Point and Shoot Digital Cameras - 4 Tips to Improve Your Photos

Ever been underwhelmed by your photos? Tired of just producing happy snaps? Here are 4 easy ways to ramp up your creativity and help you produce photos you are proud of - even with a simple point and shoot digital camera.

1. Composition

This is the most important consideration; if you want your photos to engage people they must make a deliberate statement. Even a simple point and shoot camera will take care of the technical aspects of photography for you - it is your job to take care of the art.

• Look at the scene the way your camera will - in 2D. Close one eye and use your fingers to frame the scene. Now that you no longer see in 3D is the scene still interesting, or is it just a jumbled mess? What jumps out at you? What makes the scene interesting? Certain characteristics will act as focal points, attracting the eye first: bright colors, warm colors, sharp contrast, brighter illumination, off-centre, isolation, and, of course, human faces. These are the sorts of things you want to fill your frame with while keeping extraneous details out of the corners.


• Change your perspective: move forward or back with your feet as well as with the lens, left or right, outside or inside, above or below, in front or behind.


• What do you want to emphasize? If breadth and distance, then frame your scene horizontally. If lines and height, use vertical or portrait framing.


• Divide your frame into thirds, both horizontally and vertically. To emphasize the foreground put the horizon on the top third line. To emphasize the background or distance put the horizon on the bottom third line. Put your subject on one of the four "sweet spots" where the horizontal and vertical lines intersect as the viewer's eye is automatically drawn to those 4 spots.

2. Exposure Compensation

Lighting is critical to getting a great photo. Your camera tries to determine the average lighting across the scene but in fact the lighting may vary wildly from point to point. Your lighten/darken control is the EV (+/-) adjustment. It allows you to tweak the camera's automatic exposure setting to allow for factors you are aware of but the camera is not.

For example, in reflective settings such as very bright sunlight or bright snow the camera is likely to be overwhelmed. Take back control with a a setting of EV-1 to slightly underexpose or darken the scene and see if that helps. Keep adjusting the EV control until you are satisfied with the result.

If your subject is backlit or the day is overcast or you are shooting indoors you may need to overexpose or lighten the scene. Try EV+1 and experiment from there.

3. White Balance

Our eyes automatically adjust the light we see so that it appears white. Your camera, on the other hand, sees the light that is truly there. The automatic setting of your camera performs it's best guess to make the light that looks white to our eyes, white in the photo. You, however, can adjust the white balance yourself to great effect, either correcting it to produce a neutral effect or using it to enhance the colors in the scene.

You can do this by setting the white balance manually, following the directions for your camera. You also have the option of using one of several presets which provide different levels of cool or warm tones. The daylight setting is slightly blue, whereas tungsten is very blue to compensate for the warm light cast by these globes. Cloudy produces an effect slightly warmer than daylight, flash is slightly warmer again to compensate for the cool light of the flash. Shade is very orange to counteract the blue light of shadows. The fluorescent setting is purple to compensate for this lighting's green cast.

Experiment with each preset and see which produces the prettiest result for you - it may be that you prefer something other than the "correct" setting for the lighting you are in. For instance, you may prefer a warmer preset to get more natural skin tones or to bring out the reds in a landscape.

4. A Steady Hand

Use autofocus to reduce shutter lag and therefore the likelihood of moving the camera before the shot has been taken.

Line up your subject in the centre of the frame and half press the shutter button. Allow the camera to adjust its settings to give you the perfect shot, then, with finger still on button, move the camera and recompose the shot. Align the subject on one of the above mentioned "sweet spots" then press the shutter all the way while holding the camera steady for the brief time needed to take the photo.

Using these 4 tips will help you take photos that you can be proud of - even when using a simple point-and-shoot camera. Experiment. Play. Digital film is free after all, and you can always delete the mistakes.

Digital Single Lens Reflex or Point-And-Shoot Digital Camera?

