Some Tips on Digital photography
The digital photography is the newest craze among all photography enthusiastic. There are many ranges of digital camera available in the market today. The new Digital SLR will cost you in the range of $1500 to $1000 or even more. There are many semi-pro digital SLR cameras that have hit the market in the recent times and those can be purchased for some less around $1000. Well, this is all about the digital camera body only, the accessories such as lenses, filters, and polarizer plays very important role for giving outstanding output. One of the best features in digital photography is that you do not have tension in taking any number of shots unlike in the film cameras where you will think twice about the cost involved in buying films and developing it.
A digital SLR camera is designed to get shots even under the rigorous weather condition such as heat, cold, moisture and dust. Some of the features like quick power up, fast continuous shooting capabilities and less shutter lag of digital cameras are just great to meet the needs of a professional photographer.
In digital photography, one can check proper focus and lighting simply by looking at the LCD screen. If you find that the image is not how you wished, it can be deleted at once.
The capacity of a memory card will determine how many digital images it can hold. There are many sizes of 
the memory sticks available in the market such as 64MB, 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1 GB, 4GB, and even up. These memory cards are capable of saving files in any format, and there are some memory cards which allow the digital image to be written to it faster than others. This is very important factor to choose from if you want to shoot in the RAW format. The digital images captured in the memory cards can be transferred from the camera directly to a computer. There are memory card readers which are used to transfer the files to the computer as well as to other devices. Most readers are USB and some are also capable of reading several types of memory cards including Secure Digital (SD), Compact Flash (CF), Smart Media, XD, and Memory Sticks. The memory card can be cleared for the next use once all photographs are transferred.
Once you have seen all these features and make decision and buy digital SLR camera, the next step would be experimenting with your camera. Make sure you are well accustomed with your digital camera’s features before you head out for a trip. Spend few hours reading your digital camera’s manual and get outside and practice every shot you can imagine. Digital cameras come with many modes to capture different subjects such as macro mode which will let you take beautiful pictures of flowers if you get your subject in the right focal range. It has landscape mode that brings clarity to a panorama of outdoor sights but the most important thing that you have to know is how to enable this feature. There is a portrait mode which enhances the subject and blurs the background.
Practice on different types of subjects like some fast moving objects for example a sporting event, flying bird, running squirrel, even kids playing. You will be happy to know that the digital cameras come with a shutter priority mode, where you can adjust the shutter speed and fast moving subjects will come perfectly fine without any blurs.
Remember, the faster the photograph, the less amount of light enters the camera. So the photograph which has taken at extremely fast speeds can turn completely dark. This is one of the reasons why professional photographers use extra lighting in their photographs. When there are more artificial light or natural sunlight the photos will come crisper and cleaner at ultra-high speeds.
When you are taking outdoor photos in a bright sunny day with your digital camera, try to position your subjects so that the sun is behind you. This will not let subjects to get overexposed. Because when the sun is behind you, enough light reaches the subject to showcase a wide variety of color without washing out features such as skin tones.
In film cameras we have dealt with the problem called reciprocity failure when it comes to long exposures. This means that when film is exposed for a longer period of time, it becomes less sensitive to light as a result shifting the color balance. But digital cameras do not have such problem as they can handle exposures of multiple seconds without any shift in color.
Still Digital cameras have to deal with some grain (noise) problem during longer exposures. However it can be minimized or completely invisible by some tricks. Try to shoot as fast as possible. Adjust the depth-of-field (aperture) and allow some of the background to become blurry. Keep your ISO setting as low as possible. In many digital cameras, ISO settings of 400 and above add grain to the photo, so try to keep your ISO setting at 100 or lower. Many digital cameras supports noise-reduction technology, enable it and then compare the results.
Most of the high-end digital cameras supports histogram feature which can be displayed before or after you take a photo. Histogram is a representation of an image’s brightness, and tools to see whether or not it has rich shadow and highlight areas. You can also use your exposure compensation tool to brighten the image. A slower shutter speed will allow more light to enter the camera lens. Study good photography book and camera manual to know more details about this feature.
Almost all digital cameras come with the preset modes. Once you select these options in your camera, you may be able to take better pictures in certain situations. Some of the preset modes commonly found are Night, Portrait, Landscape, Sunrise/Sunset, and Motion. Learn by experimenting on each mode.
Using flash is really good for taking close subjects at night, or daytime photos where you want to get rid of shadows. But sometimes flash should be avoided or it will spoil the photograph such as if you are taking the photographs of a scenery or skyscraper photos at night. If you take a flash shot of a distant subject the light will not get to your subject. Instead of using flash you need to experiment with longer exposure times with a tripod.
In case your camera has a zoom lens, you have to take care in being still when taking your photograph. 
Zoomed lenses are very susceptible to “camera shake”, which can result in blurry images. If you are taking photos during day or in other extremely lit situations, you don’t have to worry much. Because the light is abundance, digital camera requires less time to take an exposure, and thus there is very less chance that camera will shake.
But in case you are taking pictures of moving subjects or in low-light situations, you have to be careful to keep your digital camera steady or you can use a tripod.
In low-light situations, try manual settings of the shutter speed so the digital camera takes pictures more quickly. However, in some extreme case it may result in photographs with washed out colors, or completely blank images, so you need to experiment with it.
Always try to keep track of your settings as you try out new digital camera features. For a beginner to digital photography start from adjust settings such as ISO film sensitivity, depth-of-field aperture, and shutter speeds. And when you take photos record your settings and the weather and lighting conditions in a logbook. Take multiple photos with same weather and lighting condition by changing settings.
Bracketing is yet another process by which you can capture multiple photographs of a particular subject with some of the settings slightly modified, such as shutter speed, f-stop, or aperture. Read your camera’s manual to see if it has an automatic bracketing feature. Bracketing is great to increase your odds of getting a great photo of a particular subject.
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