Take A Stunning Sunset & Nightime Photos

Because photography is the art and science of capturing light, you wouldn’t think that nighttime would present many photo opportunities.
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Minimizing Shutter Lag

Shutter lag is the time it takes for the camera to calculate the correct focus and exposure before it captures the scene. In many camera models under $700 or so, this interval amounts to an infuriating half-second to one-second delay between your shutter press and the moment the picture is captured. Read more

How To Choose A Tripod

 

A tripod has two parts: the legs and the pan head. The camera attaches to the pan head, and the legs support the head.

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Taking Control Your Camera Manual Mode

Cheapo digital cameras are often called point-and-shoot models with good reason: You point, you shoot.

Sometimes these cameras let you pick from a few pre-programmed settings like Night Snapshot or Kids & Pets, but for the most part your camera is doing all the thinking for you. More expensive cameras, on the other hand, let you take your camera off autopilot.

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Three Categories Of Digital Camera

Today’s digital cameras fall into three categories:

Point-and-shoot (pocket) cameras are small and usually cost around $200 to $400. Read more

Pixel, Megapixel and Resolutions.

The first number you see in a digital camera description is its megapixels rating. A pixel (short for picture element) is one tiny colored dot, one of the thousands or millions that compose a single digital photograph. (1 megapixels = one million pixels.) This term is one thing you cannot avoid to at least hear of, since pixels are everything in computer graphics. The number of megapixels your camera has determines the quality of your pictures’ resolution (the amount of detail that appears). The higher the megapixel rating on a camera the better the resolution is. A 5-megapixels camera, for example, has better resolution than a 3-megapixels one. It also costs more. How many of those pixels you actually need depend on how you’re going to display the images you shoot.

If Your Pictures Only for Computer

Many digital photos never get further than a computer screen. After you transfer them to your computer, you can distribute the images by email, post them on a Web page, or use them as desktop pictures or screen savers.

If such activities are the extent of your digital photography ambition, you can get by with very few megapixels. Even a $100, 2-megapixels camera produces a 1600 x 1200-pixel image, which is already too big to fit on the typical 1024 x 768pixel laptop screen (without zooming or scrolling).

Getting Down Further, For Printing Purposes

If you intend to print your photos, however, your megapixels needs are considerably greater. The typical computer screen is a fairly low-resolution device: most pack in somewhere between 72 and 96 pixels per inch. But for a printed digital photo to look as clear and smooth as a real photograph, the colored dots must be much closer together on the paper150 pixels per inch or more.

Remember the 2-megapixels photo that would spill off the edges of a laptop screen? Its resolution (measured in dots per inch) is only adequate for a 5 x 7 print. Enlarge it anymore, and the dots become visible specks. Your family and friends will look like they have some unfortunate skin disorder. If you want to make prints of your photos (as most folks do), keep the following table in mind:

Megapixels	Pixel Resolution	Print Size @300 ppi	Print size @ 200 ppi	Print size @ 150 ppi
3	2048 x 1536	6.82″ x 5.12″	10.24″ x 7.68″	13.65″ x 10.24″
4	2464 x 1632	8.21″ x 5.44″	12.32″ x 8.16″	16.42″ x 10.88″
6	3008 x 2000	10.02″ x 6.67″	15.04″ x 10.00″	20.05″ x 13.34″
8	3264 x 2448	10.88″ x 8.16″	16.32″ x 12.24″	21.76″ x 16.32″
10	3872 x 2592	12.91″ x 8.64″	19.36″ x 12.96″	25.81″ x 17.28″
12	4290 x 2800	14.30″ x 9.34″	21.45″ x 14.00″	28.60″ x 18.67″
16	4920 x 3264	16.40″ x 10.88″	24.60″ x 16.32″	32.80″ x 21.76″
35mm film scanned	5380 x 3620	17.93″ x 12.06″	26.90″ x 18.10″	35.87″ x 24.13″

These are extremely crude guidelines, by the way. Many factors contribute to the quality of an 8 x 10 print including lens quality, file compression, exposure, camera shake, paper quality, and the number of different color cartridges your printer has, among other things. You may be able to print larger sizes than those listed here and be perfectly happy with them. But these figures provide a rough guide to getting the highest quality prints.

Cropping

The other important advantage that a camera with multiple megapixels gives you is the ability to create high-quality prints of select portions of your photo. Say you’ve taken a great shot of your kids, but they occupy just a smidgen of the overall picture. No problem if your camera’s got a lot of megapixels under the hood. Just crop out all the boring background and keep just the juicy parts. If you try that same maneuver with a picture that comes from a 2 megapixel camera, you’ll end up with a photo filled with unsightly pixels.

