Photography - Friday, October 17, 2008 8:14 - 0 Comments

First Time with Your Digital Camera

Kodak, the company well-known for taking cameras out of the hands of professionals and put them into the hands of everyday users, is in financial trouble. Why? People today — everyday people — are moving toward digital cameras, leaving film-based cameras to gather dust in the closet. As the largest manufacturer of film-based cameras, and photographic film, Kodak finds itself losing loads of money.

 However, digital cameras won't save money if people don't know how to use them. Below are pointers on how to use your digital camera, and take advantage of your Mac, too.

 You need a computer
 While there are some cameras which allow you to view your photos on a TV, in practice a digital camera is pretty worthless without a computer. The best computer to have is a Macintosh with a USB port, which covers everything Apple has made since the iMac.

 It will also help if the camera comes bundled with Macintosh-compatible photo editing/viewing software. Mac OS X 10.1 comes with software capable of downloading pictures directly from some cameras; you may not need to load a thing.

 Learn the basics
 Yes, you will probably need to read the cameras manual. Please note that some cameras don't come with a printed manual, you must read an Acrobat file from the CD-ROM that came with the camera. Take your time and find all the controls and learn how to use them. Make sure you understand how to load batteries, plug it into your computer, and turn it on and off.

Take particular note of buttons you don't want to push. (I recently watched someone wonder aloud what one button did, so they pushed it — and watched their rechargeable battery fall into the Pacific Ocean.)

 Generally speaking, the more expensive the camera, the harder it will be to operate. Low-cost digital cameras rarely support more than "point and shoot," which means you simply aim it at the subject, push the button, and it takes a picture. The camera will try to auto-focus the image and adjust the exposure according to available light.

 You will find that more expensive digital cameras will enable you to manually adjust focus, focal length, lighting, and countless other settings which will help you turn a good picture into a really bad picture — if you don't read the manual.