Digital Zoom Versus Optical Zoom

Admin
Categories: Best digital buys

Many digital cameras offer both digital and optical zoom. These two often confuse the average camera buyer, until you know what youre looking at.

Optical zoom works much like the zoom lens on a 35 mm film camera. It changes the length of your cameras lens and draws the subject closer to you. The optical zoom keeps the quality of the picture. Digital zoom works differently. It simply takes the picture and crops it then enlarges the part that is left. It causes the quality of the photo to be reduced, sometimes greatly.

What this means in terms of output is you may have a larger view of an object with the digital zoom, but chances are your image will become unfocused. Details will become lost. It is actually best to turn off the digital zoom feature of your camera if possible. This will prevent you automatically zooming in too close as the digital zoom is often an extension of the optical.

There are a couple of things you can do if you want a closer view of a subject but want the quality of your picture to still be good. Try moving in closer when you take the picture. Often only a foot or two will do the trick. If this isnt possible, you can set your camera to take a picture at its highest file size. This will result in a photo that can be cropped to include only your desired subject, yet allow for an image that is still clear.

Digital zoom has its place. It can be used if the only destiny of your photo is the internet. Photos online can be a much lower quality in the camera and still appear acceptable when sent through e-mail or posted on a web gallery. If your goal is printing, however, seek a camera that has a greater optical zoom and turn off the digital zoom. Your pictures will be better in the end, even if they are not as close up.


Mar
3

Digital Camera Terms To Know

Admin
Categories: Best digital buys

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.


Mar
3

Tips on Making the Best Digital Wedding Photography even Better

Admin
Categories: Best digital buys

Tips on Making the Best Digital Wedding Photography even Better

Brides and grooms alike are now enlisting the expertise of professionals to get the best digital wedding photography for that special occasion. And why not? They would surely want to have the best photo taken so that the memories will be preserved as long as they live.

More and more people are now shifting to the use of digital cameras to take pictures of their wedding. One of the reasons for this is that the quality is better compared to the traditional camera. Another reason is that the photos can be stored not only in their hard-bound albums but also on albums online.

Today, people are more dependent on their computers than ever before. With computers, they can easily upload their wedding pictures and share them with family and friends all over the world. You do not have to rely on snail mails just to send your pictures. They are being sent and viewed the minute you have them in your computer.

This is one of the many advantages of digital photography. If taken properly, you are assured that you and you partner will never regret having used digital photography for your wedding pictures.

Below are some of the tips to get the best digital photography for your wedding.

1. Choose the right background.

Photos can really look great once they are shot with the perfect background. You can use the decorations in the church and in the reception areas as a back draft for your photos. Be sure to fix some scattered decorations so that they will appear simply perfect on photos.

Always remind the photographer to check if the view is good when taking pictures. It does not mean that you have to stand on the same corner or place. The best photographer is able to make even the simplest of background look great on photo if it is taken in the right angle.

2. Look out for any kinds of glass.

Glasses tend to cause reflections in photos. May it be an eyeglass, window or wine glasses. One way or another, they will cause a reflection or brightness to reflect back on the camera it is included in the picture.

To avoid this, the position of the camera can be altered so that it will not directly hit the glass. The photo can be taken sideways or downwards but never on eye level.

3. The perfect timing.

Persons being photographed should not always be looking at the camera. And they do not have to be smiling at the lens too.

One way of doing it is to wait for the right moment so that you can have a candid shot at them. You will see that catching persons on film when they are in their candid state is much better than having them wearing a fixed expression. Candid moments make photos look real and natural.
4. Review each photo.

To maximize the memory that your digital camera has, it is best to review every shot taken. There might be duplicates that can be removed so that you can free more space for a different shot.

You will probably want the best and the maximum number of digital wedding photography shots so you need to make the most of the capacity of the digital camera.

The best wedding photography is made even better now with digital cameras. This is one thing that you definitely should have on your special day.


Mar
3

A Guide to Professional Styles and Techniques in the Art

Admin
Categories: Best digital buys

A Guide to Professional Styles and Techniques in the Art of Digital Wedding Photography

When people get sentimental, they usually flip albums and look at the pictures that depict the things that happened in their lives. These pictures are not simply pieces of colored papers with images for they can trigger deeply-seated emotions. Emotions vary depending on the memories attached to these images seen and preserved.

