Fun Photos with Camera Picture Effects

Have you ever looked at photos that were black and white with just a splash of color and wished you could take a photo like that? Or perhaps you really like the look of retro style photos. These features and much more are available on my new Sony SLT camera. They are also available on many of the new cameras on the market today both in the point and shoot and SLR styles. If you look into your own camera's manual perhaps you even have some of these picture features and haven't used them.

On this page I'm going to take you along as I explored the Picture Effects features on my new Sony camera. I will then also give you links to a page on my Canon point and shoot that has similar features.

all photos by myself, mbgphoto

This is my newest camera that I used to show the picture effects on this page . My first DSLR camera was a Sony A100 that I bought 6 years ago and I wanted to be able to use all of my lenses and accessories with my new camera. I looked at several of the new Sony camera bodies and this is the one the seemed right for me.

It is a great camera for both the ambitious beginner and the intermediate skilled photographer. The beginner can start right off using the camera with all of the automatic features and the intermediate photographer has the luxury of going between automatic and manual features. The camera has literally 100's of features so to get the most out of it I would suggest either a class on the camera at your local photo shop or using a good guidebook such as David Busch's.

In the past picture effects were done mainly in the editing and processing phase. With today's newer cameras you have access to a wide variety of picture effects right in your camera. In essence the camera is doing the image processing in the camera right as you take the photo.

I found that the best way to learn the features on your camera is to take the time to use each one and then study the results. On this page are photos taken at The Butterfly House in Chesterfield, MO. I took my new camera there on a recent visit to really study all the features that were available to me. On this page are photos I took of one tropical flower. In the intro photo I did not use any special effects but set my camera on A (aperature priority) with an aperature of f5.6. In the rest of the photos I used the same aperature and a different picture effect on each photo.

The list below shows the picture effect available on my camera by using the bottom button on control dial.

• Toy Camera
• Pop Color
• Posterization
• Retro Photo
• Soft High Key
• Partial Color
• High Contrast Monochrome
• Soft Focus
• HDR Painting
• Rich-tone Monochrome
• Miniature

This effect adds a lot of saturation to the photo making the colors really pop. I think this feature might be really good to use on a dreary day.

This effect gives a type of poster effect by producing a very vivid high contrast image in black and white.

This effect gives you the faded look of an old photo.

I really like the partial color effect. In this effect I can choose either red, green, blue, or yellow. That color will then be the only color showing with everything else being black and white. This is a very popular effect for portraits when you might see the entire photo in black and white except for a bow or tie or other accessory.

When you use this effect the camera takes three photos consecutively and then using an HDR technique it enhances colors and details and puts the photos together. You can specify the intensity of this effect. I used High for this photo.

This effect converts photo to black and white and boost the contrast.

This effect creates a soft almost blurry effect.

This produces bright images

Now that you have seen all of my photo effects, which one do you like best on the tropical flower photo