Your New Digital Camera
By Carey Brown Updated 6/7/2008
Contents
Fixed Focal Length (FFL) vs. Zoom
Image Stabilization or Vibration Reduction
Graduated Neutral Density Filters
So, you’ve just acquired your first digital camera. No doubt you’ll be spending a lot of time pouring over the user’s manual that came with it in the next several weeks. What I want to cover in this article are some of the topics that aren’t found in the manual that a first time digital camera user should be aware of. This is not intended to be an in-depth coverage of any of these items but a brief introduction so that you can be aware of them as you begin your new journey. This is primarily aimed at those of you with digital SLR (single lens reflex) cameras.
I have been exclusively shooting with digital cameras for the last ten years.
My tools:
(These are my opinions and I’m sticking to them.)
Some tips:
One of the great things that digital cameras have over film cameras is the ability to change the ISO setting on an image by image basis. ISO is the measurement of film sensitivity to light, or, in the case of digital cameras, the sensors sensitivity to light. The higher the sensitivity the darker the scene that you are able to capture (using the same F stop and shutter speed). You might use a higher ISO for shooting indoor scenes without a flash. With a film camera you choose the ISO speed when you purchase and load the film into your camera. Then you are stuck using that ISO until you finish the roll. With digital cameras selecting the ISO speed is simply a matter of changing the camera settings. One thing that both film and digital have in common is noise when using higher ISO speeds. In film, this is called “grain”. ISO speeds of 100 to 200 show almost no noise. As you get above 400 the noise becomes more and more pronounced. Note that you don’t necessarily want to use higher ISO speeds for night time shots as long as you plan on using a tripod and your subjects aren’t moving. (For the technically nit-picky amongst you: the sensor sensitivity does not actually change but the gain of the amplifiers reading the sensor is changed resulting in an apparent change in sensitivity.)
One of the down sides of digital cameras is that they have a slightly narrower range of brightness levels that they can capture. Above a certain level of brightness and the pixels turn absolute white and any details in the highlights are lost. Below a certain level of brightness and the pixels turn absolute black and any details in the shadows are lost. This is known as clipping.
So, how do you know if your exposure is causing clipping? There’s a handy thing in the camera called a histogram. You can set the camera so that the histogram is displayed on the LCD panel on the back of the camera after you click the shutter. A histogram is a bar chart where the bar height indicates the relative number of pixels in the image used to represent a given brightness. To the left of the chart are the bars representing the shadow areas of your image. To the right are the highlights. And, in the center are the mid-tones.
There’s a great article on histograms at http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms1.htm. Set your camera up to display the histogram all the time. After you get used to interpreting the histogram you will get instant feedback on your exposure. This will allow you to adjust your exposure and take another one right away if necessary.
This for those of you with digital SLR (single lens reflex) cameras which have swapable lenses, though, if you already have your camera you have probably already selected your first lens.
Note that fixed focal length lenses are often referred to as “prime” lenses, though this is slightly ambiguous (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_lens).
That said, zoom lens design has come a long way and the flexibility they give you in composing your shots means that more people are choosing zoom lenses over prime lenses.
Canon calls it “image stabilization” or “IS” and Nikon calls it “vibration reduction or “VR”. Whatever you call it you should consider it a must when choosing a lens (though it is less important with wide angle lenses). The IS/VR is built into the lens as opposed to the body for various technical reasons. The lens actually contains two gyroscopes that measure your hand shake and moves a small glass element inside the lens to compensate for the movement. And, while the results from IS/VR is amazing, it is not a substitute for a good sturdy tripod for those times when your shutter speed is low (e.g. below 1/60th of a second). And if you use an IS/VR lens on a tripod, be sure to turn it off, otherwise the lens will be attempting to compensate for movement that is not there.
Camera manufacturers have introduced what are known as “digital” lenses in the last several years (Canon’s digital lenses are designated with “EF-S”). They are specifically designed to work with the smaller (as compared to standard 35mm film size) sensors in most digital cameras. My advice is to avoid these because they will not fit on all camera bodies from the same manufacturer. If you upgrade your camera body down the road you may or may not be able to use a digital lens on your new body. An advantage to using standard (i.e. non-digital) lenses on a camera with a small sensor is that you be using only the center area of the lens, this is the part of the lens with the least amount of distortion. That said, digital lenses may be a good choice if you want a wide angle lens. Standard lenses don’t achieve the wide angle of view that a wide angle digital lens can reach.
