Whoa! Another Good Point!
We can thank Pikabike for pointing this out first, but that was a long time ago. Your photos will be much better on average if you keep portions of your boat out of the scene the majority of the time. Don’t make EVERY shot include the bow of your boat. When you are admiring something from your boat, you are not concentrating on seeing your boat too, so when you take a picture of something from the water, do what your brain already does and leave the boat out of the picture. This is one of the best pieces of advice yet.
I did think of that quote by Adams
…when I wrote that…but your memory was better than mine!
Early morning
Or late afternoon will give the best times of day to get photographs without needing filters. Soft light, great shadows, for effect, if you want them. Definitely the best light of the day. I’ve not found any filters that will work with a point and shoot camera.
I still shoot film with Nikon F100. I’m old school. For all but professionals who need to deliver a top product to a client on time schedule I consider photo workshop a crutch, not a tool. It corrects mistakes made in the field and hampers a proper photographic learning curve. The attitude “We’ll just fix it with the computer” prevails. OK, it makes life easy. But easy isn’t always better. Learning how to get the shot you want or need using just the camera is becoming a lost art.
Now yer talkin’, Pilgrim…
– Last Updated: Apr-07-09 3:01 PM EST –
Kodachrome 64, Tri-X, Nikon F2AS, F3, FM2, AI Nikkors... any day over bits an' bytes.
FE
Depends on how ugly the boat is
MW has a nice reflective deck that looks great in photos. And sometimes the bow adds to the shot, but in general it is overdone and at worst confusing or distracting from the real subject.
Biggest giveaway that you are a newbie is that the subject is always dead center in every frame. Horizon line is dead center in every landscape shot. And finally, everything is taken from eye level.
Getting a handle on composition and lighting are basic, then learning to control your camera to correct for it’s automatic exposure modes.
And when the opportunity allows, stop and think about a shot for a minute or two before pressing the shutter. Digital is making that a lost art.
jim
scenery with pos
– Last Updated: Apr-08-09 6:43 AM EST –
This me seem elementary but I haven't read anybody else describe this like this yet .
I take a lot of pictures with a cheap point and shoot camera. The latest is a Canon sx-100. 8mp. 10x optical zoom. Great little camera with obvious flaws but it works fine for what I want. Pelican 1150 case.
After taking way too many ho-hum scenery shots I started messing with exposure. The auto focus is your friend. It is pretty easy to point your camera towards a low light area near your subject and push the shutter button halfway to get the camera to change it's settings automatically then point the camera back at your subject and shoot. Or point the camera towards the areas of more light. Do this a bunch of times and note the changes on the display. The slightest change in direction of the lens can make very significant changes in the picture you end up with. Take ten pictures of a sunrise starting with the sun all the way at the top of your display and ending at the bottom. Somewhere in there will be variety of auto exposures. The seemingly minuscule differences are what can make a ho-hum picture a keeper.
The rule of thirds is huge. Do not try to center your subject.
Keep your camera on it's highest settings. If you start with a blurry picture you can only enhance it to a zoomed in blurry picture. You can crop your picture into something if you have a good image to start with.
I don't have the patience or knowledge to use manual settings when the camera will do a lot of that automatically. I just take ten bazillion different pictures using different exposures and hope a few of them are pleasing. It costs nothing more to have 2 pictures on a card or 200. My ratio of pictures taken to picture kept is probably 100 to 3. 1 gig cards are cheap. I bring three with me in the pelican case.
http://picasaweb.google.com/scottb03109
A very good Point-n-Shoot attribute -
— is that they get USED!
Lots of pix counts! You have some good ones there. Thanks!
…and it makes me want to paddle Moab. (I’ve hiked the turf, now for the water…)
Solved THAT problem -
A kayak bow in an otherwise fine picture CAN be both distracting AND confusing.
I solved that problem by buying a conoe.
nyuk nyuk.
Two Very Simple Tips…
…if they haven’t already been mentioned.
Horizons - make sure they’re level, either when shooting or when processing. I consistently shoot about 2 degrees down on the right with my Optio WPi…correcting that improves the image no end. Picasa has an easy-to-use straightening feature that has a grid and also autocrops…very tidy way to do the job…
Use the old Rule of Thirds. Imagine the viewfinder bisected by four lines; two spaced 1/3 and 2/3 the way across the horizontal, and two 1/3 and 2/3 on the vertical. Try to place an important element on one of those four points where the lines intersect, instead of centre screen…worked for the Old Masters, didn’t it???