Most of the columns I have written for the State Port Pilot have concerned PC or software problems related or unique to our area. But I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about something that I find really interesting - digital photography. If you have wondered about digital photography, now is the time to get into it. Let me show you why.
It has taken a while for the hobby to mature. This is primarily due to the perception that digital photos are "grainier" or less detailed than regular photos (in the business, we call this low resolution). This is still true, but the question is "How much resolution do I need"? The answer varies with your requirements, but popularly priced digital cameras now offer 2 to 3 megapixel (million picture element) pictures, which are sufficient for almost any practical use except very large enlargements.
Another roadblock for digital photography was that printers (and printer paper) were not available which would print photos that looked like regular film photos. This too has changed - there are a number of under-$300 ink jet printers which print fantastic looking photos, along with handling normal PC printer chores. Heavy stock paper is also now available. But printing the photos is almost an afterthought - the primary medium of expression is online. You can send photos in e-mail, put them on your personal webpage, or post photos on digital photography websites such as www.photopoint.com or Yahoo photos.
But the primary benefit of digital cameras is - TaDa - no film! The pictures are stored and manipulated in your PC. This lets you have a digital darkroom right in your own home. You can enhance pictures in many ways - both realistic and artistic. Good software to do this comes packaged with the camera, but there are better programs on the market at relatively inexpensive prices.
Since I have relocated down here to the Southport area, I have resumed the photography hobby that I had as a kid. Most of my work is done along the Oak Island beachfront, or in the interior of the island along Davis Creek. The advantage of the digital camera is that I can grab it at a moment’s notice - the batteries are always charged and ready and no need to run to the store for film. Since there is no developing (and no developing cost), I can shoot dozens of pictures, take them home, and instantly select the best ones.
A couple of tips for shooting natural scenes: I always enhance the "saturation" of the photo - beach shots taken during bright sun tend to be a bit washed out. Increasing the saturation is not like adding contrast - it actually adds more color to the photo. Also, don’t waste a lot of time "composing" the image in the viewfinder - this is a relic from the old 35mm days; rather, take a wider image and use the cropping facilities of your photo editing software to get just the picture you want.
One final word: I have received several calls from people who have lost all the pictures on the camera picture storage (memory card or floppy disk) because they removed it from the camera before the camera was finished writing the photos. Modern digital cameras can shoot a number of pictures quickly, storing them in internal high-speed memory. The camera then writes the images to the slower removable memory when it can - sometimes this can take minutes. Even if you shut off the camera, it still may be writing. My Kodak camera has an LED that blinks when the memory is in use - if you remove the memory before it is finished, you will lose all your photos. Read your user’s manual on this subject!
To see some of my Oak Island photos, see www.bobseidel.com/digphoto/gallery.html or look up bob@bobseidel.com on www.photopoint.com - hope you like them! (Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).