You’ve seen the dreaded demon-eye effect that occurs when the camera flash bounce off the eye of a person or favorite. An or else brilliant picture can be ruined by this. Technically, this is called red-eye and is caused when the pupil of your subject’s eye is wide open and the light from the camera’s flash reflects off the subjects retina. In people, the color ends up red; in pets, the color is often green. Many photo editing programs include a red-eye correction filter, but this may not allow your photograph subject to appear “normal. These filters also do not work on the green effect produced in a pet’s eyes. Photo stores sell pens that are used to clear up red-eye, but again they are not always natural-looking and do not work on the green. The best thing is to prevent the demon-eye effect from the start.It is rare to find a digital camera that does not come with a red-eye reduction feature. This feature can be turned off or on. It is best left on in all situation other than direct sunlight. The red-eye reduction feature works by flashing a short burst of light at your subject before you snap the picture. This burst of light causes the subject’s pupil to close and makes it less likely for the camera’s flash to reflect off the retina. This in turn reduces the chance of red-eye.It also helps to direct the flash of your camera so it does not directly hit your subject’s eyes. Bouncing the flash off a nearby wall or other object will soften its effect and reduce the chances of this unwanted malady. Between bouncing the flash and using your digital camera’s red-eye reduction feature, your little angel, whether human or animal, will have eyes that don’t glow.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Red Eye and Your Digital Camera
How Many Mega-Pixels Do I Need?
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 acceptabl 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 family 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 require 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 enough 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.
Making Your Digital Camera Battery Last Longer
With all the features digital cameras have these days, you may find keeping batteries a problem. This could well be your biggest expense, but there are some things you can do to increase the length of time your batteries stay charged. Let’s start with the three main sources of power drain.The LCD screen takes up the most power. It is possible to turn this feature off if not you really feel the need for it. Using the camera’s viewfinder will preserve power. Another big power drain is the flash. Whenever you can, use natural lighting to take your photos and turn off the flash. This will help save your battery for times when you absolutely need the flash. A third drain on your battery is constantly using your zoom. It takes more power zooming in and out than it does keeping your zoom at a steady place. Try to find a setting you like and sticking with it as much as possible..Some other things you can do to make your battery last longer are:* Make sure Power Saving mode is on, or simply switch off your camera when you're not using it.*In cold weather, keep your camera and batteries warm in your cover until you are ready to use them. The cold drains batteries very quickly.*Store batteries in a cool, dry location away from sunlight and other heat sources.*Avoid unnecessary playback of your already taken images. Try to decide when you take the picture if it is a “keeper” or needs deleted and then refrain from reviewing until the pictures are downloaded to your computer.*Use the AC adapter. Most digital cameras have an adapter that allows you to plug directly into a power point. If you don’t plan on moving around a lot and are near an outlet, the AC adapter will increase the life of your batteries.
Needing to buy more or recharge your battery is something you won’t be able to avoid completely, but with a few precautions this won’t be needed as often.
Some Ways to Make Money Using Your Digital Camera
Have you ever required to find a way to bring extra money into your household--yet don’t have a lot of time to spend on a full-time endeavor? The answer is as close as the digital camera sitting there in a drawer. The following suggestions are only a few of the many ways you can make money in your spare time with your camera.* Pet photos - Most owners won't fight to take a photograph with their pet all by themselves. You can be the one who makes it easy on them. Not only can you charge for the service and your time, but you can offer the photograph in its digital form or as a print that you can mail to them later - either shaped by your own photo printer or by a photo processing service.*Graduations - preschool, high school, or college graduations offer dozens, if not hundreds of opportunities to capture a significant moment in someone's life. If the family members of the graduate aren't located in as good a location or don't have as good a camera as yourself - you'll have even greater chance at getting the shots they couldn't.*Holiday Family Postcards - offer your services to families that want their picture taken and put on a postcard that they can send to their extended family and friends. *Photo Novelty Items - take photographs of people that want the pictures of themselves of their loved ones stamped on coffee mugs, mouse pads, key chains, tee-shirts, and other items. *Newborn photo service - parents of newborns are some of the busiest people in the world. Advertise your services on an on-call basis so that you can take informal snapshots for the growing family either before they leave the hospital, or after they get home. This way both parents and the child can be in more of the pictures all together, and the parents have one less thing to try and figure out
Digital Zoom versus Optical Zoom
Visual zoom works much like the zoom lens on a 35 mm movie camera. It changes the length of your camera’s lens and draws the subject closer to you. The optical zoom keeps the excellence of the picture. Digital zoom works differently. It simply takes the picture and crops it then enlarges the part that is left. It causes the quality of the photo to be reduced, sometimes very much.
What this means in terms of output is you may have a larger view of an object with the digital zoom, but chances are your image will become unfocused. Details will become lost. It is in fact best to turn off the digital zoom feature of your camera if possible. This will prevent you automatically zoom in too close as the digital zoom is often an extension of the optical.
There are a couple of things you can do if you want a closer view of a subject but want the quality of your picture to still be good. Try moving in closer when you take the picture. Frequently only a foot or two will do the trick. If this isn’t possible, you can set your camera to take a picture at its highest file size. This will result in a photo that can be cropped to include only your preferred subject, yet allow for an image that is still clear.
Digital zoom has its place. It can be used if the only destiny of your photo is the internet. Photos online can be a much lower quality in the camera and still appear satisfactory when sent through e-mail or posted on a web gallery. If your goal is printing, however, seek a camera that has a greater optical zoom and turn off the digital zoom. Your pictures will be better in the end, even if they are not as close up.
Digital Camera Memory Cards
Does it actually 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 otherwise running out of space on your memory card.When choose 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-megapixelCamera, 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 preparation 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 minor images.What 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.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Digital Camera Terminology To Understand
Automatic Mode — A setting that sets the focus, exposure and
white-balance automatically.Burst Mode — a series of pictures taken one after another at rapidly 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 screening 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 calculate 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 tool 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 picture.
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 usual to the human eye.
