Better Holiday Photos

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pushstop.com/archives/2005/12/better_holiday.php' target='_blank'>http://www.pushstop.com/archives/2005/12/better_holiday.php</a><br /><br /></div><i>"It’s that time of year again, when relatives take way more pictures than you can stand, brothers and sisters jump into the frame at the last second, and the little ones give reindeer (or bunny) ears during family portrait time. With the age of digital media, everybody and their pet monkey has a digital camera, but not all of them know how to take good pictures. So, I will share some picture taking tips with you to make your holiday photos more exciting."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/thirds.jpg" /><br /><br />The tips are coming just a little bit off-season, though it serves one good purpose - it will remind those of you who still have their photos sitting on your memory cards to finally get them off and share them with your family (something I am guilty of, always). :) Either way, a good short guide to improving your holiday images.

[Vincent Ferrari]

For the record, my pet monkey shoots film. :lol:

[sundown]

Good points and right after posting this I'm gonna send out some pics that are hibernating on my G drive.

Some cameras provide a feature that shows the guide brackets on your lcd screen. I think mine does but for the life of me I can't find it.

[Damion Chaplin]

Some good simple tips.

I think it's interesting though that he mentions the rule of thirds, but not focus-and-then-frame. Seems like that's an essential part to making the rule of thirds work. For example, in the above picture, if I had aimed my camera the way the photo is framed, it would have been a 50-50 chance whether it would focus on her left cheek or on the trees behind her. The obvious trick (and the one not mentioned) is to center the face in the frame, push halfway down on the shutter button so the camera's auto focus focuses on the face, then move the camera and apply the rule of thirds and shoot. That makes sure that even though your subject is not centered, it's still in focus...

Of course, that only works if you're relying on your autofocus (I'm guessing most of us do).