Following on from the disappointment that was "How to Take Stunning Pictures" I thought I'd take their tips and flesh them out a bit for beginners. As I can get technical and/or distracted I'm writing to a rough plan - Tip, Why, and When that doesn't work. So no technical stuff and no technobabble.
In a completely unrelated way I mentioned to Orphi in "Mad People" about combining his fractals with photos of dancers. Perhaps in an effort to persuade him and having five minutes to spare I knocked out the following in Photoshop Elements.
To continue this thread I'll deal with Orphi's photo of a fallen tree stump.
As I still can't get on with the Gimp I'll use Paint Shop Pro, everything I do here is transferable except for the adjustment layer which the GIMP does not possess. It can still do it it just has to be added directly to the image rather than floating on top.
Okay first off composition-wise the shot's fine, the angle and position all lead up the tree and it looks good. So why so flat, again overexposed, it's also a little bleached from the exposure; the soil is the same level as the trunk, everything's in focus; and there's also a cyclist just in shot whom I'll ignore. If I had more time I'd clone her out.
Okay first off the overexposure, in this instance I'm going to keep the tree at the same exposure level and just darken the remainder of the shot. Sadly PSP doesn't allow masks on adjustment layers so I need to create a duplicate of this background as another layer.
Having done so I'm going to adjust the exposure in PSP this is Highlight/Midtone/Shadow; if stuck the basic Brightness/Contrast is also available.
By default it's 0/50/100. I want to make it darker so I'll up the first setting to 20, the highlights are still good, but the midtones need a little tweaking I'll drop them to 44. So 20/44/100.
However I want this to apply to everything except the trunk so I need to mask it. Using the select tool I trace out the trunk then create a new mask from this selection hiding it. This punches a hole in my darker layer down to the original over-exposed layer underneath.
Next I'm going to re-set the focus on the tree-trunk by blurring everything else. I've already got a layer that keeps the trunk untouched so just to keep things simple I'll blur that layer; a quick Gaussian Blur does the trick.
Finally I'll remove that colour cast. For this I'll use an Colour Balance adjustment layer I'll drop the blue towards yellow a little -10. Hmm the trunk needs some more red up that to +10; need to drop the blue some more -20.
et voilà 
[Looking at it in full again I should blur the left-hand part of the tree-trunk, but I only knocked this out quickly]
As mentioned in a comment just for fun I altered the background using my photo from here
Orphi's asked me to go over this one more time and to be honest I can't blame him it's a bit screwy. So I'll do a simple and complex explanation:
Simple - The smaller the aperture the more will be in focus, now as the aperture appears to be marked backwards from what would seem logical the way to remember this is that the bigger the number the bigger the field.
Complex - Using the DoF calculator for a 1/2.5" sensor plug in a focal length of 6mm (The default of Orphi's camera) and a focal distance of 2.6m now set the aperture to 2.8 (wide) and you'll see that the camera will focus on everything from 1.259m to infinity; now set the aperture to 8 (narrow) and you'll see it's changed to 0.643m to infinity.
For most of Orphi's landscape shots none of this will show up as nothing appears to be closer than 1.2m so everything remains in focus.
Now as I said with his shot what if he took a few steps (say 1m) back and zoomed in (to 12mm)?
Focusing on the same point which is now 3.6m away and flicking between the two apertures we see that at f/2.8 the DoF is 2.631m to 3.069m at f/8 it's 1.754m to infinity. So suddenly the background will be out of focus and possibly some of the foreground.
This is where the hyperfocal distance I dealt with before is required. If you focus on anything after that point then everything after that point will be focus, everything that's roughly half that distance before that point will also be in focus.
As per my invitation Orphi has linked through to some of his photos on his blog that he's not happy with.
I pulled his photos into a folder so I could get at the EXIF information. For those wondering cameras store extra information regrading f-stop and shutter speeds inside the images and this is accessible either through a photo programme or by right-clicking the file in Windows and selecting Properties then the Details tab.
The first thing I note is that despite being landscape shots Orphi's Finepix S304 camera (aka S3800) loves a aperture of 2.8 which is the widest that camera can go.
Now you may recall Depth of Field (DoF) the wider the aperture the shorter the DoF this was a simplification as I didn't go into details about hyperfocal distance; time to do so.
Again keeping things simple the hyperfocal distance is the point at which everything from half the hyperfocal distance to infinity is in focus. I recommend reading this article about it for more details. So the hyperfocal distance depends on the focal length the aperture and something called the "Circle of confusion" which differs from camera to camera and lens to lens.
So digging out the manual for the S304 the focal length is 6mm - 36mm it has f-stops of 2.8, 4.8, and 8.2 and I've also dug out a circle of confusion value of 0.005mm
So using the equation H=(f^2/Nc)+f I get these figures
| A/d | 6mm | 36mm |
| 2.8 | 2.6m | 93m |
| 4.8 | 1.5m | 54m |
| 8.2 | 0.9m | 32m |
So along with knowing what to look for in a camera, you should now hopefully now why your camera insists on focusing on odd things, why the background is sometimes blurry or why your entire photo appears speckly or bleached out.
