Digital Photography Class 1

First class of the new academic year - its been a while! Summer, what little we had is an after thought now, and the dark nights are drawing in on us, pretty fast.

Nevertheless we have our new round of classes to look forward to, and tonight's new group seem very enthusiastic. As with all of my new classes, tonight's session was the standard introduction type of class, where I started off by introducing myself, and telling the group a little bit about myself, and then assisted with a PowerPoint presentation I then got the group to introduce themselves, asking them to tell me about their computer and camera experience.

The main difference with this course compared to previous years, is that this year the course is accredited. This means the students will come away with a proper education qualification and a nice certificate. Full details on the accreditation process and the organisation can be found at

After the introductory session, we continued the presentation which guided the students through the agenda for the next ten weeks. Then we moved on to the evenings topic, which was the basic functions of a digital camera. Examining the basic functions such as Flash, Macro, Timer and White Balance.

Flash mode is vital to know how and when to use, and most cameras these days have settings for Automatic, where the computer in the camera determines when the use is required, No Flash, where the Flash is disabled, and Always on, where for every picture you take, the flash will be fired. The final option that most cameras have is Red Eye Reduction. For a full account on exactly what "Red Eye" go to this address:

Macro Mode. A setting on a digital camera that enables users to focus on subjects close to the camera lens. Macro mode is commonly used to photographing flowers, insects and other small items that you want a close-up view of. The distance you can shoot in macro mode from will differ between cameras. Some may be able to focus when the lens is less than an inch away from the subject, while others may be an inch or further.

Timer function on the camera, basically allows you to stabalise the camera on a tripod, and then run in front of the camera and join a group photo. There are usually two lengths of time you have to choose from. My camera, a Canon SX30is has 10 seconds and 2 seconds. Obviously depending on what you are photographing, and how fast you can run, determines which you need. However 2 second mode is ideal for macro work using a tripod where no camera shake it required, even from pressing the shutter button.

The last setting we looked at was White Balance. White balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. Proper camera white balance has to take into account the "colour temperature" of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light. Our eyes are very good at judging what is white under different light sources, but digital cameras often have great difficulty with auto white balance (AWB) — and can create unsightly blue, orange, or even green colour casts. Understanding digital white balance can help you avoid these color casts, thereby improving your photos under a wider range of lighting conditions. On most camera you can alter this on a sliding scale from +2 to -2.

Join us next week for more fun!