Digital photo secrets, Part 1: Practice, not luck, is what matters

June 24, 2001


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2001, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2001, The Syracuse Newspapers

   I took a picture of my neighbor Tom doing a hotshot leap into our pool the other day and captured the exact moment he entered the water, feet down and eyes closed. It was a moment frozen in time.
   "Lucky shot," someone said when I showed off the picture on the viewing screen of my digital camera.
   "Yes," I said. But I didn't really mean it. The picture wasn't a lucky shot. Luck had nothing to do with it.
   Taking good digital pictures requires skill, good technique and a lot of practice. I knew where to stand (with my back to the sun), I panned the camera in an arc to follow his jump (to minimize blur) and I had taken a couple of test shots a few minutes earlier to make sure I wasn't too close or too far away.
   Nothing I did had any element of luck. Of all the great photos ever taken, only a few were lucky shots. All the others that seem like lucky shots are actually the result of knowing how to take a picture and how to get into the best position for the photo.
   And that's what you have to do if you want to take better pictures. You have to forget luck -- it's fickle anyway, right? -- and stick with something that works. This week, in the first of three articles, I'll describe some of the biggest misconceptions in digital photography and tell you how to avoid them.
   Misconception No. 1: You need a high-resolution camera (one with a lot of "megapixels").
   Reality: You need to match the resolution (the number of actual picture elements) with how you will view the pictures you take. If you'll be viewing them mostly on a computer screen, 640 pixels by 480 pixels -- the lowest resolution of any serious digital camera -- is fine.
   If you want to print your pictures on a photo-quality printer, 640 by 480 is nowhere near enough; you'll want a camera with a rating of 3 megapixels or more. (But stay tuned for a tip next week if you have to print those low-resolution pictures anyway and want to get the best quality.)
   Misconception No. 2: Digital cameras need good zoom lenses.
   Reality: Zoom lenses, which "zoom in" on the subject to magnify the scene, are bad news. Sure, they have their place, but that place usually is limited to a camera that's on a tripod. If there's a whole lot of shakin' goin' on when you take a digital picture, a zoom lens just makes everything worse. It magnifies the shaking, too.
   Many times the best pictures are taken with wide-angle lenses, not with zoom lenses pushed out to their telephoto limits. Really good zoom lenses can take wide-angle pictures, too, so try a new technique: Take a few dozen pictures using the widest wide-angle setting, getting as close to your subject as possible. (Don't be afraid to shoot 6 to 9 inches away from your subject's face, for example.)
   Wide angle lenses tend to be in focus from here to way-out-there, sometimes from just in front of the lens to infinity. And a big bonus of wide-angle lenses that nobody else seems to talk about: They minimize camera shake.
   Misconception No. 3: Taking pictures in low light is not a problem. After all, you just use the flash.
   Reality: Unlike film, the picture elements in digital cameras are unforgiving if they don't get enough light. They tend to blossom, and your pictures will start to look ugly real fast. And flash pictures have done more to give photography a bad name than all the fuzzy pictures ever taken by all the Aunt Friedas the world has ever known. Flash pictures are flat looking and almost always too light or too dark.
   The solution? Love the sun. Pray for bright days. Entice your subjects outdoors whenever possible.
   Next: How to get by when you don't have good conditions.