Are buying your first digital camera Well, you must be confused by the bewildering range of models out there. How do you know which model will suit your needs To make things worse, digital cameras do not come cheap. Choosing a bad camera will easily cost you a few hundred dollars.
In fact, buying a digital camera need not be a difficult task. Ill highlight the key considerations you need to think through before making that purchase decision. Always, always remember to consider these factors when buying a digital camera:

Battery Life
Number of Megapixels
Zoom Lens
Exposure Control
User Controls

Battery Life
This has got to be one of the most overlooked features in digital cameras. I know many people who go for the latest and greatest digital cameras which are short in the battery life department. If you want to take good photos, your camera needs to powered for extended periods of time. Ive found that cost and battery life dont go together - many cheap cameras have good battery life, while some high-end models drain your battery really fast. Make sure you choose a camera that has good battery life.
Number of Megapixels
The megapixel rating of a digital camera determines how much fine detail you can capture in your shots. Typically, the number of megapixels can range around from 2 megapixels to 8 megapixels. How do you decide how many megapixels you need As a rule of thumb, if youre only interested in taking small snapshots to send via email or for posting on the Web, you wont need more than 2-megapixels. If you want large print outs of your gorgeous photographs, then youll probably want to get 5-megapixel cameras and above.
Zoom Lens
Youll definitely want a camera with decent optical zoom. Now the keyword here is optical zoom as opposed to digital zoom. Optical zoom physically moves the camera lenses to zoom in on a subject. Digital zoom, however, digitally averages and magnifies the image within the cameras microchip - resulting in poor picture quality. Many manufacturers advertisements talk about digital zoom instead of optical zoom - so do be careful when choosing. Id recommend getting at least 3x optical zoom in any camera you buy.
Exposure Control
The ability to control exposure settings such as shutter speed and lens opening is critical to professional photographers. Cheaper digital cameras only allow you to shoot photos in automatic mode - just press the shutter release and voila, your picture is taken. More advanced users prefer to tweak the shutter speed and aperture to capture fast moving objects or blur the image background. Choose a camera with good exposure control if you foresee yourself taking on photography as a serious hobby.
User Controls
If you are getting a point-and-shoot camera, make sure you find one thats easy to use. User controls to set resolution, macro mode, flash and exposure should be within easy reach. Of course, if youre a serious photography buff who wants to take the time to tweak all sorts of manual settings, then this many not be so critical. I prefer to try out the camera first in the store - play with the controls and get comfortable with them. Only then will you know whether its comfortable enough for you.
Conclusion
Well, I do hope this article has helped you understand what factors to consider when buying a digital camera. A general piece of advice I can give is - if youre a total newbie, dont go for the latest digital SLR. It may be tempting to get that Nikon D70 right from the start, but Id reckon its much better to start off with a cheaper camera first. Learn, experiment and build up your digital photography skills. Once youre more skilled, then proceed to upgrade to a better camera. Good luck and happy shopping!

About The Author

Gary Hendricks runs a hobby site on digital photography. Visit his website at http://www.basic-digital-photography.com for tips and tricks on buying digital cameras, as well as shooting great photos.
gary_hendricks@basic-digital-photography.com

Being a photo editor is not rocket science. All it takes is a lot of creativity and a mastery of some of the best photo editing software available in the market.
Photoshop Elements 3
This is almost like a primer for Adobe Photoshop

The digital camera is but a technological advancement of the conventional analog camera. And thus every component of the analog camera must have been upgraded or changed to bring in some improvisations. This discussion is an effort to unravel alteration and make one comparison between what was and what is! This discussion is thereby focused upon a very critical component of a camera analog as well as digital, the zoom!
Before making a comparison it is important to discuss the significance of the subject matter, in this case the zoom. Well a zoom lens has more than a few portable glass components inside it. By adjusting these components, the focal length of the lens can be altered. Modifying the focal length alters the view distance as well as reduces the field of view, thereby making the projected image to appear larger.
It must me noted that both the optical zoom and the digital zoom are components that are used to magnify an image, but they work in fundamentally different principles and acquiesces drastically different results. In general, optical zooms always produce a far finer and advanced image than digital zoom.
Looking at the functions of these zooms, in digital cameras that offer optical zooms function the same way similar to a zoom lens of a conventional analog camera. A conventional lens works by accumulating light rays that are projected over a portion of a film, and in this case of a digital camera optical sensor. The distance of the lens from the focus point where all of the light rays converge is known as the focal length of the lens. Unlike the optical zoom, the digital zoom works by ranging the pixels in the ultimate image after the image has been captured. The fact remains that the same number of pixels are collected when the photograph is magnified. The only thing that alters is the light rays that are projected over the optical sensors to figure out those pixels.
It is a common intuition that optical lenses are far better than the digital zooms. The reason is that the digital camera zooms are more prone towards computer applications in them rather than mostly human interactions and expertise. Yet, it also remains a fact that beginner photographers find it more useful to handle a digital zoom and also its computer friendly nature. There the computer does the intricate tasks of finding some levelheaded approximation of colors that pixel might take up as it had captured the images or photographs. Many algorithms are existent in this area, but perhaps the most abundantly used algorithm involves looking at the pixels that are quite nearly like neighbors and come up with a kind of an average. Anyways the process remains too complicated and its end result is what the digital zoom users are interested in.
Thus the ultimate truth remains that it is useless to compare digital zooms with optical zooms. Perhaps it is more logical to compare optical zoom with optical zoom and digital zoom with digital zoom. Both these two types of zooms, the optical as well as the digital, have some good and bad qualities. Both of them have some extra features and preferences over the other. And thus it is not wise to compare them, even though a comparison may exist. The efforts would then perhaps look like comparing oranges with apples!
By Jakob Jelling