Select Memory Cards Regarding The File Formats

Article Highlights:

Basic Definition

File Formats and Memory Speed

Types of Memory Cards

Instead of popping in rolls of film, you use a memory card. The memory card that comes with most cameras is a joke. It probably holds only about six or eight best-quality pictures. It’s nothing more than a cost-saving placeholder, foisted on you by a camera company that knows full well that you have to go buy a bigger one. When you’re shopping for a camera, it’s imperative to factor in the cost of a bigger card.

It’s impossible to overstate how glorious it is to have a huge memory card in your camera (or several smaller ones in your camera bag). Since you’re not constantly worrying about running out of space on your memory card, you can shoot more freely, increasing your chances of getting great pictures. You can go on longer trips without dragging a laptop along, too, because you don’t have to run back to your hotel room every three hours to offload your latest pictures. Your camera’s battery life is more than enough to worry about: The last thing you need is another chronic headache in the form of your memory card. Bite the bullet and buy a bigger one.

UP TO SPEED - The File Format Factor

Just about every digital camera on earth saves photos as JPEG files. JPEG is the world’s most popular photo file format, because even though it’s compressed to occupy a lot less space, the visual quality is still very high.

But JPEGs aren’t the only format you’ll run across, especially once you start editing your photos, which is covered in of this book. While there are a zillion graphical formats known to computer-kind, there are really only two, besides JPEG, that you, the digital photographer, need to know about.

TIFF. Most digital cameras capture photos in the JPEG format. Some cameras, though, offer you the chance to leave your photos uncompressed on the camera, in what’s called TIFF format. These files are huge in fact, you’ll be lucky if you can fit one TIFF file on the memory card that came with the camera.

TIFF’s advantage is that these files retain 100 percent of the picture’s original quality. Note, however, that the instant you edit a TIFF-format photo, most image editing programs convert the file to the lesser quality JPEG format. That’s fine if you plan to order prints or a photo book. But if you took that once-in-a-lifetime, priceless shot as a TIFF file, don’t do any editing don’t even rotate it if you hope to maintain its perfect, pristine quality. Instead, make a copy of the file and use that copy when it’s time to edit. Then hang onto the TIFF so you’ll always have a master version of your original shot.

RAW format. Most digital cameras work like this: When you squeeze the shutter button, the camera studies the data picked up by its sensors. The circuitry then makes decisions pertaining to sharpening level, contrast and saturation settings, color “temperature,” white balance, and so on and then saves the resulting processed image as a compressed JPEG file on your memory card.

For millions of people, the resulting picture quality is just fine, even terrific. But all that in-camera processing drives professional shutterbugs nuts.

They’d much rather preserve every last iota of original picture information, no matter how huge the resulting file on the memory card and then process the file by hand once it’s been safely transferred onto the PC, using a program like Photoshop Elements. That’s the idea behind the RAW file format, which is an option in many pricier digital cameras. (RAW stands for nothing in particular, and it’s usually written in all capital letters like that just to denote how imposing and important serious photographers think it is.)

A RAW image isn’t processed at all; it’s a complete record of all the data passed along by the camera’s sensors. As a result, each RAW photo takes up much more space on your memory card. For example, on a 6-megapixel camera, a JPEG photo is around 2 MB, but over 8 MB when saved as a RAW file. Most cameras take longer to store RAW photos on the card, too.

But for image-manipulation nerds, the beauty of RAW files is that once you open them up in a RAW-friendly image editing program, you can perform astounding acts of editing on them. You can actually change the lighting of the scene retroactively! And you don’t lose a single speck of image quality along the way.

Until recently, most people used a program like Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to do this kind of editing. But amazingly enough, humble, free programs like Picasa and EasyShare, offer some RAW format capabilities.

Not every camera offers an option to save your files in RAW format. Why are only some cameras compatible? Because RAW is a concept, not a file format. Each camera company stores its photo data in a different way, so in fact, there are dozens of different file formats in the RAW world. Programs like Elements must be upgraded periodically to accommodate new camera models’ emerging flavors of RAW.

The following table helps you calculate how much memory card storage you’ll need. Find the column that represents the resolution of your camera, in megapixels (MP), and then read down to see how many best-quality photos each size card holds.

					Camera Resolution	2 MP	3.3 MP	4.1 MP	5 MP	Card Capacity	How many pictures?				32 MB	30	17	14	8
64 MB	61	35	30	17
128 MB	123	71	61	35
256 MB	246	142	122	70
512 MB	492	284	244	140
1 GB	984	568	488	280

 

Memory Card Types

As the years go by, high-tech manufacturers figure out new and better ways to fit more pictures on smaller cards. If you were the first on your block to buy a digital camera, it probably used CompactFlash or SmartMedia cards, which now look gargantuan compared to, say, the xD-Picture Card. CompactFlash cards, on the other hand, have stayed the same size but greatly increased their capacity.

When comparing memory card formats, look at price per megabyte, availability, and what works with your other digital gear. The following list will help you compare the currently available card types.

