Buying, and choosing settings for, a digital camera

Buying, and choosing settings for, a digital camera


Buying a digital camera

If you’re shopping for a digital camera, the fi rst step is to fi gure out which model suits your output requirements and, of course, your budget. Two factors to consider in this regard are a camera’s megapixel value and the size of its digital light sensor.
Camera manufacturers usually list the resolution of a model as width and height dimensions in pixels (such as 3000 pixels x 2000 pixels). Multiply the two values, and you’ll arrive at a number in the millions, which is the number of pixels the camera captures in each shot. Th is is known as the camera’s megapixel value. If your camera captures a suffi -cient number of pixels, you’ll be able to print highquality closeups and enlargements of your photos.
Compact, inexpensive “point-and-shoot” cameras off er few or no manual controls and have a resolution of 6 to 10 megapixels. Th ey capture enough detail to produce decent-quality 5" x 7" prints but not larger, and acceptable Web output.
Advanced amateur camera models have a resolution of 8 to 12 megapixels. You can get high-quality 8" x 10" prints from these cameras, and they off er
more manual controls.
Professional camera models (such as digital SLRs) have a resolution of 12 megapixels or higher and can produce high-quality 11" x 14" prints or larger — but they’re costly. More importantly, the digital light sensors in such cameras are larger and more sensitive than those in lesser cameras.
Th ey record more precise detail and produce a higher-quality image, with less visual noise. Highmegapixel cameras with large sensors aren’t for everyone — and not just because of their price tag.
Images with a high megapixel count have larger fi le sizes, take longer to upload from the camera to the computer, and require a larger hard drive for storage.
(See our comparison of megapixels and print size on page 22.) Unless you tend to crop your photos or output large prints, an 8- to 10-megapixel camera will be better suited to your needs.
Aside from the megapixel count and the size of the sensor, make sure the camera you buy can accommodate a wide assortment of lenses.
For more advice about buying a camera, you can visit the website for PC Magazine (pcmag.com) or Macworld (macworld.com). Photography magazine websites are also good sources of information.

Choosing settings in your digital camera
You’ve acquired a camera (congratulations!) — nowyou may want some pointers on how to use it.
To get good-quality photographs, in addition to establishing the right lighting conditions, composing the shot artistically, etc., you need to choose your camera settings wisely. Here are some basic guidelines:
➤ Medium- and high-end digital cameras let you choose an ISO setting, which controls the sensitivity of the camera’s digital sensor to light (and is comparable to fi lm speed in fi lm photography). High ISO settings tend to produce digital noise in low-light areas, so it’s best to choose the lowest ISO setting that still
enables you to get the desired exposure.
➤ Decide whether to have your camera capture the photos in the JPEG format or even better, as unprocessed raw fi les.

➤ Choose a color space for your camera: sRGB for onscreen or Web output, or Adobe RGB for print output.

➤ For JPEG photos, choose a white balance setting that’s appropriate for the lighting conditions in which the photos will be shot; the camera will process the image data based on this setting. For raw fi les, you can ignore the white balance setting, as the images won’t be processed inside the camera.

➤ If your camera has a histogram display, use it to verify that your shot was taken with the correct exposure settings (aperture and shutter speed). In an overexposed image, insuffi cient details are captured in the highlight areas; in
an underexposed image, insuffi cient details are captured in the shadow areas. Photoshop can process and adjust only the details that your camera captures.
Regardless of whether you shoot JPEG or raw photos, most exposure defi ciencies, color casts, and other imaging problems can be corrected via the Camera Raw dialog and then the photo can be further corrected via an assortment of adjustment commands in Photoshop.