The term “filter” has gotten a little muddy with the advent of digital photography. Historically a filter was a piece of glass threaded on to the front of your lens. Now we also have digital filters that are pieces of software used to modify the look of a digital photo. These digital filters are applied after your image has been loaded into your computer. Many of the glass filters have become obsolete with the advent of digital filters. Here are some glass filters that are still worth considering.
UV (ultra-violet) filters have been used by photographers for many years, mostly to protect the front of their expensive lenses from damage; you could easily replace a damaged filter at a nominal cost. A UV filter may also help somewhat in filtering out some of the haze caused by humidity in the atmosphere. The trend is towards doing away with UV filters because they add another piece of glass in the image path which will slightly soften the image. Of course, this means taking good care of your lenses. If you are in situations (e.g. boating) where the front of your lens is often exposed to splashes or other hazards, you might consider using a UV filter. You have to decide what is best for you.
Polarizing filters have two primary purposes: remove the glare reflected off of the surfaces of objects in picture, and to darken the blues in the sky. Glare is often not desirable when photographing objects with glass, water, or other shiny surfaces; a polarizing filter can reduce or eliminate the glare. In addition, a polarizing filter can deepen the blue of the sky; however, the amount of the effect is most dramatic when you are shooting at right angles to the sun. As you point towards the sun or directly away, the effect is reduced. You must use only a circular polarizing filter with digital cameras (as opposed to linear polarizing). Most polarizing filters sold today are circular. A polarizing filter’s front glass rotates to allow you to adjust the filter for the desired amount of effect.
Neutral density (ND) filters come in a few different shades of gray, from very dark (almost looks black) to semi-transparent. The purpose of this filter is to reduce the amount of light that reaches the camera’s sensor without affecting the color of the objects in the image. The main use of a neutral density filter is to facilitate taking time exposures; it reduces the amount of light thus allowing you to use a slower shutter speed. An example of this is the photographing of waterfalls to achieve a misty look to the water. Often a neutral density filter does not allow enough light into the camera for the camera’s auto-focus mechanism to work properly. In those cases you’d want to take the filter off and manually focus the scene and then screw the filter back on (this, of course, assumes you are using a tripod).
Graduated neutral density (GND) filters are similar to neutral density filters in that they affect the amount of light that reaches the sensor but not the colors. GND filters are darker towards one edge, gradually getting lighter until it is entirely clear at the opposite edge. GND filters are mostly used in landscape photography where the foreground is much darker than the sky. Without a GND filter you will either get sky that is over exposed or foreground that is under exposed. If you orient the darker part of the filter towards the sky then you should be able to get a proper exposure for both the sky and foreground.
If you have a point and shoot camera, skip this section. For those of you with a camera that has a removable lens; dust is your enemy. Every time you change lenses you expose the innards of the camera to dust. Dust is more of a problem for digital cameras than it was for film cameras for two reasons:
The best way to see if you have any dust on the sensor is to go outside, set the camera to use the smallest F stop (say f22), focus at infinity, and shoot an image of blue sky. Then load the image on the computer and display it on the screen with your favorite editing software, zoom in to 100%, and move (pan) around the image looking for small darkish blurry spots.
Hopefully, if you follow the prevention guide, you won’t have any dust for many months. If you do end up with dust you can clean the sensor yourself, you do not need to send it back to the manufacturer for cleaning. However, you must take great care in cleaning the sensor or you’ll have to send the camera back to the manufacturer to have the expensive sensor replaced. Most manuals will tell you that the sensor is not to be cleaned by the user; this is to prevent them from being liable for any damage.
The method I use to clean my cameras is called the “Copper Hill” method (a tutorial can be found at http://www.copperhillimages.com/). My cleaning kit includes Eclipse solvent, lint free PecPads, and a trimmed small rubber spatula. Copper Hill sells kits for about $40 (including S&H). My advice is to read through their tutorial several times BEFORE your first attempt at cleaning. Do not get oils from your skin on the PecPad, and only wipe across the sensor once (wiping more than once may cause dust picked up on the first wipe to scratch the sensor). You may have to repeat the cleaning-detection steps several times before the sensor is acceptably cleaned. Note that a spec that appears near the top of the image when viewed on the computer is actually located near the bottom of the sensor in the camera. Once you get used to this process it’s really not bad and you shouldn’t have to do it very often.
Several camera manufacturers have introduced cameras that claim to reduce the problem of dust. Canon introduced such a camera with the XTi model, it worked by a) reducing the static charge that attracts dust, b) shaking the sensor to dislodge the dust when you turn the power on, and c) putting a small sticky area around the perimeter of the sensor to trap the dust. So far, the reviews I have read on these systems have not been very positive.