• CompactFlash cards are rugged, inexpensive, and easy to handle. You can buy them in capacities all the way up to 8 GB (translation: hundreds upon hundreds of pictures). Pro: Readily available; inexpensive; wide selection. Con: They’re physically the largest of any memory card format, which dictates a bigger camera. A name brand 512 MB CompactFlash card costs less than $45.
• Sony’s Memory Stick format is interchangeable among all of its cameras, camcorders, and laptops. Memory Sticks are great if you’re already knee-deep in Sony equipment, but few other companies tolerate them. Pro: Works with most Sony digital gadgets. Cons: Works primarily with Sony gear; maximum size is 256 MB. A 128 MB Memory Stick starts at about $35, depending on the brand (Sony’s own are the most expensive).
• The Memory Stick Pro Sony’s newer memory card, is the same size as the traditional Memory Stick but holds much more. Sony’s recent digital cameras accept both Pro and older Memory Sticksbut the Pro cards don’t work in older cameras. As of this writing, you can buy Pro sticks in capacities like 512 MB ($45), 1 GB (about $65), 2 GB ($115), and 4 GB ($300).
• Secure Digital (SD) cards are no bigger than postage stamps, which is why you also find them in Palm organizers and MP3 players. In fact, you can pull this tiny card from your camera and insert it into many palmtops to view your pictures. Pro: Very small, perfect for subcompact cameras. Con: None, really, unless you’re prone to losing small objects. 1 GB cards are now around $65 and 2 GB models are in the $100 range.

Digital Compact or Digital SLR?

Summary: Digital SLR is bulky, heavy and take sometime to master, but you can change your lenses with variety focal length.

To answer this very basic question often faced by photography enthusiast, one could simply return back the question, what is your priority? and what is your real concern? Here are some basic things you can consider:

When…?

As far as when is your real concern, remember that “Tomorrow’s digital camera would never capture today’s precious moment.” So there is no point of waiting the next model launching, because better model will continue to come out forever.

What…?

Remember that the best camera in te world in the hand of lousy photographer would never produce the best photo, but the best photographer in the world would most likely make a wonderful picture with virtually any camera.

Balance.

When you are on a safari trip in Africa, your small pocket digital camera you used for occasional snapshot would obviously be inadequate to capture a nice bird. But when you just want to print a 4R picture on regular basis or you just use your picture on your website, a 14 megapixels digital SLR camera would be an overkill. So, depending on what you intend to with your images, make a careful compromise between time, money and your convenience when selecting the your gear. Even when you can afford to buy the most expensive SLR and their lenses, these gears would be less convenient to carry around.

Which One Is Best Suited Your Need?

Key Differences	Compact (point & shoot)	SLR (Single Lens Reflex)
Size & Weight	Smaller and lighter	Larger and heavier
Cost	Lower and cheaper	Higher and expensive
Shutter lag	Long	Short
Speed (frame per second)	Usually several seconds per frame, longer in RAW mode	In reverse: several frames per second
RAW Mode	Yes, in high end model. But it will slow down your speed	Yes, nearly in all models and not slowing down your speed
Noise	Higher but can be corrected (separate processing)	Lower
ISO Sensitivity	Lower (for good quality up to 800) and noisier above 200.	Higher, up to 12,000 in high end models
Dynamic Range	Lower but can be increased, especially in RAW mode	Higher

After reading all those concern and evaluate the comparison table and you still find it difficult to resist your internal temptation, our best advice is, “Do what most photographers do, buy them both..!”

Exposure

In photography, exposure is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium (photographic film or image sensor) during the process of taking a photograph. Exposure is measured in lux seconds, and can be computed from exposure value (EV) and scene luminance.

Exposure time is controlled in a camera by shutter speed and the illumination level by the lens aperture. Slower shutter speeds (exposing the medium for a longer period of time) and greater lens apertures (admitting more light) produce greater exposures.An approximately correct exposure will be obtained on a sunny day using ISO 100 film, an aperture of f/16 and a shutter speed of 1/100th of a second. This is called the sunny 16 rule: at an aperture of f/16 on a sunny day, a suitable shutter speed will be one over the film speed (or closest equivalent).

Ultimately there is no such thing as “correct exposure”, as a scene can be exposed in many ways, depending on the desired effect a photographer wishes to convey.

SLR

Definition: Standing for single-lens reflex, these are higher-end digital cameras revered by serious photographers. The digital versions of SLRs work in this manner: the shutter retracts so an image can be recorded. One of the prime benefits of using a digital SLR camera is that lenses are interchangeable.

Also Known As: digital SLR, single-lens reflex, digital SLR camera

Examples: I decided to buy the latest SLR so that I can change out lenses on my camera

Canon EOS Rebel - XTi is a beginner level Digital SLR sold under $1000.

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