Digital cameras are super easy to use and great fun but we don't always take the best pictures, partly because we can snap away without using up expensive film, until we get a decent picture! Taking the time to perfect a few techniques can make all the difference between an average and a brilliant photo. Here are a few tips that will improve your photography enormously.

1. One of the most important and often neglected is to to be aware of the background. When you look in the viewfinder you tend to focus on your subject and ignore what's behind them but when you see the picture, a tree growing out of someone's head is hard to ignore! Try not to take pictures where there are moving vehicles behind your subject or objects that will focus the attention away from the subject of your picture.
2. When taking pictures of people try not to aim directly at their face but slightly to the side so that you get a three quarter view. If you aim the camera down slightly it will have the effect of slimming the subjects face.
3. Remember to adjust your camera for the available light. If you can read a book in the light it will be enough to use your camera without the flash. It's best not to use a flash unless really neccessary as they tend to make people look paler than they are. If you are indoors and it's a little dark move to a window and use the feature on your camera called fill flash. This will force the flash to fire and fill in deep shadowed areas.
4. Focus closely on your subject. Make sure the frame is filled so that the subject is the most important part of the picture.
5. Always place the subject slightly off centre. if you are taking a crowd picture imagine a line through the centre of the group then aim slightly to one side.

With these few tips in mind next time you aim your camera we hope your photographs will be, if not yet up to professional standards, much better.

Most digital cameras have the options to choose between different types of zoom so which one should you choose and what is the difference between optical and digital zoom? We'll look at how both optical zoom and digital zoom work and see in which circumstances you should choose one or the other.

Optical Zoom

If you are familiar with the zoom facility on a 35mm film camera you will know how optical zoom works. On a digital camera it works in the same way by changing the length of the camera lens so that the subject appears closer. The quality of the picture is maintained and you can easily crop the image for further enlargement with software on your computer without losing any of the quality.

Digital Zoom

A digital zoom works in a different way. The whole of the image seen in the viewfinder is captured then a portion is cropped and expanded in the same way as you would enlarge an image with a program on your computer. This process of magnification uses interpolation to fill in the spaces between the pixels. The image can appear blurry which gets worse as you magnify the image further.

To improve the image quality while using a digital zoom try to take pictures with the highest possible file size. This will result in pictures with more pixels per inch so that you can crop and expand without losing too much of the image quality. Also try to take the picture closer, even moving in twelve inches or so will have a big impact on the quality of the image.

In conclusion then, when choosing between optical and digital zoom, optical zoom is undoubtedly superior for picture quality. Digital zoom does have it's place. If you are taking pictures to post on the net or need quick images without worrying too much about magnifying them afterwards. For higher quality images, especially if you will be printing them, optical zoom is the one to use.