Digital Cameras & Digital Photography

michael wong asked:


The simplified version of how the camera works is that it uses lens to focus light on photosensor. Most compact digital camera use charge-coupled device (CCD) as photosensor. When light strikes the sensor, it will record the image electronically and transfer it for organization. After that, it will convert the image into binary digital data and stored in memory.

In order to get an ideal photograph, the amount of light reaching the photosensor must be controlled carefully. To achieve that, you need to control the shutter speed and the aperture size. And to make things easier for you, the compact digital camera manufacturers have set the shutter speed electronically and set the aperture size on automation.

Megapixel plays an important role on the quality of your picture. It is related to the amount of details in your picture. So, the more megapixels you have the more detail you will have on your image.

You can see that cameras nowadays come with optical zoom and digital zoom. Optical zoom is more important because it actually zooms into your subject while digital zoom only enlarges your picture. That is why sometimes you will get fuzzy picture with digital zoom.

Cameras today also come with LCD screen for you to preview the picture you took. Don’t misunderstand that the digital camera is compact and the LCD screen will be small. It depends on how the manufacturer fir the screen to the camera.

If you have a digital camera back in the early days, you should remember that the storage device was built into the camera. That gave some frustration to some photographer because you need to clear the pictures when the memory is full. Luckily, as the technology evolves, you can now enjoy portable memory storage.

You can now store your pictures into memory devices like SD cards or smart media cards. When the memory is full, you can just label the memory device and keep it as your album. Furthermore, memory device nowadays come in different sizes. The storage amount of the memory device depends on the quality of your picture and how frequent you take photograph.

John asked:


A few years ago, a digital camera is luxury that only a small number of “get rich first” can enjoy because its complicated operation and high prices. In particular the “professional” of it made many entry-level users confused. However, this situation has been reversed recently, more and more fashion-oriented consumer-level DC, to allow consumers more choice But this type of DC’s upgrade is also very rapid, high-pixel, large-screen … … It makes a lot of consumption confused, how to choose a good digital camera? Depends on what?

Can high-pixel screen bring clear image?



For a long time, the point that judges a digital camera by pixel has been misleading a lot of consumers. A few years ago, 3 million pixels has been the standard to judge whether a DC good or not, but after 2004, 8 million DC has been launched at the market, and more and more manufacturers preach the advantages of high-pixel by advertisement: a more precise picture, higher performance … but, in fact, whether the image is precise or not has nothing to do with pixels. Actually, the CCD, which is part of a DC, 8 million pixels is the same with 5 million pixel, just integrate more sensitive point in the same size, it is bound to increase the screen noise, actually reduces the image quality. As home using, 3 million pixels remains the most suitable, if you have a large print of painting need, 5 million pixels is enough to meet the requirements.

Ultra-thin, lithium battery, big screen, whether it’s good or not?

It seems that it’s fashion to have an ultra-thin DC. However, as a digital camera, electronic capability is as important as optical properties, so its dimension can not be reduced endlessly, or else it will seriously affect the imaging results. For example, some ultra-light DC must adopt periscope lens, that is, they reduce the dimension as possible as they can, at the expense of quality, penny wise and pound foolish.



Is high zoom the most convenient?

In addition to the pixel, the zoom capability is also the focus that preached by manufactures. 6 times, 8 times, 10 or even 12 times optical zoom DC appear in front of consumers, and many people are still popular, they think high-zoom can bring greater freedom to shoot.

Yes, some optical zoom make for shooting and composition, but while you enlarge the screen, you also enlarged the shake hands so that it’s hard to take a clear photo. On the other hand, high-zoom lens is a complex structure, they are bound to a certain extent affect the imaging. Proverbially 3x optical zoom has been proven to be the most suitable for the home.