Even the most accomplished photographers who've moved into the digital age experienced an awkward first time, a dreaded beginner's learning curve. You don't have to face your digital future with fear and dread! Here are seven quick tips to make your new photographic venture quite painless:

1. Start Simply

Consider an inexpensive digital that will let you practice techniques using basic and automatic settings, including auto-flash and video display. You can easily move up to more complex models as you become more comfortable with the technology.

2. Step Into the Light!

One common characteristic of digital cameras is a small built-in flash that struggles in what you'd usually consider adequate lighting for decent pictures. Always automatically ask for the maximum amount of available light anytime you're shooting inside.

3. Get Up-Front and Personal

Getting closer to your subject helps shed extra light on the subject, improves contrast and definition, and self-edits those sometimes bizarre background elements that can ruin a photo.

4. Study the Background

Poles rising from a politician's head ... telephone wires seeming to extend out of your loved one's ears ... a bicycle protruding from the bride's backside ... the potential disasters of background "noise" are endless. Always check before you click!

5. Digitals Hate the Night

Just believe it. You'll want to use a tripod if you do a lot of night shots. Even with a "night" setting, which most basic digital cameras have, you're apt to get blurred photos as the camera races against itself to manage the dim light.

6. Move Around

There's no better time to experiment with perspective, light and color than when you're starting out. Move around your subject to test your camera angles, your perspectives and to know both opportunities and limitations your digital presents.

7. Watch the Sun and Shadows

Even using an automatic flash adjuster, shooting into the sun on a blazing summer's day or giving in to your subject's natural move to shade his eyes or face, will likely give your digital photograph either so much light that all contrast is obscured, or else a zebra-like quality that detracts from the subject itself. Practice moving up close, keeping the sun behind you, or choose lightly shaded areas in which to shoot human subjects outdoors.

Kate Sheridan is a Michigan freelance writer, photographer and homesteader whose writings on the fun and foibles of country living may be found at http://www.gardenandhearth.com/RuralLiving.htm.