http://www.snapjunky.com

About The Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.snapjunky.com. Visit his digital camera guide and learn how to take better pictures with your digicam.

Identity Theft scams continue to flourish on the web. One that you need to be aware of and beware of is any site that seems to be selling high-demand items digital cameras for instance at a much lower almost unbelievable price than you can find on other sites or the manufacturer

More and more businesses are seeing the value of photography in marketing their business. Websites, html emails, business cards, banners. Scanners and other digital equipment is HOT! What do you need to know about the subject of photography to take advantage of photos in your business
Many memorable moments would be lost and long forgotten without photography. The most important thing to photography is light. The camera is a precise instrument for capturing light. The word "camera" in Latin means room. The name camera comes from the first invention towards capturing the world on film, the camera obscura or dark room.
This invention came about in the 14th century and was used by such artists as Da Vinci and Michelangelo to more accurately draw their subjects onto paper. The invention of this box made way for more advancements in cameras and photography.
There are five essential items in cameras that make photography possible. They are exposure, refraction, plane of focus, angle of view and aperture. Exposure is the amount of time a camera lets film be exposed to light. Refraction is the bending of light through the lenses of a camera. Plane of focus is the area where light reforms an image in the film. Angle of view is the angle created on a lens when you take the two outermost points you can see through a lens and diverge them to the exact center of the lens. The angle created will be the angle at which the camera can take pictures at. Aperture is the amount of light a lens allows into the camera.
The camera obscura, as mentioned previously, was a large room with a small hole where light could pass through. The development of the camera obscura took two tracks. One of these led to the portable box device that was a drawing tool. In the 17th and 18th century, many artists were aided by the use of the camera obscura.
By the beginning of the 19th century, the camera obscura was ready with little or no modification to accept a sheet of light sensitive material to become the photographic camera. The other track became the camera obscura room, a combination of education and entertainment.
In the 19th century, with improved lenses that could cast larger and sharper images, the camera obscura flourished at the seaside and in areas of scenic beauty.
Of course now there are much more practical ways to take photographs. From the traditional 35mm cameras to the newest cellular phones equipped with digital cameras. Big ones, small ones, and anything else you can think of. There is a camera to fit your needs and lifestyle, or even your color preference. The world of photography has certainly grown a lot over the years. Taking into consideration your usage when purchasing is key to investing in the proper equipment.

About The Author

Valerie Sipple is the webmaster of:

http://www.rgphotography.com

a great resource for everything about photography.

Digital Imaging is a process where an electronic photograph, scanned document, or image is converted into a series of electronic dots called pixels. Pixels is an acronym for "picture elements".
After the image is converted, or digitized, it is stored on a memory storage device which may be a hard drive or some sort of electronic storage device such as a memory stick. The pixels are stored in a compressed format to save storage space.
As each pixel is being created it is assigned a color value, called a tonal value, of black, white, shades of grey, or an actual color. These pixels must be processed by a piece of software in order for them to be called up and viewed as an actual image later.
Traditional cameras capture images onto film while digital cameras use an electronic chip known as a Charged Coupling Device CCD. The CCD is actually a grid of miniature light-sensitive diodes. These diodes convert photons light that strikes them into electrons electrical impulses. The technical name for these diodes is photosite. The brighter the light is that hits the photosite the stronger the electrical charge is thats produced.
After converting the photons into electrons, a mini-computer, located inside of the camera, reads the stored electrical value in each photograph. Then a built-in analog-to-digital converter turns the stored electrical value into a digital value. These digital values are then stored on the cameras memory storage device. When these digital values are recalled by software, and displayed on a screen, they reproduce the image that was originally captured by the camera or digital input device.
The digital image that is created by the CCD is huge. Its far too big to be easily stored in the relatively little amount of storage space thats available to a digital camera. Accordingly, the cameras computer compresses the image to make it smaller.
There are two basic methods for achieving this compression. The first method takes advantage of repetitive patterns in the image. For example, if you are taking a picture of an airplane that is flying in the sky, a lot of the picture will be a chunk of blue sky. The camera recognizes that there are multiple parts of the image containing the same digital information, so it only records a small piece of the sky. Then it simply creates a map to tell it where the rest of the sky belongs. When the picture is ultimately displayed the sky appears exactly the same as it did in the original image when it was first captured. The only difference is that the overall storage requirements were reduced thanks to the cameras clever mapping techniques.
The other method uses a procedure called irrelevancy. This methodology automatically removes digital information that is not visible to the human eye such an infra red light.
Digital imaging is amazing yet we have only started witnessing the revolutionary changes that are yet to come.