One of the moments that most people would really love to preserve is the tick of events on their wedding day.

For this reason, people even decide to hire professional photographers to capture the important moments of their lives. However, these photographers may not always advise the client to strike a pose. They are expected to wait patiently to be able to catch memorable portraits. Most photographers that are employed for weddings have assistants so that they can maximize their strategy in creating an album that will not regrettable.

What if you would also want to take pictures of a friends wedding?

Here are a few basic techniques and styles for anyone who wants to capture the said event using a digital camera:

1.If you want to take a picture of a couple or any intended target, make sure that the background is good and the environment is not so crowded.
2.If there is a nice background but it is hard to focus on the couple, you may shoot them from shoulder up.
3.If some of the guests are wearing glasses, they can be advised to stand tilt their heads a little down or sideways to avoid the glaring effect that normally appears when the flash is used.
4.If there is a couple or a group that you wish to include in the picture, you should zoom in or out of the picture.
5.You must not shoot a couple or any guest against the light so that dark images will not appear
6.Candid shots are also dramatic. These portraits reveal more than the quality of the picture itself. In fact, many professionals do this to capture intimate and memorable moments.
7. You should be alert at all times since you can seldom ask individuals to pose
again for you.
8. Your digital camera should be equipped with appropriate memory cards or sticks to ensure that no great moment is missed.

In other words, you have to have an extra memory card especially when you want more moments to preserve. The following suggestions should be considered before buying a memory card:

a.for 3 mega pixels a 256 MB memory card
b.for 4 mega pixels a 512 MB memory card
c.for 6 mega pixels 1 gigabyte memory card

9.You are not advised to use low resolutions if the images will be displayed and
hung later.

Just always remember that the higher the resolution utilized, the larger the size of prints that can be made.

10.Keep a copy of your best works so you can use and reuse the techniques that
made your viewers smile and appreciate your creation more.

You can do this by saving albums on your personal computer to free up the space in your memory card. You may also use other software to enhance the quality of the prints to be made.

Photography is truly a wonderful art. Wedding is a wonderful event. The union of these things will trigger emotions and memories in the long run more so if images are captured and preserved well. They all depend on your camera and your love for this art and the couple.


Mar
3

5 tips on how to take better digital jewelry photography

Admin
Categories: Best digital buys

5 tips on how to take better digital jewelry photography

1) Focus your camera
In order to ensure your images are sharp, make sure you know how to focus your camera. Digital cameras with auto focus are often difficult to focus precisely, especially when shooting small objects. Make sure your read your owner’s manual and understand how your camera’s auto focus operates. Most digital cameras are designed to easily focus on large objects but have difficulty on small objects. It is often useful to put your camera in spot focus mode. Spot focus will give you more control over what part of a scene the camera is actually focusing on.
2) Use a tripod
Even the slightest movement while taking a picture will cause motion blur. The closer you get to an object the more obvious the motion blur becomes. Using an inexpensive tripod will make a big difference in the sharpness of your images. For really sharp images it makes sense to invest in a good, sturdy tripod. If your camera has a remote shutter release then use it, if not then use the camera’s built-in timer to minimize camera shake.
3) Put your camera in aperture priority mode
To get the largest area of your subject in focus, it is good to set your camera in aperture priority mode and set the aperture to the highest number possible. The closer you get to your subject, the more important this becomes.
4) Use soft lighting
Your camera’s built-in flash will rarely give good results for product photography. For soft lighting either shoot outside on an overcase day or use a light tent like the EZcube, Cubelite, or use a soft box.
5) Use image editing software
Even inexpensive software like Photoshop Elements or ACDSee can make your product photography much easier. It may seem like it’s faster to use an image exactly as it was shot. But in reality, it is difficult to shoot an image precisely how you would like to appear in its final form. Image editing software allows you to crop an image, adjust it’s exposure, sharpen the image and then resize it, often in less than 60 seconds. The biggest difference between an amateur’s product snapshot and a professional’s product image are sharpness and lighting. Steps 1,2, and 3 will improve the sharpness of your images while Step 4 will improve your lighting. A minute spent editing an image will improve it further. Because these few steps seem so basic, it’s tempting to ignore them. However, if you take time to follow them, you will see a huge improvement in the quality of your photos.


Mar
3