 The world is celebrating color in full spectrum, not just in the environment but also in the computer. In the 60’s, people are happy to see their photographs in black and white copies and it extended for quite some time until technology can already reproduce and provide people with colored digital photography.
Why still use black and white? If you have watched the controversial movie "Schindler’s List" (1993) by Steven Spielberg, it has been presented in the screens in black and white color. Critics were expressing dissatisfaction, and to some degree, one could think it is such a waste denying the audience of more than 1 million colors reduced to nothing but grayscale monochromatic theme.
Nowadays, black and white photography is directly proportional to vanity, because everyone desires colored output. In case of "Schindler’s List," it was released on purpose as black and white, to give way to a dramatic impact for the setting of 1945 Nazi occupation. The effect of black and white reel, has added spice to the thematic goal of the director. The essence of using black and white is important for character shots.
The world is ironic and ridiculous at times, but we cannot simply take away black and white especially in the era of digital photography. We know all Graphic Arts editing applications, scanners, digital cameras, and other photography gadgets have grayscale options.
To start with your own black and white digital photography shots, you will not need extra effort and complications other than shooting as is. Take the shot in color then you can switch the setting of the digital image in an editor, using array of choices. If you are using Photoshop or Fireworks, you can change the whole image into black and white by editing "Hue and Saturation" or simply switching it to "grayscale" format.
Old photographs from developed films can be converted into digital images by scanning them. If you want a black and white portrait out of it, set your scanner into grayscale. The result is black and white photo.
Setting your digital camera into "evening shot" mode automatically converts the image as monochromatic. You can remove saturation to convert it to black and white. Digital camera works efficiently with a computer. You can do everything about it in full control—that is if you are adept with the manipulation of the technical side of it. It will be quite expensive but worth the effort.
Technology is getting better and better, if you choose conventional effects, as long as you have the 360-degree options to enhance possibilities, then black and white digital photography is very simple to produce.
http://www.learndigitalphotographynow.com/
 Even with the advent of digital technology and the sudden appearance of every kind, every shape and size of digital cameras in hobby shops, department stores and other shops in the metro, not everyone is a pro when it comes to operating this little gadget. In fact, even the most tech-tough can stumble every now and then.
One thing you should do when you own a digital camera is to of course read the manual from cover to cover. This will help you get familiar with all the functions of the camera as well as see the various effects that it can do. Most manuals will also have illustrations that will help you understand each function.
To further help you in your digital quest for information on good photography, here are some tips that will make geniuses out of digital photography dummies.
Tone up.
One of the few essential things that you must remember is to adjust the white balance of the digital camera. Adjusting the white balance will warm up the tones and increase the hues of reds and yellows. When you purchase one, most functions will be on the auto or automatic function. Change that to suit the environment that you are shooting.
For instance, if you are doing some outdoor shooting, change the setting from auto to cloudy. This means that the camera will compensate for the cloudy and hazy environment and produce photos that are richer in color.
Mad about macro
This is another really great feature that digital cameras now offer, the macro mode. This is a function in the camera wherein you can actually focus on object and get to picture the finer details. This is especially used when you are taking close-up shots. Macro mode is denoted by the flower symbol, which can often be seen on the main buttons of the camera.
One thing to remember in using this mode is that the focused object will be sharp while leaving the rest in soft detail. If you want all the elements in the photograph illuminated, this is not the function for you.
Flash it!
One of the great things about digital cameras is the fact that you can adjust the light to suit your subject. Although most manual cameras have flash modes, they do not have the slight flash, which comes in handy when you are shooting for a not-so-well-lit area but still pretty bearable. The slight flash will help put colors on the picture because too much flash can result to colors that are bland and pale.
http://www.learndigitalphotographynow.com/
 Arguably the most important weapon in a photographers’ arsenal, lenses are also one of the most variable. From the widest 10mm fish-eye to the longest 800mm telephoto, optics are available in every conceivable size, weight and focal length. Due to the smaller sensors used in many of today’s digital SLRs, however, focal lengths vary depending on the model in question. But whether you’re a landscaper looking to capture dramatic sunsets or an architectural fanatic looking to isolate fine details, there’s a multitude of options that fall into four categories. Here’s the low-down.
Standard
On full-frame digital SLRs standard lenses fall between 40mm and 55mm, though 50mm is the accepted norm. You’ll need a 35mm lens to get the same field-of-view on digital SLRs with the smaller APS-sized sensor. Closest to the field-of-view of the human eye, standard lenses offer an undistorted perspective and are often used for flattering portraits. Just for the record, the true field-of-view of the human eye is 43mm!
Wide-angle
With shorter focal lengths and wider angles-of-view than standard lenses, wide-angle lenses are employed by landscape and reportage specialists. Remember you’ll need a shorter focal length on many digital SLRs than a 35mm or full-frame digital model. This need for shorter focal lengths on many digital SLRs has produced a raft of new models. A 17-35mm model, such as the one shown below, gives a field-of-view equivalent to 25-52mm on a full-frame SLR.
