Digital Camera Basics
An electronics on-line discussion forum contains a story about an elderly woman who wanted a simple camera to take pictures of her grandchildren. When she received a digital camera for Christmas, she looked puzzled for a moment and then asked, “Where do you put in the film?” This humorous example demonstrates how the revolutionary technology of digital cameras may be mystifying for those who have difficulty grasping the concept of a “filmless” camera! For almost a century, photography enthusiasts sagely discussed such topics as 35mm film, light meters and F-stops; today, digital cameras have made such topics all but obsolete.
Howstuffworks. com contains an article by Gurevich, Karim, and Wilson that greatly simplifies an explanation of how digital cameras work. Very simply, they explain that CDs, mp3’s, and DVDs all share the same technology: they convert traditional analog “wave” data into digital data based upon “bits. ” In so doing, this radical shift in technology has changed greatly – and forever – how we do things and what has become possible including digital “filmless” cameras. While film cameras depend upon chemical and mechanical processes, digital cameras contain a computer that records images electronically.
In 1994, Kodak and Apple developed and sold the first digital cameras. Today there are hundreds of models to choose from, depending upon the type of pictures you need, the complexity with which you’re comfortable, and what digital camera you can afford. For everyday use, most people prefer a “point and shoot” camera that isn’t complex, takes good quality pictures that can be loaded onto computers or printed for personal use and to send to friends, and is affordable. According to a number of consumer guides and customer reviews, the top ten digital cameras in the low, mid, and high price ranges are:
1. Nikon D300 (high)
2. Canon EOS 5D (high)
3. Canon EOS 40D (high)
4. HP Photosmart M547 (low, great value)
5. FujiFilm Finepix S700 (mid)
6. GE A730 (mid)
7. Nikon D200 (high)
8. Canon EOS Digital Rebel Xsi (high)
9. Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 (mid)
10. Canon EOS 30D (high)
The point should be made that what constitutes a “great” digital camera is usually in the eye of the beholder. One person’s “top ten” list is almost certain to differ from another person’s. For example, a digital camera that is making devoted converts is the Casio Exilim series that sells in the mid-level price range, depending upon your digital camera photography needs. On the other end, Digital Camera. com rates the Pentax Optio E-10 as “the worst digital camera ever. ”
With all these differing opinions, what’s the best way to buy the digital camera that’s right for you? If you simply want to take personal pictures, choose a digital camera that has at least three megapixels. This will give you good quality pictures at a very affordable price. Remember that the higher the number of megapixels, the better quality your pictures will be, but the digital camera you choose will be more complex and more expensive. Also consider the size and shape of the camera; is it easy for you to carry in your purse or pocket? Finally, be sure your digital camera has at least 256-512 megabites of space on its memory card so you won’t have to buy additional memory cards. Taking all these factors into consideration will help you enjoy capturing treasured memories for years to come.
Tags: buying digital cameras Tags: Basics, camera, digital
Neat Little Camera! Does what it needs to do!
PowerShot A95 Digital Camera (5. 0MP, 2592×1944, 3x Opt, 32MB CompactFlash Card) Strengths: High quality 5MP pictures, Camera feels great in hand, swivel LCD screen, best bang for the buck camera. Weaknesses: Included 32MB CF card is too small. Summary: This camera is awesome. I upgraded from a Canon A70 and it was well worth the money. The Canon A95 uses 4 AA bateries, but it eats through normal alkalines way too fast. I highly recommend getting rechargeable NiMH AA batteries and a quick charger. The swivel screen is a major plus, it’s 1. 8″ compared to 1. 5″ from the Canon A70. The screen is also higher resolution than the A70. I have used the camera for 3 weeks and printed about 50 pics so far. The pics look great and I even cropped to zoom in on some pictures and you couldn’t see any sign of pixelation. I love the manual flexibility with this camera, plus the automatic modes make it easy for anyone to use. The camera has a nice solid feel to it and fits well in the hand. I prefer the Canon A95’s size rather than the ultra compact cameras like Sony’s T1 because you can easily hold the camera in one hand and take pics. But if you have an ultra compact camera, you have to hold it awkward and it my easily fall from your hand. I highly recommend this camera to anyone looking into getting a 5MP camera that’s affordable, flexible, and normal size. further info, visit; http://www. petrousdigitalcameraprices. blogspot. com Cyber-shot DSC-W1 Silver Digital Camera (5. 1MP, 2592×1944, 3x Opt, 32MB Memory Stick) Strengths: Size, LCD, AA batteries, movie mode and black & white modes are GREAT – use ‘em all the time. Weaknesses: Flash is weak, zoom inadequate at times. Summary: I spent a LOT of time investigating digital cameras online -one would think I was buying a car or something. Anyway I am a novice camera user and remain very impressed with this little guy. I would certainly recommend it. The movie mode is great for ‘vignettes’ or small movie snapshots. I also use the black and white a lot. I also didn’t think the LCD would matter very much, but it does: I never use the viewfinder. I appreciate the large size of the LCD when passing the camera around to friends to view pictures and movies. Hint #1: Immediately jack up the megapixel resolution to 5 so that you can capture moments in the best resolution possible. Then, bypass Sony’s ridiculous profit margins- for memory cards buy SanDisk instead. The 512 MB is fantastic – you will get a lot of memory space. I saved $75. 