You've also taken Dan's advice a got a book from the library and now know more than you perhaps ever wanted to know about focal distances etc. but the photos you take still lack pizazz or just aren't that great; what to do?
No Film
The first thing to ram home, especially to those used to film cameras, is the only limit to the number of photos you can take is the size of your memory card. On a 512Mb card I can take around 250 photos before filling it up; a huge magnitude of difference over film. To put that into context I can take a shot roughly every five minutes for an entire day. If get into the habit of keeping spares and I had two 2Gb cards that's 2000 photos that's roughly one a minute for an entire day. And with cards being both cheap and reusable there's no excuse not to have spares.
To put it bluntly don't be scared of taking lots of shots, and thus don't be scared of playing with the settings to take lots of different shots.
Built-in Settings
Almost every camera has an array of different modes - ranging from Portrait to Sport to Underwater or Snow. These settings can be a great time saver, but to use them effectively it's good to know what they're doing.
What they are doing is two things - firstly they're weighting all those settings from Part 3 in particular directions, and secondly they might be affecting the post-processing that the image receives before it's saved.
So let's take Portrait. The base assumption is that you're taking a shot of something that might be moving a little, and that you're only really interested in what the camera's pointing at. So ramp down the multi-point AF so it's not trying to focus over too great a distance which means you can have a larger aperture which in turn allows a fast shutter speed.
For Landscape that'd be reversed - a small aperture to keep everything in focus and a slow shutter speed because nothing should be moving about.
For Sport you need to weight heavily towards a fast shutter speed to freeze the action.
For Snow you need to reset the White Balance (I'll deal with that later) to make the snow appear white and not blue.
Despite the names given to them once you understand what they try to do they can be a quick time-saver if you're taking a shot that simply requires those sort of settings.
Practice with the modes, and of course, if in doubt take more than one shot.
Orientation
The two defaults are Landscape or Portrait (wider or taller). The names themselves should be a give-away as to when to use them, but put simply if you want to emphasize the width you use landscape; the height, portrait. Oft times you don't have a choice, if you're taking a group shot you want as much detail as possible while keeping everyone in shot; unless they're all climbing a ladder they'll be aligned horizontally so that's the shot to take.
Remember the first point though - if in doubt take at least one of each.
Something's askew
Dan's looked at what he refers to as the horizon problem, but while this shows up more prominently on landscape shots it can be a problem with every shot you might take.
The difficulty is that when looking at a scene with the screen it's easy to adjust the levels of objects to align with the sides of the screen. When you use the viewfinder those guides disappear and, of course, with regard to your own point of view the horizon is always level even if the camera isn't.
If the viewfinder has markings you can try to use these, if the camera allows you might be able to buy different eyepieces with guides inscribed on the glass.
Without these the only advice available is practice and to take a small pause for thought when lining up a shot as to is this level. [Hmm as an aside wouldn't a viewfinder with a couple of small spirit-levels built-in be an excellent idea?]
If in doubt review your shot after you've taken it and if you're not happy take another if possible.
[Additional - I'll add in White Balance too
Weird colours
Sometimes you'll find your photos have what is known as a colour cast, they appear slightly blue, or red. In most cases you'll find this is because the camera can't decide what white is. This may seem a rather stupid thing not to know, but this is because there is normally a colour cast on everything around us depending on the type of light shining on it. Our wonderful brains can usually just compensate for it; cameras can have more difficulty.
If you delve into the menu selection (and you should) you might find an option labelled White Balance. For the most part it's a pick-an-option of various different types of light - Outdoor, Tungsten etc; sometimes you can get a temperature chart up and pick your own colour manually. One of the quickest methods of dealing with colour cast is if you have a semi-manual option - essentially you can pick this, point it at something you know is white and confirm this with the camera; it'll have a little "Oh so that's what white looks like" moment and will compensate for any other shots you take from that point on.
For fun times try picking a white balance that doesn't match the current conditions and see how it affects the colour of the picture you've taken.
]
Action Shots
As mentioned for the Sports mode to freeze the action requires a fast shutter-speed. This is also where shutter lag really starts to show its hand. Like all things practice. If you know it takes this long between pressing the button and getting a shot anticipate the movement and take the shot when you know the object will be where you want it once the camera fires.
Perhaps you don't want to freeze the action completely and want some motion blur. Well in that case slow the shutter down or pan the camera as you take the shot.
The flash might help, using a slow shutter with a flash may give you a frozen image with motion blur. Check the settings and see if you can have the flash fire just as the shutter is closing it's usually headed Second Curtain. However consider the subject's reaction to having a light flare at them and obey any rules governing flash photography.
[Additional - Another option is to change the drive-motor settings. Normally you click the shutter button and get one shot, however it may be possible to change that such that the camera continues to take shots while the button is depressed. Depending on how quickly it can take shots in succession doing so with a fast subject gives a better chance that at least one will look good]
Once again practice and take plenty of shots
The problem that may arise with action shots is keeping the subject in focus this is where pre-focussing comes into play.