Hot pixels are flaws in the image sensor. If you take a slightly under exposed photo, bring it up in your editor or browser, zoom in to 200% or 300% and pan around the image looking for single pixels that are absolute white. If you find any of these in your new camera, send it back for a replacement. If your camera is not new, contact the manufacturer to schedule a repair (it may or may not be covered by warrantee). I have been told that another way to detect hot pixels is to take a shot with the lens cap on. In addition, some have reported that their hot pixels showed up as red, green, or blue.
Light diminishes with the distance squared. This means that if you double the distance between your light source (this includes non-flash light sources) you will have Ľ as much light. This can be used to creative effect or can be a pain. If your subject is very close to the light source you will find that the subject will be correctly lit but any more distant (from the light) objects will be in deep shadows or may even be totally black. A typical problematic situation is when you are photographing a group of people and some are standing closer to the light source (e.g. flash) than others, you will find that the people are unevenly lit; in cases like this see if you can arrange the people to be equidistant from the light. Alternatively you can have the people stand a little further away from the light source (if you are using a flash light source do not exceed the power of the flash).
Most digital SLRs have a small built in flash above the lens that will pop-up when there is insufficient light. Note that “full frame” cameras such as Canon’s 5D do not have any built in flash because the mirror and prism inside the camera body are larger and do not leave room for an internal flash.
Most digital SLR cameras (with or without a built in flash) have a “hot shoe” on top which allows you to fasten an external flash unit. (Flash units have evolved over the years so I’m going to make some generalizations based on the current technologies; your mileage may vary.)
The only reason to print your photos at home is convenience. Ok, that was an over simplification. Printing at home usually costs more (paper+ink) and the color tends to fade faster than commercially printed images. Advanced digital photographers often invest in expensive printers that use “pigment” inks that will last a hundred years. Mostly they do this to have total control over the entire photographic process.
I own an Epson R280 photo capable printer. I chose Epson’s cheaper printer with the intention of taking much of my printing to a commercial printer (I really don’t print that much). I also recommend Epson as the printer manufacturer of choice, both from my experience and from reading many review articles over the years. As you go up in price range in the Epson line you get ink sets that contain more colors, the ability to print on larger paper, and longer lasting inks.
A couple of suggestions:
Using a commercial printing service for a bunch of 4”x6” prints is cheaper than printing them yourself at home and the color will typically last a lot longer. The same usually holds true for enlargements as well. You can use your neighborhood photo printing store, Cost Co, Mall-Wart, whatever. There are even services that allow you to upload your pictures via the internet and order prints to be shipped to you (this may be problematic for those of you with high resolution cameras or dial-up connections). For a local service you can take your memory chip out of the camera and bring it to the store, plug it in to their machine, and select the photos that you want to print. If you don’t want to sit there at the store selecting photos you could first load them on to your computer and then copy only the ones that you want to print back to your memory chip. Then you can select all of the images when you get to the store. Another approach is to burn the images on to a CD and bring the CD to the store.
Some tips:
There are now online services that will print a bound book of your photos for you in quantities as little as one. I find this to be a very exciting new development. Books make great gifts. You can make a book of straight-out-of-the-camera images or you can spend hours pre-processing your images with your favorite editor and then print those. I’ve had three books printed by a company called Blurb that I’ve been extremely happy with (see http://members.aol.com/careysb/blurb_books.html). Note that a high speed internet connection is an absolute must for this; the upload size of my last book was 93 mega-bytes and took an hour to upload with a high speed connection.
Each book printing service works a little differently. To make a Blurb book you have to download their book layout software (free), then you arrange your images as desired, then you upload your layout to Blurb (still free so far), then you order as many copies as you want (this is where you have to pay).
Some tips:
Another neat way to share your images is by burning a slide show on to a DVD so that it can be played through someone’s TV (no computer required to view). You, of course, will need a computer with a DVD burner and you will need a program that will help you layout your slide show. I have used ProShow Gold with great success.
Owning a digital camera requires you to have a computer, and presumably, if you have a computer you will also have an internet connection.
This is probably the first approach that you will use. Simply create an e-mail and attach one or more image files.
Some tips:
You could create your own web site from scratch, but with today’s offerings of prebuilt photography web sites this is unnecessary. The site that I use is PBase which, for $23 a year, can host a couple of thousand photos (see http://www.pbase.com/careysb). You can typically get a 30 day free trial at all of the various photography web hosting sites. Then, once you have the photo uploaded to a web site then all you need to do is email the photo’s URL (e.g.” http://www.pbase.com/careysb/image/53867151”) to your friends and family.
