Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Digital Or Film Photography

The popularity of digital cameras may have enjoyed amazing increase but film has still an important part to play in photography and will continue to be important for some time, a few years at the least. Film has many advantages that photographers continue to recognize. Major players in the production of film like Kodak is still putting into it millions though experts all agree that digital film will reign supreme in the near future.
These are the reasons though why some photographers prefer film over digital:

1) Facilities and Investment
Ordinary people, not only photographers, have invested considerably in photographic equipments that use film. Cameras and lenses still have capabilities that digital photography cannot match. Compared with a high-end professional 35mm camera, a digital camera still lacks facilities that only the traditional camera can provide. A photographer who decides to switch to digital may find himself spending big especially if his lenses, flashes and other accessories are not compatible with a new digital system.

2) Wide Angle
The absence of extreme wide-angle lenses and a slow start-up time are two of the most disadvantages of even the best digital cameras. 35mm cameras modifies to digital bodies usually employ a CCD image sensor that is smaller, usually around 245mm x 16mm) as opposed to the 36mm x 24mm x 35mm film that results to a narrow angle. Photographers who are fans of wide angles may find the traditional 35mm more of their liking.

3) Action
Film cameras also offer an advantage during fast-changing and unpredictable photography scenarios. Unlike digital camera that uses batteries than can ran out in the most unexpected time, a 35mm camera can be easily switched on and ready for use whenever you need take a shot. Moreover, digital cameras usually take several seconds before you can use it which obviously is a disadvantage for photographers who wants to capture actions which can’t be repeated anymore.

4) Tough Conditions
Film cameras are also sturdier equipments than their digital counterparts and can withstand harsh conditions that photography may demand in the line of work. Count on film to be more reliable than digital especially when your are working in a not-so-good weather conditions.

5) Comparing Costs
When it comes to cost, film and digital advantages and disadvantages vary considerably depending on the usage. A photographer with a film budget amounting to thousands of dollars in one year may find digital camera more practical. But if you are not a busy photographer, your income may not defray the cost of going digital.

About the Author

Michael Colucci is a technical writer for Photography Tips and Digital Camera Reviews - Free sites that offer photography tips and camera reviews.

Stocking up with the best digital camera accessories

There are a large number of digital camera accessories available in the market today. Even though you might have invested a few hundred dollars in your digital camera (although they are getting cheaper by the day), you should buy yourself a few accessories as well so that you can enhance the photo quality of your pictures.

Software that can help you to organize your snaps properly is one of the essential digital camera accessories that you need. Remember the time when you returned from a holiday with your friends and you had over 100 snaps to organize? This is when you realize the value of such software.

There is a large number of such software available today. These include image-editing programs such as Photoshop Element 3 by Adobe. This program is an improved version of the older Photoshop Album and consists of some great image organizing tools. Then, we also have the Digital Image Suite 10 by Microsoft that has some cool features that allow you to very easily arrange your snaps in a particular order.

In addition to image enhancing capabilities, another problem that one faces is that normally digital cameras come with a limited data storage capacity. And when you are out vacationing, it is not always possible to keep on loading your pics onto your laptop (especially if you are trekking up Mt. Everest). So, one of the most handy of digital camera accessories is a Memory Card or a Secure Digital Card. These are extremely cheap, i.e. the price starts from a mere $30 and increases according to the memory capacity that you need. They are available in all stores that sell office or computer related items.

Now that you have purchased a memory card, the next step is to go buy yourself a memory card reader. This will help you to get rid off your USB cable and can be used to read the memory card when you want to transfer photographs to your computer. These are extremely handy and can easily be carried around in your laptop bag while traveling. But ensure that you are picking up one that is USB 2.0 compatible, since the transfer speed is much faster than the regular USB 1.1.

Once you have started collecting digital camera accessories, you will realize that there are many, many items that you can purchase. These include lenses that can add an extra zing to your snaps, an extra flash to help you during times of crisis, a tripod stand - and load more. So, get going and start your collection.

About the Author

Kevin Rockwell spent the last 20 years refining his craft as a video and still photographer working for TV networks and private clients. http://great-digital-cameras.com

Exposure compensation

The digital camera is in reality a great possession with many facets of its utilities and not only that knowing these utilities makes the understanding the digital camera complete. The utilities are also so very diverse that they too offer further introspection of details in their varying applications. Such an area is digital camera exposure compensation. Only knowledge of digital camera exposure is not enough, so the digital camera exposure compensation requires some amount of exposure in itself! This discussion is focused towards that cause itself.

Looking at different digital cameras, even temperately costing digital cameras have arrangements for exposure compensation settings. To explain in a bit detail, the exposure compensation allows the users to control the amount of light entering the lens. And thereby the illumination of the photograph is decided. Exposure compensation can be altered manually or by the help of a digital camera's exposure compensation setting that lets one override the metered exposure set inside the digital camera itself. Strictly speaking, the exposure values provide an expedient line of attack to put a figure on the available light intensity and therefore exposure.

