September 2009 Archive

By Brian Trimmer

Perhaps you have a high resolution camera with millions of pixels. The trade off is, of course, is file size.

Try the following: crop a center portion of your high resolution picture (the main focus or subject of the picture). You will have high resoultion in a smaller size.  For instance, a portion of 3 megapixel picture can be cropped to the size of a 480,000 pixel file but with higher resolutions.

By the way, this is the perfect size for a full-size web site photo!

By Brian Trimmer

Should you shoot vertical or horizontal shots?  It all depends on what you have in mind and if the image fits within the LCD window without maneuvering your camera.

The standard reply would be, horizontal; but there are times and circumstances when vertical orientation is the right choice.  Do you plan on using the photo as the cover page of a report or booklet? If so, vertical orientation is necessary. In fact, photos for magazine covers are always vertical.

There are also times when the image you wish to capture just wont fit horizontally without zooming too far back. Capturing the impressive height of a building or perhaps a vertical sign board.

It comes down to this – what is your aim and what will look best. There is no right or wrong way, but different situations call for different camera angles and orientations.