What Can YOUR Camera Do?

Many of today’s digital cameras are multi-function; they do many things that were once not even dreamed of with traditional cameras. Even the cheapest, most basic

digital camera can take both still pictures and moving ones, so if your kids are having a great game of soccer you should be able to shoot that winning goal for posterity. If you are not experienced with cameras, it’s important to find out just what your camera can do.

When you go into a shop to buy a camera, make sure the salesman gives you a good demonstration of all the features in it. They are trained in camera usage – or should be - for this very purpose, and there is nothing like having an expert show you the ropes. Even if you buy from a generic store, the person behind the counter usually knows something about the products.

Many digital cameras can capture a video clip right to the capacity of your memory card, while others only go for thirty seconds. Some capture the sound as well, while others do not, so if you want sound be sure to pay attention to what you are buying. Some allow voice recording and also playback, which is a good feature if you want to record notes to go with your photographs. The camera will need to have a built in microphone to play back recordings.

Some cameras can play MP3 or other audio files; they also have earphones, which are great for music-lovers, but the quality of the photos is often poor. So if you are more shutterbug than music-lover, watch out for this. You will be able to resize, crop or copy images, or edit video clips before you download them to your computer with some cameras.

Digital camera makers have copied cell-phone technology to give us alarm clocks and international time display, a very handy feature if you go overseas for business or holidays. Even if you want to ring an overseas friend, this feature will enable you to find out what time it is over there. Your friend may not appreciate being woken at 2am.

If you are not sure what features your new camera has, you could take it to a specialty shop and ask. The salesman will no doubt hope to sell you a better one – and he may even succeed, but at least you’ll know what you’ve got. Some regions host short courses for digital photography and it could be worthwhile to attend one of these. Otherwise, you’ll be down to reading the book that came with it and experimenting on your own. At least the photos won’t cost you an arm and a leg!

Digital Camera Formats

Simple diagrams, cartoon-type images, and shapes are best stored on GIF, or Graphic Interchange Format, because it is limited to 256 colors; these are actually the only things that are suited for this format. This format is still widely used for image animation effects because it supports animation. Lossless compression is another reason it is so effective on large areas that have a single color, and is very ineffective on images that are detailed.

BMP, or bitmapped format, is used in Microsoft Windows operating systems to handle graphics images. These files are not usually compressed, which results in large files.

The main advantage to BMP files is that they are simple and widely accepted in the Windows programs. They are not suitable for many of the other operating systems; the large size of these files makes them unsuitable for file transfers. Scanner images and desktop backgrounds are usually stored in BMP files.

Microsoft has introduced another format called WDP, for media print quality and lossless image compression. This is the image standard, as it has a specific applicability to print media. With the ability to handle a much large range of image types, it is similar to the TIFF format.

The X Window System used XPM format as its default picture format; it is very popular in the Linux world. Based on the string format, it is structured like the C programming language. Designed to be human-readable, is stored as uncompressed plain text, and the pictures may be over twice the size as uncompressed binary bitmap files. This format is usually unsupported by non-Unix software and operating systems.

A wavelet compression format used mostly by Geographic Information Systems is called MrSID, or Multiresolution Seamless Image Database format. It stores massive images of map software from satellites.

Additional Storage for Your Digital Camera

When planning the budget for your new digital camera, include the cost of an extra memory card. The cards that come with your camera aren't nearly enough memory to take the number of pictures you would like to take, so get a bigger card right off the bat.

A 3-megapixel camera should have at least a 256 MB card; a 4-megapixel camera needs at a minimum a 512 MB card. Any camera with 6 or more megapixels should have a 1 GB card. This will eliminate the possibility of ever missing a shot because your memory card is full, or even worse, having to choose which photo to delete because you have found one more that you just have to take!

Being able to shoot at your camera's highest resolution is another important reason to have a massive memory card. Spending money on a 6-megapixel digicam should also include shooting with all 6 megapixels!

Another thing to remember is to shoot at the camera's highest compression setting, too. Squeezing more images onto your memory card by shooting at a lower resolution and with lower quality compression settings will only cause regret later. You never know when you will shoot the next great photo. (Do you think the photographer left home that morning knowing he would photograph the nurse kissing the soldier? That photo turned out to be the most well-recognized photo taken at the end of the war!)

Don't chance missing a great shot with poor quality. Another thing to remember is that the lower the resolution of your photos, the smaller the print will have to be to remain clear. No posters can be made with a 640 x 480 resolution. Not exactly what you will want to display at your first gallery showing!

Integrating a Digital Camera

Many new devices have digital cameras integrated into them, mobile phones being the most well known of these. Even though it is common for these phones to be used as cameras, one of the problems with them is the poor quality of the photos. Photos taken with camera phones do not reproduce well as prints because of the low quality.

PDAs, or personal digital assistants, also frequently have cameras in them; they are small handheld electronic devices which may have some of the features of a computer, cell phone, music player or a camera. Again, the quality of the photos is poor, and they do not print up well.

Laptops may have cameras in them among other features. BlackBerry is a wireless handheld electronic device that supports email, mobile phone, and text messaging, and may have a camera and many other wireless information services. Many small electronic devices, especially communication devices, contain digital cameras.

