Having Fun With My Digital Camera...

Digital cameras have made it so much easier to take photos. Also you don’t have to print them all out just to see how they look. You can download them to your computer and see how they turned out.

My first digital camera was a 1.3 megapixel Vivatar which did not take all that good of a quality of picture. Then I was given a Canon EOS 10D with 6.3 megapixel and I kind of went a little crazy taking photos. I now have over 57,000 taken or is it 58,000? Which ever it is I seem to have taken a few more than most around me.

I find that with the digital camera I take more than one shot of everything. One photo can be out of focus so I take several photos so I can choose between them for the best photo.

 Included with this you will find thirty six photos of my granddaughter playing in her Aunt and Uncle’s pool at her cousin’s birthday party. These photos were taken July 15, 2007 at my youngest grandson’s fourth birthday party; my granddaughter was one month from being five at the time. I started taking her photo as she slid down the slide splashing into the water. I finished with over one hundred and thirty photos.

Not having to reload film into the camera and being able to snap one after another without worrying about wasting film I took them as fast as she could climb out of the pool and slide down again splashing the water and laughing. Sure some were out of focus but then some of those were even good enough to not delete. Not that I delete most of what I take since I figure sooner or later I may find something to do with that one photo I didn’t like as much as the others.

By being able to take photos in a sequence like those you see here it tells a story of her having fun holding her nose as she slid down into the water and her making big splashes of water. I captured her mid way down the slide as well as at the top and just entering the water. She was so fast I had trouble just keeping up with her and all I was doing was taking the photos not jumping in the pool with her. Whew! She made me tired just watching her playing.

I know thirty six is a bit more than most would post, hey this is my granddaughter what is a grandpa supposed to do? I don’t think posting all of them would be right but I didn’t now did I? I don’t even know if you could add over a hundred to a post/article. Wonder if you could?

I’ve been taking photo for so long I don’t even think about the technical side of it I just take them. I learned on a 35mm film camera, a Yashica J-7. For years all I took was black and white photos, mostly because I could save money with the developing and printing. It cost more then to develop and print color. Now it costs more to develop and print black and white the last time I check. I would buy my B/W film in bulk rolls and roll my own cassettes. Then develop the negatives and prints in my own bathroom/darkroom.

You learn a lot about composition taking B/W photos. It is nothing like taking color photos. Try converting some of you color photos into B/W. If the composition is not all that good it shows much more so in B/W than in a color photo. Also in printing B/W the contrast has a lot to do with how the final result comes out and how it looks.

I love digital cameras and what you can do with them. But it is what you can do with the photos after you take them then down load them into a computer that he fun for me really starts. I open them in Photoshop and correct the exposure or contrast or even the color can be corrected using it. Also you can create some very different looks with the photos with plugins within Photoshop. I love playing with my photos and seeing what they will look like after applying the different plugins within PS. I can achieve results faster than I used to drawing and painting from them on canvas or watercolor pad.

I find with the digital SLR camera I can do just as much as I ever could with a film camera and actually more since I can take from 300 to over 500 photos on one Flash Card. Also with being able to down load the photos directly to my computer from the card I do not have to take them to a commercial printer unless I want to print out in a format I can’t do from home. I can print from 4”x6” to 24”wide and up to 50’ long since I have a large format printer. I realize most people do not have such a large printer but now with the prices being what they are it is more affordable to have a large format printer than in years past.

All I can say is have fun with you camera whether it is digital or film. I sure do.