Experts advise how to use that brand-new digital camera
By RICHARD ECKE Tribune Staff Writer
Cynthia Nikolai loves the digital camera she got for Christmas back home in Maryland.
"I'm on my second memory stick," says Nikolai, a captain and missilier at Malmstrom Air Force Base." A memory stick is a tiny device, similar to a memory card, used to store photographs.
Nikolai already has shot five dozen photos with her Canon PowerShot and doesn't need to worry about film or processing costs.
"I think it's my best Christmas gift," the 26-year-old said. Millions of people worldwide received digital cameras as gifts or bought their own in 2004. Consumers worldwide were expected to buy $24 billion worth of digital cameras and accessories last year, according to estimates by the Massachusetts-based market research and consulting firm InfoTrends/CAP Ventures.
Brandi Campbell of Great Falls has had little trouble snapping photos with the Nikon Coolpix camera she received for Christmas.
"It was fairly easy," said the 19-year-old, who also has begun printing photographs on her printer at home. But some photographers may find digital cameras trickier to use than 35 mm film cameras, said Kris Steichen, a business equipment specialist who works with Campbell at the Staples office supply store in Great Falls.
"They come in thinking it's going to be as easy to use as a 35," Steichen said. But people making the switch to digital are likely to find a long list of options to choose from. Lower-end cameras tend to rely more strictly on menus users must scroll through, while those over $250 tend to have more handy exterior buttons for adjusting settings, he said. "You get what you pay for," he said.
Do-it-yourself printing is fun and appealing, said John Godwin, owner of Photo Plus, a photo printing and portrait photography business in Great Falls.
"You can print your pictures in your PJs," he said. But Godwin said some hobbyists get tired of spending time and money tweaking and printing their own photos.
"Eventually people kind of say, 'I'm spending a lot of money on ink,'" Godwin said. Those people may return to the photo finishing store to get commercial prints, both for convenience and cost savings. Prints also are available from online companies.
In any case, digital camera users first must attend to the basics: Read your owner's manual to figure out the details of your camera.Be sure your camera battery is fully charged before you use it the first time. Figure out how to recharge the battery and whether you'll need any spares. Some cameras use a recharging cord; others have a camera dock or cradle that both recharges the battery and connects the camera to a computer for downloading photos.
Not buying film is a clear advantage to the digital approach. Film photographers often waited for just the right moment to shoot to avoid wasting film. Now, there's almost no limit to how many photos you can take at a single sitting or event. A 256-megabyte memory card can hold 128 photos at 2 megabytes each.
Not that 35 mm film cameras are totally gone. Public Camera Shop downtown, which has long had experienced photographers as customers, still sells 35 mm film cameras as well as digital ones.
Cheaper digital cameras still lack some of the advantages traditional film cameras have had — interchangeable lenses, motor drives, separate flash attachments. With less expensive digital cameras, you're stuck with the zoom lens that comes permanently attached to the camera.
But hobbyists and professionals can buy camera bodies that hold fine lenses for top cameras such as Nikon and Olympus; prices for a camera body alone have fallen as low as $1,000. With prices down and variety up, many pros have gone digital as well.
Some digital camera users are disappointed in a time delay between depressing the camera shutter and the photo being taken. That delay is the "time it takes for the image to be stored," Steichen explained.
It can cause problems for photographers, "especially for action shots, sporting events, or animals (that) do not stand still," he said.
One solution is a "burst" mode, allowing the photographer to take four photos in rapid succession to capture fast action.
High-end digital cameras for professionals and hobbyists have virtually eliminated the delay. Even with a better digital camera, there is no guarantee your photos will be great, said Scott Fairbanks, owner of Scott Photography in Great Falls.
"You need to learn the limitations of your camera," he said. Camera companies may boast that photos will be brilliant if taken with their camera, but take that with a grain of salt.
For top-quality photographs, call a professional, Fairbanks said. |