Digital Zoom Versus Optical Zoom

Digital Zoom Versus Optical Zoom. Many digital cameras offer both digital and optical zoom.  These two often confuse the average camera buyer, until you know what you’re looking at.

Optical zoom works much like the zoom lens on a 35 mm film camera. It changes the length of your camera’s lens and draws the subject closer to you.  The optical zoom keeps the quality 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 greatly.

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 actually best to turn off the digital zoom feature of your camera if possible.  This will prevent you automatically zooming 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.  Often 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 desired 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 acceptable 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.

Focus Modes in Digital Cameras

Focus Modes in Digital Cameras. While some of the least expensive digital cameras have only automatic focus, meaning the camera does all the work on bringing your subject into the best possible focus, most SLR digitals offer three different focus modes:  manual, single auto focus and continuous auto focus.  All three of these will be addressed here.

With manual focus, the camera stays out of the focus equation and you, the photographer, make all the decisions regarding this.  This is done by setting different buttons or actually using an attached focusing ring that rotates on the camera lens.  For those who like to have complete creative control of the finished product, this is the best focus mode.

In single auto focus mode, the camera automatically focuses when you press the shutter button either all the way down to shoot a photo or half way down to lock the focus.  This mode is useful when shooting static objects.

In continuous auto focus the camera continuously focuses on the objects in the photo.  In this mode the camera continuously corrects the focus as the objects distance from the camera changes. This mode is useful when you shoot photos of moving objects such as a race car during a race or airplanes during an air show. You can hold the shutter button half way down and continuously move the camera to follow the object. The camera will continuously keep the object in focus.

Like any other feature automatic and manual focus modes have their pros and cons. The first step to using them to your advantage is to understand how they work and what they were designed for. The next step is to experiment shoot photos using different focus modes and different types of objects and see how the camera behaves. Once you have done that you will be ready to instinctively use the best focus mode for each photo situation.

Five Ways to Make Money Using Your Digital Camera

Five Ways to Make Money Using Your Digital Camera. Have you ever wanted 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 solution 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.

1. Pet photos -  Most owners won't struggle 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 it's digital form or as a print that you can mail to them later - either created by your own photo printer or by a photo processing service.
2. 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 opportunity at getting the shots they couldn't.
3. 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.
4. Photo Novelty Items - take photographs of people that want the pictures of themselves of their loved ones imprinted on coffee mugs, mouse pads, key chains, tee-shirts, and other items.
5. 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 Camera Memory Cards

Digital Camera Memory Cards. Does it really 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 or running out of space on your memory card.

When choosing 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-megapixel
camera, 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. A 1GB card has room for nearly 4 times as much as a 256MB card, If you are planning 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 smaller images.

Whatever 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.