Family Photography in the Digital Age

Most of the pictures of me as a child are in black and white. There was no video, and color was a luxury. How things have changed! Saving your memories of family life is easy today - it's just deciding how that is difficult.

Digital photography has grown from a way to get images on the computer, to a good substitute for film cameras. Film companies are ceasing to produce many of the good semi-professional films which were great for portraits and fine photography not long ago. While some will argue that there are noticeable differences between the characteristics of film and digital images, generally the quality as well as the convenience of digital photography is fantastic.

Whether you get your digital camera as a gift, pick something in your price range, or study and compare and buy the perfect one for your needs, you will find that you're probably getting good snapshots, a staple of the family album. Anything about 3 to 5 megapixels or above will do. In fact, keeping a couple of inexpensive digital cameras around can make photography spontaneous! We keep one on the coffee table, and someone is always catching some new pose of our cats.

If you're shopping, there may be a few things that are worth looking for. One is a zoom lens, it gives you more flexibility in composing the picture. Another is some picture processing, though you can get software to do that at home. Adjusting for a few standard situations such as a backlit subject can be very helpful. A very important feature for many people, available in many cameras even at the lower end of the price range, is a simple video recording feature. You can record short clips, which you can keep on disk or post on the web for others to see.

And what do you do with the pictures? Chances are, you can download the pictures from your camera straight to your PC, using a USB connection, which is a simple cable between the two. Your camera probably came with software to collect the pictures, such as Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition. Follow the directions and you will have your photos, ready to catalog and review!

As soon as you have a collection of photos, you will probably want to make a backup copy, as they are precious memories and you don't want to lose them. If you have a CD or DVD burner it is perfect for this, and if you don't you can use a little USB memory stick to hold them and burn a CD elsewhere. This memory device works like a small disk drive, and is also great for taking the pictures to be printed at a pharmacy or photo shop.

This brings us to the next stage - you've got pictures, you've archived them, and now you want to have something to share. You can print them on a regular printer, and they aren't too bad. If you have a photo printer, it's a little more expensive to print, but the quality is amazing. Earlier photo printer inks were quite susceptible to water streaks, but that is less so today. Still, for a better price and durability, if a little less convenience, you can take or upload the pictures to a pharmacy or photo store service, or one of the online photo services which will mail your finished photos to you. You decide, and choose your options as you need! People will love to see the prints, receive the pictures in email or visit them on a website, or even have them downloaded by one of the new photo frames which automatically receives and displays new pictures. Imagine grandma and grandpa's surprise when they come into the living room and find new pictures of their grandkids in the picture frame!

New technologies have made family photography so much easier to do and to share, so long as you know how to make the choices that are right for you. Keep a camera handy, and make sure that you archive your photos in a way that will keep those smiles on file for the future!