Macro
If you’ve ever wondered how photographers fill the frame with small subjects such as petals and insects, the answer is the humble macro lens. Allowing for 1:1 (life-size) reproduction and focusing from as close as 2in, true macro lenses are specifically constructed for close-up photography. They are commonly available in focal lengths between 50mm and 180mm.
Telephoto
Any lens that weighs in with a focal length above 50mm is said to be a telephoto lens. Short telephotos (between 70mm and 120mm) are ideal for portraiture, while longer focal lengths (between 135mm and 300mm and above) are perfect for sports and wildlife. Remember, the magnification of a lens on most digital SLRs is increased by around 1.5x, so a 200mm lens is equivalent to a 300mm on a full-frame camera.
http://www.learndigitalphotographynow.com/
If you travel with your digital camera, you may be worried that airport x-ray machines may damage photographs on your digital camera memory or even the memory cards themselves.
 Relax! Though I cannot give a 100% guarantee, everything I have read in books, on the Internet, and in magazines states that these machines do not have an adverse affect on such cards, unlike film.
If you are still concerned, you may want to consider archiving your digital camera photos to compact disks before returning on an airplane. This provides an extra level of backup and should ease your mind.
To ease your concerns, the I3A (International Imaging Industry Association) released a press release on December 15, 2004, regarding tests on digital camera media performed by the imaging industry and United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA). In it, they state that x-ray machines used by the TSA should cause no damage to digital media, whether or not the media is in checked or carry-on bags.
 One question that often comes up when printing digital photos – how many megapixels do you need for a certain size print, such as an 8×10 inch print, an 11×14 inch print, or a larger poster size?
Part of this discussion rests on the quality of the image. If an image is slightly blurry, you may need to resample it to a lower number of megapixels to offset the blurriness, else the quality of the full-size printout may be less than expected.
Printout quality depends on the paper and printer as well. Make sure you are using quality photo paper and not just inkjet or laser paper. Plus, ensure that your printer is configured to use the high-quality paper.
The dpi (dots per inch) of a printout helps determine the image quality and how many megapixels you may need. Generally, the greater the dpi, the clearer and cripser the printout (up to a point). While you can print larger images from smaller digital photos by decreasing the dpi, the results may not be as impressive as if the original image were larger and printed with a larger dpi.
To factor how many pixels you need, multiple the dpi by the size of the photo. Thus an 11×14 image at 150 dpi will need 11*150 by 14*150 pixels, or 1,650 by 2,100 pixels (3.465 million pixels).
Now, with this size, you would think that a 3.5 megapixel camera would handle it. Not so fast! One 3.5 megapixel digital camera I found actually had an image resolution of 2144 x 1608. While 2144 is greater than 2100, 1608 is NOT greater than 1650! Thus this digital camera, which SHOULD be able to print 11×14 images at a 150 dpi, can’t muster enough detail. It’s close, but not enough, yet it might be satisfactory for you needs.
Digital camera megapixels and actual resolution (note these can differ depending on the camera):
2 megapixels: 1600 x 1200
3 megapixels: 2048 x 1536
4 megapixels: 2274 x 1704
5 megapixels: 2560 x 1920
6 megapixels: 2816 x 2112 – 3032 x 2008
7 megapixels: 3072 x 2304
8 megapixels: 3264 x 2,468
Pixels needed for a 150 DPI image (fair to good image quality)
———-
8×10: 1,200 X 1,500 pixels – most 2-megapixel cameras
11×14: 1,650 X 2,100 pixels – most 4-megapixel cameras
16×20: 2,400 X 3,000 pixels – most 8-megapixel cameras, maybe some 7-megapixel cameras
Pixels needed for a 200 DPI (good image quality)
———-
8×10: 1,600 X 2,000 pixels – most 4-megapixel cameras, maybe some 3-megapixel cameras
11×14: 2,200 X 2,800 pixels – 7-megapixel cameras, though most 6-megapixels cameras should be close enough
16×20: 3,200 X 4,000 pixels – although this is only 12.8 megapixels, most cameras won’t have the same aspect ratio (width versus height), thus you may need a camera with a greater number of megapixels
Again, these numbers are just provided as the results of mathematical formulas. You can resample the image to some degree to make it larger than normal, play around with the printer dpi, etc., and get acceptable larger prints from smaller photos. Just realize that the image quality may not be optimum, though it may be sufficient for your needs.
 Listen. Stuff happens. Computer hard drives die. Digital media might get damaged. Computer viruses and spyware attack. The wrong pictures get deleted. Any of these things can occur, causing you to lose your precious photographs. When you are done taking photographs with your digital camera, immediately save those photographs to external media!
Don’t let it happen to you.
As soon as you get back from a vacation or photo shoot, copy all of your digital camera photos to your computer, then immediately back them up to offline storage, such as ZIP disks, CD-ROMs, or DVD-ROMs. Make a second copy of your photos as well and keep them separate from your primary copies, and hopefully you won’t have to panic about your digital camera pictures when that – something – occurs to your primary storage.
