Making the best of a cheap digi

I have a cheap (�£50), digi camera. It has 5.0 mega pixels and 4x digital zoom. I can't afford another one, so has anyone any tips on how to take a passable close-up shot and generally improve my photography skills using a camera such as this??

 

Close ups can be taken with any digi camera that has a close up or macro setting. Most people fail when taking close ups for one simple reason - they don't give the camera time to focus properly.

1 Set your camera to close up
2 Choose a simple subject with some contrast in it (light and dark)
3 Set your camera to W (wide angle) rather than T (telephoto)
4 IMPORTANT Only press the button halfway! This enables the camera to get the focus right. Then carry on and continue to slowly press the button all of the way,

That is the most common fault. People jab at the button and push it all of the way in one go. Poor old camera has no chance to focus. Close ups when the camera is set to telephoto are just about impossible. So set to wideangle and come in close :D

 

Thanks Hb!!
I had, as I suspected, been doing it all wrong :rolleyes: Can't wait to have a go!!

 

Windy - 5 mega pixels gives quite big photos which means you can select a section of a photo and enlarge it or "zoom" to a section without sacrificing too much detail.
You say your camera has a 4x digital zoom. I would suggest that if possible you avoid digital zooming on the camera and do any "zooming" using photo-editing software on your PC as even on more expensive cameras the in-camera digital zoom (which is just a software "trick" isn't in general as good as doing it on a PC.

The most important bit technology behind a good photo is the software holding the camera.

[ 27. January 2007, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: Dave W ]

 

The majority of photos you have seen from me were taken on a cheap(now!) digcam era with x3 optical zoom. Photoshop is excellent for manipulating the images once you have got them into the computer. If you do not have it then Google for The Gimp. This is a free program which can do almost everything Photoshop can do and in much the same way so PS lessons can be used on it.

 

my camera is 2.1 pix and cost a fortune.........Years ago!

I have full version of Photoshop but never use it, Palustris is right, the mini version is all you will want. I actually use and old version of paintshop pro.

 

Thanks for all the advice guys, will defo have a google for The Gimp - could produce some interesting results :rolleyes: :D :D

 

http://www.gimp.org/ is the address of the site. This is almost as powerful a program as Photoshop 7, but many of its features are for graphics design and you may well never use them. I know I don't. However, there are plenty of people around who can help with photo manipulation techniques.

 

IrfanView is a great image editing program that will cover 99% of common needs. If you also download all the plugins it will cope with just about any image format inluding Canon RAW and Nikon NEF.

It's not Photoshop but it's freeware so doesn't carry a Photoshop price tag.

 

Thanks guys! Think I'll have a tinker with those at the weekend - kids allowing!!! :D :D

 

Windy,what sort of Digi have you got?Mine is a Kodak EasyShare C360 which my husband brought the Xmas before last for around �£125?It is the one I use for all my photo's now and has 5.0 mega pixels.The latest one of mine is even cheaper than that now...
A friend of mine brought a really cheap one and It doesn't take the same quality of photo's sometimes it pays to pay a bit more to get a better photo.As they say you get what you pay for...

 

A digi camera of 5.0 mega pixels is certainly good enough for photos that are sent to websites because only low resolution jpegs are sent.

Yes, if you cannot come in really close for macro close ups, then you can take from further away and enlarge on your computer screen after cropping. But you still have to get the subject in focus. Free software, photoshop or any other is pretty essential and will certainly improve contrast and sharpness.. BUT it cannot rescue a photo that is out of focus.

Take care to get the subject in focus as I said earlier by pressing the button half way. Take a few more shots at different distances. Then when you see them on screen, choose the best and work on them with your software. It is a mistake to think that photos from a digital camera are just right as they come from the camera. We all have to improve them by cropping and gently tweaking the contrast and sharpness. The other mistake we make is to believe that the software can turn a bad photo into a good one

Just play around with your camera and experiment, Windy. Download the suggested free software and play around with that too. It's fun and will improve your pictures no end :D

Look forward to seeing the results

 

hi Windy, just to echo what everyone else has said, play with the camera as often as possible! up until recently i was using a 2.1 megapixel camera and getting more than acceptable photo's, some of which have been on this site and others that are displayed around my house as 7x5 prints from a 8 year old printer!
most digitals come with some sort of macro facility for close up work, my old camera is definatly easier to use for photographing plants and flowers.
if like me, you're not into spending hours tweaking photo's after you've taken them, try taking the same photo a few times but altering the settings on the camera if possible. it amazes me the difference this can make.this also means that you can enter all your hard work into the competition knowing that they haven't been altered and therefore stick to the rules!

 

Yes - I agree.

With regards to competition rules, I think we have to be clear about what is meant by " altered or enhanced". Surely the appropriate processing of images such as cropping and getting the contrast right is fair play while artificial enhancement giving unnatural colours etc isn't.

Any photographer working in RAW(not me) has to work on images to get them to an acceptable standard. Difficult line to tread - ie when is an image processed correctly and when does it become "altered"? Images straight from digi cameras are often dull and lifeless because the automatic systems make everyhing mid-tone. Surely the aim is to correctly expose and then correctly process your photos to give the optimum quality of the final image which accurately reflects the natural scene that you saw.

 

An interesting debate!
Though I'd take an even more restrictive line than Hornbeam's and allow no processing other than cropping.
Apart from cropping, none of the photos I've submitted over the last two months have had any tweaking though in a couple of cases a slight change in contrast might have made a slight improvement. And in one case if I'd employed an unsharp mask it would have made a quite marked improvement to the impact of the photograph.
I suppose it could be argued that resorting to cropping ought not to be allowed either and that any "cropping" should be done at the time of composing the photo in the viewfinder. Though perhaps this would be taking things too far.

I'd be interested to see what other folks views on the use use of frames are. Personally I find them a bit distracting within the context of the competetion and I guess that there are some contributors who are unable to add frames and therefore at a disadvantage.

A level playing field is difficult to achieve. A camera with loads of bells lights and whistles can offer an advantage as can access to a digital darkroom on a PC. But neither of these are as important as the eye and brain behind the camera.

Anyway, regardless of any minor quibbles, I think the competition is a great thing - it has really stimulated interest in taking good photographs. And as a fairly keen photographer I find the monthly challenge quite stimulating - it really makes me look and think. I'm looking forward to next month's challenge.