About The Author

Warren Lynch has been shooting commercial photography since 1979. Clients include Several Regional and National accounts. Sign up for"The Digital Dose" and receive his tips every other week for FREE! http://www.photopheed.com.
contact@photopheed.com

The digital camera is not something of a magic box that came out of the blue and made wonders! The digital camera is very much like the conventional analog camera, but the technology has been altered. It also contains most of the associated components that the conventional camera contains, like lens and a shutter for letting in light, however instead of reaching a photosensitive film, the light is made to fall upon array of image sensors or photosensitive cells. Much of the differences are like this, yet most of it still remains in oblivion for the ordinary people. And it order that the digital camera gets its true respect, it is necessary to explore these areas of truth and reveal them in light.
Looking a bit more in details about the working of the fantastic device, the digital camera. As a continuation of the above lines, it can be further investigated that the sensor array is basically a microchip about 10 mm across. Every image sensor is a charged-couple device CCD converting light into electric charges, and is essentially a silicon chip used to measure light. These charges are stored as analog data that are then converted to digital via a device called an analog to digital converter ADC. Over the chip are present a collection of very small light-sensitive diodes, named photosites, or pixels that convert light or more scientifically, photons into electrical charges called electrons. The pixels are very much light sensitive, therefore with brighter light striking them, produces greater build up of electrical charges. Each 1000 array receptor creates 1 pixel, and every pixel corresponds to some information stored. The light enters the digital camera via the lens, which is the same mechanism as the conventional analog camera. And this light hits the CCD when the photographer presses the shutter button. The shutter opens and thereby illuminates every pixel, however with various intensities.
Taking a look apart, it can be observed that quite a few digital cameras use CMOS meaning complementary metal oxide semiconductor, a technology of manufacturing these microchips technology based microchips as image sensors. The basic advantage is that the CMOS sensors are appreciably cheaper and simpler to fabricate than CCDs. Another great advantage from CMOS sensors is that these take very less power compared to other technology, which adds up to the fact as to their extensive use, and can thus even support the implementation of additional circuitry on the same chip like ADC, some control units etc. Thus it can be stated that CMOS technology based cameras are small, light, cheap and also energy efficient, yet at the cost of some amount of image quality.
However the common trend remains that all cameras of the mega pixel range and higher up use CCD chips instead of CMOS. This is because of the fact of picture quality only, leaving aside the price differences.
This is basically the fact about how digital cameras work! Having known this much difference would not come in the photographing expertise of the users, but it always feels a kind of satisfaction on understanding the inner depths of a device that is so close to the eyes!
By Jakob Jelling

http://www.snapjunky.com

About The Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.snapjunky.com. Visit his digital camera guide and learn how to take better pictures with your digicam.

When buying a digital camera there are many things you should consider. First you should understand how a digital camera works. What you are using your digital camera for will help you decide what features to consider and how much you should spend. I am here to educate you and help you decide.
Let

