Lots of interesting info about taking Digital Photographs

The camera consumer trend over the past five years has been to go digital. The development and use of Single Lens Reflex [SLR] digital cameras has grown dramatically. The marked drop in use of large format film cameras and enlarging lenses reflects the decreasing market demand for those historically traditional film cameras. While one reputable manufacturer is still producing their flagship film cameras, most have discontinued a large number of their film lenses. While many remain faithful to the advantages of film technology, it is obvious that digital photography is going to capture the mainstream market. The increased quality in digital capture and memory capacity has been one alluring factor. For the first generation digital cameras, there was the challenging question of whether to store the digital data files in RAW or in JPEG or TIFF. Now many companies provide instant storage of a RAW image at the same time a full-color JPEG is displayed for the photographer's immediate use.

What is "low-end?" There's no real reason to pay over $100, even shopping for a brand-name camera (and you should). It's easy to find great deals on low-end or older cameras from Fuji, HP, Canon and many more makers as low as $40 at discount stores or online. There are a number of very inexpensive cameras available, but low resolution, unreliability, fixed memory, and often poor or inconsistent image quality plague the bottom of this segment. Avoid anything that says "webcam" in its description or has an unlisted resolution or a rating less than 2.1 Megapixels. Almost all brand-name low-end cameras have certain features in common with more expensive variants, such as shutter-release, flash fill, and red-eye reduction. If you anticipate the need for close-up photography, choose a camera with a "macro mode" and be prepared to work with available light or your own lighting - many low-end cameras disable their flash in macro mode, and even if they don't you may find that the flash causes more harm than good.

There are many myths in this world, spread by word-of-mouth, official sources or just common assumption. It can be difficult to tell which are true and which are not. First is the common myth that X-rays damage memory cards or cameras. Some people go to great lengths to protect their gear on trips, especially from the dreaded airport X-ray machine. This is mostly wasted effort, and can even cause more problems than it solves. Airport X-rays can't damage a digital camera, or your memory cards. Your equipment and data are secure. Your only problem is that the wand-type metal detectors used by security to check when the X-ray or walk-through metal detectors indicate a problem may corrupt data on memory cards. What that means is that carrying cards on your person to avoid sending them through the X-ray machine exposes them to greater risk. Efforts to protect memory cards with something to block x-rays only flags your luggage for more careful search, possibly exposing the cards to the stronger magnetic field of the handheld wands.

It is often said that resolution is the most important factor in image quality. This one is not even close, it's lenses, hands down. That's why DSLR cameras with removable lenses are so highly valued, and why professionals spend so much more on lenses than on cameras. Even a single high-quality lens can cost more than the camera body. Poor quality lenses can impose many problems, from blur and distortion to color flaws and darkening of the image edge, that high resolution cannot hope to compensate for. I'd definitely rather have a 6 mega pixel SLR camera than an 8 Mega pixel compact. Dynamic range is the scale of light tonality from darkest to brightest in an image. The greater the dynamic range to start the more versatility you have with a photograph in post captures. Cameras at ISO 100 have a dynamic range of about 446:1. That means the digital image captures and delivers an image made from 8.8 stops of brightness. Where you capture a wider dynamic range, you have more to work with. Digital cameras provide the user the ability to change many camera exposure settings to brighten or lighten a photograph. Exposure settings such as White Balance, exposure compensation and saturation are limited in their ability to represent a photograph by the quality of raw capture provided. Many cameras now allow one to capture in RAW and in JPEG to provide one immediate true color representation of JPEG while archiving the maximum amount of material in RAW. Digital cameras increase our ability to edit more tonal characteristics of RAW files with a variety of sophisticated user-friendly software. A 6 mega pixel cameras may have sophisticated lenses and a sensor that provides 35 mm coverage with 8 to 10 mega pixel quality. The sensor and lens dramatically affect the capture quality of your camera, mega pixel or not

You will see and hear about a term called the "ISO". This is an abbreviation for the International Standards Organization. This is the organization that sets the bar for photography. In terms of the ISO of your digital camera, it is talking about how sensitive your camera is to lighting. You need to know that the higher the ISO on a camera, the better for darker conditions. The lower the ISO, the better suited this camera will be in lighted conditions.

If you want to capture incredible details and use less flash for night photos, then using a longer exposure time is the only way to go. If you are going to use a long exposure, make sure that you use a tripod, as any movement at all during the picture will cause the picture to become blurred. Also, you can capture some pretty cool effects, like car lights, when using a longer exposure. You will want to make sure that you know how to use and when to use your flash when taking a night picture, too. Most of the time, you probably will not even want to use your flash when you are taking a night photo. If youare taking a picture of an object, like a person, though, you will want to use your flash. When taking pictures of the night skyline, though, it is best to use a long exposure and take advantage of the natural lighting conditions. If you decide to take pictures at night, you will want to be able to control the photo as much as possible. Basically, you would take a shot of the area you want in your picture. Then, you take a picture of that same shot, only with the lens cap on. The reason for this is that at night, some of the pixels in the picture will not be visually good. When you take the picture with the lenses cap on, you will be recording the pixels again, while they are hot in your camera's memory. You can then use those pixels to repair the bad ones in the photo, with a photo editor. (If you don't happen to have a photo editor, you can download one for free, just search for one on the Internet.)

Probably the easiest and most popular method of sharing a digital photo is to print it out. You can either print it out yourself, on your own printer and paper at home, or you can have a professional do it for you. In either case, you will need to store the images onto a CD or DVD and use that to print out your copies. (It's a little like when you have regular file processed, in the fact that the hard copy of your pictures will be used to pick out the photos you would like to print out.) You will then pick out the photo(s) you want to print and they will be printed out onto a glossy photo paper. It's easy as pie and very inexpensive, especially if you can do it at home! If you are comfortable with using your computer and the Internet, you can also send your pictures with an email. This is a quick and convenient alternative to the old "snail mail" way to send mail to another person. The recipients can also print them out; if they decide they would like to, or use them as a wallpaper background for their computer. You can learn to download the photo and send it right on the Internet, and your computer's user manual should also have a section explaining it. It is not hard to learn, so don't let the technology overwhelm and intimidate you.

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