By Jasmine Robertson

Tips on taking photos and short video clips using a digital camera

Introduction to various formats of image and video file

Demonstration of transferring photos and video clips from a digital camera to computer

Demonstration of resizing image for various usage

Tips on basic image adjustments and software available

◦ The Learner will be able to understand the basic uses of a digital camera.

◦ The Learner will be able to recognise and apply the various file formats.

◦ The Learner will be able to recognise and apply the basic principles to take a good image.

◦ The Learner will be able to resize an image for its’ purpose.

Compact cameras are designed to be small and portable and are particularly suitable for casual and "snapshot" use.

Compact cameras are usually designed to be easy to use.

Live preview is almost always used to frame the photo.

Many digital cameras have preset modes for different applications

What do they all mean?

In general:◦ Action or sport mode increases ISO and uses a fast

shutter speed to capture action. ◦ Landscape mode uses a small aperture to gain depth of

field. ◦ Portrait mode widens the aperture to throw the

background out of focus. The camera may recognise and focus on a human face.

◦ Night portrait mode uses an exposure long enough to capture background detail, with fill-in flash to illuminate a nearby subject.

◦ Other scene modes found on many cameras include Fireworks, Snow, Natural light/Night snapshot, Macro/Close-up, and Movie mode

There are many ways in which we can take a good image. However there are some basic rules we can apply to make our images a whole lot better.

Rule of Thirds◦ The rule of thirds is one of the most basic composition guidelines in

photography. The rule of thirds explains what part of an image the human eye is most strongly drawn towards first.

◦ The rule states that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines

◦ Important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections

◦ Creates more tension, energy and interest in the composition than simply centering the subject would

Blurry Photos are caused by three main problems

◦ movement of the subject or the camera during exposure

◦ accidentally changing the camera's auto focus

◦ Depth of field

There are several ways to upload images and video to your computer

◦ USB cable that comes with the camera

◦ Generic card reader

◦ Wireless connections such as Bluetooth

Once your images or video are on your computer, you can the upload to the internet.

There are many sights online that allow us to upload our images and video for sharing

◦ Flikr◦ Photobucket◦ YouTube◦ Google video◦ Facebook

And the list goes on and on and on...... really

There are many file formats we can use for still and moving images. Deciding the right one for the job can often be a tricky thing to establish.

The most common file format for storing image data is a JPEG file (The Joint Photography Experts Group standard).

We also have Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) And Raw data formats (most commonly used in SLR cameras)

Formats for movies are AVI, DV, MPEG, MOV (often containing motion JPEG), WMV, and ASF (basically the same as WMV).

Recent formats include MP4

Once your files are safely on your computer you might like to edit them for size, colour, make s slideshow etc.

For video, a great start for editing is Microsoft Movie Maker. Anyone that has windows should have this program.

The interface is simple to use and quite intuitive. It also has lots of effects and transitions to add to your movies or slideshows

For image editing there are programs out there for all needs

◦ Adobe Photoshop series Elements: for beginners Lightroom: for all users CS4: for more advanced usage

◦ Some cameras come with basic image editing software so it’s worth a look into those as well.

◦ There are also programs you can download for free online www.getpaint.net www.picasa.google.com www.photoscape.org

Just to name a few

Thanks for coming and I hope you enjoyed it your morning

Jasmine