Just bought yourself the latest 12 megapixel digital camera? Wondering why this state of the art photographic equipment isn’t giving you the high quality photos you expected? Here are some sure fire tips to improve your photography experience and help you make the best of your investment:

Practice, familiarize yourself with your camera and always bring it together with you. Read through the included user manual, know what the numerous buttons and dials on the camera body do, and keep practicing! You can’t make the best use of your camera if you don’t understand how it works and don’t leave it at home.

Know your camera to the point where you can operate it even when blindfolded. Nothing's more folly than missing a great shot just because you forgot how to change the ISO of your camera. When you are familiar with your camera, you will be in a better position to make intelligent predictions of how your camera will capture a shot and make better adjustments to really bring your shot popping out!

Composition is as important if not more important than finding a good subject. Being at the right place at the right time is only half of the battle, you need to be able to see ‘the shot’ in order to capture it. Though this needs some practice there are some rules to follow such as ‘the rules of third’ and never leave horizons in the middle.

Lighting is the heart of photography which literally means painting with light. There wouldn’t be photography if there wasn’t any light, try taking a photograph in total darkness and see what happens. You can have a totally different effect of the same subject with different lighting, you are the artist, and light is your paint, so get creative and look out for interesting lighting, it could yield very rewarding photos. However in the event that you are not in control of the lighting, the next best thing you can do is wait for the two magical hours of the day – just after sunrise and just before sunset. At these hours thee light is warm, and because of the low angle of the sun, the shadows created are soft and wonderful, highlighting textures and shapes that would otherwise disappear under harsh noon lighting. If you’re indoors and you need to use the flash, try bouncing it off the walls or ceiling, or use a reflector, rather than hit the subject directly with the flash, which will cause harsh shadows and flatten out details, creating a plasticky feel especially on human skin.

Exposure can make or break a photograph, thus it is always important to get the exposure right. Overexposing a shot will result in blown out highlights and lost detail, underexposing will result in lost shadow detail. Even though shadow detail is somewhat recoverable with a little post processing, it will result in the increase of noise, you can raise it by 1 – 2 stops at best. The best is to get the exposure correct right of the bat, modern digital cameras have tools to help you determine the correct exposure has been taken, such as the histogram which is present on not just DSLRs but some compact cameras and bridge cameras as well nowadays. Some cameras have flashing highlights to warn you as well, so make good use of these tools to get your exposure as perfect as possible!

Post processing can save a wrongly exposed photograph; though don’t expect to save a photograph that’s so overexposed or underexposed that all you can see is a blotch of white light or black shadow with zero detail in it. Post processing can also bring out the artist in you, with today’s powerful and versatile software, you can create various effects, collages if you know what you are doing. So pick up a post processing software like Photoshop Elements or Photoshop and let your creativity run wild, paired with great shots, you’re sure to be able to produce breathtaking images.

Camera shake can ruin a perfect shot, especially in low light situations where slower shutter speeds are required. Camera shake is also apparent in Telephoto(zoom) lenses that do not have image stabilization whereby the slightest shake is magnified a few fold. To solve the problem, always bring a tripod along for night photography trips, it can really be a life saver for those once in a life time shots. Get a telephoto lens with image stabilization, it does not help much but every bit of stabilization is needed to get that absolute sharp shot of your subject far away. Don’t count on hand holding your camera if you’re going to shoot with slow shutter speeds, be it day time or night time, your best bet is still a good steady tripod, be sure your selection of tripod can hold the weight of your camera as you wouldn’t want your camera to go topsy turvy when shooting.

White balance can totally change the feeling and temperature of an image. Leaving your camera on AWB(Auto White Balance) might seem like a good idea, but more often than not the camera will not be able to guess the color temperature accurately. However, playing around with the white balance can sometimes yield interesting and creative results. So if you’re feeling a little creative, experiment with a few white balance settings for a scene to see the creative results you can achieve.

Noise can damper a perfectly sharp and good composition. There’s no point using ISO 1600 if it’s unnecessary as it will only cause unwanted degradation in image quality. This is especially true with compact cameras with small sensor sizes. It’s best not to use an ISO setting of more than 400 for compact cameras, a DSLR system can push higher to 800 and 1600 if absolutely necessary.

Resolution is the least of your concerns if you are unable to take a decent shot. Most cameras today have more than 6 megapixels which is more than enough for A4 prints and below.