One of the very few internet application that "changed my life" (I know, so over used) recent is Flickr. I’ve always a photographer which I spent 2 years as a college paper photographer (which I, proudly, got beaten up by some gangster during the Rodney King Riot). I’ve also spent my share of time with the oh-so-hip Lomo camera and took a tone of saturated blurry pictures and they are crappy. Not to mention, during my Cal Poly days I also spent more time hanging out with photo majors rather than the fellow design majors. Don’t know why.

I’ve finally got the Nikon D70 during April of this year. I mean, it’s ok… but since then, I have been slowly buying more and more photo equipments and eventually got the pro camera D2Hs and a few new glasses. Photography as a hobby came back to me just in time when I want to spend less time in MMORPG. A couple of things I want to point out/notice in regarding digital photography in case you want to get beyond point-and-shot:

1. Ignore all the uber tech talk type photo people online/offline. They might know a lot about f stops and exposures, but when you take a look at their work, usually you’ll find boring and shitty pictures.

2. Forget about the notion that digital photography is "perfect". In fact, eventually you will run into dirt spots on your image capture processor or "hot pixel" on the processor. Ironically, if you shot film or slides you never have to worry about issues like those.

3. Mega pixel is not everything, but it does help. But less mega pixel also forces you to be a better photographer. Garbage in garbage out. Doesn’t matter if you shot 4 mega pixel or 16 mega pixel.

4. Whenever I hand over my camera to friends or family these days, they no longer hold the camera to their face and look through the viewfinder. They try to use the LCD display as a viewfinder. /Sigh.

5. If you are really serious about digital photography. A Master Degree in Color Science helps.  I know we all use Photoshop here and there; especially graphic designers or Web designers… but serious digital photography means you have to use Photoshop in a very different manner.  I actually prefer to stay away from Photoshop when I edit my pictures these days.

6. Be conservative with your shutter speed. If you *think* you can shot at 1/30. Think again. It will most likely come out blurry. Try 1/60 instead.

Happy shootin’.