Last night, one of my good friends asked me how I take such good pictures with my point-and-shoot camera. I shared some secrets with her, but decided that those secrets may be helpful to some of my blog readers. So this is a newb’s guide to good pictures with a point-and-shoot camera. Some of these suggestions you may not be able to do because of your camera’s limitations, but I will share them anyway.

I’ll wait while you pull out your camera, the manual (you can find them online if you cant find the paper-form) and an object to practice with.

1. Turn off your flash. Every day run-of-the-mill people don’t have the flash and other equipment necessary to make pictures look good with the flash on. They cause bad exposure, bad shadows, and generally don’t light the subject in the best possible way. Trust me, even when in a really dark setting you don’t need it.
2. Turn on macros. This setting helps you focus on your subject and avoid the notorious flat pictures that you generally end up with when you don’t have this setting on. Leave this setting on unless you desire a flat picture effect–which will be very rare as they don’t usually end up what you envision when you’re snapping the picture.
3. If you have a Program Auto or other similar setting on your camera, use it instead of any of the other pre-defined settings. This setting gives you far more options than the rest for your pictures. You can usually set your ISO to auto or a pre-defined number, and change your light settings according to your light source in particular pictures. Even if you have most of your settings here on auto, you’ll normally yeild better pictures than if you were to use the pre-defined settings. I generally keep my ISO and light settings on auto so that I can get good pictures on the fly without having to fiddle with the settings and risk missing the moment.
4. The best light source is natural. No matter what you’re photographing, it will always look better in sunlight. Even if you’re taking a picture of a cheeseburger, open your windows and bring it closer to the natural light. Having said that, harsh natural light will often leave sharp shadows. It’s best to photograph subjects in natural light in the early morning and late afternoon. Unless the shadow effect is what you’re going for, of course.
5. Fill the frame. If you’re taking a picture of a banana, then take a picture of a banana. Nobody wants to see the plate it’s on and the counter around it and your toes in the bottom of the frame.
6. Don’t center your subject. Think thirds when you are taking a picture (or editing). You want your subject to take up 2/3 of the frame. Centering usually leads to pictures that look like they were staged, which doesn’t usually flatter your ego.
7. When taking pictures of people, do so in their natural state. Don’t pose them. Get them to talk to you or other people around you and pretend you’re not there. Take pictures at different angles. Remember the other points and you’ll end up with fun natural pictures of your friends and family.
8. Have fun and be spontaneous. Remember that you could take 20 pictures an end up with only one good one. Be prepared with enough memory and don’t delete pictures straight off the camera. That little two inch screen can’t tell you whether or not a picture is good so you may risk deleting something worthwhile.

And with that, I leave you with a caterpillar.