How to take high quality photos?

I'm going to a concert tomorrow, and I'm in the 11th row. How do I take good photos? I'm bringing my 16mp camera and 8mp iPhone 4S. Should I zoom in and take the picture or should I take it at regular and then just crop it?

Creating high-resolution images is simple if you have the right tools. Whether you use a digital camera, scanner or piece of computer software will dictate how high the resolution can be.

1. Consult the user manual for your camera to determine how to change your image quality to the maximum setting. This will take up more space on your memory card but ensure that you are creating the highest quality pictures possible.

2. Open your scanner software on your computer. There should be a setting called either "Quality" or "Resolution." Sometimes you only have the options for high, medium or low quality, while other times you can change the dpi to a number value. You should also have the option to change the color. If you are scanning text or a simple black-and-white line drawing, your dpi should be set to 1, 200, and your color settings should be set at 1-bit (sometimes called bitmap) or black and white. If you are scanning an image that is several different shades of black, your color settings should be grayscale, and dpi should be a minimum of 600. When doing full color, set your colors to as many as you can (sometimes going up to 8 million, but CMYK is fine, too), and resolution should be a minimum of 300. This will ensure that you get the best quality. Setting your resolution any higher than that can create strange images.

3. Use a professional graphics program like Adobe Photoshop. Create a new file. When the Image dialog box pops up, make sure your values under Resolution are set to 300 pixels per inch or higher.

4. Change your print settings to get the highest quality output. Most home ink-jet printers can't print more than 600 to 1, 200 dpi. Hit the "Print" button, and go into your settings (sometimes called "Options" or "Advanced Settings"). Look for an option for print or image quality and change it to "Best." Check all your other options to see if you can give your print a numerical value for resolution. If you can, change this to 600 or 1, 200 dpi, which is the highest possible.

The best stratagy is to crop the image later.

This is because in both cases you will be using only a portion of the 8 mp sensor, either by letting the camera crop it using the digital zoom or you later cropping it in your photo program.

The 16 mp P&S should give you better results, but the main problem you will be facing is that the camera will try to average the meter reading for the whole scene, the bright stage and all the darkness around it resulting in overexposed performers.

Most P&S cameras have an EV adjustment so you can tell the camera to overexpose the whole scene rendering the stage exposure closer to what you want.

Obviously use you camera. The iphone is too low quality, and you'll get nothing but a blurry mess.

Zoom in, and you may also have to crop it, or use the digital zoom to crop it. Make sure you set your camera for low light (higher ISO). That will probably create some problems with noise, but it's better than having blurry pictures due to camera shake, which get worse the more you zoom in while holding the camera in your hand.