Find out more tips on Photography
In order to be a photographer, you must be able to make decisions, not simply point a camera and press a button. Photography can be an important activity as it can help people, adults and children, understand what the media projects every day. Besides that, it is a good hobby, and photography can help people understand the world around them, especially through someone else's eyes. It is a great way to bring together a community project as well.
One has to be very careful when handling a camera, otherwise you can leave fingerprints on the opics of it. The problem with fingerprints on the optics is that your pictures won't turn out as clear in some parts as they could. In order for peak performance, and clear pictures, make sure you clean your camera all over reguarly with the right cloth and solution. Not all cleaning products work on the optics, such as tissue paper, fingers, saliva, or household cleaning solutions. Only use what you can get at a camera store.
Understanding how your camera focuses will help you get better pictures. Just about all digital cameras these days have autofocus with two-step shutter release. In dark lighting, you will notice that when you press the button halfway down, a red light appears for a moment, but not in areas that are lighter. Then, when you press the button down fully, there is a flash. When you hold down the button halfway, that focuses the image, and when you depress it fully, the camera takes the focused image. If you want the subject of your photograph not to be in the center but still focused, first center them in the middle of the picture and focus the frame by pressing down halfway. Without removing your finger, reframe the picture with your subject in the right position, and take the picture. Your subject will still be focused.
When you look at a picture where there are objects in the foreground and in the background, you may notice that, besides your main subject, some objects in front of your main subject and going all the way back to behind your main subject are also in focus. This "zone of sharpness" is called the depth of field. The depth of field is dependent on the aperture you are using, the focusing distance, and the size of the projected image. The depth of field decreases as you open up the lens, i.e. as you move to a larger aperture. It decreases as you move closer to your subject. And, at a fixed image size, the depth of field is the same irrespective of the focal length used. You would want to use a shallow depth of field to isolate your main subject from its surroundings, as in a portrait. You can accomplish that by moving in close, by zooming in (again, because it makes the background appear larger and more out of focus) and/or by using a large aperture.
Pictures don't just come out looking right. If you look at some of the pictures you especially like, you will notice that the way the picture was composed probably has a lot to do with it. What we mean by composition is how you place your subject(s) on the blank canvas that's your 4x6. If you mentally divide your screen into three horizontal and three vertical sections, where the lines intersect are focal points. Focal points are what the eyes naturally seek out when they look at a photograph. It therefore stands to reason that a focal point is a good place to position our main subject. It's not a hard and fast rule, so don't go bonkers trying to place your subject right at a focal point.
Landscapes are the opposite end of portraits in the sense that you mostly want all the picture to be in focus. To achieve this effect, use as small a f/stop as your camera allows, say f/16. The smaller the f/stop, the greater the depth of field achieved, and objects near and far will be in focus (again, with consumer digital cameras and the short focal lengths of their lenses, good depth of field is achieved even with 'large' f/stop). You could use the Law of Thirds to capture 1/3 land and 2/3 sky, or the other way round, 2/3 land and 1/3 sky. You would surely want to use a wide-angle lens setting. Adding a foreground object might help achieve a sense of three dimensionality. If water is involved, a slow shutter speed will give the impression of flowing water. If the sea is involved, a polarizing filter will cut glare and give the 'transparent' water effect.
A tripod is a good investment in photography, especially if you want to take panoramic pictures. You'll have to set your tripod in a place where you can swivel the camera smoothly from left to right, and not up and down. You will have to figure out where you want your pictures to overlap, so that you don't have huge gaps in your resulting picture. Once you figure that out, you can swivel your camera in one direction, clockwise or counterclockwise, to take the pictures you want. Once you're done, all you have to do is put them together with a simple graphics program or photo-editing software.