00 this way – $150 vs. $225. The 32 MB is inadequate for daily usage. I use it as ‘emergency’ memory when my 512 has filled up on me and I need an extra pinch of memory to get me through the moment. Hint #2: Do NOT buy the Sony camera case. They charge a ridiculous price for a shoddy version. Go for a Lowepro – I paid ten dollars and it is very sturdy – also has a nice inside pocket to keep memory cards. Hint #3: Buy a separate set of rechargeable batteries you can swap on the go. The AA battery format is a huge plus. Picture clarity is great for the size and price of the camera. The camera and case are small enough that I WILL take it anywhere, and have. In other words, it is a convenient model. I did find that for indoors the flash was inadequate at a distance. The zoom could also have been 4x or 5x. All in all I am quite happy with this model – but stay away from buying Sony brand ‘peripherals’ unless you like spending money. This camera fulfills my needs. The only reason it does not get five stars for the above drawbacks. Otherwise, a great job by Sony and their third-party peripheral competitors! further info visit; http://www. petrousdigitalcameraprices. blogspot. com FinePix E550 Digital Camera (6. 3MP, 4048×3040, 4x Opt, 16MB xD-Picture Card) Strengths: Well priced, 6+mp, all features including raw image Weaknesses: This camera uses 2 AA cells in a hurry Summary: As a professional digital camera lecturer, I must admit that the Fuji E-550 was a very pleasant surprise for me. Priced at about $340, this digital camera produced digital photos that were much sharper, more detailed, and more excellent than I, frankly expected. I found the digital camera very easy to use right out of the box. While this digital camera does have a 12mp interpolated image size available, I found the 6mp native image size to have more contrast, detail and resolution. As you might expect in a consumer digital camera, the digital camera’s flash is not very powerful. At 200 ISO it will produce excellent exposures out to 13 feet. By adding a supplementary slave flash such as the Sony HVL-FSL1B and a bit of flash compensation, I was able to extend the effective flash range out to 25 feet, making the Fuji E-550 useful for indoor photos of large groups. The Fuji E-550 does an equally amazing job with macro or close-up digital photos. It will focus quite close making it very effective for photos of small items and jewelery that might be photographed for sale on auction sites such as www. ebay. com. The strongest suit for the Fuji E-550 is it ability to record a great deal of detail with extreme sharpness and clarity while being handheld. The Fuji E-550 is also very capable of taking excellent night photos when it is placed on a tripod. All in all, I was extremely impressed with the Fuji E-550. I received a lot more digital camera than I expected for the samll price of $340. For those who like to use the raw image format, you will understand that you can essentially re-take the digital photo all over again right in your computer. This is a huge advantage. Of course, being a Fuji digital camera, the Fuji E-550 uses the somewhat more expensive XD electronic data chips. However, the Fuji E-550 is very speedy. From power on to being ready to take the first digital photo takes 1. 4 seconds. This digital camera is equally as fast in writing your digital photo to the XD chip. The newer Fuji digital cameras are marketed to compete dollar for dollar with the Kodak line of digital cameras. Therefore, they tend to be very competitive with Kodak and offer in most cases, a lot more features. There is available for the Fuji E-550 an adaptor as well as both a wide angle and a telephoto (1. 9X) supplementary lens. The supplementary lenses are very fairly priced and readily available through Fuji’s own website. This is a pleasant contrast to the accessories offered by Sony, through their own website, whose wide angle and telephoto supplementary lenses are unreasonably high in price. Conclusion: The Fuji E-550 is a top quality digital camera. It more capable than most might expect. In addition, it is quite small and pocket sized, extending its appeal to many more digital camera users. It is worthy of your attention. The digital photos produced by this digital camera are amazing and compare most favorably with much more expensive consumer digital cameras. I would happily purchase this camera again. I will be very confident in introducing the Fuji E-550 to the attendees of my workshops all over the world. It is a digital camera that I can point to with a lot of pride, simply because it gives the digital camera user many features and excellent digital photos for a very resonable price. further info please visit; http://www. petrousdigitalcameraprices. blogspot. com
Camera batteries come in all types; you have the basic battery; as well as the digital battery. With digital batteries, you get double the flash and double the usage life, you do not have to recharge the battery for 5 hours or more and the with a digital battery, you do not have to replace them. Digital batteries usually have a life time warranty and guarantee. Digital batteries can also withhold freezing conditions and heat; they can take 4 to 5 times the amount of snaps and never pause. The digital battery is an amazing invention and most cameras these days, only use digital batteries; which means most camera battery manufactures, produce millions of digital batteries a year. The batteries come in all levels of watts, such as 40 watts, up to 400 watts; which allows for amazing photographs. Digital batteries are usually made of nickel metals, but the new digital batteries; which are being manufactured and mostly made of Lithium-Ion. This advancement of better metal qualities, allows longer battery life and less maintenance; which will allow the camera to respond with more detail and better photos quality. When buying digital cameras, you need to still be aware of a few things, such as battery life listed, number of shots capable and camera maintenance requirements. Even if the battery states that it is Lithium-Ion, you must still check the brands and what they offer in comparison to the other brands. There will always be a better digital battery, based on brand or even style of the camera, so you must make sure that the battery that you choose is the best possible fit for your camera and for finances. Always read reviews about your specific camera and understand how to maintain the camera; if you maintain well then you will have no problem with your digital camera batteries in the long run.
