What if I Only Have a Point & Shoot Camera?

Wright Bros. monument at Kittyhawk, NC

Three things contribute more to a great photo than anything else. It has nothing to do with the price of your camera, the quality of your lens, or your technical skill at photography.

Here they are:

1. Where are you  standing?
2. Which way are you pointing the camera?
3. When do you press the shutter?

I have chosen several photos for this post to prove my point. All photos included were shot, not with a DSLR, not with a point-and-shoot. They were all shot with my cell phone. It's a fairly new phone, an HTC Rezound with and 8MP camera and a digital zoom. These are small versions as posted on the blog, but viewed much larger on my monitor they also look good. My first digital prints were made from a 3.2MP simple point-and-shoot camera and some of them looked quite good at 11" x 14".

Low light levels don't seem to phase the Rezound and it maintains color and saturation. There are settings and a little knowledge of photography can extend the abilities of the camera giving you better exposures and color. As I recall, however, all of these were shot at default settings. And so, not requiring photographic knowledge.

They did, though, require deciding where to stand, which way to point the camera, and when to press the shutter. Note that while the flower is not an extreme closeup shot it is well focused and the color is very accurate. The camera is capable of focusing much closer which surprised me when I began experimenting on it's first day with me.

Left is a Little League ball field occupied at the moment by umpires preparing for the game. The sky was not quite as dark as it appears but it was quite dim and the primary sources of light are very visible it the shot. The cameras meter was not fooled by the bright lights. One thing I'm careful of with the cell camera is watching the screen as I aim the shot. Including more dark areas increases the brightness and, of course, including more bright areas decreases the brightness. It's a little like exposure compensation but it does mean that part of your composition decision is based on exposure.

You can have fun with even a simple camera. The photo here is of a string of white lights wrapped around a tree and a single torch. I took about 5 shots, wildly wiggling the camera and finally got this one. Not great art, but a fun shot and a dip into abstract art.

Do have fun, whatever camera you have. These were all done because I had my phone but not my real camera.

As sort of a PS I saw one more photo taken with my Rezound that I like a lot. By including a bright and interesting sky I was able to create a silhouette of the trees giving the photo an almost spooky look. See, I have fun too.

Thanks for reading, and please come back.