Morning walk in the trees

Morning walk in the trees by ~mtarantola on deviantART

From the start to the end (1 of 3)

Let’s start from a description of the whole scenario of digital photography, starting from the initial idea and finishing with the presentation of your work.
In the next paragraph I’ll provide a rapid overview of the digital photography workflow; in the future I’ll cover the sigle steps in detail.

- Concept
For the first step you don’t need your camera, because it’s about finding something intersting to shot.
In this step it’s really important to focus on your subject instead of the technical side of the photo.
You have to analyze your subject, asking yourself questions like:
Why I want to shot it ?
Why the subject is intersting ?
What are the most important details of the subject
In which light condition the subject looks best ?

- Shoot
After the analysis you are ready to take your camera and start shooting photographs.
Take advantage of the peculiarity of the digital photography, shooting many photos and checking in your LCD the result before the next shot.
Fully explore your subject, moving around it, changing the focal, concentrating on different details and trying different approach.
It’s really important to forget the theory in this phase: it’s time to have fun and do your best.
One hundred photos are a good target for a digital photo session.

- Archive
After the shooting phase you have to download your photo in your PC, organizing properly your archive.
I prefere to not use the software normally included in your camera package with this purpose, and just make a copy of all the images from the camera in a folder of my PC.
For example, I have a folder named “2006”, with subfolders for each month and special occasion.
Don’t forget to do some backup, on CD or DVD, on a regular basis.

(continue)

A distant ship

A distant ship by ~mtarantola on deviantART

How to choose a digital camera

Unlike in the traditional photography, you DON’T have to buy an expensive SLR to start your digital photography evolution.
Using film, the SLR have few essential properties you really need:
- you can check composition in the viewfinder
- you can use different lens
- you can control every shot parameter
These properties are easy to find in the digital world, because the LCD shows you the composition going through the lens and the zoom available on digital cameras works in almost every situation.
Comparing with the SLR, you can have just a couple of problem using non-SLR cameras:
- you can’t use manual focus, because LCD are not good enough
- you can’t have zoom with really good wide angle, because of the reduced size of the CCD

What do you have to look for ?
Here’s my personal list:
- good usability and little weight
- CCD of more than 4 Megapixel
- optical zoom at least 10X (something like 35mm/300mm equivalent on a standard 35mm)
- short shutter lag
- sensitivity 1600ISO equivalent
- capability to use additional standard filters
- standard battery
- standard storage card
For me a Fuji Finepix S5600 Zoom has been a perfect choice, but you have to find something good for your particular style.
Probably with less than 300 euro you will find the right camera and you will able to start.

Startup !

OK, after spending long time thinking about it, I finally decided to start this new project.
The idea is to talk about my little studies about digital photography, what I learned, what I like, tecnology and techniques.
I hope this will help to develop my skill and also interest someone else.

Excuse me for my poor english (I'm italian...), and welcome aboard.