How can I take good pictures with a 3.2 megapixel digicam?

Question

I have a samsung digimax 301 and when I take pictures it comes out all crappy. So I was wondering if there is any special way to take pictures with this camera?

Answer 1

3.2 MP should be fine as long as you are not trying to crop out the center section and make a huge enlargement. If you compose well so that you will be using almost all of the image, you can make satisfactory 8x10 enlargements.

But...

Be sure that you are set in the largest available image size and the best possible resolution or image quality - superfine on your camera. Cameras allow you to use smaller sizes than the maximum, but if you try to do this with a 3.2 MP camera, you will not have enough pixels to work with to get a decent result.

It looks like your camera only has digital zoom. If that is true, then try to avoid zooming as much as possible. "Zoom in with your feet." Digital zoom really degrades image quality. You might tap it ONCE for a little zoom, but no more than that.

Go here and see some examples of 3-4 MP images. You should be able to equal these results if you do not zoom in.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/441244832/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/752524016/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/538368519/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/441244806/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/412315822/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/412315814/

~~~~~~~~~~

Digital Zoom vs. Optical Zoom

Optical zoom is good and digital zoom sucks. Optical zoom is "real" zoom done with the camera lens. Digital zoom is really just a way to enlarge pixels and degrade the image. Ignore it completely when you are comparing cameras.

Here are three sample pictures taken with my Canon Powershot SD900, which is a 10.0 megapixel camera. All three pictures are taken with the optical zoom maxed out at 3X or 23.1 mm, which is the equivalent of 111.6 mm after calculating for the lens crop factor. There is no image processing at all done with any of these pictures. All were taken using the self-timer to (hopefully) eliminate camera shake as the camera sat on the top of my car. (Okay, I'll use a tripod next time, but I think they are pretty sharp images.) Please click on "View All Sizes" and then view each image at the largest size available, which should be 3648 x 2736 pixels. The first picture (3xOpticalFull) is the full frame image at 3x optical zoom, or 111 mm. The second picture (4xDigitalFull) is the result of zooming out the additional 4x in digital zoom, for an equivalent of 444 mm. The third picture (3xOpticalCrop) is actually a cropped version of the original image, maintaining the full pixel dimension. In other words, I accomplished the "digital zoom" entirely in the computer and not in the camera. If you compare the full-sized images, I think it is immediately obvious that the third picture is far superior in any aspect that you care to examine. I think it is much sharper (Check the tower and the antenna up near the top of the frame.), has better color, and less digital noise and artifact (Check the plain sky and the shadows on the building.). These images are all tagged "digital zoom."

3xOpticalFull: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04/459603923/
4xDigitalFull: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04/459603931/
3xOpticalCrop: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04/459603939/

In other words, please ignore any claims of superiority based on "digital zoom" when you choose your camera. It is only "in camera cropping" and it is not anywhere near as good as "in computer cropping." Any attempts at cropping a digitally-zoomed picture will be a waste of time.

~~~~~~~~~~

Answer 2

I'm not familiar with your model, but in my opinion, a 3.2 megapixel camera is adaquate if you have a larger optical zoom, or visual stabilization. Digital zoom really doesn't help your picture quality any. It just blows up the actual picture digitally. What depends is whether or not you want to print pictures larger than 4 x 6. The more megapixels, the better resolution, but you still need to have the optical zoom better than 4x in order to get good clean shots. This is my opinion, only, I am not a professional.

Answer 3

Bring the camera with you as you take pictures with a better camera. You'll still be taking pictures with your 3.2, but your 3.2 won't be participating.

Answer 4

I am afraid you have to buy a better camera. They are cheap now. 6 to 10 Mega pixels will do nicely.

Answer 5

One thing I do: download Picasa 2 (free) and use the "I'm Feeling Lucky" tool to help enhance your pictures. Worked very well for me.

Answer 6

at least 4.0 megapixel requried.