ixy and my Dell can't seem to communicate properly on the amount of pictures in my camera, and I'm not willing to delete my new pictures so that I can see them on my computer!!! Negates the purpose!