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DIGITAL CAMERA

Digital camera

A camera that stores images digitally rather than recording them on film. Once a picture
has been taken, it can be downloaded to a computer system, and then manipulated with a graphics program
and printed. Unlike film photographs, which have an almost infinite resolution, digital photos are limited by
the amount of memory in the camera, the optical resolution of the digitizing mechanism, and, finally, by the
resolution of the final output device. Even the best digital cameras connected to the best printers cannot
produce film-quality photos. However, if the final output device is a laser printer, it doesn't really matter
whether you take a real photo and then scan it, or take a digital photo. In both cases, the image must
eventually be reduced to the resolution of the printer.
The big advantage of digital cameras is that making photos is both inexpensive and fast because there is no
film processing. Interestingly, one of the biggest boosters of digital photography is Kodak, the largest
producer of film. Kodak developed the Kodak PhotoCD format, which has become the de facto standard for
storing digital photographs.
Most digital cameras use CCDs to capture images, though some of the newer less expensive cameras use
CMOS chips instead.

A digital camera (or digicam) is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both,
digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor.

Front and back of Canon PowerShot A95


Many compact digital still cameras can record sound and moving video as well as still
photographs. Most 21st century cameras are digital.[1]
Digital cameras can do things film cameras cannot: displaying images on a screen
immediately after they are recorded, storing thousands of images on a single small
memory device, recording video with sound, and deleting images to free storage space.
Some can crop pictures and perform other elementary image editing. The optical system

works the same as in film cameras, typically using a lens with a variable diaphragm to
focus light onto an image pickup device. The diaphragm and shutter admit the correct
amount of light to the imager, just as with film but the image pickup device is electronic
rather than chemical.
Digital cameras are incorporated into many devices ranging from PDAs and mobile
phones (called camera phones) to vehicles. The Hubble Space Telescope and other
astronomical devices are essentially specialized digital cameras.
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Digital Cameras - A beginner's guide


by Bob Atkins

Digital Camera Basics - A primer


Digital cameras are confusing to a lot of new users. In this basic guide to digital
camera technology we hope to try to give digital beginners at least some basis to use in
deciding which digital camera is appropriate for them. When shopping for a digital
camera it's at least good to know what the basic terms like white balance, pixel, ppi and
dpi mean and how they affect image and print quality. It's also important to know the
difference between things like optical zoom and digital zoom as well as the advantages
and disadvantages between storage formats such as Compact Flash (CF), Microdrives,
Sony Memory Stick, Secure Digital (SD), Multimedia and camera interface technologies
such as USB 1.1, USB 2.0 and Firewire IEEE 1394.

Pixels
A pixel is a contraction if the term PIcture ELement. Digital images are made up of small
squares, just like a tile mosaic on your kitchen or bathroom wall. Though a digital
photograph looks smooth and continuous just like a regular photograph, it's actually
composed of millions of tiny squares as shown below.

On the left the full image, on the right the area in the red square magnified to show
individual pixels
Each pixel in the image has a numerical value of between 0 and 255 and is made up of
three color channels. So for example a pixel could be 37-red, 76-green and 125-blue and it
would then look like this
this

. If it was 162-red, 27-green and 12-blue, it would look like

. There are over 16 million possible combinations using this scheme and each one

represents a different color. Computer savvy readers will note that each color in this
scheme can be represented by an 8-bit number (byte), so the color of each pixel is defined
by three color bytes. This scheme can be expanded, for example to use 16-bits (two 8-bit
bytes) for each color. Images using three 8-bit values are sometimes called 24-bit color
images. Images using three 12-bit values for color definition are called 36-bit color
images, and those using three 16-bit values are called 48-bit color images.

