Digital Camera Annual

welcome to digital camera annual

Whether you’re still getting to know your digital camera or you’re an experienced photographer looking for new challenges, this guide is for you. Across five themed sections, our tips and techniques will show you how to use your camera’s features and settings more effectively and offer you plenty of inspiration to take more creative pictures.Want even more camera advice? This Annual is brought to you by the makers of Digital Camera, Britain’s biggest and best photography magazine. Find a copy where you bought this Annual, or visit www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/photography ■…

master your camera now!

NOTHING beats the feeling you get when all the elements in front of your camera come together in perfect harmony, and create the perfect image. With all the right settings in place, reviewing that once-in-a-lifetime shot on the rear screen can give you a real buzz. All because of a little luck, and an understanding of what settings are needed for different situations.If you’re new to photography, or if you simply want to brush up on a few skills, you’re in the right place. We’re going to take you through everything you need to know to immediately start taking better photos. By the time you’ve finished reading, your photography skills will be ready for anything.1 Get to know your cameraThe first step towards technical and creative prowess is to get…

understanding noise

TECH MADE EASYHOW IT LOOKSACTUAL NOISERANDOM COLOURS:Some types of noise cover your photos in a screen of coloured dots, and when you’re shooting at night, it may be hard to separate the stars from the unwanted pixels! This is where noise reduction can help…HOW IT LOOKSACTUAL NOISEROUGH TEXTURE:Noise can give your pictures a sandpaper-like finish, particularly in the shadows and mid-tones.YOUR camera’s ISO setting plays a pivotal role, adjusting how sensitive the camera sensor is to light. Pushing the camera sensitivity higher means increased ‘noise’. Noise is the digital equivalent of film grain – but where grain can enhance the appearance and mood of a picture, image noise is rarely as welcome.Noise isn’t unique to digital cameras – it’s generated by all electronic devices. The key factor is the signal-to-noise…

sources of noise

NOISE can ruin the quality of your pictures. While there’s a lot you can do about it post-shoot, as always it pays to get things as close to perfect in-camera t cut down on your editing time. High ISOs and long exposures are the main causes of noise, as you’ll see below. The noise they generate may only be obvious when you’re scrutinising a picture close-up, and may not be that obvious when the image is seen at normal size. Besides, it’s better to have a sharp noisy picture than no picture.High-ISO noiseWhile aperture and shutter speed control how much light is let into the camera, the ISO determines how much light is required. Low ISOs give you optimum quality, but in situations where there’s little light or you can’t…

exposure woes

IF you fluff an exposure when you take it, there are steps you can take to correct the problem in photoediting software. It’s easier to brighten up images that are underexposed (too dark) than it is to claw back detail in shots that are overexposed; but while bringing up the value of shadow areas to reveal hidden details is straightforward, you run the risk of pumping up the volume of noise…ORIGINAL SHOT‘PUSHED’SECOND SHOTThe pale sky caused the camera to underexpose (left). Shooting in raw gave us the flexibility to ‘push’ the exposure in-software (centre), but a cleaner result was achieved by exposing correctly in-camera (right).Too dark in-cameraThe pale sky is represented by the right-hand peak on the histogram, but it’s too far from the right (bright) side of the graph…

noise reduction

DIGITAL cameras have settings for reducing noise caused by high ISOs and long exposures, but these don’t offer the control offered by the noise reduction options in photo-editing software. Here we walk you through the sliders available in Lightroom, and what happens when you take each setting to the extreme on a raw file.LuminanceLuminance noise reduction needs to be used with care as, taken too far, it smears fine detail as well as the salt-and-pepper ‘grain’. You’ll need to view the image at 100% magnification to monitor the strength.Luminance DetailThe Detail slider sets the threshold for what Lightroom identifies as luminance noise. Higher settings reveal more detail – such as in the eyes on the right – at the expense of some lingering noise.Luminance ContrastA lower Contrast setting gives softer…