Digital Photography and Wealth

The digital camera is in many ways the same as the "old" film camera. There are many techniques that can be applied from the film camera, so don't throw away your old photography books.

Techniques that remain the same as film:

Exposure - Exposing the picture with a basic digital camera can be fully controlled by the camera or the photographer may choose how to expose. Proper exposure is just as important now as it was with film cameras.

Composition - The all important composition of a photograph is the one item that delivers the photographer's intentions to the viewer. This is where art becomes an integrated part of photography.

Lighting Control - A part of composition, lighting angles can make or break a prize winning photograph.

Cleanliness - Dust and fingerprints are still the photographer's enemy. Keep it clean!

Techniques that differ from film:

Film Types - No more worries about film types and keeping the film cool. No dust spots or chemical stains to ruin your negative. The negative is now a positive stored on your computer.

Developing - This is all done digitally on a nice clean computer in a lit or dimly lit room, not in the darkroom. No chemicals, water, enlargers, timers and especially no special sealed room!

Printing - This is the hard part of digital photograpy. Getting the right inks and a good printer is just as important as chemical quality and enlarger exposure time.

Abbreviated Dictionary of Photographic Terms:

• Aberration - Faults in an image, normally near the outer edges; often the result of the lens being unable to produce sharp, clear images due to its construction or low aperture settings.
  
• AF lock - Refers to the ability to lock out or turn off the autofocus function at a specific focal range; most often used to set focus on the object when it is outside the typical focus area of the viewfinder.
  
• AF Sensor - The sensor that is used to detect the focus of the object in the viewfinder range.
  Artificial light - Any light not originating from natural sources such as the sun.
  
• Autofocus - Any control device that focuses a system or lens automatically.
  
• Available light - The term used to describe the light that is naturally available
  without supplementation.
  
• Blur - Any un-sharp areas of an image, normally due to problems in focusing or motion.
  
• Brilliance - The intensity of the light being reflected from surfaces; sometimes
  called "luminosity."
  
• Camera shake - Any movement of the camera that can cause blurring of the image; a major cause of blurred images especially with long focus lenses.
  
• Close-up - A general term used when an image fills the frame.
  
• Color balance - The measurement or adjustment used to accurately reproduce a neutral scale of gray tones.
  
• Color saturation - The measurement of the purity or strength of colors as defined by the absence of white, black, or gray.
  
• Color temperature - A way of describing color quality of a light source, measured in degrees Kelvin (°k).
  
• Composition - The visual arrangement of a photograph's contributing elements.
  
• Cropping - The action of omitting part of an image, normally in editing.
  
• Dedicated flash - Any flash device that integrates with the camera's exposure and shutter circuitry.
  
• Documentary photography - Refers to the act of taking photographs as a record of social and political events for historical or documentary purposes.
  
• Electronic flash - Any artificial lighting that is made by a gas filled flash tube.
  
• Exposure meter - An instrument that measures available light on or being reflected by a subject.
  
• Grain or graininess - Originally referred to the clumps of silver-halide grains in film and paper and its tendency to clump; now refers to any image that appears to have pixelization or 'clumping,' regardless of the cause.
  
• Incident light - The light actually falling onto a surface.
  
• Infinity - Refers to a distance great enough to be unaffected by variations, typically 1,000 meters or more.
  
• JPEG - The common file format for compressed graphics files.
  
• LED - A light emitting diode, normally used as indicators in camera bodies due to their low power consumption.
  
• Luminance - Any measurable light emitted or reflected.
  
• Macro lens - Refers to a lens designed to get very close to subjects, often referred to as a micro lens, although this is not accurate.
  
• Red eye - The effect caused when light travels parallel to the lens axis during exposure causing eyes to reflect the light and show as red in the image.
  
• Spherical aberration - A lens problem that can cause defects in images with low depths of field and high F/stops.
  
• Tone values - The various shades of gray in a photographic image.
  
• Underexposure - The image result of having too little exposure and thus a dark
  image.
  
• Variable focus lens - A lens that has a focal length which can be varied within a
  given range; also called a 'zoom' lens.
  
• Zone focusing - A method in which you focus the lens for a pre-selected range.