Photography For The Absolute Beginner Part 1.
With my knowledge of photography (not a master, just a semi-pro and well practiced photographer!) I and my love of sharing my knowledge I thought I would start a new series (probably weekly) on photography for beginners. This week, the absolute basic, choosing a point-and shoot camera.
So you want to take better photos? Never even tried more than the out-of-focus snapshot before? Fear not! The advent of the affordable digital camera makes better photography a skill within the grasp of even the hardiest luddite. The simplest cameras are quite obviously the point and shoot cameras.
Point and shoot (p&s from now on) cameras are cheap - £20 upwards - efficient and easily used units. They do exactly what the name implies. You point them at your subject, press the button and using trickery or voodoo or something the photo appears on the little screen on the back. But does this make a decent photo? Not necessarily. It may well be over (too bright) or under (too dark) exposed, badly framed, heads or feet cut off or colours might be all wrong.
Spend a little more of your hard earned though and you can get yourself a great little compact p&s which has more functions, controls, a nice large screen on the back to see your masterpiece and better in-camera processing. The Canon Ixus 75 (pictured right) is available at Jessops for £1701 and is a great little unit. Its screen is huge, it has face-recognition2 and the extra controls it gives as you get used to it means that it is a camera not just for the beginner but the enthusiastic amateur too!
Personally I have an older model Ixus, the Canon Ixus 55. It’s only 5.1 megapixels3 but is still perfectly capable of producing a fine photo, snap, image or artistic interpretation. Example:
This was taken by balancing the the camera on a railing, setting the shutter speed as low as it would go and pressing the button. The tram was moving toward me as i took the photo, hence the “blur” in the shot.
Many of the limitations of a camera aren’t the camera itself but the limitations of the imagination of the photographer. With guidance, a decent p&s camera and a little imagination, there’s no reason not to create that perfect photo.
Of course, if the image is “flat” or “drab”, there’s always photoshop!
Next week: More on the p&s and an intro to some of the common terminology used in photography.
If there’s a burning question you have, something you don’t understand about photography in general or something in one of these articles that bugs you, leave a comment and ask or feel free to use the contact form and let me know. I will respond and even post it on the blog. Don’t worry, there are no stupid questions and you never know, you might help someone else by asking!
No Responses to “Photography For The Absolute Beginner Part 1.”
Adcuz - May 22nd, 2008
Nice article. I’ll save this one and send the link onto anyone who asks for advice.
Beginner Photography Challenge No. 1 - Cornell Finch - June 12th, 2008
[...] Article 1 - Introduction to the series and choosing a point & shoot (P&S) camera. Article 2 - What to look for in a P&S Article 3 - Some of the most commonly used photography terms. [...]
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