Pixel Count
One of the main ways that manufacturers categorize their digital cameras is in terms of
pixel count. What this is is the number of individual pixels that go into making each
image. Today this number varies between 1 million (1 Megapixel) to around 14 million
(14 Megapixels). A million pixels is abbreviated to MP, so a 1MP camera has 1 million
pixels and a 3MP camera has 3 million pixels. Currently most popular consumer digital
cameras have between 2MP and 5MP. A 3MP camera can make excellent 4"x6" prints
and very good 5"x7" prints. If you intend to make lots of 8"x10" prints, then perhaps a

4MP or 5MP camera would be a better choice. Sometimes two numbers are given, total
pixels and effective pixels. Total pixels count every pixel on the sensor surface. Usually
the very edge pixels aren't used in the final image. Effective pixels are the number of
pixels actually used in the image after the edge pixels have been dropped.
3MP

4MP

5MP

2048 x 1536

2272 x 1712

2592 x 1944

Print size at 320dpi

6.5" x 4.8"

7.1" x 5.4"

8.1" x 6.1"

Print size at 240dpi

8.5" x 6.4"

9.5" x 7.1"

10.8" x 8.1"

Largest Image (typical)

Typical maximum image size vs. nominal Pixel Count. See below for comments on dpi
and print size

Aspect Ratio
The aspect ratio of a camera is the ratio of the length of the sides of the images. For
example, a traditional 35mm film frame is approximately 36mm wide and 24mm HIGH.
This has an aspect ratio of 36:24, which can equally well be expressed as 3:2. Some
digicams use the same aspect ratio for their digital images. For example most digital SLR
(single lens reflex) cameras have a 3:2 aspect ratio. However, video monitors typically use
a 4:3 aspect ratio. For example a monitor with a 800x600 display has a 4:3 aspect ratio.
With this in mind, most consumer level digicams use a 4:3 aspect ratio for their images.

Sensor Size
The size of the digital sensor element (which is equivalent to the size of the negative for
film cameras) is pretty small in all consumer digicams - typically around the size of a
fingernail (and a small fingernail at that!). As I said above, a 35mm film frame is 24mm
high by 36mm wide but most digital cameras use sensors very much smaller than this.
Here are some typical digicam sensor sizes. The "name" of the sensor is based on
specification for old TV tubes used in the 1950s. Nobody is quite sure why it's being used
for modern digital sensors since the "sizes" don't really relate in any consistent way to the
actual physical size of the sensor. However these names are widely used, so it's best to
know what they are. They are often listed in digital camera spec sheets.

"Name"

Aspect
Ratio

Width (mm) Height (mm)

1/3.6"

4:3

4.0

3.0

1/3.2"

4:3

4.5

3.4

1/3"

4:3

4.8

3.6

1/2.7"

4:3

5.3

4.0

1/2"

4:3

6.4

4.8

1/1.8"

4:3

7.2

5.3

2/3"

4:3

8.8

6.6

1"

4:3

12.8

9.6

4/3"

4:3

18.0

13.5

EOS 10D

3:2

22.0

15.0

Most of the current small 5MP digital cameras use 1/1.8" sensors which are about 7mm x
5mm. They have an area 25x smaller than 35mm film and about 9.5x smaller than a small
sensor digital SLR like the Canon EOS 10D. You might wonder why sensor size matters
and that's a pretty complex issue. The bottom line is that, for a given pixel count, the
larger the sensor (and hence the larger the area of the individual pixels) the better the
image quality and the lower the noise level. While large sensor cameras like the EOS 10D
can operate at the equivalent of ISO 3200 (though the image does get noisy), many
consumer digicams with small sensors cannot operate above ISO 400 before the noise
becomes excessive. For a full treatment why all this is so, see my article here on photo net
titled SIZE MATTERS
Another factor in quality here is that small sensors tend to be of a different type than
large sensors. Small sensors, and the sensors used on all consumer digital cameras, use a
scheme which can read the data from the sensor in real time using a scheme called
"interline transfer" and the CCD electronics control exposure rather than a mechanical
shutter. Large sensors used on more expensive Digital SLRs are often of a different
design known as full frame - which doesn't refer to their size, but their design - and
which require the use of a mechanical shutter. They don't read out and the display the
data in real time, only after the exposure so they can't give real time LCD displays or
record video. The advantage of this scheme is that the whole pixel area can be used to
capture light while interline transfer CCDs use part of each pixels to store charge. Since
smaller pixel areas generate more noise and interline transfer CCDs are not only smaller
to start with but use some of their pixel area for charge storage, their noise level is

