After questions about PCs and speed the most frequent queries I get concern pictures or some aspect of Digital Photography (DP). Many of them start this way: “I just want to know how to …”
It is the expectation of the asker that a good teacher could answer that question with clarity in 25 words or less. It’s not always that simple with Digital photography.
Those of you that have taken my DP course know that I often start with an illustration about the six blind men of Indostan who were asked to describe an elephant after one touch. To paraphrase the end of that story:
“So, oft in DP wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!”
DP is as difficult to describe completely as it is to picture an elephant from a few random touches.
I’m going to elucidate this subject over the next few weeks and try to cover all the important aspects of it. If I don’t get around to your specific question, you know my email address.
In this introductory column I’ll cover some of the DP nomenclature and some differences between digital and conventional cameras. One big difference of course is that you don’t use film anymore; instead you create picture images in files that are under your control rather than the guy at the photo shop. You’ll probably notice that the pictures are shaped differently from your old 35 mm ones: they have a lower aspect ratio, 4:3 instead of the old 3:2. See, we’re already tripping over terms; aspect ratio is simply the ratio of the width of a photo to its length (a square photo would have an aspect ratio of 1). Remember some of those old Brownie cameras used to take square pics?
Let me refer you to two sites that have useful glossaries for DP terms. The first from Microsoft is: http://tinyurl.com/2dya22 and contains most of the basics; the second is from Kodak and is very complete: http://tinyurl.com/32voj2r. PROFOTOS.com and Shutterbug.com also have good glossaries. Put a couple of these sites in your Favorites and you’re on your way to learning DP terms as they arise.
Another big difference is that everything in DP is measured in pixels. A pixel is a picture element, a single point in a graphic image; just a little larger than the period at the end of this sentence. When you multiply the width of a pic by its length you get megapixels (millions of pixels). For example, my digital camera takes pics 2832 pixels wide and 2128 pixels high (in landscape position). Multiply 2832 times 2128 and you get 6,026, 496 or just over 6 megapixels. The aspect ratio for my pics is 2832/2128 or 1.33, same as 4:3. See how easy that was?
Next week we’ll look at choosing a camera and some tips about taking pics with a digital camera
Written by Jim Hall. Email your questions to geekspeak@mchsi.com . You can find Jim online at HallsTrainingSolutions.com