Pre-focusing
As per Part Three and the bit about focusing, the camera will try to auto focus if you half-press the shutter button. If you keep that pressed at that level you can now move the camera and the focus will remain where it was - this is focus lock.
What that means is that if you're using manual focus or centre AF then the object you're focussing on no longer needs to be at the centre of the frame.
For the astounding bush this means I can centre AF using the bush, keep the shutter button half depressed and re-frame the shot so the bush appears in the top right corner. Provided the distance between it and the camera is still within the depth of field measurement the bush will remain in focus.
So as previously mentioned this can aid keeping focus for taking photos of moving objects. If you know roughly the distance the moving object is going to be away from you when you want your shot then you can pre-focus the shot using something at the same distance that's not moving. When the object appears you can simply depress the shutter fully and the object should be in focus.
I know you're probably getting tired of hearing this, but practice and take plenty of shots.
Going back to the amazing bush why would I want to have it appear top right anyway.
Composition
You can find a plethora of information about compositional techniques, I'll deal here with the simplest - The Rule of Thirds. I say Rule, but it should be Guide, doesn't have the same portentous ring to it though.
The Rule of Thirds involves splitting up the view into nine three-by-three equal sections. The majority of cameras allow these guidelines to be displayed on screen, sadly they're unlikely to appear on the viewfinder unless you can buy and change it.
Not only do they help you keep things levelled and avoid skew, but they can aid with basic composition as to where the subjects should be placed.
To make it simple subjects of interest should appear on a line, or better yet at a point the lines cross. So your horizon should fall along the top or bottom vertical lines, in your group shot the people's feet should be on the bottom line while their heads should cross the top one.
So with my bush I focus-lock on it then move it to the top-right junction of the two lines to see if that looks better.
As I've said the Rule is really a Guide it can help, but there's no need to stick slavishly to it.
Yeah yeah practice, take lots of shots; you should know the drill by now.
Funny Angles
Just because you're standing up and facing forward doesn't mean that the photos you take have to correspond to that stance. What would the shot look like if the camera was above your head or sitting at your feet? If you have an adjustable screen taking shots you wouldn't normally be able to judge becomes much easier, but without then the first adage applies - take lots of shots.
Don't be scared of kneeling down or holding the camera up in the air. Use objects around you to stand on, within legal limits and considering safety of course. Don't think that the shot you can see as you stand there is the best one available. This applies to every shot - with a close group everyone takes a shot at the same height, what would it look like if the camera was above the group with them all looking up, how about from lower down and further away?
You may think you might look a prat crouching down in public or putting your camera on the ground, but sometimes it's the only way to get the best angle and to be blunt who cares?
Have fun and don't limit yourself to simply what you can see from your point of view.
Use of objects
As just mentioned you can use your surroundings to get a different view on things, but you should also consider anything around you to be a steadying post. Although we can eliminate shake with shutter speed and image stabilisation [and a tripod] there's no harm in bracing yourself or the camera against something solid when you take your shot. You never know doing so may produce an angle on something you didn't even consider.
[Additional - Again the drive-motor settings may play a part here, that includes setting a time delay so you can put the camera down then have it take a photo so as not to introduce any movement as you press the shutter button]
Lighting
Unless you're in a studio under controlled conditions you've pretty much got to work with what you're given. But look how shadows fall, what is and isn't being shown, and where the light source is. Sometimes you can work with what's there and sometimes you just get lucky.
Bringing it together
So my imaginary bush. A path runs away from me and passes to the left of the bush before turning away to the right. The skyline is pretty bare and unimpressive and the sky cloudy, but still reasonably bright.
I'm going to take a shot of both the bush and path and try to minimise the skyline. I want to emphasize the length of the path so I'm going to take the shot in the Portrait orientation. I only want the bush in focus so I set a wide-ish aperture to decrease depth of field and keep a fast shutter. As the bush is the main focal point I now focus-lock on that with the centre AF. I want the path in shot so with focus-lock I move the camera so the bush is top right at the junction of the two lines for rule of thirds. I'm not happy about how much path is showing so I kneel down keeping the camera at the same distance from the bush to keep it in focus. Looking at the path I see if I slide sideways slightly one side of the path will appear to start at the bottom right of the frame; crouch down a little further and the other side will intersect a line and the bottom edge. Check that looks fine and snap.
Of course all this may seem fine and good if you've got the time to set things up and check it, but if you keep doing it all these things start to become second nature. You'll already see what settings you want, and the best angle to take it from and from there it's a quick set and only minor shuffling to get the shot you want.
Oh and of course if you do have the time then practice with the settings and take lots of shots; last time I'll say that I promise.
So from parts 1 and 2 you hopefully now know more about how digital cameras tick then most of the non-specialist shops trying to sell you one. Here I'll detail what all those settings mean, what happens when they are adjusted and hopefully avoid terms like hyperfocal distance and exposure bracketing (or at least try and do a good job of explaining what they mean)
Focusing
With auto-focus (AF) this should be a doddle and occupy no need for thought or worry, but this is the first step in getting shots that you want and the first stage in where shots can go wrong and it's that very helpful auto-focus that can cause all that.
