Digital Photography Basics

Digital photography refers to pictures you take with a digital camera.

In a nutshell a digital camera is a unit that has five components:

1) The Lens/Zoom

On a compact digital camera the lens is built in onto the body of the camera. You can not change the lens.

In general compact digital cameras are equipped with a zoom lens. You can adapt the angle to your need. “W” refers to wide angle, i.e. for landscape photography. “T” refers to telephoto and is more suitable for portraits.

You have probably noticed there are two types of zoom on a compact camera: optical and digital.

Basically the optical zoom, in general marked with 3x is the one we recommend you use. The optical zoom only uses the optics within the zoom for your photos.

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On the other hand the digital zoom is a software inside the camera that will try to bring an image closer to you by enlarging the pixels that compose the image. We don’t recommend you use this feature as your photos will appear blurry with visible squares. You still can achieve the enlargement later on on your computer.

On a digital SLR model the lens can be detached from the body of the camera and you can put on different lenses according to the type of photo you want to take.

SLR means Single-Lens Reflex. With this type of digital cameras you have the possibility to put on the lens that suits a particular type of photography.

On this picture of a Digital SLR camera, Canon EOS 5D Mark II is mounted with a 24-105 zoom lens. I use this camera for most of my shootings.

Here the same Canon EOS 5D Mark II body only without any lens.

You can see the mirror that sits in front of the sensor.

For example if you want to take a photo of a landscape you would use a wide angle. If you want to take a portrait you would use a telephoto lens.

We will cover different types of photography in the sections dedicated to landscape photography and portrait photography.

2) The Sensor

The digital camera needs a device to capture the scene. That device is the sensor.

The higher the resolution is the better your photos will be. Resolution is measured by Megapixel. The more Megapixel are on the sensor the higher the resolution is.

A sensor inside a digital camera

My Canon Ixy 50 has a resolution of 5 Megapixel. Canon EOS 5D Mark II has a resolution of 21 Megapixel.

Five Megapixel is more than enough to take everyday photos of your children, family events, etc. With this sort of resolution you can print your photos up to A3 format.

Digital SLR cameras are more used by professional photographers who need other features as well as a higher resolution. High resolution allows the photo to be printed on enlargements like posters.

As you would guess, higher resolution also means higher in price

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3) A Memory Card

Your photos are captured by the sensor and recorded onto a memory card.

There are different sorts of memory card available on the market. This is mainly due to different manufactures offering different technologies.

Maybe the most popular format is the Compact Flash memory card. My Canon Ixy 50 and EOS 5D Mark II use Compact Flash memory cards.

The more the size of the card is big the more you can store photos on it.

The picture shows the Compact Flash I use for my Canon Ixy 50.

4) A piece of software within the camera

The digital camera is loaded with a software that processes the light that goes through the lens and convert it into a digital image. That information is then recorded onto the memory card.

Depending on the camera, the software can be simple or quite complex with a lot of features. One feature might be the photos taken are converted into black and white before being recorded onto the memory. Another feature could be enhanced sharpness, etc.

5) The LCD Screen

Any digital camera has a small screen on the back that allows you to check whether you are happy with the picture you’ve just taken. If you are not then you can just delete it with the “Bin” button.

When the first consumer digital camera was released more than ten years ago, the screen was rather small. As an example the Canon Powershot G1 which was a high end consumer camera, released in 2000, had a screen of just 1.8”. Today most of the point and click digital cameras have a screen of 2.5” and even bigger.

My Canon Ixy 50 has a rather small LCD screen. It’s also equipped with a viewfinder.

On digital compact camera this screen tends to replace the viewfinder. You use this screen to frame your photo as well as viewing them.

On a digital SLR camera you will have the viewfinder and the LCD screen.

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Basic steps of taking nice photos with a digital camera

1) Frame the subject and take a photo

If you are taking a shot of a landscape then you want to capture as much of the scene as possible. You will use the wide angle position of your lens.

If you are taking a portrait then you will use the telephoto position of your lens.

We will detail more on different techniques in dedicated sections on this site.

2) Review your shot on the LCD screen

Make sure you check the shot before moving on using the LCD screen.

You will check the framing, exposure and details. If you take a portrait photo and the person has closed eyes then you want to take another shot.

3) Transfer the photos to your computer

With your camera a USB cable is provided to connect the camera to the computer. A software is also provided that allows you to download the photos from the camera into the computer. You need to install the software on your computer first before connecting the camera to the cable.

You can also use a memory card reader connected to your PC to download the content of the card. That’s the method I use to download my photos. I take the card out of the camera and put it in the memory card reader. I then transfer the photos to my hard drive and view them on my computer screen.

4) Viewing your photo and share them

Once the photos are downloaded onto your computer, you can view them on the computer screen. You might want to make a selection of the shots you want to keep and get rid of the ones that are not up to the mark, your mark.

You can then resize the photos and email them to your family, friends, etc. Or you might want to get a few of the photos printed on paper.

5) Printing your photos

Today there are consumer inkjet printers that print your photos at the comfort of your home.

This approach can be quite expensive given the cost of the ink tanks that go into personal inkjet printers.

A more cost effective way of getting your photos on prints is to upload them onto an online photo lab that will print the photos and ship them to you.

My personal way about getting my photos printed is to put the files on a USB drive and bring them to one of the photo labs available in my town. The prints are very good quality and the cost per print is much lower than if I used my personal inkjet printer.

Just check out the photo labs in your home town. All of them should offer printing service of digital photos.

By now you know all the basics on what digital photography is and how you can take nice photos with you digital camera.

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Are you wondering how you could easily and quickly take gorgeous photos of your children, family, friends or when you travel with your digital camera?

If your answer to the above question is yes, then I strongly recommend that you check out Dan’s Guide to Digital Photography

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