1, 2, 3, Smile!

I recently attended the Fundamental Cyber-shot Handling course at the Sony Digital Workshop and being a fundamental course, it covered the very basic of basics in digital photography. Some of the topics can even be found in the camera manual. There were also some that I already learned during my days with Dolon. Two points, however, were completely new to me.


Tele and Wide

Ever wondered what the 'T' and 'W' on the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons stand for? 'T' is for Tele and 'W' is for Wide. Tele meaning your camera is closing in on a particular subject and Wide meaning it's covering a wide area. This also means that the more you zoom in, the narrower your camera's field of vision becomes. Look at the samples below:


For the first picture, I was about 3 meters away from Sephiroth and zoomed in (Tele) while in the second picture, I moved closer and zoomed out (Wide) so Sephiroth would roughly be the same size as in the first one. You'll notice that in the second picture, since a wider area was captured, more of the background can be seen.

So the next time you want to take those close-ups, move closer to your subject. Don't be lazy and just zoom in unless there's really nothing worth taking in the background.


Slow Sync

This is a flash mode that Dolon didn't have. Normally, your camera's shutter opens when the flash goes off and closes immediately afterwards. In slow sync mode, the shutter waits for a few more seconds before closing. This is to allow the image sensor to take in more light. This is good for taking portraits in low light conditions because it helps in also capturing the background. By design, a camera's flash is never meant to illuminate the background. In normal flash mode, you would only capture the subject and darkness behind it.


Since the shutter is slow in this mode, it is advisable to use a tripod and to tell your subject to move only when you say so.