Improving Quality of Digital Photos - Understanding Digital Camera Basics

An often overlooked component in taking quality digital photographs is not just in taking the picture itself or its composition, alignment or focus; it's in the proper use of the digital camera's features and settings. If you want to improve the quality of your digital photos, then you will need to learn how to properly use your digital camera settings for different photo conditions and effects. In this article I will highlight your digital camera's basic features and what they are used for. You will find that with making some simple adjustments, taking stunning digital photos can be easy to learn and be quite enjoyable.
Improving quality of digital photos begins with understanding digital cameras features and their functions, as well as proper camera settings for specific desired effects. Here is a breakdown of the most common camera features you will use and for some of the shooting conditions where you may need to make adjustments in the settings:
Aperture
Aperture is easily described as being the iris part of the eye of the camera that allows certain amounts of light to enter the camera lens. Just as on a clear and bright sunny day, the irises in your eyes become very small in size. This allows only a small amount of light in to protect your retinas. At night, your irises become quite large to allow more light in to be able to see more in the lower light conditions. Aperture works the same way. Aperture has another function, and that is depth of field. The depth of field is the area of the photo that is in focus. A large aperture setting blurs out the background and draws the viewer's eyes to the main subject such as in a portrait. A smaller aperture setting leaves a larger part of the photo in focus as in a landscape photo.
ISO
ISO is a digital camera's image sensor, namely the camera's sensitivity to the amount of light present. With a higher ISO value, the image sensor is very sensitive. Therefore, this setting is ideal for low level light conditions where the auto flash cannot be used, such as in church and other religious ceremonies, indoor concerts and stage presentations, etc.
Shutter Speed
Shutter speed is the amount of time the camera's shutter is open. Shutter speeds are measured in seconds, but most commonly, are measured in fractions of seconds. A standard shutter speed will be 1/60th of a second. A fast shutter speed is used to freeze a moving object leaving a clean crisp image with no distortion of movement. A slower shutter speed allows for the image to be softened giving a sense of motion in the photo. Imagine a stream with running water over the rocks. A fast shutter speed captures the individual water droplets from the spray in clear detail. A slow shutter speed creates a softened and somewhat blurred effect to the water creating a sense of movement.
White Balance
A digital camera's white balance is used to compensate for the effects of different light sources. Each type of light source - natural light, incandescent cool lights, incandescent warm lights, fluorescent lights - give off a color temperature. The human eye can judge what is white under different light sources, but a digital camera can auto adjust incorrectly creating a blue, orange, or green color cast that can appear unrealistic and ruin the final portrait. There are times where you may want to change the white balance values such as shooting in twilight that can accentuate blue tones.

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