Professional photographer gives point and shoot tips
Shutterbug-turned-photo-pro Helene Grabowski began shooting photos as a teenager. Since earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in photography, she has taken on dual roles as high school photography teacher in St. Louis, Mo. and owner of Image Artistic, a photography studio specializing in wedding, portraits, and events. In a recent interview with Boston.com, Grabowski offered up tips for buyers and discussed trends in digital photography.
Q. The digital camera is constantly marketing the megapixel features. How many megapixels does an amateur photographer really need?
A. It depends what you plan on using [the photos] for. If you don’t plan on cropping the image, you can get decent pictures from a 3.0-megapixel camera. With a 4.0-megapixel camera you can print decent 8”x10” images and with a 5.0-megapixel you can print up to 16”x20”. You can get gorgeous pictures out of a 3.0-, 4.0-, and 5.0-megapixel cameras.
If you plan on cropping an image, you need more megapixels so the resolution holds tight. However, an 8.0-megapixel camera is overkill if you’re taking pictures just for a family photo album.
Q. What cameras are you currently using for your work?
A. I use a Nikon d70. I love the camera, but it’s really for fine art work – you really have to have the time to set up the manual controls and work slowly with it. If you are taking more action pictures, then Canon’s lenses are a lot faster and they’ll capture and record movement with greater ease.
Q. Do you use a point-and-shoot for your personal pictures? If so, which camera do you use?
A. I have a 5.0-megapixel Sony Cybershot and I totally love it. The thing that is so great is the movie clip feature, which includes audio.
Q. What is the difference between optical zoom and digital zoom? Is one more important than the other?
A. There are two different types of zoom on a camera – digital zoom and optical zoom. Knowing the difference between them is important to understand before you buy a camera. When a camera zooms optically, the lense gets closer to the subject matter. When a camera zooms digitally, the subject appears closer, but it pixelates the image and you lose resolution. You should buy a camera based on optical zoom. With a high amount of digital zoom, you’ll just lose image quality.
Q. What’s your take on the more affordable, sub $2,000 digital SLRs? Is there a model you recommend?
A. I think dSLRs are great cameras. I’m excited to see they’re coming into the marketplace. The more affordable models help me transition from a film camera to a digital camera. For an amateur photographer, the manual features on dSLRs can be overwhelming, but if you’re looking to make the transition to a dSLR, they are very user-friendly. I recommend the Canon EOS Digital Rebel . One downfall about dSLRs is that once you buy the camera, it oftentimes requires that you purchase additional accessories for it – there can be many hidden costs.
Q. What technology do you recommend for creating a digital darkroom?
A. You can use either a Mac or a PC. I use Adobe Photoshop CS and Black and White Pro – a plug-in for Photoshop that helps convert images to black and white. I also use color and printer management software by Monaco, which color balances your screen, printer, and digital camera so what you see on your computer monitor is what you get from the printer.
Q. What type of printer do you recommend for printing digital images at home?
A. If you’re printing family snapshots or anything that you want to last, I recommend getting the images professionally printed. For printing at home, I definitely recommend Epson printers. Epson has leading edge printers for digital photographers.
When buying a printer, it’s important to take into account how many ink cartridges it uses (four or six), archival quality of the ink, paper size, and affordability. I use the Epson Stylus R200. At $100 it’s totally affordable and it uses six ink cartridges rather than four, so you get a better variety of colors and better color saturation. It prints up to 8”x10” images. If you print on archival quality paper, such as Epson Color Life, which can be purchased at big retailers or camera stores, the images last up to 50 years.
Q. Any other tips?
A.· Absolutely backup all of your images on a CD or external hard drive.
· To check out the industry prices for a product, go to bhphotovideo.com. It’s like an encyclopedia of prices – I always check my prices with B & H before I buy a product.
