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Begin an adventure with a digital camera.

3. Automatic applications

2006-12-10

In case of using the automatic applications we have to be aware they aren't perfect. Usually they activate when we press a shutter button to the half. Then the environment conditions are checked. If the conditions are hard to recognize by the software it may set such parameters that are wrong.

The camera can set a wrong focal point - in a different place we expected. To avoid it we should frame the photo in order to have the contours be seen in the lens (the horizontal lines are the best) and at least few colours varying from each other.
In every case we should press the shutter button before taking a photo and let the camera to estimate the conditions and set the right parameters to take the photo.

The photographing of the homogeneous colour e.g. a snow also can be troublesome. To be plain it's too white for the camera (it will change the parameters) and finally the snow will be grey on the photo as like it was dirty. Here I won't explain why it happens. Such a photo is not interesting. If the camera contain the shooting mode "snow" (it can be named differently in various camera or it can be depict as an icon) you should choose this mode. Then the camera will "know" we want to take the picture at a snow and it set the right parameters.
The other solution is to switch to the semi-automatic mode (most often signed as "P") and correcting the exposure EV for higher value (even by 1 EV to 2 EV). Each camera needs a different correction, so it's worthy to test it before (when it will be a snow) if we want to correct the exposure to have a white snow during a photo session.

NOTICE: If we change the EV too high we will lose the shadows and the snow will be boring white stain on the photo! Unfortunately not every camera have this function in the semi-automatic mode. Get to know with the instruction.

If we don't have the white balance mode - "snow" and there's no ability to correct the exposure manually we can try to correct it on the computer graphic program. Very good graphic program is Photoshop, but unfortunately it's also very expensive. Alternatively we can use e.g. freeware Gimp, which contain a lot of similar functions as Photoshop. You can only check whether the software attached to the camera allows to correct the quality of the photos.

When we press the shutter button to the half and the parameters will be set correctly we should see the right information (green light, green point on the screen - different solutions in every camera model). When we take a photo when the camera inform us that the parameters are set wrongly practically means the photos will be of a bad quality.
We won't see information in case of snow pictures, which will be too dark for us, because this effect is intended by the camera software. We won't see information in case of snow pictures, which will be too dark for us, because this effect is intended by the camera software.
Not before holding the shutter button for a while (what allows to set the parameters) we push it completely and we take a photo. In case of pressing it completely without earlier interruption many cameras take the photos with incorrect parameters. If we press it earlier to the half we can check whether the camera has a difficulties with parameters set. If it inform us incorrect set of parameters we should try again with a softly changed frame. Such a behaviour extend the time of photographing but the quality of the photos are better.

If we have various applications is worthy to use them, because they set the most accurate parameters.

Always you should remember that the automatic application may not works correctly in a hard conditions.