Castellini on Computers: Technology Watch

Everyone aspires to be a photographer. The digital age has given the average person the ability to, not only take pictures, but to process and manipulate them. In the coming weeks, we will discuss the technical details of digital photography. Perhaps the best place to start is a simple list of pros and cons of digital verses standard film based cameras.

PROS	CONS
reusable no processing cost better image quality (especially when comparing point and shoots) dump the images you don't want download directly to computer much easier and better quality than scanning a print	cost at least double the price of equivalent 35mm no negative as archival proof prints don't last as long a lockup may destroy your entire roll battery cost enlargements are useless beyond actual pixel resolution

1. Stick with what you know. If you are used to a point and shoot, try to avoid cameras that allow you to manipulate settings such as aperture and shutter speed. These features add to the price of the camera and it is best not to waste money on features you won't use.

2. If you don't ever enlarge photos to 8x10, you may not need a 3.3 megapixel camera. If you like to crop your photos, don't go with anything less than a 3.3 megapixel camera. This will be explained further when we talk about resolution.

3. Look for the LCD monitor. If you want to keep your memory clean of unwanted pictures, it is best to have an LCD monitor on the back of the camera so that you can sift through your images after you take them and delete the ones you don't want.

4. Make sure that the memory is expandable. All good digital cameras use removable media cards, such as smart media, compact flash or smart stick. It is usually a good idea to purchase at least one additional 32 MB (or greater) card with your camera.

5. Ask questions about the camera and the policies of where you purchase it. Digital cameras vary greatly in quality. What looks good on that tiny LCD monitor may look terrible when you get home and see it on the screen. Be sure that the place that you purchase your camera from allows you to return the camera within a day or two without restocking fees.

Keep in mind that these are not necessarily recommendations on what to look for, it is simply a list of common features available on some of today's digital cameras. Look the list over and choose the features that are best for your needs, then don't let any commissioned sales people talk you into anything more or less than what you need.

Optical zoom - this is a traditional zoom lens. By moving the lens back and forth the image compresses the distance between the photographer and the subject and between the subject and the background. Most digital cameras have a 1x-3x zoom. Many models over the $500 mark allow you to attach multiplier lenses which will double the zoom range of the camera, or wide angle attachments which will retract from the zoom range.

Digital zoom - this is more of a gimmick. Less expensive cameras pretend to zoom by breaking the pixels of the image up into smaller pixels without improving the quality of the image. You can usually get the same effect by taking a picture then double its resolution in an image editing program.

Manual white balance - in many ways digital cameras are more like video cameras than traditional film cameras. White balance is one of those ways. Before the color will be right on your pictures the camera must first decide what white looks like. White is not always right. outside in the morning white may be orange, in the evening white is often blue, indoors the white light may be green. Certain cameras allow the user to fine tune the white balance of an image to provide more accurate color.

LCD - Liquid Crystal Display. Allows the photographer to look through pictures they have taken.

Movie and/or sound features - movies and sound take up a lot of memory and the quality suffers. Be careful not to let commissioned sales people sell you these cameras as video cameras. Most digital cameras with these features will let you record one second per megabyte. That means on your 32 MB card you will get roughly 32 seconds of 640x480 video. then you can't take any more pictures with that card. If you are looking for a video camera it is best to spend the money on a video camera.

Black and white, sepia, or other weird picture taking options - upon occasion, you may want to take a sepia or black and white photograph. Keep in mind that most software packages allow you to make these adjustments after the picture is taken. You can always make a color picture black and white but it is extremely difficult to colorize a black and white or sepia image.

Megapixel - monthly online digital camera magazine - Its FREE and it's informative.

Digital Photography Review everything you need to know about what is going on in the digital camera world. I would wager that this is really the only site you need, since it contains links to all of the other good sites.

MySimon - price comparison (be sure to type in the exact model number of the camera you are looking at)

ACCESSORIES AND OPTIONS FOR DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Card scanner - $20-$100 this allows you to save battery and camera life by downloading the images directly from the card, without having to hook the camera to your computer.

Mini-tripod - most digital cameras have time exposure. This allows you to set the camera to take a picture by itself. This feature comes in extremely handy when you want to take pictures of a group and include yourself. The feature is useless if you don't have any way to angle the camera at the group. A miniature tripod will fit into your camera's bag and will help you angle the camera just right and keep it steady for complicated shots.