AF systems come in a variety of different flavours and cameras can often have the ability to choose between which one you want to use, they roughly divide into two camps - Multi-point AF or Centre AF.
Multi-point AF systems look at the scene you're trying to take a picture of and supposedly tries to pick out those items it thinks you're trying to focus on. Once it has it adjusts other settings in your camera so that all those points stay in focus. For a quick point and shoot this is fine, but you're rare person if you've never had the AF decide that the far off tree top-right is more interesting than the bush you're really trying to shoot. This is because of how the AF system works.
Focusing is something we don't have to think about when we use our eyes we just do it, but a camera has to determine what's in a scene and how to tell if it's in focus or not. Take a board split black and white and aim a camera at it and the AF will adjust until the dividing line appears sharpest; take a pure white board and the camera can't tell just by looking if it's in focus or not.
Now take that and consider my green bush sitting on green grass with green trees in the background, is it any wonder the AF system has opted for the higher contrast tree-against-sky, it's the only thing it can judge with accuracy if it's focused or not.
This problem also applies to Centre AF, in this instance though the AF is confined to just looking at the the centre point of what you're shooting at so it has a better chance of at least focussing on what you want.
AF can also be weighted, this is all the latest 'fad' of face recognition does. It uses the same Multi-point AF but favours what it thinks of as faces.
Try switching between the settings you have and see which consistently produces the images you expected. If that doesn't work you're going to have to go Manual.
When you opt for manual focusing you will normally gain an enlarged portion of the view, almost always in the centre and you can tweak whatever dial necessary until you judge that what you're looking at is in focus. It's certainly more fiddly and without practice might produce more blurry shots than the AF, but with practice will allow a much greater control over the image. For quick shots you're likely to stick with the AF, but ones where you have time manual may produce something better.
One focus type I've yet to mention is Macro. For the most part if you try to take a shot of something 'in your face' you'll just get a blurry mess; for those cameras offering it Macro AF allows much closer shots. For manual focusing there may be a special macro mode you can tweak or it may just form part of the normal manual focusing ability. Again explore the options you have.
Aperture
One of the big things that gets whittered on about is aperture, f-stops, exposure blah blah blah. The aperture of the camera is the opening through which light is passed to the sensor. It can either be fully open, with all light streaming in; fully closed, and you get a black photo; or some point in-between. Those bits in-between are measured in f-stops and get shown as f2.4 or f8; they should really be marked as f/2.4 and f/8.0, but like most things it gets abbreviated.
The addition of that mark though is important to understand what f-stops mean. Put simply they're a ratio of the diameter to the lens; a ratio because obviously lenses can differ. Keeping it darn simple and not accurately if we imagine a lens 1" in diameter then an f-stop of 8 is an opening 1/8" in diameter, an f-stop of 2 is 1/2" in diameter.
I want to stress that the figures I'm using here aren't accurate as the diameter is tied to the focal length and not the diameter of the lens. However hopefully the point has been made the larger the number of the f-stop the smaller the diameter of the aperture because that's the number you're dividing by.
Changing the aperture size has two consequences, the first should be obvious - a smaller opening means less light getting in to the sensor, a larger one means more. However it has a much deeper result and that's Depth of Field.
Depth of Field
This is where terms like hyperfocal distances get bandied about, but let's ignore that for the moment. The depth of field (DoF) is the distance before and after the point you're focussed on that remains in focus. If you have a big f-stop number, that is a small diameter opening, the DoF is very large; most of what's in front of the focus point and what's behind it will be in focus. If you have a small f-stop number, a large opening, then the DoF is very short and the only things likely to be in focus are at the focus point.
This is why I dealt with focussing first and this is one of the settings that gets changed with AF systems. In order to get everything it wants in focus the AF will set a focal distance and change the f-stop to increase or decrease the DoF.
So with my obviously fascinating bush I use a manual focus on said bush and set my aperture to f2.4. I take my shot and both the bush and most of the foreground and the majority of the background is in focus. Keeping the same focus I switch to f8 and take the same shot. The bush is still in focus, but the foreground and background are blurred.
Almost all cameras even in auto mode will tell you what f-stop they're using, if you have an Aperture Priority mode switch to it and try it out on the same shot with the same focus and see what happens.
However as I mention the first consequence of changing the aperture size is the amount of light that reaches the sensor and to compensate that means dealing with shutter speeds
Shutter Speeds
Fast or slow, this is the measure of the delay between when the shutter opens to take the shot and when it closes. The first obvious difference is that the slower the shutter speed the more chance there is of something in your scene moving and creating a blur. If you want to take a photo of something that is by itself moving then a faster shutter means you can 'freeze' that motion.
In theory therefore unless you're going for that speed-blur effect you want a fast shutter speed, however this comes with a downside similar to the effects of the aperture - namely light levels.
The slower speed means the sensor gets exposed to light for longer, for a bright scene this can lead to overexposure and everything turning up white. Too fast a speed and not enough light hits the sensor so you get a black or dark photo. But hey that might be the very style you wanted, assuming it wasn't though the interplay between shutter speed and aperture is one to watch.
