Introduction to Digital Photography

1. Introduction to DigitalPhotography

2. Aims & Objectives • To introduce Digital Photography • Explain the advantage of using a Digital Camera • Give an overview on what is going on inside of your camera • Help you get acquainted with the different camera modes on your camera • Get you ready to begin taking photographs Cosmic 2009

3. Digital camera: A camera that captures the photo not on film, but in an electronic imaging sensor that takes the place of film.

4. Cameras Two popular types of cameras on the market for the consumer Point-and-shoot SLR (Single-lens Reflex) Peter Liu - Digital Photography

5. Cameras • Point-and-shoot • Viewfinder separate from lens • Small and compact • Fixed lens • Shutter delay • Usually fully automatic (some exceptions, like Olympus C-series) • SLR (Single-lens Reflex) • Based on 35mm design • Actual image seen in viewfinder • Interchangeable lenses (more flexible composition) • Ability to use filters • More advanced metering and shutter system • Little to no shutter delay • Automatic, Program (“Scene”), Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority and Manual modes Peter Liu - Digital Photography

6. Point-and-shoot Anatomy • Viewfinder • (front) • Viewfinder • LCD Screen • (Digital) • Light Path • Sensor or Film • Lens • Shutter • Camera Body • Focal Length • Viewfinder separate from lens (better to use LCD on digital) • Actual image (as exposed) is not quite the same as in the viewfinder • Much simpler design than SLRs. Peter Liu - Digital Photography

7. SLR Anatomy • Mirror (Pentaprism) • Focusing Screen • Viewfinder • Light Path • LCD Screen • (Digital) • Mirror • (flips up) • Lens • Sensor or Film • Shutter • Camera Body • Focal Length • Through-the-lens (TTL) viewing (works like a periscope) • Actual image (as exposed) is shown in the viewfinder • Mirror flips up when the shutter release is pressed, exposing the sensor (and blacking out the viewfinder) • “Reflex” comes from the use of the mirrors in the viewfinder system. Peter Liu - Digital Photography

8. Advantages Of Digital • Instant gratification – see your images right away • No film cost – shoot as many as you want, erase and shoot again • Convenience – print, email, web, slide shows; no waiting around for the photos to come back from the store • Easier to make copies – no need to send (or lose) originals • Easier to manipulate – no scanning • No need to spend hours in the darkroom (although its fun!) • No worries about film fading over time; digital images last for as long as your storage media doesn’t die on you • Less storage space – no physical shelves to keep stacking

9. Disadvantages Of Digital • Image quality • Skilled user needed to extract the image quality equivalent to that of good film • As good or better than 35mm in the right hands, but cannot compete with medium or large format film (yet) • Blown highlights – no information means no information; film is better at rendering overexposed areas more naturally • Very different workflow – requires skill with computers and software, knowledge of color management and printing, web, email, etc. • You are the photo lab – you’ve traded darkroom chemicals for a digital darkroom • Easy to lose images – memory cards can become corrupted in-camera; photos are scattered all over your computer; hard drives die • Shutter delay (point-and-shoot) • Digicams are much more expensive than film cameras and become obsolete sooner • More megapixels = bigger files = more storage + faster computers

10. Which Is Better? The apple or the orange? Each has their respective strengths and weaknesses. It all depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Everything in photography is a trade-off.

11. …how it works: • With Digital photography: • The “film” in a digital camera is a light sensor • When a photo is taken, the Light Sensor (CCD): • is struck by light coming through the camera's lens • converts light into thousands [or millions] of pixels • DEFINITION: The CCD is the light-sensing device inside a digital camera and is composed of an array of individual sensors, or pixels, that "see" the image coming in through the camera's lens. • Each pixel (or tiny ‘dot’ on the CCD’s surface) stores color/light data. • * All this occurs at single moment when shutter opens and closes

12. Pixel(Picture Element): digital photographs are comprised of thousands or millions of them; they are the building blocks of a digital photo.