significantly higher. So the smaller interline transfer sensors in consumer digital cameras
yield lower quality images than those used in higher end DSLRs, they can do more
"tricks" like recording video clips and giving a live image display on their LCD screen.
The lack of a mechanical shutter also makes the cameras cheaper and simplifies
construction.
Small sensors mean that short focal length lenses are needed to give the same field of
view as cameras using larger sensors or 35mm film. So, for example, a typical consumer
digicam may need a 7mm lens to give the same view as you would get using a 35mm focal
length lens on a 35mm camera. This has consequences on depth of field and means that
most consumer digicams have a vary large depth of field. Great if you want everything in
focus, not so great if you want a blurred background. This is covered in detail in my
article here titled DIGITAL DEPTH OF FIELD

White Balance
With film you can buy "daylight balanced film" for shooting outdoors or "tungsten
balanced film" for shooting indoors under normal domestic lighting (not fluorescents!). If
you use daylight film under tungsten light the images will be very yellow. If you use
tungsten film in daylight the images will be very blue. With film you have to correct for
the "color temperature" of the light using filters or by the right choice of film.
With digital you can pick your white balance to suit your light source, so that white looks
white, not yellow or blue. Normally there is an automatic setting and the camera decides
what white balance setting to use. However if you know what your light source is you can
usually set the camera to it and this may give better results. Most digital cameras have
settings for sunlight, shade, electronic flash, fluorescent lighting and tungsten lighting.
Some have a manual or custom setting where you point the camera at a white card and
let the camera figure out what setting to use to make it white.

Sensitivity
Sensitivity settings on digital cameras are the equivalent of ISO ratings on film. Just
about every digital camera will have settings with a sensitivity equivalent to ISO 100 film
and ISO 200 film. Many will have an ISO 400 setting, but above that the images from
cameras with small sensors gets pretty noisy. The more expensive digital SLRs with much
larger sensors have much higher sensitivity settings. At ISO 400 they are virtually noise
free and some can go as high as ISO 3200 or even ISO 6400! Very few cameras have ISO
setting lower than ISO 100 because noise levels are so low at ISO 100 there would be no
real advantage in a slower setting. Quite a few digital cameras have an "auto" ISO setting,

where the camera will pick from ISO 100, ISO 200 and sometimes ISO 400, depending
on the light level and the mode in which the camera is operating.

Digital Zoom and Optical Zoom


Most cameras have both optical zoom and digital zoom. Optical zoom works just like a
zoom lens on a film camera. The lens changes focal length and magnification as it is
zoomed. Image quality stays high throughout the zoom range. Digital zoom simply crops
the image to a smaller size, then enlarges the cropped portion to fill the frame again.
Digital zoom results in a significant loss of quality as is clear from the examples below.
It's pretty much a last resort, and if you don't have it in camera, you can do a similar job
using almost any image editing program.

Comparison of optical zoom and digital zoom

JPEG, TIFF and RAW


The size of the digital file corresponding to the image which the camera produces
depends on the pixel count. In most consumer digicams each pixel generates 3 bytes of
data (so called "8-bit data"). One for red, one for green and one for blue. This means that
a 3MP camera, which has 3 million pixels, generates 9 million bytes of data, or 9MB
(megabytes). A few cameras can generate extra data for extra quality, and some of these

cameras generate files which correspond to 2 bytes of data for each color ("16-bit"), so a
3MP camera which is capable of generating 16-bit data will produce an 18MB image file.
Now these files are pretty big and they can be compressed quite a lot without a significant
drop in quality. This is where JPEG (Joint Photo Experts Group) comes in. JPEG is an
algorithm designed to work with continuous tone photographic images) which takes
image data and compresses it in a lossy manner (this means you do lose some
information). The more you compress, the smaller the file but the more information you
lose. However, you can reduce file size by a factor of 10 or so and still get a very high
quality image, just about as good as the uncompressed image for most purposes. You can
reduce the file size by a factor of 40 - or even more - but the image starts to look really
bad!

On the left, 10:1 JPEG compression. On the Right 40:1 compression.


