Digital Photography
…a little understanding goes a long way
By Stuart Hasic
Introduction
Are Film Cameras Dead? Positives and Negatives of Digital Still Cameras The minimum stuff you need in a digital camera The Megapixel Mystery Photo capture memory Optical Zoom vs Digital Zoom Why are you taking these photos? Printing your digital photos Editing your digital photos Permanent storage of digital photo files
Are Film Cameras Dead?
You can still buy film cameras The biggest film camera market by far is the
disposable type, but even that is declining Kodak is closing its only Australian film, photo
paper and chemicals manufacturing plant in Melbourne on 26/11/04 – a loss of 600 jobs
Worldwide, Kodak is shedding 20% of it’s staff – some 15,000 people
You can still buy LP turntables today. Film cameras are heading the same way
The Positives and Negatives of Digital Cameras (pun intended)
POSITIVES Instant viewing of photo Simple reviewing / deletion Not restricted to 24 or 36 shots Various memory capacities Various picture quality settings Some can take 1,000s of shots Can also capture short movies Can apply photo effects - B&W Easy transfer to computer If you don’t print your photos,
there is almost zero on-cost
NEGATIVES More expensive to purchase Shutter lag bad for action shots Speed shot cameras are costly Personal printing costs are high Can’t do long exposure shots Film cameras last longer Digital cameras are fragile Obsolescence is rapid Battery-life is an issue Memory cards can fail
The Minimum Stuff you need with a Digital Camera Don’t buy any camera that uses disposable
batteries or has in-built, non-removable memory Your camera should have a built-in flash and
battery charger It should take various memory card capacities It should offer an absolute minimum of 2MP Buy at least one extra rechargeable battery Buy at least one extra memory card of 128MB+ Buy an external USB memory card reader Buy a collapsible tripod
The Megapixel Mystery
Megapixels Image Size Print Size Capacity*
VGA 640x480 Tiny 160Kb
1 1280x960 2” x 3” 600Kb
2 1600x1200 4” x 6” 980Kb
3 2048x1536 5” x 7” 1.3Mb
4 2272x1712 8” x 10” 2.0Mb
5 2592x1944 11” x 14” 2.66Mb
* JPEG Compression at fine quality
Photo Capture Memory
Several different and incompatible types: Compact Flash (CF) Secure Digital (SD) XD – Developed by Olympus/Minolta Memory Stick – Developed by Sony
Type of memory is dependent on camera No real difference in speed You can get “clone” cards at cheaper prices You should have minimum of 128MB cards Most cameras only come with 16 or 32MB cards
Optical Zoom vs Digital Zoom
Optical Zoom means the lens physically moves in order to producing zooming effect
Digital Zoom means the camera uses a processor to increase the size of pixels and smooth the image to produce the zoom
Digital zoom can be applied to any photo using a computer, making it useless on a camera
Why are you taking these photos? When taking photos, think first about what you want
to use the photos for If you (ever will) want to print your photos in high
quality (rivaling film quality), they should be taken with the camera set to at least 2MP quality
If you only want to use the photos on a computer (Powerpoint, webpage, Word etc) or on a TV, then anything more than 1MP is wasting space
REMEMBER: You can decrease an existing photo’s quality, but not increase it
Schools should aim at keeping photos in digital form
Printing Digital Photos You can print photos yourself, but be
aware of the costs associated Inkjets using photo paper produce the best
results, but may cost well over $1 per print Paper jams and faulty ink cartridges add to
the cost through wastage Take your memory card to Big W or Harvey
Norman and get 4”x6” prints for 38c each Photo printing is a very competitive market
and prices will continue to drop – but not necessarily in the DIY space
Editing your digital photos
Free software for editing/manipulating digital photos: Most cameras and scanners come with OEM photo
editing software GIMP - http://www.gimp.org (Mac OSX & Win) iPhoto (bundled with Mac OSX) IrfanView – http://www.irfanview.com (Windows) PhotoPlus 5.5 - http://www.freeserifsoftware.com (W)
Commercial software: Adobe Photoshop / Photoshop Elements Macromedia Fireworks
Permanent storage of photo files
Many people save their photos on a hard disk If the hard disk fails, photos are lost forever CDs and DVDs are the best media for long-
term storage of photos They can then be catalogued for future use “MemoriesOnTV” is excellent because as well
as making a “movie” of your photos, the original JPEG files are also stored on the CD or DVD – http://www.picturetotv.com
A Great Camera for Schools
SONY DSC-W1
5.1 Megapixel32MB Mem StickVideo mode2.5” LCD3x Optical ZoomBuilt-in FlashExposure settingShutter settingLong battery lifeRRP $699 (11/04)
SONY Directoffers educationpricing:
Ph. 8873 9230for governmentsales inquiries