Quick Tips for taking Photographs with a Compact Camera

Getting a good image does not always happen in one shot and can take quite a few tries but thankfully in the age of digital camera's we can take enless photo's without having to think about how much film we are using.

I use a compact camera, firstly because it is much cheaper, simpler to use and much easier to carry than a SLR but I do apprecitate that SLR's take much better photographs if you know how to use it but then again you can still get some pretty good shots with your compact camera if you use the right settings and treat it well.

Things you will want to consider to get better pictures with your compact camera so that you don't need to delete too many are:

• Get to know your camera
• Have a play around in the main menu to see what options are avaliable to you when using your camera
• Most if not all modern cameras come with multiple photograph settings (these are called apeture settings) such as landscape, portrait, party and macro/ flower options etc. These settings are optimised for how far away you are from that object and for the light which is avalible to you in these situations. Though you always have the 'general all situations use' photo setting as a back up it is never going to be as good for photos such as close up images as it is more likely to result in blurry images.
• Most cameras also come with options with how much information is displayed on your screen as you are looking at it to take a photo. Turn it on. Sure you might not know what all those values mean right now but you will slowly start to recognise what some do after a while and you can start to manpulate other functions such as exposure.
• Natural light is your friend
• Though the vast majority of camera come with a flash which comes in handy for gloomy days indoors or at night it is not always your friend. If you have the opporunity to, change the settings so that the 'force the flash off' option is in use and open your curtains/blinds, go near a window or take the object that you want to take a photo of outside if it is still too gloomy indoors. I find it very useful to use the natural light that I find next to a window at home for close ups for my Can We Do It??? Yes We Can!!! photos (a thread on the Beauty Heaven website). 
• Remember with this is that the light is hitting the subject therefore the camera is between the object and the light source.
• Using flash in your images especially with people can often make them look washed out if it is not dull enough for the use of the flash function
• Also remember that flash is sometimes necessary so remember how you turned it off!
• Digital zoom is useless
• Though great things can be said for optical zoom with making far away objects seem much closer that what they are, I do not same the same for digital zoom. Turn it off if you can. 
• Optical zoom enlarges the photo using the cameras lenses therefore is like a magnifying glass and the quailty of the image is very good.
• Digital zoom enlarges the photo by using inbuilt software, this can often lead to a huge loss of image quality and it is better just getting as close as you can in optical zoom then cropping them once you have loaded the photos onto your compter as cropping does not impact on the image quality so therefore:
• Cropping of photographs in Photoshop/Picasa/Windows Picture Manager is your friend if you want to focus on something small/far away.
•  Tripods are great
• Well not really, they are bulky and very limiting to what angle you take photograph from, but the concept is the same, try to keep your hand as steady as you can.
• This is espically important in photos with low light where you can't use a flash such as a city skyline at night/dim light and in some macro photos where the exposure is going to be longer and therefore your camera will need to be dead still for longer.
• When taking photos try not to let your hands get too far away from your body, if you can keeping your elbows tucked into your sides may help reduce the wobble factor with your hands
• Lean one of or both of your hands holding the camera on the back of a chair/table top/ wall to help reduce shaking.
• When you press down on the shoot button there are two clicks
• When you press down to the first stop, your camera is focusing itself for the photo. Pause here and have a look at the screen, some green boxes may appear, this is what your camera is focusing on and what will look the best in your photos. If you don't want the focus of your photo to be what is in those boxes depress the button and have another go. 
• Still no luck? Maybe if you are taking a close up picture you may need to move away from your target by a couple of mm/cm as  you might be too close for your camera's capabilities
• Utlise Photo Manipulation Software
• No matter how hard you try sometimes your photos are good but are still not right whether they are too dark, too far away or the colours undertones are too warm then go and use some photo editing software rather than letting it sit.
• At the moment I am using Picasa on my laptop and Photoshop on the desktop to edit photos. Though photoshop has soooo.... many fabulous options Picasa is enough for a little fix up. Picasa is also relatively more simple and is free to download/use.
• Just like with your camera settings, rather than reading a boring manual it is better to have a duplicate of photo your would like to edit opened in Picasa and spend a couple of hours playing around in it as that is the best way to learn all the functions that are useful to you. My favourite simple editing options are:
• Crop
• Fill Light
• Highlights
• Shadows
• Soft focus

Did any of these tips help you?
What tips would you give to anyone asking you how to get better photographs?