Uncompressed the image would look virtually identical to the 10:1 JPEG on the left.
With 10:1 compression the 8-bit files generated by a 3MP camera would be 900Kbytes in
size rather than 9Mbytes, which is a big saving with little quality loss. The smaller files
take up much less storage space and are much faster to send between computers or from
the digital camera or memory card to a computer.
There are also lossless ways of saving files using TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) .
These keep all the original information, but at the cost of much bigger files. TIFF files can
be compressed in a non-lossy way, but they don't get very much smaller. For example,
compare the file sizes for the rabbit image above: TIFF files can also be used to save 16bit data (those these files are twice the size of 8-bit data files), JPEG files can only save 8bit data.

Uncompressed TIFF

Compressed TIFF

176.1 Kbytes

157.6 Kbytes

JPEG at 10:1

JPEG at 40:1

compression

compression

17.4 Kbytes

4.5 Kbytes

Some cameras offer a third option, that of saving the actual data generated by the sensor
in a proprietary format. Canon calls their version of this "RAW", Nikon call it "NEF".
These files are compressed, but in a non-lossy manner. They are significantly smaller
than equivalent TIFF files, but larger than JPEGs. Typically they achieve a compression
of around 6:1 using 16-bit data, so files are 1/6 the size of equivalent TIFF files. The only
disadvantage of these formats is that the image must be converted to either JPEG or TIFF
for most software to be able to display them. The conversion is quite a complex process
and can be time consuming if you have a lot of images to convert and a PC that's not very
fast. Since the RAW and NEF formats contain more information than JPEGs (and in fact
often more than TIFF files) you can do some degree of exposure compensation during
conversion to JPEG to rescue otherwise improperly exposed images. You can also make
white balance corrections during conversion, so if you shot with the wrong white balance,
you can fix your error.

Display, Printing, DPI and PPI


There's lots of confusion here so I'll try to go slowly!
When you display a digital image on a monitor, the only thing that determines the size of
the image is the pixel count and aspect ratio. DPI and PPI (and I'll explain them later)
mean absolutely nothing. If your image is a 480Kbyte file which is 800 pixels wide by

600 pixels wide, it will display as a full screen image if you are using an 800x600 display.
It doesn't matter if your DPI is set to 1 or 1000 or if your PPI is set to 1 or 1000. This is
100% true as far as web display goes and as far as any monitor display goes - unless some
software intervenes. For example the IE6 browser will take large images and resize them
so they fit on the screen. However DPI and PPI are still ignored. A few advanced page
layout programs and advanced image editors may be capable of taking DPI and PPI into
account when displaying images.
So I'll say this once again. The way you control how large an image appears on
someone's monitor screen when viewing your images on the web is by changing the
pixel count. If your original image is 1600x1200 pixels it will probably be too large to see
all at once on 95% of the video monitors out there. It will also be slow to load since it will
be a large file. If you want someone using an 800x600 display to be able to see your
image clearly, you need to change the size to, say, 600x400 pixels (remember the
browser window is smaller than the full monitor display). You change image size in
software. All image editing programs can do this. Sometimes it's called "downsampling"
or "downsizing". See your image processing software manual for details on what options
your software offers.
PPI stands for "Pixels per inch" and is almost exclusively used for printing, not video
display. If you take an image that is 800 pixels wide and 600 pixels high, and you print it
with a PPI setting of 100 pixels per inch, the print will be 8 inches wide by 6 inches high.
If you print at 200 PPI you get a print 4" wide by 3" high. Now the print at 200 PPI will
be higher in quality but smaller. Most people seem to agree that around 320 PPI is the
highest number you really need. Above that it's very hard to see any improvement in
image quality. 240 PPI is often used and even that is often regarded as high quality. Most
people notice a quality drop when they go below 180 PPI.
DPI stands for "dots per inch" and is a property of a printer, not a digital image. It's a
measure of how finely spaced the droplets of ink can be in a print. However the number
is a bit misleading since it's not always measured in the way you think it might be! Printer
settings of 360dpi, 720dpi, 1440dpi and 2880dpi are often found. However the difference
between then is subtle at best. Most people probably couldn't tell the difference and
360dpi usually looks great. Changing DPI does not change the size of the print. PPI
controls that. DPI controls print quality (though as I said, over 360dpi you don't see
much change).

