Experiment with Exposure: Both digital and even film cameras work best in sunlight, but once you move indoors or into dim light, it gets more difficult. Experiment with exposure to best handle any lighting situation.
If you can, shoot your subject from different angles and with different lighting. If you can manually turn off your flash, do so. Other flash settings can also be tried such as 'fill flash.' Sometimes even a perfectly exposed picture can be improved with fill flash. Other times turning off the flash leaving the subject underexposed can add an element of drama.
You can take the same photo three different ways using three different exposure options and the result will be three totally different pictures. What's even better is that all three can look good, but you have to experiment.
Bracket your shots if you can, with one shot slightly underexposed, one slightly overexposed, and one "just right." Even though some digital cameras will do this automatically, you still need to practice. The last thing you want is two of your shots to look as if they were taken accidentally or by a surprised photographer who was expecting only one shot instead of three.
Special features Many digital cameras have some interesting in-camera special features. Some will allow you to take short QuickTime clips, some will allow you to record sound annotations, and some will allow you to experiment with special effects, such as shooting black and white or sepia-tone images. Ignore the special features until you learn the basics.
Many of the special effects offered by digital cameras can be done without them. Software such as Photoshop can quickly and easily change your normal color image into a perfect black and whit or sepia toned copy. The reality is that if you can do it easily in Photoshop, concentrate on taking a good color photo and let the program take care of the special effects.
But still try out other special effects. One example is to pan you camera to track a fast moving car, the car will be in sharp focus while the background will be blurred for an interesting photo. Or try out the opposite by focusing on a stationary object such as a group of bright flowers or a child reading on the front steps and allow a speeding car to enter the frame. The result will be a sharply focused center of attention with the added feature of motion.
Silhouettes are another nice special effect. Try taking a photo with your subject in shadow, eclipsing a brightly-exposed object in the background. Now try the reverse, a brightly exposed subject against a dark background. Although different, both can be interesting. Getting a good silhouette with film is expensive: you shoot a lot of frames with little or no reward. With a digital camera, however, the only cost is your time and patience, and your patience will be rewarded.
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