As soon as you are done backing up your digital camera images to ZIP, CD, or DVD, make sure to label the media! At a minimum, you should write down the date(s) the photos were taken and the main subjects of the photographs. You may also want to label the backups with the name of the camera used to take the photos, and possibly the resolution of the photos. Start a good labeling system now and you’ll make it easier on yourself when you want to go back and use or print a photograph taken several years ago.
 . Regardless of how swiftly the body of water is moving, the motion can either be frozen or shown as a calm progression, often described as a milky blur. At a shutter speed of 1/125 of a second, water can be frozen. This is great to do this when trying to photograph waves crashing against a rocky coast. However, as you increase the time of the shutter (for example 1/60, 1/30, or 1/15 of a second) you tend to lose definition in the water without the ultimate desired effect. Once you are below 1/8 of a second on the shutter, you can achieve the calm blurring of water. The effectiveness of this practice only increases with longer times.
To photograph an image and freeze water, you can generally meter and shoot. Choose the corresponding aperture to allow a shutter speed at 1/125 of a second or greater. But when photographing water for a blurred effect, often the metered light will not allow us to shoot an exposure longer than 1/4 a second. The best suggestion to remedy the situation is through a circular polarizing filter. Most of these filters can remove at least two stops of light. (That means if the scene called for F22 at 1/15 of a second, adding a polarizing filter to the lens allows the shot to be taken at 1/4 a second.)
Water can often act as a leading line for our eyes. Use it as an element to take a viewer through a photograph from the foreground to the background. Using water such as this can help create simple, clean compositions that are pleasing to the eye.
 If your digital camera is set on automatic exposure, it will usually be fooled into grossly over-exposing the image because the scene will be dominated by the blackness of the night sky. Use the built-in monitor screen of your camera to judge whether or not the colours in your shots are bleached out from over-exposure. If they are, either try a manual setting or use the +/- EV compensation option and experiment with minus settings.
And remember, just because it’s dark, don’t boost the ISO setting of your camera to compensate. The brightness of the fireworks is normally more than adequately captured at a minimum ISO of 100. If you set a faster ISO speed you increase the chances of over-exposure and possibly introduce image noise grain.
The longer the shutter speed the longer and more dramatic the firework trails will be. But take care as anything longer than about 1/30th second will record any unsteadiness in the camera and you may need to use settings of as long as a second. If you are really serious, consider using a tripod.
For photographing fireworks in the sky or at any reasonable distance, switch it off! All flash will do is illuminate any smoke or dust in front of the camera and spoil the picture. But if you are photographing people close by with, for example, sparklers or torches, you can get some exciting effects by combining flash illumination and a slow shutter speed (above). The flash illuminates people and freezes the scene but the long (slow sync) shutter speed lets bright moving objects, like sparklers, leave long trails. Look for settings like slow-sync flash or use a slow manual shutter speed – say, between 1/4 and a whole second, with the flash on.
And finally, Take as many shots as you can. Fireworks don’t demand highest resolution camera settings so you can use a lower resolution setting to get more shots out of your memory card.
 Portrait photography isn’t easy – just pointing a camera at someone isn’t generally going to get you an happy photo. What can you do to increase the number of quality photos you like?
Take Lots of Photos! If you expect every photo to be perfect, you can pretty much guarantee every picture will be at best mediocre.
The longer the focal lengths the better chance you have for isolating your subjects. And when using longer lenses, used at large apertures (like f2.8) as well. This will give a pleasant out of focus background without being too heavy. For larger shots, shorter lengths are helpful (70mm).
Focus is always a bit of a challenge. With children, they often get very close, and the closer they are, the harder it is to focus. To make matters worse, you really need the eyes to be in focus – when doing close ups the nose and ears are often on the edge of focus.
The better shots are more often made than captured – set your self up in the right place with the right gear and the correct setting and then take lots of photos. An age appropriate playground is good because people tend to loosen up and forget you are there with a camera.
 If you are taking photographs for your own pleasure, as I assume you are, then you only have to come up with pictures that please you. You may be able to overlook the huge empty spaces or people with their heads cut off but no-one else will. That cute kid looks really cute it’s just a pity that you need a magnifying glass to see him. Producing pictures that are pleasing to someone other than yourself will make your photography much more rewarding.
One of the most popular "rules" in photography is the Rule Of Thirds. The Rule envisions two horizontal and two vertical lines trisecting an image with four intersecting points. You place your main subject where the lines intersect rather than centered in the frame. For example, placing the horizon on an upper or lower line helps create a well-composed landscape photo. For portraits, placing person where lines intersect vertically produces a more compelling photo.
A Rule of Thirds grid is built into some digital cameras. It can be turned on and viewed on the LCD. Use it as as a guide when taking a photos. If you don’t achieve this layout just right with a camera, apply the principle when cropping an image.
Using the Rule of Thirds helps produce nicely balanced easy on the eye pictures. Also, as you have to position things relative to the edges of the frame it helps get rid of tiny subject surrounded by vast empty space syndrome.
One last thing about the Rule of Thirds. Once you have got the hang of the Rule of Thirds you will very quickly want to break it! This is fine. As I said earlier these "rules" are best used as guidelines and if you can create a better image by bending or ignoring rules then fire away.
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