2006-12-30

How do you Take a few Good Pictures?

Take a lot of bad ones.

I got my current digital camera sometime in February. I have taken more than 1,300 pictures since then. A lot of them are on my Flickr site. Most of them are on a hard drive in my apartment. And the rest I was smart enought to delete at the earliest opportunity.

In the year prior, I probably took only 300 digital pictures.

Having a smaller camera made the difference. My other digital camera was a Toshiba M500. It's a 2 Megapixel camera with a 10x optical zoom. It was great camera, and it's now sitting on my shelf.

The problem I had with it was the size. It's a few years old and that kind of zoom required a big chasis. So I only brought it with me if I was planning specifically to take pictures. Most of the time it stayed home.

My current digital camera is a Nikon Coolpix 7600. It's a 7 Megapixel camera with only a 3X optical zoom. And it is small. It fits in the palm of my hand. More importantly, it fits in a small camera pouch I hang from me belt.

The zoom obviously isn't as good, and I think the M500 worked better in low light situations, but I use the Nikon more than I ever used the M500.

The reason is simple -- I have it with me. Nearly everytime I leave the apartment, the camera goes with me. I may not look "cool" with a camera on my right and an iPod on my left, but the "cool ship" sailed long ago for other reasons.

The best pictures aren't always planned -- often they're found.

The way to become a better writer is to write more.
The way to become a better athlete is to play more.
The way to become a better presenter is to present more.
The way to become a better photographer is to photograph more.

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