Look, Snap, See

Zoom

Now you’ve taken your first picture, and it’s time to take a closer look at your camera. There is a rocker switch in front of the shutter-release button. If you move it to the right, you can make objects that are far away appear closer to you. When you do this, the lens extends from the camera. If you press the switch to the left, the images will become smaller. You’ll be able to see more of what’s in front of you because the lens retracts.

This function is called the zoom. You use the zoom function to determine what’s in your picture. A wide angle allows you to take a picture of almost everything you see. A picture with a tight angle is called a telephotograph . This perspective allows you to pinpoint a specific detail in your picture, like someone’s face, for example.

Left: With the wide-angle setting the lens will be completely moved back into the camera body, while with the zoom setting the lens will be fully extended.

With the wide-angle lens setting, your camera will capture a good deal of the scene.

With the zoom lens setting, your camera will be able to capture more detail.

In Focus and Out of Focus

Your camera has another important setting: the focus. We’ve all seen pictures that are unclear, and we usually want to avoid taking pictures that are out of focus. To make sure that your picture will be clear and sharp, you need to set the range of your camera’s lens correctly. The range depends on the distance between you and the subject you’d like to photograph. Think about when you use a magnifying glass. You can see the object you’re investigating clearly only if you hold the magnifying glass at the right distance. Binoculars work the same way; you need to adjust the focus to get a sharp view of your subject. When you use a camera, the lens is automatically set to the correct range by the autofocus. Though the autofocus is very good at setting the range for the lens, it cannot determine the most important subject in your picture.

If you want to focus on your friend Anna, for example, the camera doesn’t know whether to focus on her or the girl behind her. You have to make sure the camera is focusing on the right subject. To use the autofocus, press the shutter-release button halfway down—don’t press it all the way down or you’ll take a picture. As you do this, you’ll see the image come in to focus on the camera’s screen. A little box will indicate which object the autofocus has selected as the focal point of the picture. As long as you keep the shutter-release button depressed halfway, the autofocus will stay locked in on the same point.

Some cameras indicate that the focus is set in different ways. Depending on your camera model, the autofocus box may stop blinking, may change color, or the camera may beep to let you know that the image is in focus. If you’re too close to your subject, or if you’re trying to photograph something that is only one color, your camera might have a hard time focusing correctly.

Light and Dark

You already know that photos are made with light, which means the amount of light plays a big role in how your picture will appear. If it’s too dark or too light when you take your picture, you won’t be able to recognize anything in the photograph. Cameras have a variety of automatic features that control light, and they’ll usually help you take great pictures. But every once in a while a photo will turn out too dark or too light. When this happens, you can use the simple brightness correction feature . If you move the indicator toward the plus sign, the picture will become lighter. If you move it toward the minus sign, it will become darker.

Movement

Sometimes pictures will be blurry even if you use the focus feature correctly, and you might wonder, “Why did that happen?” Remember, a photo is an exposure of a brief moment. When you press the shutter-release button, a shutter opens to let light shine on the sensor. When the light has been absorbed and the picture has been made, the shutter closes again. The whole process lasts only a split second. The amount of time that the shutter remains open is called the exposure time. The length of the exposure time depends mostly on how bright it is. If there is a lot of light, like on the beach, the exposure time is very short, but if there isn’t much light, like in a basement, the exposure time is longer. When you take your pictures, you’ll be able to hear the difference between a short and a long exposure. After you press the shutter-release button, you’ll hear a soft click, and a short moment later, you’ll hear a second click. Everything that happens between those two clicks is photographed, and everything that moves during that time will be blurry. This is called motion blur. Moving animals and people, for example, will be out of focus. Shaking the camera during the exposure time will also cause the picture to be blurry. We call this problem camera shake.

Most of the time we want to take pictures that are in focus, but sometimes motion blur can create interesting and vivid images. Give it a try! It can look really cool when you track a moving object during a long exposure. If you really want to avoid motion blur or camera shake, the camera’s built-in flash is there to help you.

Flash

There are a few switches and buttons near the display, and one of them has a symbol that looks like a small lightning bolt . This button allows you to turn the built-in flash on and off. The flash is actually just a small, strong light bulb that illuminates your subject just long enough for the camera to capture an image. It’s just like a flash of lightning that illuminates the night sky for a brief moment. The flash setting that you selected can be seen in the display where you check the camera’s other settings. There are usually a few flash settings to choose from. An icon that shows a person with a small star indicates the night flash mode, which gives off less light and has a longer exposure time. You can use this setting to create cool effects.

A lightning bolt with a slash through it indicates that the flash is turned off, which is something you’ll want to do from time to time, because the flash’s harsh light doesn’t always make interesting pictures. It’s best to use natural lighting, but if you have to use a flash, try the night flash setting .

For Small Things

The setting with the small flower symbol allows the lens to focus on objects that are very close. This mode is called macro, and you’ll need it when you want to focus on small subjects, like a ladybug, at close range. A flower symbol will appear on the screen to indicate that you’re in macro mode. When you feel like exploring the world of small things, choose this option. Just don’t forget to exit out of macro mode when you’re finished, otherwise you won’t be able to take pictures of normal-sized, larger objects.

Now you know quite a bit about your camera, and you’re able to take pictures just like professional photographers. But you might be wondering, “What am I going to do with all these new pictures that I’ve collected on my camera?”

How Do We Transfer Pictures to a Computer?

Underneath a small flap you’ll find the battery and the memory card.

Sooner or later you’ll want to see what your pictures look like on a screen that is bigger than your camera’s small display, and you may even want to print some of your favorites. To do this you’ll need to transfer your pictures from your camera to your computer. This is easy to do. You’ve probably seen someone else do this, but be sure that someone who has experience with computers is there to help you. The camera will either need to be connected to the computer with a cable or the memory card inside the camera will need to be removed and inserted into a card reader. After this is done, you can save the pictures onto your hard drive with just a few clicks.

That’s all there is to it. You can use a special program called a picture browser to view your photos on your computer monitor. There are several free picture browsers on the Internet—like FastStone, XnView, or Picasa—that you can download for free. These programs will let you organize your pictures easily.

You can connect your camera to your computer with a USB cable, or you can remove the memory card from the camera and insert it into a USB card reader.