Digital photo myths debunked

Myth#5 : Digital cameras don't offer the creative versatility of their traditional counterparts
It used to be that only very high-end digital cameras had any kind of advanced manual controls. They were all automatic and adjusted all the settings for you whether you liked it or not.

But many digital cameras on the market today can give you creative control that rivals that of a great many traditional cameras.

Advanced controls
Digital cameras have come a long way in the past few years. And we're not just talking about the high-end devices. Middle-of-the-road models and even entry-level point-and-click cameras are now offering a host of special modes for specific photographic situations, including full-auto, manual, night scene, landscape, and portrait. And the latest digital models even give you control over shutter-speed priority and aperture priority modes, just like their traditional counterparts.

In addition, you can view images before they're printed, and if you don't like what you see, you can easily edit them to perfection or delete them. Now that's versatility!

Master manipulator
Have you ever received your prints from the film-processing lab only to be very disappointed in their quality? Well, when you make your own prints at home, you're no longer at the mercy of the photo print-making machine. No more assembly-line photos for you! You can crop your photos to really focus in on a subject, make flaws magically disappear, remove a distracting object from the background, or merge two photos.

To learn more, read photo editing possibilities and photo cropping basics.

Photographic freedom
Although both the immediacy and flexibility of digital photography have made it very popular, there is one aspect that is rarely mentioned: the freedom it gives you to explore creative photography.

With a traditional camera, many people hesitate before taking a picture. Is it worth wasting my precious film, they ask? Out of that indecisiveness, mediocrity is born. Many people pass up trying new things for fear of wasting money, thereby losing the opportunity for creative growth.

Digital photography gives you the opportunity to explore without hesitation. Go ahead, hand the camera to the kids, or try your hand at some weird and unusual angles. Do a headstand and take photos from there. No shot is too risky when you have the control to print only the photos you like. In the end, that's the kind of freedom that can result in some really good art.