You probably know that your digital still camera is also capable of shooting movies, but did you know it captures movies in HD, high definition? Since most televisions are HD, this makes for an excellent viewing experience for your family movies as well as your still images. Because high definition is high-resolution you get quality on the big screen!

Let’s talk about how to get great results when shooting HD movies, especially. Since high definition and high resolution go hand-in-hand, you can expect to capture some pretty big file sizes and, as a result, should be prepared with a high-capacity media card.

Fujifilm’s digital cameras use SD (Secure Digital), SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) and microSD media cards. MicroSD cards come with an adapter to fit the camera’s media card slot.

When shooting high definition movies, be aware that your camera is shooting very fast – basically it is capturing the image, turning it into data and saving it on the media card. For this to happen smoothly, without skipping a beat, the media card has to keep up with the camera’s speed of capture. Otherwise you may see some jumping and skipping during playback of your movies. This is where a media card’s Class rating comes in.

Different from “capacity”, meaning how much space is on your media card, a “Class rating” means how fast image data can be written to the media card. Class ratings are found on the front your media card and on the packaging and come in Class 4, Class 6 and Class 10. The higher the Class rating, the faster the card can write the images. For example, a Class 4 SDHC media card is capable of writing as fast as 4 megabits per second – this is lowest Class rating recommended for capturing HD high definition movies in order to play these movies back smoothly.

Class 6 SDHC cards are capable of writing image data as fast as 6 megabits per second – even faster than the Class 4 cards – and Class 10 cards can write image data as fast as 10 megabits per second.

Shooting HD movies is when speed really matters, so be sure to avoid any speed bumps and keep at least a Class 4 SDHC media card for smooth high definition playback.

No matter what you’re capturing remember: beauty is in the eye of the beholder so trust your instincts and have fun with it!

For more information on Fujifilm’s SDHC media cards, click here

Imagine this scene: you’re taking a group shot with your family posed in front of a monument. You back up – way back – to get everyone AND the monument in the shot and you press the shutter. Then, playing it back, your subjects look like ants while the monument is really the only thing that fills the frame.

This happens in so many shots and you wonder, “How can I get everything in the scene?”. There are a couple of answers: your perspective and your lens. Your perspective is something you craft, hone, change and perfect – it’s how you see the world! Your lens is a tool that expresses your vision and your perspective and can contribute to a great, ‘wall-of-fame’ type of shot you’ll be proud of.

Let’s talk about lenses for minute. You can always use a good zoom to get close to a scene when you are physically not able to move closer – and a good, long-zoom lens holds infinite possibilities of creativity (and safety!). But a wide-angle lens is so important for any type of group shot, landscape, city-scape and broad scenery you can imagine, because it embraces a W I D E R view of your scene.

Wide angle lenses offer you the opportunity to be closer to your subject while fitting much of what you want to express in the scene. Shown in millimeters, the smaller the number, the wider the view of the image. For example: 24mm is very wide, about 80 degrees of your field of view; 28mm is about 65 degrees of your field of view; 50mm is about 40 degrees of your field of view.

Now let’s talk about YOU! Your unique perspective is what’s really necessary to get a great shot. Remember that shot you wanted of your family in front of that monument? Walk closer to the scene and position yourself lower than the group and shoot UP, or ‘stack’ your subjects so that their faces fill the frame with the monument as a backdrop. You can play with perspectives and really have fun coming up with creative poses and shots – they key is that you should trust yourself and try different things until you get what you want.

Fujifilm’s FUJINON lenses offer some of the widest angles in compact digital cameras and, although they’re all capable of great zooming power, they also embrace the wider view!

remember: beauty is in the eye of the beholder so trust your instincts and have fun with it!

Digital cameras do a good job of managing blur, and now days they all come with some form of Image Stabilization, either Digital Image Stabilization or Mechanical Image Stabilization – and, in some models, both forms.

The first line of defense in combating blur is higher sensitivities or high ISO, which is commonly referred to as Digital Image Stabilization: because high ISO gets more light in the shot and facilitates faster shutter speeds, it actually manages blur caused by subject movement. It makes sense that faster shutter speeds freeze action. Better still, this type of Image Stabilization is good in low light settings where blur is quite common.

A second line of defense is Mechanical Image Stabilization: it manages blur caused by camera movement or photographer’s hand shake. Think about shooting scenery from a moving car or trying to take pictures from a boat on the water – the ground underneath isn’t stable and, as a result, neither is the photographer or the camera. Mechanical Image Stabilization is simply a balancing mechanism that ‘shifts’ the movement in the opposite direction and counteracts it. It’s correcting the blurry effect caused by the movement. There are actually two kinds of Mechanical Image Stabilization: Optical, where the balancing mechanism resides in the lens to counteract the blur; and Sensor Shift, where the balancing mechanism resides on the camera’s sensor to counteract the blur.

It’s always great to have both Digital Image Stabilization and Mechanical Image Stabilization – what Fujifilm calls Dual Image Stabilization – because blur is managed two ways to ensure the most crisp image possible.

But there is a third line of defense: the photographer! She is the most important part of the equation because she is the base, the solid footing – better known as “the human tripod”.

By holding the camera at face height and standing with arms held firmly at the sides, with legs about shoulder-width apart, the photographer has a firm placement and better grip on the camera rather than holding the camera at arms length. Think about this placement when shooting and ‘be the tripod’!

The final, most important element in avoiding blurry pictures is ‘the half-press’, or autofocus lock. By pressing the shutter button down halfway and holding steady, the photographer locks the subject or scene in focus. Then, by fully pressing the shutter, the subject or scene is shot with all elements in place for a nice, well-focused image.

Get to know your camera’s specific features, take lots of images to see which features which ones give you the results you’re looking for. Remember, you can always delete later. And always remember: beauty is in the eye of the beholder so trust your instincts and have fun with it!