Top Digital Camera Mistakes

Did you get a brand new digital camera for Christmas? I’m guessing a lot of you did. I’m also guessing that many of you are like me—the “learn as you go” type, meaning that you haven’t read the instruction manual and may not ever. Though many of you already know a lot about digital cameras in general, there are mistakes that new—and even experienced—digital camera users make. Here are a few of the key ones and how to avoid them.

1. Using a low-resolution setting to reduce memory use. While shooting photos in a lower resolution will allow you to squeeze more images onto your memory card, it won’t help you out when you want to enlarge one of your shots. The reduction in the camera’s resolution limits the detail that the camera records for a photo, meaning that when you go to enlarge the image, it will likely be blurry or lack sharpness. Unless you’re positive that the photos you’re taking will only be used on a website or for other low-resolution uses, keep the resolution turned up to it’s highest setting. When you see the perfect shot, you’ll be happy you did.
2. Pulling the memory card out of the camera before it’s done recording data. When you take a photo with your digital camera, the final result is that the data to recall that image exactly is written onto the memory card in your camera. Sometimes it takes your camera few seconds to do this. No matter how anxious you are to get those images on your computer, it is very important that you give your camera the time it needs to finish writing this data prior to removing the memory card. If the memory card is pulled out prematurely, photos can be damaged beyond repair, or even lost forever. Read your manual to find out where the indicator light is on your camera that tells you whether it has completed recording—typically this light is flashing when the camera is recording data. To be even safer, turn your camera completely off before removing the memory card.
3. Not backing up your photos. While some have boxes upon boxes of old film negatives, they never see the need to keep these “negatives” of the digital format. Just downloading your images onto your PC doesn’t ensure that they’ll stay there forever. Computers get viruses, lose data and crash. If your photos are only stored on the hard drive of your computer, you could be setting yourself up for disaster. Organize the photos into categories (birthdays, vacations, etc.) or chronologically (May 2004) and name them according to when they were taken—later you may want to recall the date for journaling—then burn them to CDs or DVDs. If your discs are labeled and well organized, you’ll not only have a backup, but you’ll be able to find just the image you’re looking for when you need it—and save your hard drive space!
4. Expecting image-editing software to fix it all. While there are many things a good image-editing program can do, typically it cannot make up for a lack of resolution or generally poor quality image. Use your image editing software to adjust brightness, contrast, remove red eye, fix minor problems with color and crop, but don’t expect it to perform miracles—it cannot make up for you cutting off a subject’s head or make a low resolution photo perfectly clear when you enlarge it. For those, you’ll have to simply work on your skills—and delete the bad images!
5. Running out of battery power or memory at key times. Of course digital cameras need power to operate. And you need to give them power to get your photos. To ensure your camera is ready when you are, be sure the battery is fully charged, and have a backup with you as well. Likewise, your camera needs memory to store your pictures. Prior to heading off to an event where you’re planning on shooting several images, be sure to download what’s on your memory card to your computer and clear the card. It’s also a great idea to have an additional card as backup.