Simple Digital Camera TRICKS - But my camera does not have all these settings!?

Some people may not have the controls for f-stop and shutter speed on their camera if they have a simple camera. So what do they do?

Well, there are some tricks to simulate the aperture size and shutter speed even if you do not have those settings on your camera.

Tricks of a simple digital camera!

To fake depth of field, in a simple digital camera, you need to use “modes”. In a simple digital camera, generally there are modes. Now modes are basically packaged settings. For example: in the “portrait mode”, the shutter speed, aperture etc. will all be set in such a way such that, the near by person, whose photo you are taking, will be very clear and properly illuminated.

So, if you want the near by objects to look sharp and clear and objects that are far away to look blurred….you will need to use the "portrait mode".

In fact, when taking a photo and after visualizing the concept and everything, it would be best if you can set the camera to the appropriate mode first. The camera can try to do this automatically, but sometimes the camera does not understand the situation and gets things wrong.

On the other hand, if you want to have all the near as well as far objects to appear clear, you need to play with the “focus” settings of your camera. Generally all digital cameras allow you to set the “focus” manually. If you do not set it manually, it is done automatically, but you can also set it manually.

What is focus?

Simply put, focus decides how far or close an object has to be to appear sharp. Use your camera manual to check out your camera’s focus settings. Once you find it, take a look at the different values on which you can set your camera’s focus.

For example: You camera might have the possible options for focus as: 0.5m, 1m, 3m, 7m and infinity!

Now if you set the value to 0.5m, then if an object is at 0.5m from the camera, it will be sharp. Any objects that are either closer to the camera than 0.5m and further from the camera than 0.5m will get blurred depending on their distance from the 0.5m mark! The more the distance, the more blured!

If you notice, when you set your camera’s mode to “portrait” then the focus will automatically get set to a small value like 0.5m.

Now, suppose you want to take an image where some objects are close by and some are far, then you will have to se the focus to infinity. When you do this, objects that are further away (40m or more) will appear sharp.

So, that is how you play with the depth of field on a simple camera. The effects will not be as great as a professional camera, but if you really need a particular effect, there is always a way to make that effect appear using a photo editing software like Photoshop etc. Just to give you an idea about what you can do, check out this Photoshop tutorial. It shows you how you can fake depth of field in your images. 

But this is about DOF. What about taking fast objects with a simple digital camera? Read the next secion... 

Next - Shutter speed, ISO and dim lighting! >>

<< Previous - How to actually do all this?

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Table Of Contents

  1. How to take great photos? - Introduction
  2. Two major "funds" of photography!
  3. The concept of your photo...
  4. Depth of field (DOF)!!
  5. How to actually do all this? 
  7. Shutter speed, ISO and dim lighting...
  8. The magic of the "+"
  9. Some final tips...