There are two main categories of digital cameras. The digital single lens reflex, known as the DSLR, and the point-and-shoot digital camera. Both types of digital cameras have advantages over the other. Both types of digital cameras have disadvantages also. Which type should you buy? The answer to that question depends on what you plan to use the camera for.

The main advantage a film single lens reflex camera had over other types of film cameras, was that you saw through the same lens the photo was taken. This allowed you to see nearly exactly what would be in the final picture. In other types of film cameras, you looked through a lens that was separate from the lens film was exposed through. This meant, occasionally, what you thought was in the picture, was not. However, with a digital point-and-shoot camera, you can see the picture on the preview screen and this is nearly exactly what will be recorded by the camera. So in effect, digital point-and-shoot cameras have already gained the one of main advantages that most film single lens reflex cameras had over film point-and-shoot cameras.

One of the primary advantages of the digital point-and-shoot camera, over a digital single lens reflex, is size. You can get digital point-and-shoot cameras in extremely small sizes now. This makes the digital point-and-shoot camera very convenient. It is ideal for taking on vacation when you don't want to carry things around or any other time you don't want to take anything heavy with you. Trust me, I would much rather have had a point-and-shoot digital camera with me, than the DSLR I carried around, last time I went to Disney.

The point-and-shoot camera's advantage in size also becomes one of the disadvantages. Because the cameras are so small, the flash is usually very close to the lens. This causes redeye to be a serious problem with many small point-and-shoot digital cameras.

The primary disadvantage of point-and-shoot digital cameras is something called lag. Lag comes in several varieties in digital point-and-shoot cameras. The first variety that you may notice is that some digital point-and-shoot cameras take a second or two to turn on. This can be a little bit difficult to get used to, since your film camera always seemed to be ready to take a picture. The next version of lag you may notice is on the preview screen. There is a slight delay between what is actually happening and what you see on the screen. There's also some lag between the time you press the shutter button and the time the actual photograph is taken. This can make photographing a child playing soccer or any other sport extremely difficult. The final version of lag makes itself known between shots. After taking many digital photos in quick succession, the camera may need to pause while it processes the images.

Lag in point-and-shoot digital cameras is something the manufacturers are working very hard on. The good news is that, in most current digital point-and-shoot cameras, lag is now reduced significantly. While probably not something you want to use for sports photography, a current, quality, point-and-shoot digital camera acts very similar to a film point-and-shoot camera.

The digital single lens reflex really comes into its own in any type of action photography. The digital single lens reflex has comparatively no lag from the time you press the shutter button and when the photographs are taken. Because the viewfinder is optical, you are actually seeing the present and not the slightly delayed past in a preview screen. This does mean, however, that you cannot compose the picture through the preview screen. There been some attempts to do this in the DSLR by camera manufacturers, but none have proven very successful.

The primary disadvantage of the digital single lens reflex camera is size. While some point-and-shoot cameras are nearly as big, there are no truly compact digital single lens reflex cameras. Not much fun to carry around an amusement park. However, the larger size means those DSLR's that do have a built-in flash, have placed the flash farther from the lens than most point-and-shoot cameras. The disadvantage is, that many digital single lens reflex cameras, particularly professional models, do not have a built-in flash.

The digital single lens reflex is extremely versatile. You can change lenses or add a more powerful flash. Most digital single lens reflexes also allow making manual adjustments much easier than digital point-and-shoot cameras. This is essential to the advanced shooter or professional photographer.

Most digital single lens reflex cameras also have a larger cache, allowing them to shoot many pictures in succession without having to wait to process between shots. Some professional digital single lens reflex cameras are capable of shooting more shots in quick succession than would even fit on a 35mm roll of film.

Finally, the digital single lens reflex has an advantage in image quality. Even when comparing cameras of equal resolution, digital single lens reflex cameras by Canon and Nikon seem to have an improvement in quality over point-and-shoot cameras. This makes the digital single lens reflex the choice for most serious professional photography.

