Curve 8900

Brought to you by James Sanders of SLRJAM.COM - SLRJAM - is Photography in Action!

So you have this great idea to take some pictures and decided today is the day to get it right!

Ok what do I want to take a picture of and will it work? Hmmm - you have to decide on the topic and if its a moving object, person, animal, landscape etc. Why? Because the light is different with all of these topics and its important to qualify your subject.

And you have to decide on your weapon of choice. So lets see Blackberry 8300x series, 8900, 9000, Storm, Tour all have camera's and your hand dandy Pearl. For the most part you are going to be operating on a 2 mega-pixel base line here which will take a pretty great shot despite what all the camera manufacturers will tell you.

Now, lets make sure you have an SD Card inserted or enough room on your phone to get the job done (4GB card should do the trick, but there are bigger ones out now, like 8GB and 16GB) 

Ok Great! Now get out your BlackBerry and let's take some pictures!

Turn on the camera and then go to the options section.

You can get there by pressing first the right convenience key to activate the camera and then the Blackberry Key, located next to the Trackball on the left while in Camera mode, and select options

This is how the screen will look on your BlackBerry Curve 8900.
On other models it should look similar
Settings

So you can see a few options here, depending on the model of Blackberry you are using, options will vary

  • Default Flash Auto, On or Off
  • White Balance Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Night, Incandescent, Florescent
  • Picture Size 480 x 360 - 2048 x 1536
  • Quality Normal, Fine, Super fine
  • Color Effect Normal, Black and White, Sepia

Some of these setting will or will not appear on your phone. These were based on the Blackberry Curve 8900 Running OS 4.6.1.250. This Camera has a 3.2 Megapixel camer.

Here Are some Quick Camera HOW TO Take A Picture Switches

  • Take a picture - Press the Right Convenience Key
  • Zoom in to a subject - Press the Volume Up key
  • Zoom out from a subject - Press the Volume Down key
  • Change the flash mode for a picture - Press the Space key
  • Change the size of the viewfinder for a picture - Press the Symbol key
  • Pan up in a picture - Press 2
  • Pan down in a picture - Press 8
  • Pan right in a picture - Press 6
  • Pan left in a picture - Press 4
  • Return to the center of a picture - Press 5
  • Zoom in to a picture - Press 3
  • Zoom out from a picture - Press 9
  • Zoom in as much as possible to a picture - Press 1
  • Zoom out from a picture as much as possible - Press 7

Base URL for switches:
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/support/blackberry101/tips/blackberry8900.jsp#camera

Lets take some shot's
Now let me introduce you to the Rule of 3rds **

This is a method of keep things in an order that makes every picture appear proper. The Rule is to have equal amounts of scenery or space across the image

For Example:

Dog

This is Jessie the Dog, you will notice he is there by himself, but there is an even amount of green from Left to Right as well as some on top, giving him the attention he deserves in the photo Front and Center! It was a sunny day and well it was reasonably well lit so light was not an object. (This is a untouched image, only cropped) straight from the phone.

Example #2

Beauty

Here is a Shot in doors at a local mall and you can see how the lighting is mor stable, and well it delivers a better shot over all. But in some cases it requires a bit of an extra lighting to boost the clarity of the shot. If you are ever working on taking a shot of anyone or anything and you are not happy with the picture for any reason - try and get better lighting.

Or if you are getting shots, but not happy with it and you are thinking ok - well I can always fix it up in some image editing program - just Forget it! Put that program away and just go back and shoot the shot again - trust me on this - you will be happier in the end that you got the shot you were looking for, and its less work for you in the end everybody wins!

Water Shots and Landscapes (moving and not moving)

These can be tricky - you need a steady hand and some patience for both areas.

Here is a Water Fall Shot in Napanee, Ontario - Home Town of Avril Lavigne.

Example #3

Water

Even though we did not zoom in on the seagull in the center, the Rule of 3rd's was still applied here, with even amounts of scenery all around the bird, giving the waterfall a complete look along with the bird there for decoration.

Thank you very much for taking the time to check out this brief tutorial on Taking Great Pictures with Your BlackBerry - Keep on snapping those pix!

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If you want to have any of your photos reviewed feel free to come by the site at http://www.SLRJAM.COM and post your pictures up in the forum and someone will be sure to review them!

All the Best and remember to go to http://shop.crackberry.com to grab your SD Card and an extra battery! You never know when you are going to need it. Makes life a lot easier knowing you don't have to stop shooting all your great pictures!

Be sure to head over to SLRJam.com and check out the ongoing photo contest for a chance to win great prizes!

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