Rechargeable batteries - your camera will go through batteries fast! Investing in rechargeable batteries may be a wise choice. Even though many rechargeables build up memory over time, a set of four rechargeables is $10 and you will probably be able to use them a few dozen times before the memory becomes a problem. Then they are always useable in a walkman or TV remote. If you chose to go with standard batteries then buy the more advanced formula. Such as, Energizer E3 or Duracell M3. These batteries cost between $3 and $10 for a four-pack which is usually the number you need for most digital cameras. Expect your camera to only take about 100 pictures on a set of standard batteries but 200-250 on a set of 1600mA rechargeable.

THE PRINTER

Even in a paperless society, it is common to print out the occasional photograph. The type of printer you use depends on the quality you want versus the cost you can afford.

If you are going to frame your pictures, or give them away as gifts, it is probably a good idea to have a special printer dedicated to photographs only. There are two reasons to do this.

Beware of the word "photo-realistic" the congressional committee on the standards of weights and measures has no regulatory standards on what this term means. The fridge art of a three-year-old can be termed "photo-realistic."

Here is one totally unbiased observation - Epson does the best job. That is not an opinion, it is fact. If you want a photo realistic print, invest in one of the models of Epson photo printers. Epson photo printers are inkjet based but they are more advanced than other inkjet manufacturers. They use an incredibly microscopic dot and six colors, this allows them to produce a photo that can not be distinguished from a traditionally processed photograph, at least not to the naked eye.

There are other types of printers out there for photographs. Dye sublimation and color laser are two other options but they are much more expensive and arguably produce a weaker quality print than the Epson inkjet based printers. Dare to compare.

Digital Photography Software

This is perhaps the best consumer photo-editing tool ever made. It is much more complex than most other consumer level programs but extremely useful. For those who can't afford the full version of Photoshop - do not despair, this product is less than a $100!

If you don't know Adobe Photoshop, you won't know the difference between the two programs. For those that do know Photoshop, they probably won't notice either, unless they are into heavy web or printing work. Photoshop 6.0 and Elements are nearly identical interface. So the powerful tools are there in an easier (and more affordable) format.

This is a great program, but for those who are simply interested in photo-editing, it may be too much of a beast. It is a great art program and does many things that Adobe has stolen for its latest versions of software. If you are into art and photography, this is probably the program for you. It also excels in web graphic creation. Also available for around $100.

There are many version of this product out there. Some are pretty good and easy to use, but others offer too much simplicity (yes there is such a thing) and not enough features.

Digital Photo File Formats

Each of these words or acronyms is a file format. We will break it down into common speak and discuss the advantages or disadvantages of each.

TIFF - For the most part this is a decompressed file format. What ever the photo was to begin with, so it will be when it saves. No quality is lost, but the file is very large, even for smaller pictures. Use this format if you are working on the picture over a long period of time. Printers and publishers also prefer this format when dealing with graphics.

JPG - JPEG is a compressed file format. This means that each time you save the file as a JPEG file it looks at all similar colors and condenses them down. For example if you have 30 shades of green, Saving it to a JPEG file will reduce it to 25 shades of green. Use this file format once your picture is perfect. Each time you open and save a file as a jpg it recompresses it, for example if you save that 30 shade file the first time it will only cut out 5 shades of green, but the next time you save that file it will reduce it to 20 shades and the next time to 15 shades, etc. Eventually the photo will be very blotchy. This is the format to use when sending photos across the web.

BMP - this format is similar to a TIFF, but it is more universal. Any computer can open a BMP file. It is a huge file format though. Don't use this format...it is too big.

THE PROPRIETARY MONSTER - this isn't a specific format. Every image editing program has one of these built in. It is the default file format for the given program. For example Photoshop Elements and Photoshop full version both use PDD or PSD. The good part about this format is that it saves your work exactly as you had it, with all of your little quirks like history files and layers. The bad part is that this format can only be used by that program. If you email a picture in .crl or .psd or any proprietary format, only people with that program on their computer will be able to open it. Be careful with this. People get very upset if they wait 20 minutes for a picture to download through their email, then they cant look at it. So make sure you convert to JPEG before sending

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