One advantage the point-and-shoot digital camera has over the digital single lens reflex is price. Most of the point-and-shoot cameras are far less expensive than any of the digital single lens reflexes. The Canon Digital Rebel was the first digital single lens reflex under $1000. The battle for the low cost digital single lens reflex camera market still continues between Nikon and Canon, with prices still coming down.

For practical, everyday photography the current digital point-and-shoot camera is more than capable. If you find yourself photographing action or any type of sports photography, using a digital single lens reflex camera is nearly a requirement. If you are looking for the absolute best image quality, again the digital single lens reflex is your choice. If very looking for something small, and easy to carry, a compact point-and-shoot digital camera will make life a lot easier.

There is no perfect digital camera for all purposes just like there is no film camera perfect for all purposes. Ideally you would have a point-and-shoot digital camera for the everyday pictures and a single lens reflex digital camera for the serious work. That's not always possible, so you may need to decide what you plan to use the camera for most, and choose the camera best suited for that purpose.

You can get additional information on how to take better photos here [http://www.photographybyjet.com/how-to-take-better-photos/How-to-choose-digital-camera/how-to-choose-a-digital-camera.htm]. James Thoenes is a professional photographer with over 20 years in photography. Learn how to take better photos at his website

Point and Shoot Digital Cameras That Will Revolutionize The Way You Take Pictures

A point-and-shoot camera or compact camera. It is a still camera designed for simple operation. These cameras use focus free lenses or autofocus for focusing. They use automatic systems for setting the exposure options. These cameras have flash units built in.

Point-and-shoots are the best selling cameras. They are as popular as camera phones. They are popular with people who don't consider themselves photographers but want an easy to use camera. They can use these cameras for vacations, parties, reunions and other events.Compact cameras are designed to be tiny and portable.

They are particularly suitable for casual and snapshot uses. The smallest, are generally less than 20 mm thick. They are described as subcompacts or "ultra-compacts" and some are nearly credit card size.

These cameras incorporate a retractable lens assembly. This allows a thin camera to have a moderately long focal length. These cameras fully exploit an image sensor larger than the one on a camera phone. They have a mechanized lens cap to cover the lens when retracted. The retracted and capped lens is protected from keys, coins and other hard objects. Making it a thin, pocketable package. Subcompacts commonly have one lug and a short wrist strap which aids extraction from a pocket. Thicker compacts may have two lugs for attaching a neck strap.

Compact cameras are usually designed to be easy to use. They sacrifice many features and picture quality for compactness and simplicity. Images can usually only be stored using lossy compression (JPEG). Most have a built-in flash usually of low power, sufficient for nearby subjects. Live preview is almost always used to frame the photo. Most have limited motion picture capability. Compacts often have macro capability and zoom lenses but the zoom range is usually less than for bridge and DSLR cameras. Generally a contrast-detect autofocus system, using the image data from the live preview feed of the main imager, focuses the lens.

These cameras incorporate a nearly silent leaf shutter into their lenses.For lower cost and smaller size, these cameras typically use image sensors with a diagonal of approximately 6 mm. This corresponds to a crop factor around 6. This gives them weaker low-light performance. These cameras have a greater depth of field, generally closer focusing ability, and smaller components than cameras using larger sensors.

Starting in 2011, some compact digital cameras can take 3D still photos. These 3D compact stereo cameras can capture 3D panoramic photos for play back on a 3D TV. Some of these are rugged and waterproof, and some have GPS, compass, barometer and altimeter.

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Digital Camera: What to Look for in a Point-And-Shoot

There are two types of Digital Cameras available today: Single-lens-reflex (SLR) and Point-and-Shoot. DSLR cameras tends to gave higher quality images, hence the price that can range from US$1000-US$3000. A decent Point-and-Shoot digital camera can give you almost the same quality pictures for under US$500.

