There are a lot of specifications on digital cameras, but one detail seems to trump everything else in terms of simple consumer appeal: megapixels. So what is a megapixel?
Your digital camera captures an image with a certain resolution – a certain number of pixels. The megapixel rating for a camera is a measurement of how many pixels are in an image. For example, a Canon EOS Rebel t3i
will save a full-size image that is 5,184 pixels by 3,456 pixels. A megapixel is an the approximate number of millions of pixels in that image.
Simply multiply the width (5,184) by the height (3,456) and get the total resolution of the image – 17,915,904 pixels. This is then rounded off to a nice number in the millions, in this case 17.9 million. Bigger is better, so the advertising folks at Canon fudge the typical rounding rules a bit and turn 17.9 million in “18 megapixels.”
Where megapixels are not often talked about (but should be) is the output format of an image. You can do the same measurement of an output. An image posted to Facebook, for example, can be at most 720 pixels by 720 pixels. That’s about a half of a megapixel. So, while bigger is typically better, there comes a point when more megapixels is often excessive. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10 megapixels should be just fine for most people, despite what the advertising execs at Canon and Nikon think.
There are a couple different classifications for camera lenses, and one way you can classify them is as either prime lenses or zoom lenses. The lens to the left (Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L Lens) is a lovely and expensive example of a zoom lens.
So what exactly is a zoom lens?
Keep reading…
There are a couple different classifications for camera lenses, and one way you can classify them is as either prime lenses or zoom lenses. The lens to the left (Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 Lens) is an example of a prime lens.
So what is a prime lens?
Keep reading…
While the aspect ratio of a picture will tell you the specific ratio of its length to its height, there are some more general terms to describe the orientation of a picture. Most pictures will fit into one of two categories: landscape orientation and portrait orientation. Keep reading…
While the aspect ratio of a picture will tell you the specific ratio of its length to its height, there are some more general terms to describe the orientation of a picture. Most pictures will fit into one of two categories: landscape orientation and portrait orientation. Keep reading…
The “aspect ratio” of an image is the ratio of the length of the image to the width of the image.
Most dSLR cameras have an aspect ratio of 3 : 2. The Canon t2i
has a 3 : 2 aspect ratio. A full size jpeg image taken by the camera is 5,184 pixels x 3,456 pixels. The image is 1.5x as wide as it is tall, or in other words, there’s a 3 : 2 aspect ratio.
Some point and shoot (or compact) digital cameras have a slightly different aspect ratio. The Nikon Coolpix L22
, for example, has a 4 : 3 aspect ratio. A full size image is 4,000 x 3,000 pixels (12 megapixels).
Is one better than the other? Not really. But, you do need to take into account aspect ratio when you think about how you want to display your photos. Printing pictures, for example, demands specific aspect ratios. A standard 4 inch x 6 inch photograph has a 4 x 6 (or, equivalently, 2 x 3) aspect ratio. If you take an image with a Canon t2i, then the image is already in the right aspect ratio and you don’t need to do anything. If, however, you take the image with a Nikon Coolpix L22, the original image is in a slightly different aspect ratio. You’ll need to crop the picture, cutting off some parts of it, so that it fits correctly onto the surface area of the photography.
This has some different applications for printing and for web viewing. So, we’ll take a look at each one individually…
As soon as you make the step up from a point and shoot camera to a dSLR, you’ll encounter a new phrase: “shooting in raw” or the “camera raw format.” What is it, and why should you care about it…?
When you view an image on your screen, for example a jpeg image, you’re looking at a processed photo. Somewhere along the line, a computer has taken the raw image data from a camera’s sensor and turned that into a jpeg file. The “raw” file is that un-processed image data. Keep reading…
Chimping, or to chimp while you take pictures, means to look at the LCD screen of your digital camera after taking a photo.
Coming from some old school photographers, this tends to carry a negative connotation. They grew up shooting film, and you couldn’t just look at the image immediately. Either you got it right, or you shot a roll and realized it was all wrong. To them, you should be able to judge the exposure properly (perhaps with the built in light meter) and not need the immediate feedback given by the LCD screen. Keep reading…
In digital photography, clipping means that a pixel has no light/color information – it’s either pure white or pure black. In the case of black clipping, it means that a pixel is pure black.
The picture to the left shows an image in Adobe Lightroom with the clipping indicators on. All of the blue areas (mostly black curtains in the background, where very little light came back to the camera) have been clipped, and they’re simply black pixels. Keep reading…
The basic idea of tethering is that you hook your camera up to a computer and the computer becomes involved in the image capturing process. There are two ways that the computer might be involved: storing the images and controlling the capture.
The simplest use of tethering is to immediately download the pictures you take onto your computer. Normally, images are stored on an SD card (or similar storage device) in your camera. You can see them on the tiny LCD screen, but if you want to preview a larger version of the image you’ll have to pop the card out, import the pictures to your computer, and then open them up. This can be time consuming. Tethering cuts out the middle man, immediately downloading the image to your computer. More to come on how to set this up, but with Lightroom 3 it is insanely simple. Keep reading…
