How to take a good digital photo

[d9hp]

That is some good info Kevin. I am gonna try and save up for me a Nikon Coolpix, my aunt has one and loves it. It really does shoot what you see, nothing else.

[justDIY]

Originally Posted by BillyZ

very interesting tip glmclell! I'll be sure to play around with that. will any magnifying glass suffice?

well, just about any will work, with varying degrees of effectiveness

the thing you have to watch out for is some magnifing lenses aren't ground very accurately, and have different amounts of magnification in different areas, so you need one that has a large enough "good" area for your lense to shoot through

I also can't remember if the higher X power is better or worse ... experimentation is key

[littlelouie]

Great info guy's.

I love photography and use the outdated Kodak DC215 which is a piddling 1.8 megapixals I am quite happy with the shots I get from it though, they are just not big enough to print larger than 6"x 4"'s.

To get macro shots I need to be 8" from the subject. I found that if I spread my hand/fingers out wide the distance from my thumb to my middle finger is about 8". Whenever I need to shoot in macro I just judge the distance by placing my thumb near the lens and my middle finger near the subject (if in the tank I estimate and take a number of shots).

Just a little tip that might help in setting up a macro shot depending on the focus distance. BTW my camera is a point and shoot which can get a little frustrating at times and I am very jealous of Reefrunner. Hopefully I can make the purchase one day.

Louise

[Salt4Us]

I cheat, I don't use the view finder, I use the digital screen on the back to take my pics, that way I know what it's going to look like when I take it. Can't use a tripod because the area it's in is right by a big post. I use an Olympus D-450 and there are only a couple macros on it, I use one that displays a tulip on it, don't know what it is, the manual is more confusing than helpful. Oh, and yep it runs down the batteries faster when you use the lcd display, but I bulk up on the AA's

[reefrunner69]

, but I bulk up on the AA's

Won't it tale rechargeables? probably be cheaper to get a couple sets of recargeables.

I don't use the view finder

I do too, in my camera it's recommended, although nearly impossile to do outside on a bright sunny day.

couple macros on it,

The one with the tulip is the macro mode, the other icon is probably a mountai, for taking landscapes and far off pics, and probably a icon for the auto timer. FWIW, you can look up your cams specs and red a review at www.dpreview.com and http://www.steves-digicams.com/

[Salt4Us]

Thanks for the links, I'll check them out. Rechargables would probably be best, but in my house with 2 boys that have endless battery operated toys, I'd be charging all the time.

[BillyZ]

I almost forgot to check on things for my camera! I have an Olympus Camedia 2040.. I get really good pictures with it, I just can't seem to get good tank shots. i have to take all this info here and do a whole lot of samples with it this weekend.

hmmm I just looked at the "File Info" in photoshop on some of my old pictures and there's nothing in any of those screens! I'm using PS 6 but the info should still be there if my camera were saving it. i think thats what it it, my camera isn't saving the data to the files. I'll have to find the manual and see if there's a way to turn it on. Perusing the menu it doesn't look like it.

[BillyZ]

I took about 15-20 pictures. This is about the only one I like! A scarlet hermit crab trimming the hedges on a piece of Tonga LR. I used a manual white balance, ISO 400, and manual focus set to macro/8". Then I just kinda moved the camera back and forth until the shot was in focus on the display. I have the resolution set to 1600x1200 for the pictures, what do you folks use? Do you think turning down the res would cut down on the bluriness, make a sharper picture at all?

[d9hp]

Looks good, BTW, the magnifying glass trick worked, I just need a better glass.

[reefrunner69]

Doubtful if turning down the res would do anything but make a smaller pic. I use the highest settings my camera has. Pic quality of fine (highest jpeg quality, I could set it to save as .tiff but I would get like 7 pics on a 128mb flash card ) and a res of 2048 X 1536. Then I can crop and resize, it has been my experience that minor flaws can be lessened whe you size down to a 640 X 480 or so, but you want to start with the largest image you can.

The pic you posted looks pretty good to me, if I were starting with the large image, I would probably resize to 640 X 480, run an auto levels filter, possibly a levels filter and a curves filter (I never do one without doing the other), I would run an unsharp mask filtrer, and then save for the web. If the pic is a little blurry it is most likely from camera shake, when taking pics in macro without the flash...you really need to brace the camera well, or get a tripod. I have been known to brace the lens (actual lens is recessed into a threaded ring) directly on the surface of the glass, works pretty good to, up to about 1/2 sec.

What shutter speed was the pic taken at?