You don’t really need a fancy DSLR or need to spend more on a higher spec digital camera, just to whet the appetite for good pictures. Rather than focusing on just the hardware, you may need to change how you take the pictures. Slightly changing the style, and working around some elements will greatly enhance the quality of the images you can take.

These five tips hold true on whether you are using a humble little digital camera, a full-fledged DSLR or even a smartphone.

Keep the sun behind you
When you are clicking a pic, always try to keep the sun behind you, and not the subject. If the sunlight is approaching from the front, you run the risk of underexposing the subject. If in fact you are shooting indoors, do not shoot looking towards a window. Try keeping the window behind you, and turn on the lights to balance the natural light across the room.

Tweak the settings
Be aware of the settings/configs you can do on the camera/smartphone. The most crucial of these is the ISO setting. If you are shooting outdoors in bright light, keep the ISO as low as possible that allows for crispy images. When indoors, and in other low light conditions, bump up the ISO to capture the scene without everything being all dark and invisible. Some cameras have buttons allowing for quick setting changes.

Not only ISO settings, you should also tinker with the image size, scene settings, and even the harmless sounding settings that manage colour depth and sharpness. Some cameras also have aperture settings and allow you to tinker with the shutter speed. Making changes to these can result in both types of changes – for the better or for the much worse! Tinker with the settings, and take some test shots. Compare them and see which one is the best. Different cameras will differ in the final quality at different settings. 

Walk up to the subjects,
Rather than using digital zoom (unless you have optical zoom compatible hardware), try walking as close as possible to the subject. Digital zoom essentially cuts out a part of the image near the centre, and blows that up. The resultant image isn’t very wide, and isn’t as sharp as the original un-zoomed image would have been.

While the zoom illusion works, it will result in noisy images. It is better to be as close to the subject, and use as little of zoom as possible (none would be the best) for the crispest and widest images. Remember, when we say wide, we are talking about the width of the shot – the number of elements that one shot can integrate. The resolution and aspect ratio will remain what you had set it at!

Compose and capture
Just don’t click for the sake of doing it. Compose your shot. Visualize how the final snap will look like, and mentally compare it with what you had actually thought before. Try bringing the former as close as possible to the latter. A bad background, tilted horizons or even an intruding shadow can ruin the shot. Also, when you are trying to include two or more elements in a picture, take a couple of shots if different configurations/placements and see which one works better, you might get a better idea while doing that! After all, how many times have we taken a shot with an idea on mind, only for it to look completely weird when we are looking at it later?

Click it, shut(ter) it, forget it!
No two cameras will have the same shutter speed, much like no two people have the same fingerprints! While clicking, you need to keep that time in mind. However small that time gap may be, even in milliseconds, it can make or break an image. Most cameras have a slight shutter lag, while some smartphone cameras have a lot of it. If you click, and don’t factor in the shutter lag, and move the camera, then the resultant image will be full of faces resembling a plate with pasta slowly dripping off it!

Hopefully you can implement all of these suggestions, but if you cant, at least make some of these a part of the routine. The final images will be a lot crisper, colourful and most importantly, a lot more detail.