To all you picture-taking buffs..

[budda]

any tips on how to take awesome-looking pictures with a run-of-the-mill digital camera?

I just got a nice 8.2 megapixel Kodak from the ladytype, and I'd love to be able to take some pics approaching DSLR awesomeness..

any tips?

[ohio_eric]

Experiment. Get the biggest memory card you can afford and take pictures of everything and figure out what works and what doesn't and you should be taking some nice pictures in no time.

[7 Strings of Hate]

read the manual good, i thought i knew how to work mine till i actually gave the manual a deep read

[Chris]

Tripod, and only use a flash when you absolutely have to. If your P&S has any sort of IS, it's even easier to shoot w/o a tripod, but if not do try and use one (or some kind of stable surface) any time you can.

Flash = bad 99% of the time in my experience.

[Chris]

Also - Lightroom is cheap (and erm, obtainable through erm, other means..) and indespensible for any budding photo-type.

[DelfinoPie]

I concur with what Chris said about the use of flash. Use it sparingly, it's better to fanny around with the control parameters of the camera so that it looks better in the dark as it is than to ruin a sterling view with a blast of white light

Playing around with the settings can be fun and you can discover some neat stuff, and like 7 strings of hate said, have a good read of the manual. I haven't read the manual for mine yet but my sister is doing a photography course so I just ask her She's like a photography audiobook with opinions

[7 Strings of Hate]

^ i agree with the flash issue, but if you dont use the flash(on my camera at least) you have to be damn steady or you get blur easy as hell

[Drew]

Originally Posted by Chris

Tripod, and only use a flash when you absolutely have to. If your P&S has any sort of IS, it's even easier to shoot w/o a tripod, but if not do try and use one (or some kind of stable surface) any time you can.

Flash = bad 99% of the time in my experience.

Great advice. A flash is great if you want to document something - a close-up of wear on a guitar, just getting a good shot of the action at a party somewhere, whatever.

If on the other hand you're trying to do something "artistic," then a flash will 9 times out of 10 take all the depth out of a picture - everything is either way in the foreground or dark.

Also, the biggie I guess is (as I learned when I bought a good camera and first tried to learn how to use it) the camera is only half the battle - blocking out a good shot is the hardest part. As long as you have a camera with enough zoom range to control what will and will not be in a shot, then you should be able to take good shots if you have a good sense of proportion. A DSLR is nice, but won't automatically make you a photo-god.

This is why most of my pictures suck.

[darren]

Turn off the flash.

If you want the arty shallow-depth-of-field look and the camera doesn't have manual controls, try turning on macro mode. (It's usually the "flower" symbol.) This usually opens up the aperture, giving you shallow depth of field. If you do have manual controls, try lowering the f-stop, which has the same effect.

And pay close attention to focus.

[Drew]

Also, my one suggestion - take a TON of pictures. I'm no expert photographer, but my hunch is the secret of taking great pictures is to just take a shitload of them, expect most of them to be pretty forgettable, but for a handful to be excellent.