So a small aperture like f16 means less light getting to the lens, which in turn means you need a slower shutter speed, a large aperture will need a faster speed; depending on how much light is about in the first place it's that simple.
So I've got a small aperture to keep everything in focus, I've selected a fast shutter speed to capture a fast moving object and the photo I take comes out pitch black. Time to change the ISO setting.
ISO
I dealt with ISO as a factor for buying a camera in part 1, this is where that pays off. To recap, for a digital camera the ISO setting reflects how sensitive the sensor is to light; the lower the number the more light needed to trigger a reaction.
As with everything so far there is a downside. The more sensitive to light you make the sensor by increasing the ISO level, the greater the chance that the pixels will be triggered by 'phantom' light leading to noise; at a basic level the photos appear grainier the higher the ISO.
So as with my previous example if I want my small aperture and fast shutter speed I need to increase the ISO and get stuck with the graininess, or do I?
Well one way to get around this is to provide more light at the very instant I take my shot and that means using a flash.
Flash
If I've neglected this aspect of cameras it's simply because the flashes that come built in to the majority simply aren't always that good or useful. To be effective a light source needs to be close enough to the subject to provide extra reflection, while not being close enough to bleach the colour. Sadly having the flash attached to the camera can pretty much screw up that balance and is one of the reasons you'll see studios cluttered up with so many extra light boxes and diffusers when they have a perfectly fine built-in flash on their camera.
DSLRs try to get around this by having a pop-up flash, when required the flash rises up on a hinge. This has the result of keeping the camera compact and trying to keep the flash as far away from the camera as possible under these constraints.
If you don't have that option then one you may have is to adjust the flash level itself. This is something that requires practice if the camera doesn't do this automatically. The trick is to provide enough light to allow you to have the small aperture or fast shutter that you want without bleaching the scene and making everything look flat.
Even if the flash adjusts its own level, this is still something to look at as the camera may decide it needs a really strong flash to illuminate the entire scene, when you're just trying to capture the group in front of you - white out.
Conclusions
Hopefully that's given some insight into the most commonly used aspects of a camera's workings and how they all interconnect with each other; saying that I'm sure Dan will spot something I've missed :-)
Next part here
Okay so I've dealt with the myth of the Megapixel, perhaps in too much detail, and I've dealt with lens size. So what's next?
Power
This is a straightforward choice - bog-standard over-the-counter batteries or proprietary manufacturer's own; okay the third option is mains powered which is great if you're running a studio, but I'll assume you're not.
Which of the two is better? The answer as always is - it depends. If you go for the normal batteries you can pretty much buy them anywhere, if they run out you don't have to worry about having the special recharger with you or if you've bought one of the, normally, hideously expensive spares that you've had to remember to keep charged.
However normal batteries are heavy compared to the proprietary ones, don't normally last as long, and with the rechargeables die quickly rather than fade out. So swings and roundabouts.
With some DSLRs you can have the option of a proprietary battery and an optional battery pack which takes over-the-counters; best of both worlds.
However it doesn't matter which type of power source you use if the camera is a power glutton.
Viewfinder vs Screen
The viewfinder has been almost completely removed from every ultra-compact and seems to be in the process of being phased out on the compacts too; in a way it makes sense. If the viewfinder isn't tied to the lens what you see through it isn't the shot you'll take, if it does then you're simply duplicating the screen and having to use more space and throw in more electronics to make it work.
Except the DSLRs still keep the viewfinder, is this just a static tradition appeasing the old-fogey photographers? Nope, the viewfinder is still of importance in a variety of ways.
First off is viewing the screen itself. The marketting bods still love to slap reflective layers onto screens to make them look shiny and appealing; looks great when off, but means you can't see anything when you're composing a shot under any form of bright light.
Next is focussing, difficult on the lower resolution screens especially as you may have to adjust the distance between the camera and your eye to be even able to see what you're taking.
In conjunction holding the camera out at arms length or anything between is less stable than next to your face and can introduce camera shake.
And finally using the screen burns power something the lens may not do or only do minimally.
So viewfinders rule, but some are better than others. Firstly in compact cameras the scene through the viewfinder is not necessarily the photo you'll be taking. If the viewfinder isn't tied to the lens you are really 'looking over the shoulder' of the lens resulting in a slightly different view.
The second problem is that what you're seeing through the viewfinder isn't necessarily the full picture you'll be taking. Viewfinders can show anywhere from 80% of the scene upwards. That means you might think you have a perfectly framed shot take it then find something extraneous on the very edge of the frame you couldn't see.
Obviously the higher the percentage the less is hidden. Even DSLRs can suffer from this though their percentages are normally in the high 90s. However DSLRs don't suffer from the 'over the shoulder' as they're tied to the lens, the view through the lens is directed to the viewfinder - what you see is what you'll get.
Lag
This is a big problem as Dan stated and can be the biggest cause of frustration for photo takers. There are four forms of lag (or slowness) inherent in digital cameras.