Night photographs express a special something that cannot be seen in normal daytime photography. Whether it is a photograph of a moon and starlit sky over a windy deserted beach, the excitement of a downtown cityscape when the lights go on, or just a picture of you and some friends in front of a favorite hangout, nighttime photos, when done right, are sure to attract attention.
However, even for experienced photographers, nighttime photography can be a tricky situation. Photos often look unfocused, blurry, or lacking crucial details, and many may not come out at all. There are some tricks, though, to taking spectacular nighttime photos with your digital camera, tricks that can be explained yet only completely learned through practice.
This first part of a three-part series on nighttime photography will cover tricks not necessarily related to digital camera settings, but tricks nonetheless that can result in better photographs or a more pleasing photo-taking experience.
* Although more expensive digital cameras do not necessarily result in better photos, realize that the cheapest cameras may not be capable of taking great photographs at night. It requires more work, both on yours and the cameras part, to take spectacular shots in very low-light situations. Though you dont have to spend over a thousand dollars for night photography, dont expect too much out of a sub-two hundred-dollar camera, either.
* Especially if you are not completely familiar with your cameras settings to enhance nighttime photography, consider first taking some photographs around dusk, when the sun has not yet completely left the sky. Dusk photos can sometimes be even more dramatic than those taken in the pitch-black sky, as the added light helps illuminate details easily missed in a completely dark environment Check your local newspaper where you are shooting photographs or a website such as http://www.weather.com for sunrise/sunset times, and be ready to shoot around a 20-30 minute window for best results.
* Plan your photos before you shoot! While it is always a good idea to study an area first, this is crucial if you are planning on snapping photographs around dusk! You will not have much time to plan, and if you spend five or ten minutes just getting a perfect angle or framing the perfect shot, the overall lighting will change as the sun slowly sets. And of course, remember when composing your photos that the sun sets in the west.
* Be prepared for the environment. If youre heading out by yourself, especially in a semi-deserted wilderness area, always carry a map so you remember how to get to your home, camp, or hotel. Check the weather before you go and wear a poncho or coat if necessary. Carry a flashlight, or, in the most extreme environments, a flare, to help others find you if you become lost. Also, bring along a WELL-CHARGED cell phone in case of emergency! Youre taking photos at night to have fun and create spectacular results. Be prepared for unexpected situations so they dont ruin your experience.
While the results can be outstanding, night photography presents its own unique benefits and hazards. Not just any digital camera will do; lower-end models may not have the capability of taking spectacular shots. Timing is crucial, especially when taking pictures in the brief time between dusk and total darkness. And, the environment and weather can play havoc with your plans. By purchasing the correct equipment, studying the subject area before nighttime falls, and dealing with unexpected situations with the correct nighttime gear, you can be better prepared to take amazing nighttime photos.

About The Author

Andrew Malek is the owner of the MalekTips computer and technology help site at http://www.malektips.com. Visit his digital camera page at http://malektips.com/digital_cameras_help_and_tips.html for more digital photography advice.

Photography is a diversified field of creating a spectral variety of art. It is a specialization that deals with different experimentations with colors, however it is also a fact that only shades of black and white can also do wonders in this zone of creative art. With the advent of the digital camera the scope of this wonderful business has opened up new horizons for the users and photographers who seek to explore new lands and trod the ground of innovative creation and thus it can be aptly said that black & white can become more creativity with the boon of digital photography and digital camera. This discussion is primarily aimed at exploring the incipient information regarding the blessing of the digital camera in black & white photography so that the novice as well as the expert photographers can become richer in knowledge!
The exploration can be further extended in defining that a lot of modern digital cameras contain a series of mono modes in the advanced menu settings. These can be used to become more creative with digital photography and in the areas of black and white too. For example some of the modes are as follows: Black & White that takes black and white photographs encompassing of a spectral range of gray tones. This gives the black and white photographs a serious and ethereal look with the richness and grandeur of the past, present and future captures in just two tinges! Another mode is Sepia that again takes pictures in varying tinges brown tones. Looking into a matter a bit more technically, it can be stated that as the digital camera is switched into any of these modes then the color LCD becomes grayscale. The technology proceeds as in the process the pictures are taken the color signals get recorded by the CCD, but the image is later de saturated when processed to remove all color.
A lot of interesting points exist in the area of black and white photography using the digital cameras. For example shooting in black & white becomes more interesting with the use of filters. Experimentations can be done by the enthusiastic photographers as to how a particular color would appear in black & white. This can be demonstrated by the fact that perhaps a red filter placed over the lens lightens any red color in the picture making them appear as lighter shades of gray in comparison to other colors like blue green. This process can be very challenging and in the same time very interesting! It is true that digital black and white photography can be used often for the purpose of portraiture and taking pictures of landscapes and can also become very effective in abstract shoots offering a graphical view of the subject to be photographed. The ultimate truth is that the black and white digital photography can make the world look complete different from what it is through the human eyes.
The graphics software from Adobe - Photoshop - with its more advanced options a person can edit each of the colors in the image to lighten or darken and provide the effect of brightness in varying intensity too. Becoming an expert in this can make a person versatile in techniques of adjusting the tonal range of a black & white image. This is the liberty that the digital camera provides in the field of black and white photography. Thus the users can make much more efficient and richer quality photographs.
The above lines of this discussion has explored the incipient ground of interest and information of black and white photography using the digital camera, however it has to be noted here that to get the real taste of the honey the users or photographers must not waste time and take up their digital cameras and get going into the cool new and most beautiful world of digital black and white photography! It is out there for everyone.

About The Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.snapjunky.com. Visit his digital camera guide and learn how to take better pictures with your digicam.