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Joy of digital photography

Biman Basu E-mail: bimanbasu@gmail.com Ever since its invention more than 180 years ago photography as a means of permanently recording images had changed little till digital photography made its appearance in the late 1980s. Conventional photography involves three basic components camera, film (or plate) and chemical processing. You load the film in the camera, shoot, and after exposing the entire film roll send it for processing to a studio or photo lab. Of course, you can also process it yourself if you have a dark room. After processing you get either a negative, from which prints can be made on photo paper, or transparencies that can be projected on screen with a slide projector. Making prints from film negative is also a wet process and involves chemicals. All this takes time and so, in conventional photography you have no way of knowing how the shots have come till you get the prints or slides in hand. If something had gone wrong you can only feel sorry and brood, for it may not be possible to get the same shots again. All that has changed now with the coming of the digital camera a marvel of optics and solid state electronics that has revolutionised a profession and changed the way people create and share photographs. With a digital camera you can see the result almost instantly after you click the shutter. If youre not satisfied you can take the same shot again, and since you dont use any film nothing is wasted. Another advantage is that you dont have to worry about finishing the entire roll of film 24 or 36 exposures before sending it to a photo lab for processing; you can take a single or only a few shots and print them immediately, ideal for making passport and visa photos at home. Not only that, you can edit and enhance the quality of your digital photographs on your computer. Remarkable improvements are possible with even the worst exposed digital images. And remember, you dont need messy chemicals or a dark room to process or print your photos; you can do it at home with your computer and inkjet printer. Lastly, you can share your photographs with any number of friends and relatives anywhere in the world almost instantly, by e-mail. However, in general, digital cameras cost more than film cameras. But its a one-time investment. You dont have to spend anything more on film, processing and prints; so in the long run it turns out cheaper than film photography. Lets see how digital photography makes it possible. The digital camera Of course, for digital photography youd need a digital camera. Digital cameras can be either single-lens reflex (SLR), or non-SLR. Digital cameras

for amateurs are basically non-SLR type; many are quite compact and can be carried in a pocket. They are usually low-priced. They have a fixed lens, usually with 3x zoom, which cannot be changed. Digital SLRs, on the other hand, are quite expensive and are used mainly by professionals. Like any SLR, they have interchangeable lenses which make them highly versatile for professional photography. In appearance a digital camera looks almost like a film camera. Just like a film camera, a digital camera also has a lens (usually a combination of lenses) mounted in a barrel in the front that focusses light to create an image of a scene. In fact, you may not be able to tell the difference between a film and digital camera until you look at the back of the camera. Unlike a film camera, where you have to open the back to load the film, a digital camera back cannot be opened because you dont have to load any film. Instead it has an LCD monitor on which the scene being photographed appears. The large LCD monitor also allows you to compose the photo meticulously. Some digital cameras also have an electronic view finder (EVF) in addition to the LCD monitor which can be used at eye-level like SLR film cameras. All digital cameras come with a built-in flash. The image sensor In a digital camera the lens focusses the image not on a film but on a solidstate semiconductor device known as an image sensor, which is capable of storing light electronically. An image sensor is generally a chargecoupled device (CCD). It records the image as a pattern of pixels the smallest units of any image. Thus in a digital camera the film is replaced by an electronic image sensor and the camera basically captures a scene and converts it into pixel values of electric charge, which are further processed electronically to produce the image. The processed images are finally stored either in the internal memory of the camera or on a memory card that is inserted into a slot on the side of the camera. Unlike film, which can be used only once and a bad shot means wasted film, a memory card can be used again and again after formatting. Capturing the image In a film camera when light falls on the film the coating of silver halides on the film undergoes a chemical change, breaking up into fine particles of silver that produces the image in black and white and shades of grey in the developed film. The density of silver particles (blackness) on the developed film depends on the intensity of light falling in a particular area. Colour films use multilayer coatings of silver halides along with dyes that bring out the image in colour after chemical processing.

