If you are a new compact digital camera user you might be bewildered by various aspects of digital camera equipment and terminology. We have written this guide to assist you through the confusion and begin to comprehend the subject much better. We also hope to make it easier when buying your next digital camera. A number of the important expressions you need to understand include white balance, sensitivity, pixel and ppi and we will attempt to describe all of these here.
Pixels or Picture Elements
This term is derived from picture element and every digital photo is made up of many millions of these tiny pixels. when looked at all together the result is of a smooth continuous image. One method to categorise digital cameras is by their pixel count, the no of pixels in the image. ppi refers to the number of pixels per inch. The number of pixels is directly related to the image quality and the larger the image can be blown up. In most modern cameras the pixel count is usually between between 1 and 14 million. Digital cameras are described as 2 Mp or 5 Mp (Mp =million pixels) for example. Most of the popular cameras will have around 2 and 5 million pixels per photograph.
Good quality prints of four by six inches could be made from a three million pixel digital camera whereas 5×7" prints will probably be slightly poorer in quality. If you want to produce larger 8" by 10" prints a 4Mp or 5Mp digital camera would be a better choice. For much larger prints a camera with more pixels would be needed. Sometimes total pixels and effective pixels are described for a digital camera. The number to consider is the effective pixels as this is what you will see in the image.
Sensitivity Settings
The sensitivity settings on a digital camera are comparable to the ISO ratings for film. The majority of cameras have settings equivalent to the ISO 100 or 200 ratings seen on film. A number have ISO 400 equivalant setting. SLR digital cameras often have setting even higher, even up to ISO 6400. Most cameras will automatically adjust to the best sensitivity setting for the lighting and the mode.
Digital and Optical Zooms
The majority of digital cameras have optical and digital zoom. Digital zoom will result in lower picture quality since the way ot works is to crop the image then enlarge the picture to the size required. This is similar to the method a program to edit images on your computer uses. Optical zooms work in a similar way to a film camera's zoom by altering the magnification and focal length. This does not affect the image quality so this will always be a better choice than using a digital zoom.
The White Balance
The white balance can usually be adjusted depending on the light source. This allows you to ensure, in different lights, that white actually looks like white, and not yellow or blue. The majority digital cameras adjust to the light source automatically, however you can adjust this by hand if you prefer. It can be set for sunlight, shade, fluorescent or tungsten lighting.
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