Tuesday, May 8, 2012

BASICS OF PHOTOGRAPHY Part-I (Understanding the camera)

  This article is for beginners, If you find this too primitive and you already know more than it has, then please wait for the forthcoming posts dealing with actual photography techniques specialising nature photography (macro-photography, Landscapes and wildlife).


Q: How does a camera work?
A: Camera is a devise that records the light falling on its sensor (either film or digital sensor). It is necessary to make a good impression of light on the sensor, which is done with the help of lens made of glass. 


For more on lens Click here




Q: What is difference between film (roll) and digital camera?
A: Traditional film cameras use a typical film roll made of plastic (either polyester, nitro-cellulose or PET). This film is coated with the halide salts (a light sensitive material that changes color when exposed to light). The film cameras can not save photos in the memory card or flash drives or even images can not be seen unless they are printed.
Where as the digital cameras have the digital sensor ( CCD, CMOS, LIVE MOS etc ) which converts the light captured into digital signals and thus can be recorded in memory cards. (Like in your mobile phone camera.) And images can be seen on its display or in your computer.

Film roll

The digital imaging sensor

For more on digital sensor Click Here


Q: Which is better, film camera or digital camera?
A: It was hard to distinguish between quality couple of years before. But now, the answer is obvious. The digital camera have tones of advantages over the film camera. Few benefits of digital cameras are listed bellow.
1. Easy to view images, saving them or to print them. While film needs to be developed and then mirror printed.
2.  Ease of selecting amount of light manipulation. This is generally called ISO sensitivity. As much the ISO value, more is the ability of sensor to capture photos in low light. In film cameras, we need to change the whole film to change ISO. But in digital camera, it is just a matter of single click.))))
3. Now (point and shoot) digital cameras are very small in size and have all automatic adjustment according to the scene. Where as the film camera has fixed setup or demand manual operation for every shot.


Q: What is megapixel? Is it true more the MP more the quality?
A: Mega (million) pixels (dots) are the color dots that makes the whole image. More the dots, larger the image. But unfortunately it is not true all the time that more the dots better the image quality. The quality depends on the pixel density, if the pixel are spacious enough, they can capture light well, if pixels are tightly arranged, they struggle to get ample light and produce noisy image. Thus two sensors with same size but different pixel count produce images with different qualities. But recent technologies like EXR by fujifilm, Micromirror/gapless canon, and widely used back-light illumination technologies have overcome this flaw at some extent. This means more megapixels can be added to camera without compromising image quality.
Canon's revolutionary gap-less microlenses technology



Q: My mobile captures blurt images in night.
A: Mobile phone ports very tiny imaging sensor. So they require more light to take good images. Simple solution for that is hold the mobile as steady as you can to avoid vibrations until the image is shot completely. This happens because of long shutter speed which is discussed ahead.



Q: Which camera brand is good?
A: Their is no exact answer for this question. The market keeps surprising the users by adding new cameras out running previous faults. How ever, some recent developments made by leading manufacturers like canon, fujifilm, sony, olympus, panasonic are remarkable. Since long it is believed that, nikon's compact cameras are manufactured by Sanyo which are the most sold and trusted cameras in India so far.
Almost all these brands have independent ranges targeted towards different users depending on their need. However its true, due to patent issues, some good technologies have been restricted to select brands. But that is imitated quickly by others under independent title. Leading to more confusion to the new comers. So better trust the technology trust the hardware in it not the brand.


Many more questions are yet to be answered. Hope you'd keep in touch...

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