Warm Up Those Tones

If you really want to add some punch to your images, use a polarizing filter. A polarizer is the one filter every photographer should have handy for landscapes and general outdoor shooting. By reducing glare and unwanted reflections, polarized shots have richer, more saturated colors, especially in the sky.

Outdoor Portraits That Shine

One of the great hidden features on digital cameras is the fill flash or flash on mode. By taking control of the flash so it goes on when you want it to, not when the camera deems it appropriate, you've just taken an important step toward capturing great outdoor portraits. In flash on mode, the camera exposes for the background first, then adds just enough flash to illuminate your portrait subject. The result is a professional looking picture where everything in the composition looks good.

Bright sun can create unattractive deep facial shadows. Eliminate the shadows by using your flash to lighten the face. When taking people pictures on sunny days, turn your flash on. You may have a choice of fill-flash mode or full-flash mode. If the person is within five feet, use the fill-flash mode, beyond five feet the full-power mode may be required. With a digital camera, use the picture display panel to review the results.On cloudy days, use the camera's fill-flash mode if it has one. The flash will brighten up people's faces and make them stand out. Also take a picture without the flash, because the soft light of overcast days sometimes gives quite pleasing results by itself.

Macro Mode

Activate the close up mode on your digital camera and begin to explore your world in finer detail. You will be rewarded with fresh new images unlike anything you've ever shot before. Even the simplest object takes on new fascination in macro mode. And the best part is that it's so easy to do with digital cameras.

Just look for the close up or macro mode icon, which is usually a flower symbol, turn it on, and get as close to an object as your camera will allow. Once you've found something to your liking, hold the shutter button down halfway to allow the camera to focus. When the confirmation light gives you the go ahead, press the shutter down the rest of the way to record the image. Keep in mind that you have very shallow depth of field when using the close up mode, so focus on the part of the subject that's most important to you, and let the rest of the image go soft.

Move It From The Middle

Bring your picture to life by simply moving your subject away from the middle of your picture. Start by playing tick-tack-toe with subject position. Imagine a tick-tack-toe grid in your viewfinder. Now place your important subject at one of the intersections of lines.You'll need to lock the focus if you have an auto-focus camera because most of them focus on whatever is in the center of the viewfinder.

Spare Media Cards

Be prepared to get all the shots you want with spare memory cards! If you have a 2 megapixel camera, get two extra 64MB cards. Buy 2 extra 128MB cards for 3 megapixel models, and 3 extra 128MB cards for 4 megapixels cameras. That way, you'll never miss another shot because your memory card is full.

Shoot High Resolution Images ALL the time

One of the most important reasons for packing a massive memory card is to enable you to shoot at your camera's highest resolution. If you paid a premium price for a 3 megapixel digicam, then get your money's worth and shoot at 3 megapixels. And while you're at it, shoot at your camera's highest quality compression setting too.

Why not squeeze more images on your memory card by shooting a lower resolution and low quality compression settings? You never know when you're going to capture the next great image! If you take a beautiful picture at the low 640 x 480 resolution, that means you can only make a print about the size of a snapshot, not exactly the right dimensions for hanging in the museum.

On the other hand, if you recorded the image at 2048 x 1536 (3 megapixels) or larger, then you can make a lovely 8- x 10-inch photo-quality print suitable for framing. And just in case you we're able to get as close to the action as you had liked, having those extra pixels enables you to crop your image and still have enough resolution to make a decent sized print. The point is, if you have enough memory, then there's no reason to shoot at lower resolution and risk missing the opportunity to show off your work in a big way.

Tripods, Monopods and Tablepods

For certain types of shots, tripods can be very useful. As an alternative, use a monopod or tablepod.

Tablepods are compact, and versatile, and can fit in your back pocket. They enable you to steady your camera in a variety of situations. You can open the legs and set it on any reasonable flat surface such as a tabletop or a boulder in the middle of nowhere. These are ideal for use with self timers so you can get in the shot too!

Self Timer Fun

Self timers delays the firing of the shutter (after the button has been pushed) for up to 10 seconds, fixing one of the age old problems in photography: the missing photographer. Be sure the focusing sensor is aimed at a person in the group and not the distant background, or you'll get very sharp trees and fuzzy family members.