13. “…Pixels” – ‘Mega’ or otherwise Here is very simple pictorial representation of a ‘CCD’ in action. This ‘CCD’ has a resolution of (12 x 12) 144 pixels. Each dot that makes up the man is 1 ‘Pixel’.Because the ‘resolution’ is so low the image has very limited detail. Back Cosmic 2009

14. Resolution • The image Resolution: tells us the total number • of pixels than an image contains. • This number is usually expressed in terms of "megapixels" or how many million pixels a camera can record in a single image. • This resolution number is found by multiplying the height x width in pixels. • Megapixel: 1 million pixels

15. A camera that captures 1600 x 1200 pixels produces an image with a resolution of 1.92 million pixels and would be referred to as a 2.0 megapixel camera. • A 4.0 megapixel (or higher) can output an acceptable 8 x 10 inch printed image • 4 MP cameras have 2,289 x 1,712 pixels • 200 DPI image is 11.4” x 8.6” • 14 MP cameras have 4,500 x 3112 pixels . (You get to 1.92 million pixels by multiplying the vertical and horizontal dimensions. That number is then rounded off to 2 for marketing purposes.) • More resolution means better quality - up to a point. • The higher the resolution, the sharper the picture.

17. Camera Resolution • Your camera should have a setting which will allow you to change the final photos physical size & also its resolution. • To print out a photo to a decent quality or to a large size a high resolution is required. This will make the file size of the image larger. • If you start off with a high resolution picture it is easy to remove pixels (ie lessen the resolution) • If you start off with a low resolution picture it is harder (near impossible) to add more pixels and keep the quality high

18. Computer Resolutions • Resolution DPI – dots per inch • The measurement of resolution of display, printing, and capture systems. As the “dot” (or pixel) rate doubles, the number of dots quadruples. • 100 dpi = 100 x 100 = 10,000 dots/pixels per inch • 200 dpi = 200 x 200 = 40,000 dots/pixels per inch • Different output devices require different resolution: • Computer screens display at 72 dpi, although software may zoom in • Print devices print no higher than 300 dpi • Human eye cannot discern more than 300 dpi without magnifier http://photo.net/equipment/digital/basics/index?&for_print=1 Digital Camera

19. The Advantage of Higher Resolutions • The advantage of having a camera with a higher resolution is you have more pixels to work with. • That's important when getting prints made. In general more resolution means better print quality. It also gives you an advantage if you need to crop the image. • Cropping:is when you only use part of the image for the final print. It also gives you an advantage when creating larger 5x7, 8x10, or bigger prints. • The more you have to blow an image up the more any defects will start to jump out. Starting with a higher resolution image means there's less magnification necessary to get to a given print size. • As you can see, the 4 and 5 megapixel photos are much larger than the 1 and 2 megapixel photos allowing for much greater detail in your prints and giving you the ability to crop, or "cut off", parts of the photo while still retaining enough pixels for a good print. • Remember, the more you have to blow it up the more you degrade the quality.

20. …how it happened: • It all started with NASA • One of the uses of these satellites was to spy on the • enemy – 1959-1972 • Beaming photographs back to Earth, using ‘Digital Technology’. • The ‘Charge-Coupled-Device’, (or CCD) was first demonstrated by Bell Laboratories in 1969 as a way to store data • In 1975,the first CCD TV cameras were ready for use in commercial broadcasts. • In 1979, an RCA 320x512 Liquid Nitrogen cooled CCD system saw first light on a 1-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. • The first images created with CCDs were only 100 x 100 pixels – not very clear • The next goal was to create a better picture, which they successfully did in 1978 with a pixel array of 500 x 500 • Soon after they’d developed 800 x 800 pixels, with a progression towards the development in 1982 of 1024 x 1024 pixels. The results were always a better picture, at a more affordable price

21. Resources • http://www.slideshare.net/alexandracopley/digital-photography-introduction • http://www.slideshare.net/egore/digital-camera-basics-ncla-workshop?src=related_normal&rel=1856963 • http://www.slideshare.net/ArrowQuick/intro-to-digital-photography • http://www.slideshare.net/cosmicandy/beginners-camera-course-show-2009?src=related_normal&rel=3734168 • http://www.slideshare.net/quietheart/Basics-of-Digital-Photography-1077972 • http://www.slideshare.net/peterliu47/digital-photography-i • http://www.vividlight.com/articles/3116.htm • http://dailyitech.com • capitol-college.edu Cosmic 2009