Friday, July 13, 2012

Digital Photography


Photography has been my hobby since I was in my teens, which is a very long time ago. My first camera was a Polaroid Swinger. Because I am part of the baby boomer generation, I have first hand knowledge of what companies used to target us as consumers. Polaroid was very smart: the Swinger was one of the first cheap cameras that gave decent results. Prior to that, most Polaroid cameras were expensive. My dad surprised me with this camera for Christmas my senior year in high school. I loved it.

From that I progressed into the world of 35mm photography, with a Minolta. No auto focus, no auto anything, and I learned a great deal with that little work horse.

About 7 years ago, I ventured into the world of digital. It was moving fast, and like computers, the camera you bought today was almost obsolete the following week. But this is also the world of totally automatic picture taking, and sometimes it can fool you. I now have two cameras: a Canon D40, which is big and bulky and my favorite, and a little Canon Powershot, which can fit in your purse or pocket. The above two photos were taken with the Powershot. Same subject, both on auto setting. Then why the difference in the shots? My position in relation to the portal opening. In the first photo, I am standing at an angle from the circle, pointing the camera at the opening. The built in meter read the entire scene, and gave me that shot. In the second photo, I am directly across from the portal, so the meter read the opening for perfect exposure, but underexposed the surroundings.

Both shots are SOC - straight out of the camera, no adjustments in Photoshop Elements. My favorite is the second shot. And this brings me to a very important point. When shooting digital, there is no expense involved. You need a lot of memory on your computer, but no developing film to find out you have an undesirable shot, or blurred, whatever. If you don't like a particular shot, delete it. I take far more pictures since switching to digital, and therefore will experiment more.

Enjoy yourselves today. Go out and take a few pictures.
Linda

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