In digital camera, however, no chemical reaction is involved to produce the image; it is done electronically. Here, as we have seen, the film is replaced by an electronic image sensor. Image sensors are basically silicon chips (like the ones you have in the CPU of you PC, mobile phones, and other electronic gadgets). Whereas for a 35-mm film camera the size of the film is fixed at 35 mm, in most digital cameras the size of the image sensor is much smaller usually not much bigger than the size of your fingernail. The surface of an image sensor is made up of millions of extremely tiny photosensitive diodes, each of which captures a tiny fraction of the entire image (called a picture element or pixel in short). You can think of the image sensor as having a 2-D array of thousands or millions of tiny solar cells, each of which transforms the light from one small portion of the image into electrons. The amount of charge depends on the intensity of the incident light. The more the light hitting a diode, the greater the charge it records. When you click the shutter the lens opens for a fraction of a second, as in a film camera. However, here the varying intensity of light in the scene being photographed is not recorded on a film as silver specks, but on an image sensor as a pattern of high and low charge of the diodes, which is later processed into the digital image. While most digital cameras use CCD as the image sensor, another type of image sensor is also used in some digital cameras. It is called complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS). Unlike a CCD sensor, in which every pixels charge is transported across the chip to a single output node for further processing, CMOS sensors use, in addition to diodes, a set of microscopic transistors on each pixel that amplify, convert and move the charge. Often CMOS sensors also have additional circuitry for noise correction and digitalisation circuits. For this reason CMOS sensors tend to be larger and till very recently were considered to be superior to CCDs and were used mostly in digital single lens reflex (DSLR) cameras. But today we know that each type has advantages and disadvantages. For instance, since each pixel on a CMOS sensor has a number of transistors around it, the light sensitivity is reduced as only light falling on a diode is recorded. On the other hand, CCD image sensors do not have this problem, but they consume a lot more power almost 50 to 100 times more than CMOS sensors. So while buying a digital camera you have to choose between higher sensitivity and longer battery life. Pixel number You often see digital camera ads with figures like 6 megapixels or 10 megapixels. What does this megapixels mean? It is actually the number of pixels in the image sensor, which is a measure of the resolution of a

digital image produced by the camera. A figure such as 10 megapixels (10 MP) means that the image sensor of the camera is made up of 10 million (million = mega) pixels. It is obvious that more the number of pixels higher the resolution of the image will be. It is like the half-tone images you see in printed newspapers and magazines. The larger the dots the coarser the images look and finer and closer the dots sharper the images appear. So, a higher value of megapixels simply means that the images can be enlarged more without breaking up into individual pixels. For amateur photography, a resolution of up to 10 MP is considered sufficient. Higher megapixel images can be blown up to larger sizes, but they have the disadvantage of making the image files very large, which take up a lot more memory space on the memory card and computer hard disc. Camera controls Before handling any gadget it is always better to get familiar with its working. Fortunately, digital cameras are among the most user-friendly electronic gadgets available today. Remember, a digital camera is a sophisticated gadget that is entirely controlled electronically, but its entire functioning is menu based which makes it easy for even beginners to master the controls fast. In most digital cameras almost everything is in the auto mode and you have just to aim and shoot. Of course, you have a choice to set the ISO speed from a menu. The camera automatically sets the most appropriate combination of the shutter speed and aperture, depending on the intensity of available light, and also does the focussing. The shutter speed in digital cameras can range from 1/2000 second up to 15 seconds depending on the model. For focussing, there is a provision of selecting between centre-zone and multi-zone focussing in some models, which can bring a small area or a wider area, respectively, into focus. There is also a fixed-focus landscape mode which is set to infinity and is very convenient for shooting distant objects and landscapes, especially through glass windows or partitions where autofocus cameras often try to focus on the glass pane rather than the distant scene, producing out-of-focus images. Most digital cameras also come with a macro mode which is very convenient for taking fantastic close-up shots of small objects such as flowers from a distance as close as one centimetre. In addition to the auto mode, some digital cameras also have provision for manual control, which is a great boon for those who want to be innovative. In such cameras there are P A S M modes. The P mode is like the auto mode where the camera sets the shutter speed and aperture depending on the available light and ISO speed. In A mode you can set the aperture also known as f-stop or f-number and camera sets the shutter speed. In

the S mode you set the shutter speed and camera sets the aperture. In M mode you can set both the aperture and shutter speed manually to have a variety of combinations not available in the auto mode. Some models offer a burst mode which allows you to take up to six shots in quick succession. This mode is helpful when taking shots of a fast moving object; you can select the best out of the lot. Most digital cameras come with a zoom facility that changes the lens from wide angle to telephoto mode. The most common is 3x zoom. Zooming in effect allows you to change the focal length of the lens without changing the lens. The focal length of the camera lens is changed by forward and backward movement of the lens elements within the lens mount. In 3x zoom, the effective focal length of the lens increases three times. As a result, objects appear three times larger in the image. In other words, it means that you can shoot a distant object as if it were three times closer to you. If you use a 10x zoom youll be surprised with what you get fantastic shots that you can never get with a normal lens. Digital cameras up to 20x zoom are available which are ideal for shooting animals and birds in zoos and distant mountain peaks and taking candid shots of people, especially children. A bonus that comes with a digital camera is the video option. On the press of a button or turn of a knob your camera becomes a video camera. You can shoot videos with sound of up to one hour duration. Although the quality is not as good as taken with a video camera such as a Handycam, videos taken with a digital camera are of reasonably good quality and you can view them on your TV set or computer monitor. Image stabilisation An exciting development in digital photography in the past few years has been the provision of image stabilisation, which addresses one of the common causes of blurred photographs: camera shake. Most cameras now come with image stabilisation, anti-shake or vibration-reduction features to counteract camera shake, which can ruin an otherwise good shot. A photograph, whether it is recorded digitally or on film, is usually regarded as a frozen instant in time; but this is not strictly true. It is no doubt a record of a very short interval of time, but it is not instantaneous. The time interval recorded is the shutter speed used to take the photo. In most cases this is of the order of less than 1/100 second, which is quick enough to freeze most movement. Camera shake is most likely to be a problem when youre taking photos in low-light conditions without a flash. If there isnt much light, your camera may automatically switch to flash mode. But flash may not be desirable