With almost countless point-and-shoot digital compact cameras available on the market today, it seems an impossible task to find the right digital camera that will give you the absolute best quality images at an acceptable price tag. As such, I've compiled this article hoping to be able to give you some real-world tips on choosing the right digital point-and-shoot camera.

With over 10 years experience I've learned to look for these features in a point-and-shoot.

Focus: Since almost all point-and-shoot cameras rely on auto focus, this feature has to be of the highest standards. The software needs to be able to recognize the image in question and focus on the subject, not the background. Some point-and-shoot cameras require more manual intervention for this function to work properly, so I'd look for a digital camera with enhanced auto features. This brings me to the next important feature.

Auto Mode: The whole idea of a point-and-shoot camera is the ability to point the camera at the object in question and shoot high quality focused images without too much fuss. The Nikon COOLPIX L810 for ex. takes brilliant pictures, but requires the right manual settings. For me that kind of defeats the object.

Light Sensor: The size of the light sensor is important; the bigger, the better. After all, if the camera cannot correctly sense the incoming light then the pictures will be too dark, or too light. Photography relies heavily on light and no amount of Photoshop can beat a picture that was taken in the right light, with the right light settings.

Megapixels: More is not always better, but too little can be an obstacle. More megapixels can sometimes ad to noise and too little will give you a less than sharp image, especially in poor light. Personally, I would never go below 10 megapixels and found that 14MP is ideal. At 14 megapixels you strike a nice balance between noise and image clarity.

Zoom: Beware of digital zoom. In essence, you're just cropping the picture. Rather go for optical zoom. Personally, I'd never go below 12x optical zoom or the pictures just appear too distant. Recently, Super-Zoom digital cameras have become more affordable going up to 36x optical zoom. Very important to have a good image stabilizer at these extremes or you'd never be able to take a clear picture.

A few other features are also important, but these ones are crucial. I came across 2 point-and-shoot cameras that has a lot of these features present, but is also affordable. The Canon PowerShot SX30 is and the Nikon Coolpix L810.

The Canon has 35x optical zoom and takes brilliant pictures, but requires a good understanding of the manual settings.

The Nikon has only 26x zoom, but the auto settings are brilliant.

I did reviews on both these Digital Compact point-and-shoot cameras. Follow the links in the resource box to read the Nikon review.

My name is Sean Rooney and I've been reviewing digital cameras for over 10 years now. In my experience I have found that sticking to the well known digital camera brands such as Sony, Nikon and Canon has proved to be the right decision.

Go to my website for the full Nikon L810 review: http://www.nikonl810review.com/

Follow this link to see how the Nikon L810 performs.

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Where Are You Looking For Top Rated Point and Shoot Digital Cameras?

If you're looking for top rated point and shoot digital cameras, there are a few things you need to consider. First of all, you need to give some consideration to where you'll be getting your rating information. Since I'm going to assume your reading this online, your already aware of one of the biggest sources for camera ratings guides.

Bear in mind though, this is the internet, and you can't believe everything you read. Except of course for this article. I read an online article a few days ago, that suggested that 86% of online web readers believed that less then half of what they read online was reliable. A healthy does of skepticism is a good thing, but this seems a little extreme.

Let's not forget about other sources of camera ratings. There are trade publications, photography magazines, and the tech section of major newspapers. While they may not be as specialized as some websites, they are a valuable source for research as well. Consumer reports magazine is one the comes to mind first.

Since we're looking for point and shoot cameras, they're are a few shortcoming that go with this market niche that you should be aware of.

Zoom lenses on point and shoots are typically not very powerful. If plan on getting a close up of the bride and groom kissing from the back pew of the church, your going to be disappointed. Your zoom lens likely won't reach that far. If this is a big concern for you, that it's time to check out a few SLR cameras.

Shutter speed is notoriously on point and shoots. Slow shutter speed is the main culprit for missed photo opportunities. With a point and shoot, you need to plan a bit ahead. Holding the shutter down halfway, allows the battery to charge the flash, and prepare the camera to take the perfect picture. When your subject is ready, you just have to press the shutter the remaining way down.

