Once you’ve taken photos with your digital camera, you need to store them somewhere. You could always leave them on the memory card, but that would get rather expensive, so let’s explore a few other options.
1. Transfer your images onto your computer. Most cameras come with a wire to connect your camera to your computer, a CD with a downloading program and an instruction booklet. Transferring the images is fast and simple. Once they are on the computer, you can delete the images from your memory card and start taking more photos.
2. Burn your images onto a CD. If you have a CD burner on your computer, you can make photo discs to store or share with others. When it comes to pictures, it is often best to use a CD that can’t be written over. This will save the heartache of losing precious photos. Label the CD and store it where it can be gotten easily when you need to see your pictures.
3. Store your images on a public web site. There are many photo-hosting sites on the internet. Some charge for the service, but many are completely free. You have the choice to password-protect your images or share them with the world. This option helps if your computer should crash. Your pictures are safe.
4. Print your images and place them in a photo album. Many people still like turning the pages of a photo album and reviewing the memories. This also makes it possible for those without a computer to view your pictures.
5. Create a photo gift. There are places out there that will take your digital image and place in on shirts, mouse pads, cups, calendars and numerous other items. These make wonderful gifts and provide a way to keep a cherished picture near at all times.
These are just a few suggestions. Using your creativity, you will come up with many more ideas.
It helps when learning to use your new digital camera to also know what some of the more common terms mean. Below you will find many of these common terms defined..
Automatic Mode – A setting that sets the focus, exposure and white-balance automatically.
Burst Mode or Continuous Capture Mode – a series of pictures taken one after another at quickly timed intervals with one press of the shutter button.
Compression – The process of compacting digital data, images and text by deleting selected information.
Digital Zoom – Cropping and magnifying the center part of an image.
JPEG – The predominant format used for image compression in digital cameras
Lag Time – The pause between the time the shutter button is pressed and when the camera actually captures the image
LCD – (Liquid-Crystal Display) is a small screen on a digital camera for viewing images.
Lens – A circular and transparent glass or plastic piece that has the function of collecting light and focusing it on the sensor to capture the image.
Megabyte – (MB) Measures 1024 Kilobytes, and refers to the amount of information in a file, or how much information can
be contained on a Memory Card, Hard Drive or Disk.
Pixels – Tiny units of color that make up digital pictures. Pixels also measure digital resolution. One million pixels
adds up to one mega-pixel.
RGB – Refers to Red, Green, Blue colors used on computers to create all other colors.
Resolution – Camera resolution describes the number of pixels used to create the image, which determines the amount of
detail a camera can capture. The more pixels a camera has, the more detail it can register and the larger the picture can be
printed.
Storage Card – The removable storage device which holds images taken with the camera, comparable to film, but much smaller. Also called a digital camera memory card…
Viewfinder – The optical “window” to look through to compose the scene.
White Balance – White balancing adjusts the camera to compensate for the type of light (daylight, fluorescent, incandescent, etc.,) or lighting conditions in the scene so it will look normal to the human eye.
Does it really make a difference what size memory card you use? To your camera, no; to you, however, it could mean the difference between getting the picture you want or running out of space on your memory card.
When choosing the most logical size, take into account how many pictures you usually take at a time. Your needs if you are a world traveler will be different from those of a person who only uses a camera for holiday get-togethers. You also need to decide how big the files are of the pictures you take. Smaller files such as pictures for online will take less space and enable you to fit more on a card. Larger files for printing will need more room.
If you have a 2 mega-pixel camera, 128MB is usually enough. For a 3 or 4-megapixel
camera, a 128MB or 256MB memory card is usually plenty. For a 5-megapixel camera, start with a 256MB memory card.
Here’s a rough guideline of how many pictures a flash memory card can hold:
*A 128MB flash memory card can store about 21-41 large, uncompressed images or up to 100 small, compressed images. This is good enough for most photographic needs.
*A 256MB card will store about twice that, 42-82 large pictures and nearly 200 smaller ones. Important events like weddings and once in a lifetime events might warrant this size just to make sure you don’t miss that one special moment.
A 1GB card has room for nearly 4 times as much as a 256MB card, If you are planning a long vacation with a lot of picture taking, this might be best with the capacity to hold 168-328 large images and a total of close to 800 smaller images.
Whatever you decide, remember you can always use several smaller cards and just change them when they are full. It only takes a few seconds to switch memory cards, so don’t panic if you don’t have a large memory card.
One of the confusing things in choosing a digital camera is deciding how many mega-pixels you should look for. The answer depends on what you plan on doing with the finished pictures.
First, you need to understand what a pixel is. In terms of digital prints, a pixel simply means a dot of color that makes up the image. A mega-pixel is equal to one million pixels. The more mega-pixels a camera has, the greater the amount of information it records.
The easiest way to decide what to look for is to know what size prints you are likely to print from your camera. A one mega-pixel camera is fine for those who don’t plan on printing photos but rather just post them on the internet. A small print, say 4 x 6, will print acceptably from this camera.
A 2 mega-pixel camera will enable you to produce good quality 5 x 7 prints and fair quality 8 x 10 prints. When you reach 4 mega-pixels you can print out excellent quality 8 x 10 prints and acceptable 11 x 17 prints and a 5 mega pixel camera will allow you to print out high quality 11 x 17 prints.
Most families find a camera in the 3.2 Mega-pixel range to be the best choice. The quality of both 5 x & and 8 X 10 prints is very good yet the files on your computer are not so large you need worry about not having enough space.
Any camera over 5 mega-pixels is unnecessary for all but professionals in photography; even then, only those who have need for poster-size prints find that many mega-pixels worth the money. Most freelance photographers find 4 or 5 mega-pixels to be sufficient for excellent-quality prints.
The choice is yours. Look to what you plan on doing with your photos and then decide. In most cases spending the money for increased optical zoom and lower mega-pixels is the best choice.
While some of the least expensive digital cameras have only automatic focus, meaning the camera does all the work on bringing your subject into the best possible focus, most SLR digitals offer three different focus modes: manual, single auto focus and continuous auto focus. All three of these will be addressed here.
With manual focus, the camera stays out of the focus equation and you, the photographer, make all the decisions regarding this. This is done by setting different buttons or actually using an attached focusing ring that rotates on the camera lens. For those who like to have complete creative control of the finished product, this is the best focus mode.
In single auto focus mode, the camera automatically focuses when you press the shutter button either all the way down to shoot a photo or half way down to lock the focus. This mode is useful when shooting static objects.
In continuous auto focus the camera continuously focuses on the objects in the photo. In this mode the camera continuously corrects the focus as the objects distance from the camera changes. This mode is useful when you shoot photos of moving objects such as a race car during a race or airplanes during an air show. You can hold the shutter button half way down and continuously move the camera to follow the object. The camera will continuously keep the object in focus.
Like any other feature automatic and manual focus modes have their pros and cons. The first step to using them to your advantage is to understand how they work and what they were designed for. The next step is to experiment shoot photos using different focus modes and different types of objects and see how the camera behaves. Once you have done that you will be ready to instinctively use the best focus mode for each photo situation.