1. Shutter Lag. You press the shutter and think you've got the photo you want, but it seems you haven't.
2. Focus Lag. If you're using the auto-focus how long until it works out what you want to take a picture of?
3. Write Lag. You've taken one picture and want to take another, but you have to wait for the camera to be ready again.
4. Start-up Lag. Hah that was so funny if only you'd managed to take a photo, but you were waiting for your camera to switch on.
Decent reviews will produce figures for all these points. Don't be fooled by the apparently low figures; a shutter lag of 1 second may sound tiny, but imagine taking a photo of Formula 1 racecars - you frame the shot, press the shutter and... get a photo of the rear of the car.
Focus lags are normally minimal. Some cameras will try to continuously attempt to find a focus lock while switched on others only after you've pressed the shutter button introducing more shutter lag. The former is fine but can eat power, the latter you obviously want to avoid, the third option for the majority of cameras is half-pressing the shutter button and forcing the camera to focus before you fully depress the button. The length of time that takes is dependant on the electronics and software for each camera.
Write lags can be minimised if the camera has it's own internal memory buffer, it simply writes directly to that then moves it to the external card in its own time.
Start-up lag is normally dependant on whether you can use a viewfinder or have to use a screen. Even DSLRs can have a start-up lag comparable to a compact if you need to see the screen to change settings, but if you're happy with the settings you can normally just raise and click.
With all of these timings DSLRs win hands-down with almost immeasurable shutter and start-up lag, and often with an internal buffer so minimal write lag.
Camera Shake
The majority of cameras now feature a little icon that kicks in when it thinks you might end up with a blurry picture due to camera shake. The reason for this is normally that the camera is using a low shutter speed and will pick up even the tiniest of movements during the exposure. The obvious solution is to use a tripod, but that means carrying it around with you. The new solution is Image Stabilisation, or Vibration Reduction, or whatever trademarked phrase a manufacturer wants to use. Their function is, well what it says on the tin, compensation for any movement that occurs during the exposure. There are two ways of doing this:
1. Physical
2. Software
The physical option means moving either the sensor or the lens in the direction opposite to the movement. The software option means the camera looking at the picture you're about to take and essentially guessing what things would look like if they or you weren't moving.
Like everything to do with software doing it this way can introduce yet more lag at some point. The physical option is normally the best because it's adjusting to the movements of the camera/lens and not the subject and has zero lag.
Image stabilisation has advanced greatly in only a short amount of time and can sport a number of extra features, one that may be of particular interest is vertical only stabilisation. This means if you're shooting a video and panning around it'll only try to stabilise any up or down movement and thus keep your video level.
Video
Something now considered a standard feature is the ability to shoot video with your still-image camera. The first thing to point out is that if you want to take lots of videos you're still going to be better off with a dedicated video camera, if you just want to take the odd pratfall etc. then a still camera is likely to be fine with the following warnings.
Despite having the megapixels a lot of cameras are still stuck to taking movies at a resolution of 640x480 at 30 frames per second. If you just want to show off these videos on a standard definition television that's fine, oh wait no it's not as in the UK television is set to 25fps not 30. Some cameras allow a faster fps but at a cost of reducing the size down to 320x240. These for the most part aren't that good. Here's an example of a 640x480 video; viewable, but not pretty.
However some cameras now allow HD video, by which they normally mean 1280x720, much better.
The second warning is about what functionality you retain while shooting a video. To give an example with my Canon A620 if I zoom into a scene then start shooting I can no longer zoom out. That level of zoom has been set as the base so if I know I'm going to be zooming in and out I have to start shooting with no zoom then zoom in straight away.
The third and final warning is about how the video is shot. Again with the A620 I can start shooting, but when I stop only then does it seem to write to the card. If the power cuts out or the card becomes full I lose either the whole video or the end of it.
Ease of use
In the next part I'll be dealing with shutter speeds, aperture settings, ISO, focus, zoom and all the things that might mean taking the shots that you really want to see. However no-one is going to alter any of these settings if it means fiddling around for ages with the camera's menu system.
So two things to try before you buy - does the camera feature the settings you're going to change in an easy to use way, and secondly when you hold the camera in the manner most comfortable to you can you reach said features?
Again with my A620 it's a bit of a mix. The zoom surrounds the shutter so it's easy to use, and the dial with various modes on sits naturally under your right thumb to switch around. However unless you know that the mode you've chosen is set the way you want you have to step back and use the screen. For some modes this is quite quick, both aperture and shutter priority means pressing left and right to set; flash modes can be toggled with up and macro and manual focus with down. ISO settings you need to head into the menu for, the same goes for white balance, and drive motor settings.
It boils down to what settings are you going to alter the most and how easily can you get to them.
[Additional
I can't believe I missed out Zoom
Zoom
Zoom can be broken down into two types optical and digital. Optical zoom is magnification achieved by physically moving the lens; digital zoom by the camera guessing what pixels might appear between ones it has captured via optical zoom and inserting them into your photo. If you have an optical zoom of 4x and a digital zoom of 4x then in theory you have a combined zoom of 16x. While digital zooms may allow you to take a full size shot of a far away object, the actual image may not be what is really present. Simply put choose optical over digital.