Even some camcorders have digital cameras built into them. Due to limited storage space and emphasis on convenience instead of photo quality, most of them store their images in the compact JPEG file format.

A large variety of storage media supply the memory digital cameras require. These include:

* Flash memory, used in cheap cameras or when cameras are the secondary part of an electronic item, such as a cell phone. Flash memory can be erased and reprogrammed, and is normally used in memory cards.

* 3.5" floppy disks, which were used in the early digital cameras of the late 1990s.

* Video floppys, which were 2x2 inch floppy disks used in early analog cameras.

* Early professional cameras used PCMCIA hard drives; these have been discontinued.

* A 185 MB CD

Digital cameras need a lot of power, and they have become smaller and smaller in size. The problem is the ability to develop a battery that will fit into a small camera and still supply enough power to run the camera for an extended period of time.

Compromises Made by Your Digital Camera

The means your camera uses to take images and translate them from the image sensor to the computer or printer may not be hindered by the compromises it makes during the process. You will only know this when the photos are being viewed at the time of transfer.

Storage is one of these compromises; digital images take a great deal of space for storage. They need to be managed in a way that ensures enough images can be stored before they need to be downloaded from the camera.

Cameras use different levels of compression to downsize the images for storing them in memory. JPEG is the most widely used standard, it removes information that can't be seen by the human eye anyway. The higher the level of compression, the more information is deleted.

At the higher compression setting, blocks start to appear in the images. This begins to degrade the image quality, making the resulting file size extremely small. If quality is the most important consideration, avoid JPEG compression.

The mid- to high-end digital cameras offer different forms of compression, which don't delete any information, by using mathematical algorithms. They compress the file and save it either in TIFF format or as RAW files, which contain only the information the sensor captured with no in camera processing.

Larger file sizes are the result of this lossless file compression format. However, the higher image quality and post processing flexibility makes up for the loss in image storage space.

Another compromise made in digital cameras is the in-camera processing; these create predefined results. Some cameras have sharpening filters which restore the contrast that is lost in edge details when the image goes through the various optical filters.

This process of sharpening in the camera reduces the ability to sharpen the image once it has been downloaded to the computer. Oversharpening can create unnatural and harsh edges and may even cause shifts in color.

Downloading Pictures from Your Digital Camera

Downloading your pictures is as easy as one, two, and three:

* Load the software that came with your camera

* Follow the instructions

* Save the pictures to the computer

It can't get much easier than that! You usually run the software, then connect your camera by a USB or Fire Wire Cable from the camera to your computer. You may be able to use a card reader, or directly insert your media card into a printer; this can be exceptionally fast and exciting to watch as your photos are printed right before your eyes.

Saving the pictures to your computer is the next step; then you can send them to friends and family via emails, post them on the Internet, print them, or do anything else you can think of, the sky is the limit.

If you have your own business, digital photography can help you sell your product online with photos of what you have to offer. Many people make a healthy side income by selling items on websites on which their item can be bid.

One woman in a small Oregon town buys jewelry and statues at yard sales and secondhand stores, cleans the items up, and takes photos of them. She uses a digital camera and posts the photos on the website. The markup she makes is astonishing.

She told me of one instance where she purchased a pair of earrings for .50 at a second hand store and sold them for $149.00. She was astonished as she watched the bids on these earrings increase day after day for over a week, what a profit she made.

This is only one means of putting your camera to work for you. Use your imagination and come up with ideas of your own. Gifts made from digital photographs are always appreciated and can be a lot of fun, as you use your imagination. Children love to make scrapbooks, and digital photography was made for this craft.

Buying a Digital Camera

The price of digital cameras has been lowered dramatically as the popularity increases. You can now purchase a digital camera for anywhere from $30 to $400. As always, remember that you get what you pay for, and don't expect to get top quality photos from a cheap camera; you may end up disappointed!

There are many types of digital cameras on the market, and it will help if you know what they are when you start to shop. Some of the newest models are Digital SLR, Electronic View Finders, and Range Finders.

Digital SLRs are very much like film-loaded cameras. A series of mirrors and prisms control the optical path to produce a digital image on the LCD screen. You actually see what you are photographing when you look through the lens.

Electronic View Finders and Range Finders work much like a video camera, and optical view finder controls the picture instead of a lens. You don't look through a lens to take a picture; instead, you are looking at a digital image.

Many of these cameras have the technology to allow video footage; therefore, it is enabled by the manufacturer. You can shoot up to three minutes of video footage depending on the quality of the digital camera you are using.

Your new camera should have at least 2 megapixels resolution; anything up to 8 MP will provide great shots. 1.9-2.5 MP seems to be standard on today's market, but you can get more than 8 MP in some cameras on the professional market. Any less than 2 megapixels with frequently create poor-quality pictures that are fuzzy and blurred.

Ask to see samples of the pictures taken by that specific camera before you buy, and check the focus and zoom. The quality of the lens will make a big difference in your photos, so be sure it has a good lens. Another important item on your digital camera is a flash; without this, you will not be able to take pictures inside.

Understand all of the features and controls before you purchase your new digital camera. It can be confusing to remember how it works when you get the camera home if you don't understand how each feature works.