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Taking Good Pictures
When choosing a camera, get one that does everything by itself and fits into your cycling jersey pocket. Wide-angle lenses are best. Don't bother with replaceable lenses, no matter of how you feel about point-and-shoot cameras.Make sure you have a spare battery. I use a Pentax Optio series camera. This is a digital camera which is waterproof. I use in my bike, when fly fishing and when hiking. I can not tell you how many cameras I have trashed by getting them just a little wet. You'll enjoy the pictures only if you take some care composing them. It is impossible to take a picture of a landscape panorama, for example - all you'll get is a picture that is divided into a blue and a green half with some indiscernible tiny detail at the boundary. I decided some time back to, after taking thousands of scenery shots and never looking at them, to only take pictures with those I know in them. Ok, maybe an occasional stranger who was worth it for some reason. Here are some rules I use: Don't make postcard pictures. The pictures should help to remember the trip, not impress your friends. Prefer pictures of things of personal significance. A picture of your hotel room will prove more valuable than one of the Eiffel tower. Make sure any picture has both foreground and background. The foreground element should have an identifiable size to give a reference point - a person or bicycle will do, perhaps plus a tree or street light. There should be an element that connects foreground and background to give a sense of perspective and depth. A road or the edge of a forest works fine. There should be a focus element in the center of the picture. If there are two interesting elements make two pictures instead of combining them into one with a big void in the center. Choose a point of view when the sun is to one side, not behind or in front of you (unless you want to make an effects shot); the shadows give structure to flat surfaces. If the scene has some very bright spots, point the camera to an evenly lighted area and let it do its light measurement there. Most cameras do the measurement when the button is pushed halfway in and takes the picture when it is pushed all the way in. Otherwise the picture will be all dark and mushy except for the bright spot. If you insist on using an old-fashioned chemical camera, the lab will mercilessly overexpose dark pictures to reach an average light level. It's extremely hard to make a picture that shows the steepness of the road you are on. Don't even try to point the camera down or up to show the incline; keep the view axis horizontal. I have replaced my old chemical camera with a digital still camera (Pentax Optio W20. The choice between chemical and digital is not one of storage medium. The digital camera is a completely different device because it encourages taking snapshots at any opportunity. I now take at least five to ten times as many pictures because they are so wonderfully easy to take, review, delete, store, and process. No more guesswork, waiting for prints, extra expense for additional prints, and stacks of paper printouts. Bring one to a party and everybody starts posing and having fun. Digital cameras are a true revelation. Professional photographers, and aspiring amateurs, will tell you that point-and-shoot chemical cameras and digital cameras cannot take serious pictures. This may be true if you are a professional photographer but it is nonsense for people like me who want to take high-quality snapshots with little preparation and posing. Take my advice: do not use a professional, adjust-everything-manually camera if you just want to take snapshots. My Pentax does have manual modes but much of the time I just want to whip out the camera, take a picture, and ride/walk on. In such a situation your pictures will be worse with manual adjustment unless you are a whole lot more meticulous and willing to spend much time to prepare each shot and adjust the camera than I am. If you want to get good pictures, get a digital camera with a good and not too small lens! I am serious. You can still make mistakes with a digital camera, of course, but at least you'll see your mistake immediately, and once taken a digital picture never degrades or gets scratched. Content by Thomas Driemeyer, www.bitrot.de
Edited by Reg Gupton, gupton@growthseminars.com
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