Remember those days when you used to go to picnic with your bulky film cameras. For keeping those cameras you had to carry a special bag. On the other hand, needless to mention about the cost of developing the film rolls. Apart, you had to spend some money every time to buy a new roll. Another problem which you used to face was the distortion of the pictures. With the passage of time, a lot of advancement has been witnessed and now digital cameras are in our hands with better picture quality and a number of facilities. These are the camera which are gaining wide spread popularity these days and all the problems mentioned above have been eliminated. The cameras are not so bulky and you can keep them in your hands as well. Although, for the security of the camera, it is not advisable to keep it in hands. On the other hand, film roll is not required in order to take the pictures with the help of this cam. These are the cameras that take the images with digital technology. You can see the images in the camera lens or on your computer monitor. You can connect the cam with your computer and save the images in your hard disk. After saving the pictures in disk you can delete the images from the snapper and your cam is ready to capture the pictures again. Another thing that is different from the film camera is that you can view, save and delete the images any time unlike film camera in which you have to wait until your roll is finished otherwise your money on the roll will be wasted. Moreover, the memory of the digi-cam is so high that you can take minimum 150 images even in the low-end camera. Whereas, in case of film cam, this limit was very low and was up to 32 images or a little bit more. Additionally, you can distribute the copies of the photograph according to your desire. These days, the digital cameras are available in the market with several resolutions. Now-a-days, you can get a large varieties of digi-cams with a lot of ease. There are a number of Internet sites on which cams of different brands are available and you can buy digital cameras directly through those sites. Many online retailers offer the cams at reasonable prices. Affiliate websites are also very active in this regard. On several affiliate sites you get the facility to compare the prices and features of the snappers of different brands. Moreover, many of these sites facilitate you to compare the cams from different sites. It enhances your choice an you can get the best possible cheap digital cameras that meet your requirements. Apart, there are several offline resources through which you can get the relevant information regarding the digi-cams. You can see the ads of the snappers of different brands in your daily newspapers. Several magazines based on electronics can also be consulted. It is for sure that the digital cameras are being proved to be the most helpful sources to keep your memorable moments alive. There are the chances of more technological advancements in the field of digital snappers in the coming time.
Digital Camera Deals – is the buzzword consumers with photography interest are looking online as holiday season approaches. Digital Camera is considered one the perfect gift and sold millions during Christmas and New Year holiday season. Internet is jammed with retailers, wholesalers of Digital Cameras luring customers with better deals. That means you as a consumer will have plenty of options online that you probably will have offline. You can compare price among different makes & models, among various pixels by a simple click of mouse. This is the key when you are looking for best deals on camera. There are thousands of deals and coupons web site providing you $100-$300 off coupon, free shipping, mail-in-rebates and other interesting offers on different makes and models. By the evolution of online shopping, you as a consumer have great advantage of comparing number of models at one place; A Sony Cyber Shot DSC-W230 with 12 Mega pixel, 4x optical zoom, 3 inch lcd display selling for $175 can be compared with Canon Powershot A1100 12. 1 Mega Pixel, 4x optical zoom selling for $170. I just gave you these two examples, you can add more brands and makes to your comparison and get an absolute picture on where you are getting value for money. On top of this comparison, you can then look for deals and coupons with further discounts to save more $. In coming days or weeks, many stores will have digital camera deals, Cheap Digital Cameras, closeout specials and sale, hence if you are looking to buy Digital Camera for yourself or to gift someone, there will be no better time than December (couple of weeks from now). However to be on top of this deals and discounts game, you will have to start scrubbing the internet from now itself. Keep visiting large online camera retailers i. e. Sony Style, Best Buy, Buy. com, NewEgg , also subscribe to deals and coupons web sites for their weekly email alerts where they send you emails with best deals on digital cameras and other products of your interest.