Digital SLR cameras in many ways are more complicated and need a little more care and attention when taking photographs. You have to remember a lot when you set up a shot, and with digital, it adds a few more things to think about. There are major benefits to digital vs film even with the added things to remember when using digital cameras.

1. Set your White Balance

When I first got into digital, I don’t think I even knew what “White Balance” meant or what it was for, but when you take a great shot and then it’s all blue or yellow you quickly learn about white balance.

What is White Balance?
Simple explained: White Balance is setting your camera so what your eye sees as white is captured on your camera as white. When your White Balance is set correctly the colors in your photograph will look natural and correct to your eye. Once your camera is set to capture white as white, it will automatically calculate all the other colors based on the white as its reference.

Auto White Balance Good or Bad?
Auto White Balance is a nice feature but can be fooled if there is a dominant color in a scene. Nikon cameras do a good job of them, but I prefer to shoot by setting my white balance per each scene. Nikon’s DSLR camera have a few pre-determined White Balance settings and they can do a good job. One of my favorite White Balance Setting is the PRE setting. Grab a white piece of paper and set your camera to PRE in the White balance setting, you’ll take a test shot with the white paper in scene and it will pre-measure the white balance and set it for that scene.

2. RAW or JPEG

One of my biggest recommendations for taking photos with you DSLR is, take all your photos in Nikon NEF RAW format. Sure the file sizes are bigger and you can’t take as many photos on a card, but RAW is the Film of Digital SLR cameras. It captures an uncompressed image, and in post production you have a lot more control and forgiveness with your images. If you forget to set your White Balance, you can fix it in post without to much damage to your original image. With most RAW post image processing software, when you work in RAW, you can edit your photos in a non-destructive way. Meaning, your original image is not edited, it edits the photo without damaging it.

3. Avoid Dust on the Sensor

Dust Bunnies and Dots on your photos is most likely caused by dust that has settled on your CCD Sensor. It can be expensive to get your sensor cleaned, so the best defense to Dust on your Sensor is being careful and quick when exchanging your lenses. The easiest way to avoid dust is never change your lens, but that kind of defeats the beauty about DSLR cameras. So I have four tips to help avoid dust as much as possilbe.

• Don’t change lenses in High Wind areas. If it’s windy outside, try and get cover or go inside to change you lens
• Change your lenses as little as possible
• When you change lenses, use gravity to your advantage, point your camera toward the ground when changing your lens
• Don’t leave your lenses off your camera for too long, dust can get in the mirror chamber and when you take photos the movement of the shutter and mirror moving out of the way can stir up the dust and get on your sensor

Eventually you are going to get dust on your sensor, unless you never change your lens, but even then it is possible. You’ll probably need to get your sensor cleaned once or twice a year, if you are careful.

4. Setting your ISO

With Digital SLR’s you can set your ISO (Film Speed) to fit different lighting situations. With film you had to buy different film to change your ISO, with digital you also can change your ISO. Typically you want the lowest ISO speed as possible for your lighting available. On Nikon’s DSLR camera the ISO range is from 200 to 1600, but the Nikon D200 and Nikon D80 give you 100 to 1600 and Hi-I which is equivalent to 3200. I typical shoot at ISO 200 or ISO 400.

5. Measure For Lights and Darks

When metering for a proper exposure remember that you want to measure the light in multiple spots to see how it will expose the Lights and the Darks. Then pick a middle ground for exposing the photo, that way you don’t loose to much in the shadows, or loose the to much in the highlights. You can always dodge and burn the photo to get the proper exposure in post production. Cameras do not have the dynamic range that our eyes have, our eyes can properly expose differences in light extremely accurately. Digital cameras can’t, but you can in achieve a better dynamic exposure in post production with different photoshop techniques.

Some of the important details can help you in your use of your Digital SLR camera. Enjoy the freedom that a DSLR brings you, and happy photographing!