Some tips:
A side benefit of resampling your picture and reducing the quality prior to posting on the web is that it makes your photos less desirable for stealing; they will be perfectly fine for viewing but not so great for printing. There is no way to prevent someone from stealing photos that you post on the internet. This is also the reason why many people choose to overlay their name on top of their images prior to posting (this is called “water-marking”).
Once you start downloading your photos to your computer you will quickly find that keeping them organized is critical.
The images straight out of the camera usually come with imaginative names like “IMG_0001.JPG” and “IMG_0002.JPG”. It often helps to rename your photos with something more useful like “080517_picnic_01.jpg” or “080517_aunt_mary_01.jpg”.
Some tips:
Personally I found embedding a topic in the file name (e.g. “picnic”) to be too restricting and I’ve gone with a strict date and time file name (e.g. “080517130401.jpg” year-month-day-hour-minute-count) and then augment this with directories and EXIF/IPTC information (see below). This gives me a sort of serial number for my photos. This is probably way over the top for most people’s needs; in fact, you might just leave the camera’s default file name and use directories and possibly EXIF/IPTC for your organization.
Whatever renaming convention you decide to go with; you should probably find software that will help you automate the renaming process. Many image editors and image browsers allow you to rename a batch of image files at the same time.
Another tool in keeping your photos organized is proper use of directories. On Microsoft’s Windows XP they suggest putting you image files into a directory named: c:\Documents and Settings\yourname\My Photos (I don’t have XP anymore so I hope I recalled that correctly). On Windows Vista it would be: c:\users\yourname\Pictures. (I’m sorry I am not familiar with Apple Mac conventions). Certainly, if you share a computer with multiple people with multiple logins you would probably want to start with these default directories. If you are the only user of the computer you could still use these default directories or you could create a directory under the root directory, like: c:\photos. If you have a second drive in your machine you would probably want to use that instead because the C: drive often fills up too quickly with system level files that can’t be moved to the second drive; in that case you might use something like: d:\photos.
Once you’ve established a base directory for your photos you need to consider sub-directories. The two typical approaches are to create subdirectories using the date (e.g. c:\photos\0805) or by topic (e.g. c:\photos\company_picnic). Of course you can create sub-directories under the sub-directories. I use a two level approach where the first level is the year and the second level is the month (e.g. c:\photos\08\0805).
JPG (JPEG) files hold more information than just the pixel data; they also hold information about the image (known as meta-data). The following are some examples of meta-data: the date and time of the shot, the artist’s name, the aperture used, the shutter speed used, the focal length used, a description of the image, and keywords associated with the image. Most of the meta-data will be placed into the image file automatically by the camera when you take a shot; the description and keywords will not; they must be added after the fact using an appropriate editor or browser. There is an international standard as to how the meta-data is embedded into the image file known as EXIF and IPTC.
Many photographers live long and happy lives without ever knowing that this meta-data exists. However, when you’ve amassed many years of photographs, you wish that you had taken the time to enter a description and keywords (you can do this retroactively). To enter a description and keywords you’ll need an editor or image browser program that supports EXIF/IPTC editing. Adobe’s Bridge program does a nice job with this task but there are plenty of others that support EXIF/IPTC editing. Be aware though that some browsers look like they’re editing EXIF/IPTC data when in fact you are only editing fields of the same name in the browser’s database.
So, why do I care? Most modern image browsers, such as Bridge and ThumbsPlus, can read the meta-data embedded in the image file, this allows them to perform complex searches on your entire set of photo directories. In addition, because the meta-data is part of the image file, where ever the image file goes the meta-data goes along with it. This includes moving it from directory to directory, backing up, making copies, emailing, etc..
Some tips:
Browsers are programs that allow you to see a screen full of miniature examples (thumbnails) of photos in a directory. You can then click on a thumbnail to see a full screen image of the file. This is useful for selecting which photos you want to keep and which ones you want to delete. Most browsers include a slide show capability. There are many image browsers out there, two of which are Adobe Bridge (included with Photoshop), and ThumbsPlus.
Many browsers include some basic editing capabilities, such as rotating an image or renaming.
Your camera may have come with software that allows image browsing.
The cream of the crop in editing programs is Adobe’s Photoshop. However, it is a very expensive program ($600+) and it is very complex. Initially, you can get most of the functionality you need from free software or software around $100. The first step is to see if the software that shipped with your camera has the features you need.
Some of the features found in most editors:
Some editors come with an integrated browser.
Your photos are valuable – back them up!
The simple instructions are to burn a copy of them on to CDs or copy them to an external hard drive.
For more elaborate instructions see http://members.aol.com/careysb/articles/Image_File_Backup.html
Copyright 2008 Carey Brown