Batteries, while often the bane of gadgets in general, can be a real nuisance for digital cameras. Because point and shoots are small, the space for battery storage is limited. Resulting in smaller batteries. Consumer demands for large LCD screens, further exacerbates the problem, as this is where most of your battery juice goes. Rechargeables are the best solution here.

I mention these flaws not to talk you out of choosing a point and shoot camera, but to make you aware of their basic shortcomings. Some will be better then others, but their primary design has some common flaws. If you can live with these shortcomings, then your ultimate buying decision will be easier.

If you're looking for top-rated point & shoot digital cameras, or simply want to browse through a listing of the top rated-point & shoot digital cameras in your inbox be sure to visit.

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The Difference Between DSLR Cameras and Point and Shoot Cameras

A lot of people are confused when it comes in the term DSLR cameras and Point-and-Shoot Cameras. Some people even considered that they have the same meaning. If you are looking for the right definition of these terminologies, then this article can answer that question. DSLR and Point-and-Shoot may have the same details and also may have different details in some ways. Continue reading to find out more.

DSLR cameras provide much more speed, power, and functions than the usual point and shoot type. DSLR cameras let you manually control specific areas of a shot, while many point and shoot cameras perform most optimally when capturing in totally automated setting. DSLR designs are more expensive and are bigger than point and shoot cameras.

Unsurprisingly, the price of DSLR cameras is higher priced compared to point and shoot cameras. Digital SLR cameras also provide a lot more add-ons accessible compared to starter cameras, like interchangeable lenses and exterior flash devices.

The main distinction between the 2 types entails exactly what the digital photographer views while he frames his shot. Having a DSLR, the digital photographer previews the picture right via the lens, because of some mirrors and prisms that reflect the lens picture returning to the viewfinder. The point and shoot digital camera's viewfinder is balanced out in the lens, which means, the viewfinder picture and also the lens picture do not accurately complement.

One of many current modifications in the digital camera industry contains adding extra entry-level Digital SLR cameras, that resemble DSLR types, but they do not include compatible lenses or even intricate manual configurations. They are very effective as a transitional digital camera between advanced DSLR types and P and S digital cameras.

To broaden your knowledge, you can browse on the internet for some examples of DSLR and Point-and-Shoot cameras. There are many reliable websites out there to browse. One of the best websites that I could recommend is Amazon. You can also find best deals on different cameras in it.

For more information on DSLR camera reviews, pay a visit to this fantastic site at bestdigitalcamerablog.com Check out their newest review which is the Nikon D7000 Review. You can also acquire top deals on this camera on this website. Visit now!

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Nikon Coolpix 4200 Point and Shoot Digital Camera - Reliable All the Time

The Nikon Coolpix 4200 point and shoot digital camera is one of the best innovations that Nikon ever developed. This kind of camera has features that can rival other digital brands and one that will enable you to take pictures like the pros. The Nikon Coolpix 4200 point and shoot is also one of the easiest digital cameras to operate.

Because of the point and shoot features of this camera, you can just literally point it at your subject and shoot. This digital camera has a new kind of lens that will give you optimal clarity to the photos you take. The rapid power up and quick precise auto focus will enable you take rare instantaneous moments that can never happen again.

Because this camera is in the Nikon Coolpix series, you can be sure that it will provide you with great quality photos that you may even be mistaken that a professional photographer took them. This camera also has 12MB of internal memory that will enable you to take pictures and store them without even having an SD memory card. This means that even if you don't have a memory card, you can still take pictures of those memorable moments and store them.

The Nikon Coopix 4200 point and shoot is the camera perfect for the amateur photographer. This camera can even be operated by a 10 year old. So, if you don't know anything about cameras and you don't want to have a complicated digital camera, the Nikon Coolpix 4200 point and shoot digital camera is the right camera for you.

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