Sony Cyber-Shot DSC H20 Photography School

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC H20 is a powerful camera ideally suited to taking pictures of human beings. Smile shutter, face selection, anti-blink, priority face selection, these are no doubt things that most people would be happy to have when it comes time to get all those memorable shots of Grandma and Grandpa with the kids. However, the art of photography goes beyond portraits and people.

This camera also features Dynamic Range Optimizers and 9 Point Auto Focus, and these are very useful things that make those artistic shots easier to produce. Dynamic Range refers to different exposure levels of light to better capture an "eye accurate" picture, and 9 Point Auto Focus is a very useful function to creating good compositions and pictures that stress natural and easy flow on the eye.

Dynamic Range is an important function of any camera. The ranges of light that the human eyes sees are far more subtle than what our best camera technology can pick up on. Dynamic Range is a technology that allows photographs to be recorded with more than one exposure at once. In this way, something that might be too bright or too dark in a picture of otherwise natural light can be shown more as it would appear to the eye.

The most obvious element like this in a picture is the window. Windows always show up too bright compared to the rest of the room because they are a source of light. That light is going to our eyes as well, right? Of course, but we see it differently because our eyes pick up far more subtleties than one camera exposure can. Good Dynamic Range technology can take multiple exposures in thousands of little places in the shot, and then average the final picture together for a near-perfect appearance as we're used to seeing it with our eyes.

9 Point Auto Focus is something that may not seem useful to novice photographers. It is, however, very important to people who have developed an eye for compositions that look natural to the eye. Good camerawork, they say, is camerawork that you don't notice. It is not just true about cinematography.

It's also true about photography. If you take a picture of someone in front of a big view of the Golden Gate Bridge, which side of the person are you going to have the bridge in the picture. This is not a trick question. Putting the person, who you're taking the picture of, in the middle might seem logical, but then where does the bridge go? Crammed into one side and cut off with just hills on the other side? No. You put the person to the side and the bridge "in front". The eye sees the person and then the bridge.

This is done very fast in our brains, and it's obvious when it's done wrong. That's a pretty obvious example 9 Point Auto Focus can be used to find up to 9 different places in the shot that could be considered "Focal Points" (places like the Golden Gate Bridge that the eye wants to look at).

You'll be the new Ansel Adams in no time with the Sony Cyber-shot DSC H20.