Memory

There are quite a few different (and incompatible) memory cards used in digital cameras.

Compact Flash (CF) - The original memory card. 42mm x 36mm x 3mm. Somewhat
larger than the others, but used on all high end DSLRs. Available in capacities up to
2GB. There are also miniature hard drives (Microdrives) with almost the same form
factor as CF cards (CF type II, 5mm thick)) which are available in capacities from
340MB to 4GB. Microdrives used to be cheaper than solid state CF cards, though there
is not a big difference today up to about 1GB. The 4GB Microdrives are actually cheaper
than the 2GB CF cards though. Of course prices change pretty fast these days! Overall
CF cards tend to be cheaper than any of the other forms of solid state memory - though
this too could change. CF cards and microdrives contain their own disk controller, so
that makes the camera electronics simpler.

Secure Digital (SD) - Very small - about 24mm x 32mm and 2mm thick. They have a
built in write protect switch to prevent accidental erasure and certain encryption
capabilities of little interest to digital camera owners.

Multimedia - Same size as SD but with less features and no encryption capability.
There are some that can be used in some SD cameras but they aren't 100% compatible
with SD cards in all applications.

Smart Media - Thinner than CF cards, but lacking an on-card memory controller.
Despite the name, they're pretty dumb!

Memory Stick - Introduced by Sony and used only by Sony(?)

XD - Developed and used by Fuji, Olympus and Toshiba - even smaller than SD.
20mm x 25mm by 1.7mm thick
Is there any real difference in performance? No, not really. The CF cards are the cheapest
per megabyte and are available in higher capacity models than the other (of course that
may change with time). Most high end DSLRs use them. The smaller cards tend to be
used in the smaller consumer digicams. There's really no reason to pick a camera with
one type over another unless you have multiple cameras or other devices (MP3 players
for example) which also use memory cards - then it's convenient if they can share cards.
It may also be difficult (and/or expensive) to find really high capacity cards (1GB and up)
in formats other than CF, but that's probably not a concern for most digicam users.
The following table gives the approximate number of shots you can expect to get using
low JPEG compression using various pixel count cameras in conjunction with various
sized memory cards at the lowest ISO speed settings of a typical camera. The exact

numbers depend on how much compression the camera applies and the ISO speed used.
Higher ISO settings result in more noise and noise is hard to compress and so leads to
larger files and less images per card. If you're shooting in a RAW or NEF format you can
divide these numbers by 3. If you're shooting TIFF files you'd have to divide these
numbers by 8.
3MP

4MP

5MP

6MP

128MB Memory

116

87

70

58

256MB Memory

232

174

140

116

512MB Memory

464

348

280

232

Approximate number of shots per memory card for various digital camera pixel counts
using high quality JPEGs for storage

Digital Camera Interface


Once you've got the images stored in your camera on the memory card you need a way to
get them into your computer! There are several ways to connect digital cameras to a PC
as well as external card readers.

Serial - The earliest digital cameras had a serial interface, but no current cameras use
this since it is so slow

USB 1.1 - USB was the first widespread high speed method of data transfer from
cameras. It is theoretically capable of transfer speeds up to 11 megabits/second (note
megabits not megabytes)

USB 2.0 - A development of USB but much faster - up to 480 megabits/second. USB
devices are compatible with USB1.1 ports on a PC, but will only work with them at the
lower data rate.

IEEE 1394 (Firewire) - Though this is an older interface than USB, it was originally
only really used much on Apple computers. It's capable of high speed transfer (400
megabits/second) and it's now found on some PCs or it can be added to them via a
plug-in card. More common on digital video cameras than still digital cameras.
Just about all cameras can connect to a PC, but it's sometimes easier to remove the
memory card from the camera and insert it into a dedicated card reader. Even if your
camera only has USB 1.1. if your computer has a USB 2.0 you can use a USB 2.0 card
reader for faster transfer. Card readers are cheap, anywhere from $15 to $40.

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