How to Maximise Your Point & Shoot

Point & Shoots are one of the most widely used categories of cameras. Owing to camera’s low price and ease of use, many beginners prefer to use these small wonders. Professionals also prefer a powerful point and shoot as a second camera, as it is easy to carry and fits snugly into one’s pocket. But these features come with a price, and these cameras are not without issues in their own way. In this article we will take up each issue and discuss how we can try to overcome them.

- Souradeep Roy

LOW DYNAMIC RANGE 

One of the biggest issues with these small cameras is dynamic range. Dynamic range is what balances your exposure and prevents your photo from having overexposed and underexposed parts in them. Sometimes when shooting a landscape you will notice the sky being severely overexposed. This is due to the camera trying to expose for the ground thus overexposing the sky. The remedy to this is to try and avoid the sky as much as possible. Try to point towards the ground when composing.

LOW LIGHT PERFORMANCE 

This is a big issue for many photographers who are starting out. People tend to automatically switch on the pop up flash without hesitation and start shooting awkwardly lit photos which are never aesthetically pleasing. To avoid this, the best way is to control the pop-up flash with an external diffuser or try to check if the camera allows for the flash’s intensity to be reduced or not. Another way is to hold the flash upwards with your finger, if you are shooting indoors and bounce the light off of the ceiling you will get a much more even light. While this might not solve your problems every time, as you might wish to take landscape shots etc in low light, it will solve all your problems when shooting indoors. Many point and shoot cameras these days allow you to change your ISO which might be an added bonus! When shooting landscape use a tripod to get steady shots as the camera will most definitely reduce the shutter speed to a considerable amount.

LACK OF CONTROL OVER THE CAMERA