]
Okay here ends part two. next part here
Following the rousing success that was my guide to HD televisions I now turn to the world of digital cameras. This was prompted by the frustrations of DaBoss who is looking to replace his ultra-slim cool camera for something that will take decent photos. Not wanting to say told you so, but I told him so. The first time he showed me the camera I told him he was going to have problems with it in the normal situations he found himself, but it was soooo cool. To be fair none of the family were operating it quite right, but even so problems existed. To prevent anyone suffering the same type of misbuy herein lies the guide.
Digital Cameras
I don't think it's an exaggeration to state that digital cameras have changed the entire nature of amateur photography. No longer having to mess with film and deal with developers who print and charge you for the entire reel including that photo you took of your thumb; amateur photographers can take pictures of what they want, where they want, and when they want without care or worry. Instantly able to preview shots and delete and retake in an instant means you have a greater chance of getting the shot you want. Add in the internet to share your photos, home photo printers to print them yourself, and the rise in computing power and photographic software to tweak the images just so the amateur has never been closer to the professional in the images they can take.
But still a gap remains and to an extent it's down to both the specialist jargon of that world and the new jargon that has been built around digital cameras in particular.
DSLR, Compact, Sub-compact.
Even before you start looking for a camera you have to make a decision of what type you want. At first glance this is simply a case of size - the Digital Single Lens Reflex cameras are the bulky ones you see professionals carrying, the compacts something a little more handy, and the ultra-compacts something you can slip into a shirt pocket. However each also has their own strengths and weaknesses. I'll go into details under each section but a quick summation is as follows:
DSLRs are big bulky and tend to be aimed at the professional and thus generally do little to hide the complexity of their use; they normally have a separate body and lens which allows greater versatility in your shots but that can bump up the price.
Compacts are the general workhorse, not as big as a DSLR but something that would still be noticeable if stuffed into a pocket. With a fixed lens you lose the versatility of the DSLR, but aimed at the general public the interface is normally toned down. Normally the cheapest of the lot.
Ultra-compacts. Great for sticking in your pocket for an outing. Like the compact the fixed lens lacks versatility and cramming the electronics in a smaller case can bump up the price.
Time to get into specifics.
Megapixels
This is pretty much the first thing that's thrust into your face if you're looking at cameras and like so much in marketing it is both misleading and almost useless without extra information generally not provided at the same time.
The megapixel count is simply the number of pixels, in millions, that exist on the sensor. Each pixel is normally made up of three subpixels (some cameras use layered subpixels) that each sense one of the three primary colours - red, green, and blue. The more pixels the greater the detail you can retain when you print out large images or crop and zoom in on a particular section.
So as a marketing tool it's great - the higher the number the more detailed your image, end of story; not quite. Because the factor that isn't mentioned is the sensor size.
Image Sensor
In a digital camera the film is replaced by an image sensor made up of pixels. For the old film the generally used standard was 35mm which had a ratio of 3:2; in a feat of abject stupidity image sensors use a ratio of 4:3. Some DSLRs use the old 3:2, but everything else 4:3.
This should be a bonus for digital cameras as they gain more height for the same width as the old film cameras. This would indeed be great if any photo developer or photo printer manfacturer produced 4:3 ratio prints; this means your photo will either be cropped top and bottom or be bordered by an unprinted area.
This alteration also proves a problem with the traditional method of measuring the sensor size. Keeping it simple back in ye old days of photography the image formed on a glass tube which was specified by its diameter. It was soon found that only a portion of the tube was suitable for forming a good image - approximately two-thirds of the diameter. Everyone knew what size tube produced what size image so the measuring system stuck. Now we hit the 21st Century and we're still stuck with it.
So digging up the specifications for a camera (and you will need to dig at least a little) may well tell you that the image sensor size is 1/1.6" in modern terms about 15.875mm; this represents the diameter. Except of course it doesn't, it represents the diameter of the old tube on which a smaller image is formed. Dig deeper and you will find the actual sensor size; in this instance 7.78mm by 5.83mm with a diagonal of about 9.7mm.
So why bother, what's so important about this? Well the size of the image sensor is, in reality, the key to the camera, but it's complicated and not so easy a point to sell and thus gets pushed aside.
Pixel Density
This is somewhere you need to combine the proudly stated Megapixel count with your dug up information on the sensor size. I'll compare two unnamed cameras a 7.1 MP and a 12 MP, as per above the 12 MP is obviously the better of the two; but let's add in sensor sizes.
7.1MP 7.18 x 5.32mm
12MP 7.78 x 5.83mm
Divide the pixel count by the area of the sensor and we get back two figures
7.1MP - 185, 876 pixels per mm2
12MP - 264, 565 pixels per mm2
In order to increase its megapixel count the 12MP camera has had to cram more pixels into the same space. So what? Well that leads to the next bit.
ISO sensitivity
Again back in the old days you had a choice of what type of film you loaded depending on what you were shooting. If you were shooting in bright light you needed a film that was less sensitive to light so you wouldn't get patches of burn where the light levels overloaded the film. In dim light you need a film that was sensitive to light so you could maintain a high shutter speed and eliminate blurring while still capturing enough of the light to create an image.
