Simplified digital cameras

There is a lot of jargon associated with most electronic equipment these days and digital cameras are no exception. A lot of it is useful, but some of it is just there to ‘blind you to the science’ and make you part with your money.

If you’re shopping for your first digital camera, it’s essential to know a few basic terms that the salesperson at the electronics store may try to baffle you with. Things like megapixels (Mp); optical and digital zooms; I SO; movie clips; 2.5-inch LCD and the like.

So let’s get them out of the way first.

Megapixels are a shorthand way of telling you what size print you can do before it changes from a clear image to little squares of color.

2MP = 4×6″

3MP = 5×7″

4MP = 6×8″

5MP = 7×10″

8MP = 10×14″

These sizes will produce prints indistinguishable from those produced with film. So if you’re never going to make prints larger than the standard 7×5″, you don’t need to buy anything bigger than a 3 megapixel camera.

Zoom, as you probably know, is a way to make an image bigger or smaller. It allows you to appear closer to or further from your subject than you actually are. Zooms are available from 2x to 12x from a camera like the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8K 7.2Mp.

The little ‘x’ stands for ‘times’. A 2x zoom means that the image becomes twice as large from one end of the zoom range to the other. A 12x zoom can enlarge 12 times. You’d think bigger means better, but the more you magnify the image, the more you magnify the little movements your hands make when holding the camera. And that gives you blurry pictures. A useful general purpose zoom for vacations and family snapshots would be around 3x or 4x.

A digital zoom is something you can pretend isn’t there. It does nothing for your photos. It is the same as placing a magnifying lens on the LCD screen. If you have some image editing software, like Photoshop Elements, you can have all the digital zoom you want with the software. You don’t need it on camera and it just degrades your image.

ISO is a resource from the movie days. It is a measure of sensitivity to light. The higher the number, the higher the light sensitivity. So why not use the highest setting all the time 800 or 1600 maybe? Well, there is a price to pay. With film, a higher ISO number means higher sensitivity to light and the consequence of higher sensitivity is that images taken with ISO 1600 film look mottled. This is something called grain and is caused by the buildup of silver halide crystals in the film emulsion.

You would think with digital cameras, no film, no silver halide, no grain, wouldn’t you? But it’s not that simple. A higher ISO on a digital camera does not mean that the light sensor (CCD or CMOS chip) is more sensitive. It means that whatever the sensor is picking up is amplified more. So if you think of a radio tuned to a weak station and turn up the volume, you’ll get a lot of background noise along with the music. The same goes for digital cameras, higher ISO means more background noise in your images. Noise looks a bit like the graininess of a film image, visible as small specks in areas of a uniform color such as the sky. So you should shoot at the lowest settings possible, but as long as your camera hits ISO 400, you won’t be disappointed.

Movie clips are something you may or may not want. On a still camera, they’re something you can have fun with, but they’re not a substitute for a video camera.

Finally, the LCD screen is the screen on the back of the camera. The larger it is, the easier it will be to see what you just took. But I have yet to find one that is easy to see in sunlight.

Have fun making your choices and check the website for more information.