Getting Started with Your New Digital Camera

Digital cameras are one of the true marvels of our technological times. They let you preview pictures right after shooting them.  You can drop digital photos in an e-mail and quickly share them with friends and family. You don’t need to print botched photos, only the ones you like.

The caveat is that, like most technology, there’s a learning curve. So here are six things you’ll want to do to avoid possible frustration when it's time to take pictures.

1. Play with the buttons. Your camera is likely adorned with dials and buttons and an LCD screen where you navigate through various menus. Don’t let all these doodads intimidate you. Drag out your camera’s user guide and spend an evening testing out how everything works. Focus on learning how to change settings for resolution (image quality), the flash, the self-timer and other commonly used features. If you’re worried that you might mess everything up, don’t. On most camera menus you can navigate to a place where you restore everything to the default settings — the condition of the camera when you pulled it out of the box.
2. Fortify your battery supply. Some cameras come with a special lithium-ion battery and charger to recharge it. Order a second battery just like the first and keep it charged so that you always have a spare power supply ready. Also consider getting a 12-volt car charger so you can charge your batteries on the road. If your camera uses standard AA batteries, buy extra sets of rechargeable nickel-metal hydride batteries and keep them charged and handy. If you find your camera is a power hog, there are ways to help conserve power. For instance, if it has an optical viewfinder, you can preserve battery life by shooting with the LCD screen turned off.
3. Get more memory. Digital cameras store pictures on a media (or memory) card, a small chip that you can easily insert into and remove from your camera. New cameras typically come with small media cards that don't hold many photos. Figure out what kind of media card your camera uses and then upgrade to a 1 gigabyte card. Having a second 1 GB backup card available in your camera case is also a good idea.
4. Connect your camera to your PC. Getting your photos onto your computer is half the fun of having a digital camera. From your computer, you can edit and e-mail photos as well as store and organize them. Don't wait until you return from your vacation to Fiji to figure out how to transfer your image files from your camera to your PC (usually via the cable that comes with your camera). When you connect your camera to a Windows Vista or Mac computer, the machine will typically "recognize" the camera and automatically walk you through the steps to save your photos.
5. Buy a tripod. Even recreational photographers will benefit from a tripod, a camera stand that holds the camera still and steady for sharper images. Consider adding a small table-top model to your camera bag for occasions when you want to include yourself in a group shot, or when there’s too little light to get a crisp hand-held shot.
6. Go to school. If digital photography is new or mysterious to you, find a class, book or Web site that teaches the basic terms and concepts.  For instance, it really helps to understand stuff such as pixels (the smallest part of a digital image), resolution (the number of pixels in an image), ISO settings (a measure of light sensitivity) and white balance (an adjustment to render neutral colors correctly).

Finally, if you want your new camera to produce good pictures, work at becoming a good photographer. Digital photography is no different than any other type of photography when it comes to capturing the subject. A little attention to composition, lighting and foreground and background can make a huge difference in how your images turn out.