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As a new user you may be confused about some aspects of digital camera technology and terms. We’ve put together this guide to help you find a way through the confusion and begin to understand this technology better. We also hope to help in choosing your next digital camera. You need to understand terms like pixel, dpi, ppi and white balance as well as understand the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of media for storage.
The term comes from picture element and each digital photograph is made up of many millions of these tiny, square picture elements (pixels). Taken together the overall effect is of a smooth continuous photograph. One way that digital cameras are categorised is by the pixel count, the number of pixels in an image. The more pixels the smoother the photograph will appear and the larger the image can be blown up. The pixel count in modern digital cameras is usually between 1 million and 14 million. Cameras are designated as 1Mp ( one million pixels) or 3Mp (3 million pixels) for instance. Most of the popular cameras have between 2 million and 5 million pixels per image.
Excellent 4×6″ prints can be made from a 3MP camera while 5×7″ prints will be slighlty lower in quality. For 8×10″ prints a 4Mp or 5Mp camera would be more suitable. For even larger prints a camera with more pixels would be needed. Occasionally total pixels and effective pixels are quoted for a digital camera. The number of pixels actually used in the image is, of course, the effective pixels so this is the number to take notice of.
For a digital camera the white balance can be adjusted depending on the light source. This means that you can ensure, under various lighting conditions, that white actually looks like white, not blue or yellow. Most digital cameras automatically adjust to the light source but you can manually set this if you prefer. You can adjust the white balance for fluorescent lighting, tungsten lighting, shade, electronic flash or sunlight. On some cameras you can adjust the setting by pointing the camera at a white piece of card.
The sensitivity settings on a digital camera are similar to the ISO ratings for film. Most digital cameras will have settings that are the equivalent to ISO 100 and ISO 200 film ratings. Some have settings equivalent to ISO 400. More expensive SLR digital cameras have higher settings. Some have settings up to ISO 6400. Below ISO 100 the noise levels are low so that there is no advantage in going below this level. Many digital cameras will automatically choose the most suitable sensitivity setting depending on the mode and the lighting.
Most digital cameras have digital and optical zoom. Digital zoom results in loss of picture quality as it work by cropping the image and enlarging the picture to the size required. It works the same way as an image editing program. Optical zooms work in the same way as the zoom on a film camera by changing the focal length and magnification. The image quality is not affected by this so it is always a better option than using a digital zoom.
There are a confusing number of memory cards for digital cameras. They are incompatible with each other so you need to make sure you buy the correct type of memory card for your camera.
SD - secure digital. These are small cards at just 24 x 32mm and only 2mm thick.
CF - compact flash. These are the memory cards first used in digital cameras and are larger than the others at 42mm x 35mm and 3mm thick. They have capacities up to 2GB. At the moment CF memory cards are the cheapest cards.
Memory Sticks - exclusive to Sony
Multimedia - Less features than the SD cards but the same size.
Smart Media - Similar to CF cards in size but thinner with no memory controller on the card.
XD - used in Toshiba, Fuji and Olympus cameras. Even smaller than SD cards at 20 x 25mm and just 1.7mm thick.
There is very little difference in performance between the different types. The cheapest are the Cf cards which are used in most DSLR high end cameras. They are also available in higher capacities than the other cards. One reason to choose a camera with a particular type of card is if you have other devices that use the same card and you wish to share them.
Digital cameras can be connected directly to a computer or the memory card can be removed and placed in a card reader.
Most cameras nowadays use a USB transfer method. The older USB 1.1 is slower than the newer USB 2.0. A USB 2.0 connection on your camera can connect to a USB 1.1 port on your computer but the transfer wil be slower.
Firewire can be found on some newer computers or a pluin ard can be used. It is more often found on digital video cameras.
Card readers are cheap (between $15 and about $40) and many are multi-card readers so can cope with different types of cards.
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