The Basics Of The Digital Camera (part one) If you are new to photography, the equipment can seem very confusing, particularly the camera. It was difficult enough working out the terminology before the digital revolution, but now it is practically impossible. Digital cameras are dedicated microcomputers and just as hard for the uninitiated to comprehend. Even a medium grade $300 digital camera will probably have 40-50 adjustable controls and every one of those may have four or five settings. Most of those controls the amateur will almost certainly never appreciate and never alter from default, but the camera will still take good photographs. However, it will take even better ones if you do make use of them. Here follows an explanation of some of the more common terms that you will come across if you go to purchase a digital camera. Megapixels is the rating used to express the resolution of the photograph that a digital camera is able to take. A pixel is a dot of colour and a picture is made up of dots of colour, therefore, the more pixels in a image, the higher the resolution of that picture and resolution creates sharpness. So the larger the number of megapixels the better. Cheap digital cameras may have a resolution of 4 megapixels (4,000,000) whereas an expensive one might have 36 megapixels. If you only look at your photos in small format, say, a couple of inches by a few inches, on your camera or computer screen, the difference might not be apparent, but if you go to a larger size or have your photographs printed on paper, you will see the difference. The downside of a higher resolution is that it takes more storage space. Of course it takes two times as much space to store 8 megapixels as it does to store 4, so the higher the resolution the more memory your camera and computer will require. This is not a big problem unless you plan on taking thousands of photographs. Zoom is the camera's ability to get a closer shot of the subject without actually going nearer to it. Digital cameras often have two sorts of zoom: digital zoom and optical zoom. Digital zoom simply refers to magnifying the pixels, so an image that has been treated with high digital zoom will look grainy, unless you have a lot of pixels in the picture. However, computer image handling software has more ability to apply digital zoom than any camera, so the camera's digital zoom is pretty much irrelevant, since you will almost certainly edit your best photos on the computer anyway. Whilst buying a digital camera, pay more attention to the amount of optical zoom. Optical zoom refers to a moving lens, just like you would modify a pair of binoculars, a telescope or a magnifying glass. Optical zoom is very helpful because the quality of the image is not impaired by this zoom. The higher the better for optical zoom, however, be wary of total zoom, which is optical and digital zoom added together. You have to know how much of each.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is at present involved with tips for product photography. If you have an interest in photography, please go over to our web site now at Photography Studio Cameras.