digital photography

Could a digital photograph actually save a life? The answer seems to be a resounding yes.

A U.K. woman noticed something different about the photos an online friend from Florida sent her of her daughter.

She keenly noticed some white spots in the baby’s eyes that showed up in the photograph. It’s similar to the red glare, or redeye, but the white spots are a sign of eye cancer. The cancer tumor reflects the incoming light of the eye differently and thus white spots can appear. Not all white spots mean that retinoblastoma is the cause but it is suggested that should you notice it especially in children under five to have it checked out.

The baby will lose her eye but if the tumor hadn’t been caught, it would have killed her. An interesting story indeed. Who knew a simple snapshot could save a life?

When I bought my Canon Rebel XTi, it came with a lens. So I really haven’t bought that many accessories for it like filters or hoods. Some experiences have made me realize that it might be important to buy a camera hood.

I bought my camera shortly after Christmas. Being excited about it, I took my new digital camera everywhere. It wasn’t long that I dropped it and was devastated. Luckily I had purchased the accidental insurance that covers everything. I took it back to the store where they replaced the whole camera outfit. Only the lens was bad but since it came with the camera, the whole unit had to be replaced.

After relaying this to my sister-in-law, who is a great photographer, suggested that I get a camera lens hood. She then had told me how a camera hood had helped saved her digital camera from disaster when she had accidentally dropped it. The hood didn’t survive but the camera and lens were unharmed.

So, I’m sold on getting one. Now I just want to find a good deal on one.

I’ve been thinking about buying a new lens for my Canon XTi. After reading about lens and thinking about what I want, I’ve decided to go with a prime lens. A prime lens has no zoom, so you have to move more to frame the shot you want. They also produce better clarity than a zoom lens.

There is one that is relatively inexpensive - or at least compared to other lenses - on Amazon. It’s a 50mm and sells for about 80 dollars. I’m anxious to try it even though I’ve become to rely heavily on the zoom feature. This will be a good exercise in framing a shot and thinking about it before pressing the shutter button.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had learned some things about photographing children but failed to mention any of it. Silly me. So, here are some things that I have learned when it comes to photographing children.

I love to snap photos of my child when she is playing. When she is playing with her toys or a doll, she is happy. She has also gotten to the age where she will flash me a fake smile for the camera. I would rather capture a nature one even if the background isn’t perfect. I can always fix that later.

Sometimes you only have a moment and then the moments gone. My little girl will do something really cute and by the time I grab the camera she has stopped doing it. I’ve learned to be as prepared as possible by having my camera out of the bag and convenient to grab. I still miss a lot of cute moments but getting faster at getting ready to snap those digital photos.

The best advice is to snap a lot of photos. When I snap a bunch of shots I get at least a few good ones I want to print out.

As a blogger, I’m always in need of digital photos on various subjects. While most of the time I try to the photos myself since I enjoy that kind of thing, sometimes time restraints and other factors keep me from doing that. So, I turn to the Internet to one of the many online stock photography websites.

There are several good free online stock photography websites where people can find digital photos. Stock Exchange is one I have used for years. They have thousands of photos and I can usually find what I need.

Another good site I just recently discovered is Morgue File. There are some really nice photos and a great community of contributors. Before using photos from a photo sharing website, read the license as you will want to make sure you can use it for your desired plans.

There are many others that I’m sure are very nice. These are the two that I have the most experience with. Sometimes even if we like to take pictures it’s easier to find what we need instead of taking the photo ourselves. And thankfully there are plenty of people willing to share their photos.

I much prefer taking pictures of objects than of people. Sure, I take a lot of photos of my little girl but that’s about it. Nature photos and landscapes are my favorites but as a blogger the occasion arises practically daily to have a photo of a certain subject.

Sometimes I can find these photos at online stock photography websites. A lot of times I just snap the photo myself, especially if I have something in mind for the picture.

Today I was gathering some photos for some blog posts about crochet when I decided to take some photos myself. It made me realize that I will have to take the photo off auto setting and give priority to certain focal points. If not I will wind up with the picture above, where only one skein of yarn is in focus. What would probably work best is to put the camera in manual focus. I will have to try that when I take more yarn photos. I also really need a backdrop to use since it will help with lighting and discolored backgrounds.

It’s always a learning experience to do your own ‘photo shoot.’ Experience is a pretty good teacher.

The best part about digital photography is being able to fix and play with your photos in a photo editor. Those great iPod commercials that feature the silhouettes is not only visually interesting but is an attention grabber. Here is a tutorial on how to create your own iPod silhouettes from your digital photos.

Surprising it only takes a few steps to create your own silhouette. I did one with a graphic I had since I needed a clean background but plan to take a few photos to try this out with a photo.

I also used a free program called PhotoFilter. All I had to do was to apply a transparency mask to get the effect. So even if you don’t have PhotoShop, it can still be possible to get the iPod silhouettes with your graphics program.

I love taking digital photos but sometimes I need prints of those photos for scrap booking, sending to relatives, or displaying in picture frames. The best deals for digital photo prints seem to be online as I’ve recently discovered.

The cheapest place to get digital photo prints I found was Wink Flash. 4 x 6 prints are just 8 cents a piece. I did my first order last week and used the coupon code found on their website to get 50 prints free for first time customers. I got 87 prints for under $3! My shipping cost was more than the actual prints. The prints also turned out really nice, too.

Here are the other places I found but don’t have any personal experience using their service. The price listed is for one 4×6 print:

Snap Fish 9 cents
Dot Photo 9 cents
Photo Cheap 6.8 cents(with pre-paid card)
Wal-Mart Photo 9 cents
Walgreens Photo 12 cents
Shutterfly 15 cents
American Greetings Photo Prints 19 cents(cheaper as you buy more)

My favorite subject to take pictures of is my daughter. She is three, so it’s quite challenging to get the perfect shot. Most of the time she is on the go and doesn’t have time to stop for two seconds for me to snap a photo. I wind up with a lot of shots like the one above.

I have learned a few things that seem to work to get better photos of children.

Sometimes it is necessary to edit digital photos. You may need to crop, reduce redeye, or make a photo montage. Editing digital photos can make your mediocre digital picture into something extraordinary. Some digital photography editing software can cost a pretty penny and might be overkill with too many options for the amateur photographer. There are some great freeware choices when it comes to editing digital photos. One of those I have used for years is PhotoFiltre.

PhotoFiltre is a free digital photography editing software program that is feature rich and user friendly. You can carry out easy editing tasks like crop, adjust color levels, rotate, and more. PhotoFiltre also comes with several filters that you can apply to your digital photos that can add interest to your pictures.

PhotoFiltre might not be as powerful as PhotoShop or Paint Shop, but it covers the basic photo editing tools as well as a few advance features. But for the price of free, PhotoFiltre really can’t be beat.