always, especially if you are taking a portrait in soft light or photographing a baby. If you turn off the flash (which you can) the camera will automatically set a slower shutter speed and higher ISO to compensate. Higher ISO speed makes the picture grainy and a slower shutter speed would mean that youll have to hold the camera still for longer, or use a tripod. The problem is, when using a slower shutter speed, not only will any movement of the subject be blurred, but also any movement of the handheld camera while the shutter is open will cause the entire picture to be blurred. This is even more of a problem when using longer focal lengths, such as with a zoom lens. The lens not only magnifies the subject, it also magnifies any movement, exacerbating the effects of camera shake. For taking blur-free photos, the rule of thumb is to use the reciprocal of the lens focal length in mm as the shutter speed in seconds. For example, if the focal length used is 100 mm then a shutter speed of 1/100 second or faster will prevent a blur. But 1/100 second wont be enough if the lens focal length is set at 200 mm; then a minimum shutter speed of 1/200 second would be needed. If you use a slower speed blurring of the image is likely. But cameras with image stabilisation offer at least three stops of extra lowspeed stability. So, for example, a shot that would have needed a shutter speed of 1/250 second to ensure shake-free results can instead be taken at 1/30 second with no problem. So, if you have a camera with image stabilisation shoot away without worrying about camera shake even if your hand is not rock steady! Scene settings In addition to landscape and macro settings, most digital cameras also come with a scene mode which provide up to 20 options for shooting in any situation. The options include landscape, close-up, sport, night portrait, night landscape, candle light, snow, beach, fireworks, children, panning shot, sunset and many others. For each mode there are camera presettings that allow you take perfect pictures without worrying about the aperture and shutter settings. Some digital cameras also have a panorama setting for producing beautiful panoramas of scenic places from multiple images. Image storage As we have already seen, digital cameras do not use film. Instead they use a memory card to store the images. This is part of what makes digital photography so exciting. Unlike film, the memory card is a one-time purchase (one often comes with the camera). It can be used over and over and a 1GB memory card can store more than five hundred pictures taken with a 6MP camera. After you snap the pictures and transfer them to your computer, the memory card is ready to be used for new photos. In addition,

memory cards are more durable than film and they are not harmed by airport X-ray scanners. There are about eight different types of memory cards in use by different cameras, so make sure what type of memory card your camera uses before buying one. It is always advisable to carry an extra memory card when you are going on a vacation so that you never run short of storage space for your images! Image transfer After you have taken the shots the next step would be to transfer the images from the memory card to computer hard disc. Most digital cameras come with software that has to be installed in the computer for downloading and editing the images. But Windows XP can also download images without any additional software. The camera is usually connected to the computer through a USB cable, but you can also transfer the images without connecting if both are Bluetooth enabled. Save the images in a designated folder which you can access easily. Once transferred to your desktop or laptop the images can be edited if necessary to remove any error in exposure or blemishes. (Some cameras provide in-camera editing facility also.) Although software supplied with camera can be used for editing digital images, one of the most versatile software for editing is Adobe Photoshop which allows a wide range of manipulations including brightness, contrast and colour correction, image sharpening, hue and saturation adjustment and many other options to enhance or modify images. The best part of digital photography is the ease with which the photos can be stored and shared. No need to have bulky albums. No danger of the photos getting discoloured with age. You can save them in your computer hard disc and view them on your computer screen. You can also transfer the images to CDs for safe storage and later viewing. You can send the images to your friends or loved ones through e-mail without worrying about loss or damage in transit. Of course, you can print some of them if you like to have them framed for your drawing room or bedroom. The world of digital photography is indeed full of opportunities. If you are creative you can produce fantastic pictures with your digital camera with a little effort. So have a digital camera, go and click away, and enjoy the thrill of digital photography!