If you have been hesitant to venture into the world of digital photography, JAMES HIPKISS gives a clear picture of the basics you would need to know to get a grip on it.

HOW things have changed! The world of amateur photography which was once dominated by the light meter, the overflowing gadget bag and the darkroom with its enlarger, and dishes of smelly chemicals is now pretty much history.

Many camera manufacturers are completely ceasing production of film cameras; the digital age has truly arrived for the amateur photographer. So have things changed, and if so what, and how? Let's get started and not intimidated. Easier said than done, I know!

The acquisition of equipment is almost more important than shooting the pictures. Forget “point and shoot” for a moment. Think of how your latest technology buy can enhance your photos, make deleting awful photos instant and produce on-the-spot results for viewing. Keeping that in mind, we introduce the digital camera.

So how do we choose from the myriad of variety of digital cameras available out there? Well, the “happy snapper” who just wants to grab images of holidays, families and friends, etc should be looking at a simple point and shoot digital camera. Automatic exposure, focus and flash will keep things uncomplicated.

Mega what? Megapixel (MP) is simply the size of a digital image. If you want to print your photos up to about postcard size, then 4 MP is fine. If you want photos up to about 12” x 10” or more, then to be assured of a good quality print, you should be shooting digital images of nearer 7 MP.

There are plenty of quality “point and shoot” cameras available from Epson, Sony, Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax, in fact most of the big name manufacturers. Expect to pay from around RM450 to RM1,500 depending on the size of the digital image file the camera produces.

The serious amateur snapper, though, will want a camera that will produce at least a 5 MP image and up to around 10 or more MP. Perhaps even more importantly, he will want the options of interchangeable lenses, and features on the camera to adjust colour balance and exposure manually. Also the ability to produce not only the commonly accepted JPEG image files, but also RAW image files.

Whoa, what? Point and shoot cameras record images as JPEG files, meaning that they compress the image data to save storage space and in doing so slightly compromise its quality. Serious amateurs though may shoot and then record their images as RAW files. Here the image files are much larger, containing more detail, there is no compression at all, they do take up a lot of storage space in the camera and computer memory too, but consequently produce the ultimate quality image.

Canon and Nikon produce excellent cameras and a huge range of accessories too, for the serious amateur, priced from around RM2,500 toRM5,000 (the bottom end of the “pro” market) for a camera body and “standard” zoom lens.

What are the benefits of switching to digital cameras, you ask? There are plus points to digital cameras and their brand of photography, you know. For instance, there is less heavy equipment to cart around with fewer bits and pieces to mislay. Bear in mind that even though the creative photographer is carrying less equipment, the new digital cameras now have the facilities built into them to manipulate images at the shooting stage beyond his wildest dreams!

Digital cameras can liberate your creativity. For example, you can look at the scene and decide if you want to capture it in black and white, then the next scene in colour. There is no need to switch from black and white film to colour film.

I once watched a top New York photographer shooting a fashion spread for Vogue magazine in the United Kingdom. For each outfit the model wore, he shot five to six rolls of film, around 200 individual frames, from which one single frame was chosen, later retouched, finally appearing as a page in the magazine.

Undoubtedly expensive and time-consuming. Gone are those days! Now, while in search of that perfect composition, you can reshoot the same scene 50 times from slightly different angles, deleting frames until you are sure you have captured it to your satisfaction. Believe me, that was not a terribly cost-effective technique in the old days of film.

So where exactly do the photos go to in the digital camera? Well film has been replaced by the “memory card”. A small memory chip encased in plastic. There are currently four different format or shaped cards around, Compact Flash, Memory Stick, SD/MMC and xD. Different manufacturers prefer different format cards, remember VHS and Betamax? These cards fit inside the camera and on all but the smaller point and shoot cameras, are easily inserted and removed, so you can download your images from a card into any computer via a “card reader”, if you do not wish to actually connect your whole camera to the computer.

They vary in their memory capacity from 16MB to 12GB. How many images they can actually store depends on the image size you choose to use, and the capacity of your card, one image to thousands of images can be captured! You need to consult your camera instruction manual, where tables are printed showing storage capacity relating to card and image size.

What happens next, you ask? Well, later in front of your computer, with the aid of image retouching and manipulating software such as Photoshop, the possibilities for the creative photographer to modify, retouch, manipulate, and enhance his digital images are almost limitless. This might take some getting used to and inevitably hours on the computer, getting to know the program. Do not despair. With time and practice, you'll find it gets easier. Besides, the end results will make it all worthwhile. Trust me.

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