With digital cameras becoming extremely popular, and almost everyone carrying them around for family vacations among other things, it is extremely important to put them to full utilization. After all, the motive is to get the best possible pictures, for that family album. After all, pictures do speak a thousand words!

Here is our guide to some basic settings/ techniques to get the best images from the camera.

Managing the light
Controlling how much light reaches the sensor of the camera determines how good the image might be. Focus is one method of wielding this control. Most digital cameras have autofocus, which manages the light. If however, the camera has been set to manual mode (in case that is available), you will need to take charge. Aperture and Shutter Speed are the other two settings that control the amount of light reaching the sensor. Aperture setting manages how wide the shutter opens. A wider opening lets in more light, while a narrow one reduces the light on the sensor. Aperture is measured in f-stops, and a higher f-stop means lesser opening, while a lower f-stop setting means a wider opening for more light. However, use low f-stop settings only if you want to keep the background out of focus. If you want the background to be in focus as well, use a higher f-stop setting. Working on tandem with Aperture is the Shutter Speed feature. The higher the shutter speed setting, the longer it is open and more light will reach the sensor.

Some digital cameras do not gave manual aperture and shutter speed settings, and there is no option but to stick with whatever the automatic settings set it to. However, if your camera does have that option, we suggest you use it. Get the hang of it with some tweaking, and once you do understand the settings perfectly, the pictures will look a lot better.

Hold it still!
Whatever camera you may be using, holding it the correct way is extremely crucial! If the camera’s shutter has to remain open for longer to get more light on to the sensor, and you happen to move the camera, the resultant image will be completely blurred. The trick is to press the capture button slightly, to let the focus to zone in and become ready. And keep the button in that position, till you are ready to take the snap. This negates the need for the sensor to open again, thus reducing what is known as shutter lag.

Optical zoom better than digital sibling
While most basic digital cameras do not have the optical zoom feature, there are some that do. And if you happen to own one such camera, use this feature like there is no tomorrow!

What digital zoom does is it cuts out a part of the image, on all four sizes and then zooms in on the remaining part. While the zoom effect remains, certain elements get cut out, and the clarity is lost, to a certain extent. Optical zoom, on the other hand, works on lenses that have movable parts inside. The number of pixels remains the same in optical zoom, and only the rays of light projected on to the sensor are changed. The resultant image is a lot clearer and vivid, and doesn’t cut out elements from the image as well.

Power Play
Since most digital cameras have done away with a viewfinder, the LCD display is the new viewfinder. This means that battery life gets affected adversely. However, there are ways of reducing the impact on the backup time. Reduce the screen brightness levels. Secondly, set the display time out time to a lower setting. Third, calibrate the battery once a month. This means charging it fully and then discharging it completely till the time the camera shuts off and then charging the battery fully again. This ensures that the battery gets charged uniformly and there is lesser loss of charge holding capacity over time.