These different types of film were differentiated by an ISO number. The less sensitive the film the lower the number, say ISO 50; the more sensitive the higher the number, again say ISO 200. The film itself was made more or less sensitive by adjusting it's chemical properties, to keep things simple think of them as grains in the film. Less sensitive ISO 50 had smaller grains then high sensitive ISO 200; this in turn meant that ISO 50 film captured smaller details then ISO 200 film and was thus less grainy.
All well and good but how does this apply to digital cameras, you can't change the size of the pixels. No you can't what you can change is their threshold value, that is the amount of light that has to hit them in order to be triggered.
This is where the pixel density comes into play. Electronics at this small level can be highly susceptible to interference (also known as noise). Now if we imagine a single pixel on its own with light coming at it, it'll trigger if the light level is above its threshold; for bright images we increase the threshold value; for dim light we lower it.
So if we have an arbitrary value of 50% light hitting a sensor and the threshold is set at 51% it won't trigger and that pixel stays dark. So far so good in isolation; but put another pixel next to it and feed it 52% light, it'll trigger and create a small electronic current, this in turn could induce current in the pixels surrounding it and push our original pixel's value above 50% and cause it to trigger.
Essentially the smaller the pixels and the closer they are the more likely you are to experience this 'noise'. Cameras do try to eliminate it sometimes by clumping pixels together and pretending to be larger 'grains', but as with film that results in a loss of detail.
It's important to note that in nice bright condition you're unlikely to ever see any problems at all, but if you're inside or at a party your pictures may well start getting blurry and/or noisy. This is where the ultra-compacts can fall down, sure they may be easy to slip into a pocket for a party, but unless you use a bright flash everything's going to be dim and noisy.
Sensor size also plays another part with yet another old measurement that played by the lens.
Camera lens
If you look at the lens of a camera you can be forgiven for being confused, you will often be presented with a bald summation of 5x f=6.4-32mm 1:3.3-5.1. The first bit is easy it's the optical zoom, more on that later, the second part I'll deal with here.
the part that begins "f=" represents the actual physical distance from the lens to the sensor; except sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it represents a theoretical distance - if the sensor was in fact a 35mm piece of film, what distance would the lens be to represent the same field of view.
Yeah complicated so diagram time.
The lens is represented by the blue oval and the 35mm film by the green rectangle (36mm in width). At the distance of the white object with a simple straight through lens the full length will be captured on the 35mm film as represented by the red lines. With a smaller sensor (orange) it needs to be positioned closer to the lens in order to capture the same image. So in this instance the film is set 28mm away from the lens and the smaller sensor at 6.4mm, as they'd capture the same image for this camera the f=6.4 is the equivalent to a 35mm f=28.
Of course it's never that simple. For the camera specifications I'm using the sensor width is 7.78mm, as per the diagram above to be a 28mm equivalent at 6.4mm the sensor requires a width of 8.23mm or needs to be at a distance of 6.05mm. It might not sound much, but at this scale that's a huge difference ~5% out.
To reconcile this requires a choice - either the manufacturer is lying when they claim that 6.4mm is the same as 28mm or it really does capture the same width. Assuming they're not lying the only way to get the same image is by using a shaped lens, one that bends the light inwards like so.
Using a wireframe to show the difference, the rectangle on the left represents the 7.78mm lens at a distance of 6.4mm from the lens on the right. The lines that continue past the sensor represent the path of light for a straight-through lens, the lines connected to the sensor represent how much the light has to be bent in order to deliver the 'same' image as a 35mm/28mm combination.
Again it doesn't look much, but again at these scales it's significant and means that, as the lens is circular, the only item that appears at it's true height and width is anything in the centre. As you get closer to the edge most noticeably on each side things will get slightly squished.
Of course all of this is pointless if your photos are so dim you can't make anything out and that leads me to the final and shortest section of this part of my guide.
Lens Size
This is where DSLRs rule as they're both bigger and have interchangable lenses. In this case the maxim is simple - the bigger the better. A bigger lens means more light getting to the sensor, means a faster shutter speed and less blur, and a lower ISO and more detail and less noise.
As I mentioned before this is where the ultra-compacts can start to fall down; to make them that small the lens has to be smaller too. So to get an image where you're most likely to take an ultra-compact (a party) you need to use the flash a lot, which bleaches the scene and drains the batteries; use a low shutter speed and introduce blur; use a high ISO 'threshold' and introduce noise and grain; or a combination of all three.
Conclusion
If you're taking quick shots outdoors and don't mind the lousier qualities of indoor shots then an ultra-compact is a good bet
If you've got the money, the patience to learn what all the buttons mean, and the strength to lug it about you're looking at a DSLR.
For something the equivalent of your old bog-standard film camera a simple compact will do fine.
In all instances though don't get blinded by the big numbers go through the steps I've outlined here and if at all possible try the camera before you buy it.
In the next part I'll detail using the digital camera, the various settings and how to get the most out of it.