As per general norms of the users of digital cameras, certain standards exist for selecting such values. These values are specifically known as Exposure Values (EV). Selecting an up to standard Exposure Values (EV) helps maintain the details contained in dark areas of a photo, or diminish the more than usually bright areas. Again, looking from technical point of view, the Exposure Values are numbers that refer to an assortment of combinations of apertures of lenses and shutter speed respectively. They have a selective range of values, ranging between -2 to +2 Exposure Values (EV). As a general rule positive exposure settings are used for cases where bulky areas of a scene are especially bright such as taking pictures of a snow scene and also during times of photographing when the background is a good deal brighter than the focal area under consideration. Also, negative exposure settings are used for cases where bulky areas of a scene are especially dark and also during times of photographing when the background is a good deal darker than the fore area under consideration.

One point that is worth noting is that light meters cannot see color. They deliver every scene as 18% middle gray and become accustomed to the exposure accordingly. And most digital cameras will allows a photographer to compensate the exposure by 1 to 2 EV plus or minus in 1/3 or 1/2 stop increments. A very important realization for any photographer is that the right exposure is only "correct" in the eye of the photographer; Exposure Value compensation can also be used as a creative tool.

With this information available to the users of the digital camera, the knowledge of digital camera exposure as well as digital camera exposure compensation becomes. But it is only knowledge, the proper acquiring of the whole feel comes only from personal experience.

About the Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.snapjunky.comVisit his digital camera guide and learn how to take better pictures with your digicam.

Digital Camera Terms To Know

It helps when learning to use your new digital camera to also know what some of the more common terms mean. Below you will find many of these common terms defined..
Automatic Mode — A setting that sets the focus, exposure and white-balance automatically.
Burst Mode or Continuous Capture Mode — a series of pictures taken one after another at quickly timed intervals with one press of the shutter button.
Compression — The process of compacting digital data, images and text by deleting selected information.
Digital Zoom — Cropping and magnifying the center part of an image.
JPEG — The predominant format used for image compression in digital cameras
Lag Time — The pause between the time the shutter button is pressed and when the camera actually captures the image

LCD — (Liquid-Crystal Display) is a small screen on a digital camera for viewing images.

Lens — A circular and transparent glass or plastic piece that has the function of collecting light and focusing it on the sensor to capture the image.
Megabyte — (MB) Measures 1024 Kilobytes, and refers to the amount of information in a file, or how much information can
be contained on a Memory Card, Hard Drive or Disk.
Pixels — Tiny units of color that make up digital pictures. Pixels also measure digital resolution. One million pixels
adds up to one mega-pixel.
RGB — Refers to Red, Green, Blue colors used on computers to create all other colors.
Resolution — Camera resolution describes the number of pixels used to create the image, which determines the amount of
detail a camera can capture. The more pixels a camera has, the more detail it can register and the larger the picture can be
printed.
Storage Card — The removable storage device which holds images taken with the camera, comparable to film, but much smaller. Also called a digital camera memory card...
Viewfinder — The optical "window" to look through to compose the scene.
White Balance — White balancing adjusts the camera to compensate for the type of light (daylight, fluorescent, incandescent, etc.,) or lighting conditions in the scene so it will look normal to the human eye.

About the Author


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Guide to Buying a Digital Camera

If you’re one of those people who have never owned a digital camera in their life, go to a corner and cry for ten minutes. Then get back to this list before hopping into your car to purchase one.

• Find out what you’ll be using it for. Walking into a camera store can be quite overwhelming—hundreds of cameras ranging from the size of a credit card to as wide as a computer manual. It may be cute to carry around a sleek little red digicam, but you will have to consider what you’re actually going to use it for.
Do you need a compact one to store in your handbag? Are you planning to
take professional photos for work? Does the number of features matter to you? Do you want a camera with manual functions? You don’t want to bring home a camera that doesn’t satisfy your needs, or purchase one with so many features that you won’t be able to use.

• Be familiar with camera specs. All those fancy words on the box might make it look like your wallet sized camera will turn you into a professional shutterbug. Mega Pixel is the maximum resolution per photo--the higher the MP, the bigger the prints you can get without it looking blurry. If you’re only planning to exchange photos on the internet, then a 2MP camera is fine. Optical Zoom and Digital Zoom are two different things—most pros snub Digital Zoom, since this is actually a software function that crops the image, which makes it lose its quality.

• Budget. We’re not going to lie: digital cameras don’t exactly come cheap. When budgeting on which camera to take home, consider the features, its size, its Mega Pixel count, and the brand.
Most photographers swear by one brand over the other—if you’re particularly loyal to just one brand, then you can shun the others and bask in just one aisle. But if you’re a little bit more open-minded, then you’ve got a bigger playground to frolic in.
You’ll also need to see what kind of memory card (which is sort of like the “film” of the camera) the camera needs, and what kind of batteries fuel it. Most digital cameras use AA batteries, so investing in a bunch of rechargeable ones is key.

• Try it out. Most people make the mistake of reading the box, swiping their credit card, and coming home to find out that they’re not comfortable with their latest purchase. While in the store, try taking a bunch of photos. Make sure it fits well in your hand, and it’s easy to use. The most user-friendly cameras out there are Canon, Casio, and Kodak—but you might want to try out others. Take your time in familiarizing yourself with the possible units you’ll be taking pictures with.

About the Author

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