Camera Jargon Explained
Walking into a camera shop to buy a new camera can seem as confusing as brain surgery,
especially when that sales man throws all sorts of confusing terms and numbers at you.
Ever wondered how important all of this nonsense is? What it all means?
Or just wanted to be able to talk tech with your camera buddies?
Here are 4 of the most common digital camera terms and what they REALLY mean.
1. Megapixels
Pixels are tiny dots that make up your digital image. The more dots in your image, the bigger your image can be.
In terms of photography, megapixels are millions of pixels. Effectively a 3 megapixel camera has 3 million tiny pixels
that make up your image, an 8 megapixel has 8 million and so forth.
Sidenote
Both Nikon and Canon have recently
reduced the amount of megapixels in their
latest 'Prosumer' level cameras, after
realising that past a certain point more
having more megapixels was introducing
more noise into images.
When you approach that dredded salesman you'll often hear the term 'the bigger the better'
in regards to megapixels, however all they hear is 'more megapixels more money'.
This 'the bigger the better' sydrome doesn't always have to be true.
Naturally, the larger megapixel count you have, the better your image will be and
the larger it can be printed. However, much like driving a 6 litre V8 car in peak hour traffic,
your mega pixels may be wasted along with your money.
You should have at least 3 megapixels to produce a good 8 x 10inch print and
a 7 megapixel camera will easily produce a good quality poster sized image.
These days 4-10 megapixels will be more than enough for your every day needs.
So when buying a camera, look at the megapixels, check what you will be using
them for and don't get caught up in the 'bigger the better' syndrome.
2. ISO
Low ISO
High ISO
Remember film cameras? Of course you do.
Camera ISO refers to how sensitive a camera
is to the light in photographs.
ISO is short for International Standards Organization, which among other things,
produces photographic standards.
Unlike back in film days, digital cameras let you change this 'ISO' on the go;
A digital cameras ISO is the equivalent to a film's speed.
For example, a low number like 100 ISO is fairly 'slow' or not very sensitive to light.
400 ISO is 'faster' or more sensitive to light.
The higher the ISO number,
the darker the situation you can photograph succesfully,
without all that nasty blur! However there is a catch, like film, the higher the ISO,
the more 'grain' there is in the picture. In the digital world the 'grain' is known as noise.
As you can see in our examples to the right, the 'Low ISO' picture looks darker,
but the colours are smoother, where as the 'High ISO' picture appears lighter but
you can see 'noise' in the image.
In short: The lower the ISO the nicer the image the more light you need, The higher the ISO
the noiser the image is, however, the less light you need.
100-400 ISO is a common amount for a point and shoot camera, depening on the type
of photography you wish to pursue, this should suit you.
3.Focal Length
Much like ISO, Focal Length stems from early film days.
It is a measurement of how much a camera lens can magnify something.
There are a couple of things that you should know about focal length.
Wide Angle and Telephoto describe a lens' field of view.
A short focal length of 25mm is relatively wide angle, in which there is
a large view point from the camera. A longer focal length of 150mm (classed as telephoto)
will zoom in on the subjext, narrowing the field of view of the camera.
As a reference point the human eye's focal length is regarded at approximately 50mm.
Why do I need to know this you may ask?
Well, in the world of compact cameras, it is easier to produce a long
telephoto lens rather than a wide angle. Although this may take your fancy mostof
your every day photography is taken with wide to medium focal lengths (20-50mm)
this incorporates indoor photograpahs, groups, pets, portraits etc.
So when buying a compact camera, look for something that offers something
in the lower focal length range and you'll find it much more useful in the longrun.
4.Digital Zoom
Original Photo
Optical Zoom
Digital Zoom
Digital vs. Optical Zoom?
There is no comparason, I often recommend that people forget that their camera has digital zoom
or disable the digital zoom function.
Unlike Optical Zoom, where the actual camera
lens is used to zoom in and out of a scene using optical magnification, all digital zoom does is enlarge the image elecronically and get rid of the
remaning image around the edge. This is the same as cropping your photo and enlarging it on the computer.
The digital zoom funtion severely degrades the quality of the
image, especially toward the higher end of the scale.
Regardless of what the salesman tells you, forget it, the best digital cameras have a
large optical zoom range with a small or non-existant digital zoom.
I hope this article has been of some help, and has demystified some of the confusing
terms surrounding cameras.
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