I bought myself a new digital SLR camera for Christmas, and it revived in me a love for photography. Back in my teenage years I had an Olympus OM-1 – the classic journalism camera of the seventies. I’d run around shooting everything and then come back home to process the film. Fortunately my school had a great darkroom set up… although, it sucked up a lot of time I should have spent on other things.
Its great to have full control of the image again, and I’m not feeling too nostalgic about the darkroom side of things (although that was half the fun!). Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras give you a lot of control over your image, but there are several things that you need to know to get started. But even if you’re not into the raw technicalities, you can take good photos with a point and shoot camera.
I’ve been meaning to write up a simple guide to digital photography. Simple gotchas like holding the camera up to your eye so it doesn’t shake, and the rule of thirds for basic composition. But as always, there’s someone out there on the net who’s done a great job already.
After Christmas I spotted this wonderful collection of tips and trick for shooting photos. From explanations of aperture through to simple composition pointers. This article does a far better job than I could ever do.
If you’d like to take better fieldwork photos I’d thoroughly recommend reading up a bit. Its not too hard, but a s a bare minimum the rule of thirds composition guide is definitely worth the read.
There’s a shoebox/toolbox port for linux.