Compact Camera Tips

1) Find out how to activate the macro focussing. This is normally a flower logo, and will enable you to focus as closely as 2cm.

2) Buy a mini tripod. This will allow you to take pictures at night, and will help you to keep the camera steady when you’re using macro mode.

3) Switch off digital zoom. Trust me, the degradation to image quality really isn’t worth it.

4)  Stop holding the camera in ‘landscape’ format. Move it round to portrait and to every angle in between. A friend of mine once took every single picture on his holidays in ‘landscape’ format, and the results were truly awful.

5) Find out how to use the self timer mode and take a self portrait – you could just hold it at arms length like everyone does in nightclubs, or you could pop it on a hard surface (or tripod).

6) Find out how to turn off the flash. If the camera decides that there isn’t enough light, it will automatically engage the flash. Fine if you’re on a night out, less so if you’re taking a picture of Sydney opera house at night. Flash has a range of 6-8 feet, you’re not going to illuminate a large structure with that.

7) Make a short film. Most compacts have the facility to shoot video. Why not stitch a few snippets together in Windows Movie Maker and put it on Youtube?

8) Go underwater. A number of compacts (particularly Olympus ) are now water proof up to a few meters, and if your camera isn’t, why not buy a waterproof casing. Bespoke ones for specific cameras can be very expensive, but you can buy some generic ones that are good for a few meters from Dicapac.