| 1. Are manual controls important? |
| 2. Does CCD size matter? |
| 3. Does it matter what kind of battery I use? |
| 4. How do digital cameras work? |
| 5. How many types of batteries are there for the Digital Camera? |
| 6. I'm having trouble downloading photos to my computer with the software that came with my camera. What can I do? |
| 7. What about MPEG movie modes in digital cameras? |
| 8. What are SLR digital cameras? |
| 9. What digital camera accessories do I need? |
| 10. What does megapixel mean? |
| 11. What is ISO speed? |
| 12. What is JPEG and TIFF? |
| 13. What is red-eye reduction? |
| 14. What is the deal with the different "quality" settings on my camera? |
| 15. What is the difference in performance between rechargeable and non-rechargeable batteries? |
| 16. What kind of camera do I need to print out a 4 x 6 inch image or a 8 x 10's? |
| 17. What sort of problems will I have with rechargeable batteries? |
| 18. What's the difference between optical zoom and digital zoom? |
| 19. Why is there a delay after I push the shutter release button before I can take another picture? |
| 20. Why my camera reports a low battery after only ten minutes of use? |
| 21. Will a high resolution camera make better prints than a lower resolution camera? |
| 22. Will an airport X-Ray scanner erase my pictures on a digital camera card? |
| 23. Bring a Battery Charger on Trips |
| 24. Battery Conservation Tips |
| 25. Keep Extra Batteries Handy! |
| 26. What is mAh? |
| 27. Take Batteries Out of the Digital Camera |
| 28. Never Charge Incompatible AA Batteries |
| 29. Never Get Batteries Wet |
| 30. Combo Media/Battery Wallet |
| 31. Don't Use Alkaline AA - Use Rechargeables |
| 32. Consider Buying a Media Wallet |
| 33. Recycle Your NiMH Batteries |
| 34. Batteries in Cold Weather |
| 35. Keep Playback to a Minimum |
| 36. Use an Add-On NiMH Power Pack |
| 37. Don't Mix and Match Brands and Types |
| |
| Are manual controls important? |
| Automatic settings can work for amateur photographers in a majority of cases. However, once a few pictures come out underexposed or blurred with auto settings, the manual controls become necessary. |
| Does CCD size matter? |
| In general, the larger CCD means a bigger light-collecting area and therefore better performance in low-light conditions with less noise. However, this rule is very inexact and it doesn't hold in many cases. The trend is to lower the CCD size because it also lowers the costs. |
| Does it matter what kind of battery I use? |
| Yes. It is better to have a rechargeable battery with your camera, instead of the regular AA batteries. In fact, many manufacturers are starting to include rechargeable batteries with their cameras because they know that it makes little sense to use regular batteries with their cameras. |
| How do digital cameras work? |
| In contrast to a conventional film camera, in a digital camera the light is focused onto an image sensor called a CCD (charge coupled device). The CCD is a collection of light-sensitive photosites that produce an electric charge when struck by light. These charges are converted into Numbers that are stored in the memory (usually on a memory chip). From there, the whole image can be displayed, sent to a computer, or even printed directly on a printer. |
| How many types of batteries are there for the Digital Camera? |
| Two kinds of batteries are widely available: Ni-CD (Nickel Cadmium) and Ni-MH (Nickel-Metal Hydride). There is a third type of rechargeable battery, Lithium Ion, that is becoming increasingly popular.The advantage of a Lithium Ion battery is that it offers better performance than the other two types. The disadvantage is that they do not come in the standard AA battery size, so you can't use them with most cameras. |
| I'm having trouble downloading photos to my computer with the software that came with my camera. What can I do? |
| Buy a card reader will be a good idea. When you insert the memory card, it will mount to your desktop just like another disc, and you can copy the photos directly to your hard disk. You can then use your favorite photo editing software to retouch your photos. |
| What about MPEG movie modes in digital cameras? |
| Many digital cameras offer the ability to shoot short movies that are saved in the MPEG formats. Unfortunately, the quality of these movies doesn't come close to the movies shot with a camcorder. They are often severely limited in terms of length. Some cameras also don't record sound. TOP |
| What are SLR digital cameras? |
| In an SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera, the user is seeing exactly what the camera is seeing through a series of prisms and mirrors. This becomes important for more advanced photographers. In SLR cameras, it is also possible to interchange lenses and keep the lenses from other cameras. Many digital SLR cameras also offer higher resolution since they are aimed at the pros. The disadvantages of SLR digital cameras are the significantly higher costs, bigger size and weight, and a small delay before the photo is taken because the mirror has to move out of the way before a shot. |
| What digital camera accessories do I need? |
| One major upgrade needed by almost all digital cameras is a higher capacity memory card. You should buy as large a memory card as your camera can accept, as the memory cards that are included with the cameras are usually not nearly big enough to hold a good Number of high quality pictures. Other accessories worth considering are a battery charger, rechargeable batteries, tripod, and a camera case. |
| What does megapixel mean? |
A pixel is a little square that makes up the image on your computer screen. For example, your computer's 17" monitor has a resolution of 1280 pixels wide by 1024 pixels tall. A digital camera's CCD can only capture so many of these pixels, which are then stored in memory, and later transferred to your computer.
If a camera can capture at a resolution of 1280 x 1024 (just like the above monitor), which is a little over 1,300,000 pixels (finding out the total pixels by multiply 1280 x 1024). The word "mega" is taken from the Greek word meaning "great", and usually means "one million". Hence, a camera with 1,000,000 pixels is a 1 Megapixel camera. TOP
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| What is ISO speed? |
| This setting has been adopted from film cameras. It refers to the film's sensitivity to light. Higher ISO speeds are needed to take pictures in worse lighting conditions, however they also cause an increased amount of noise. 100 ISO is the default. At 400 ISO the noise is easily detectable on most cameras. |
| What is JPEG and TIFF? |
Two most popular picture storage formats used by digital cameras are JPEG and TIFF. The JPEG format uses lossy compression (some data judged by the algorithm to be less important to the human viewer is discarded) to achieve small file sizes. The TIFF format uses lossless compression so no information is lost, however the pictures are typically much larger. High-quality JPEG setting is preferable for most uses. |
| What is red-eye reduction? |
| Red-eye effect occurs when the pupils of people's eyes appear to be red in a picture. This effect can be prevented by using the camera's feature of shining the light before a picture is taken, asking the subjects not to look directly at the camera, or using the photo-editing software's red-eye removal feature. |
| What is the deal with the different "quality" settings on my camera? |
Level 1 ISO-9660
This defines names to be the familiar 8+3 convention that MS-DOS users have suffered through for many years: eight characters for the name, a period ("full stop" for those of you in the U.K.), followed by three characters for the file type, all in upper case. Many special characters (space, hyphen, tilde, equals, and plus) are forbidden. There's also a file version Number, separated from the name by a semicolon, but it's often ignored.
Level 2 ISO-9660
It allows longer filenames and deeper directory structures (32 levels instead of 8), but isn't usable on some systems, e.g. MS-DOS.
TOP
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| What is the difference in performance between rechargeable and non-rechargeable batteries? |
| Rechargeable batteries perform a little differently than non-rechargeable batteries. The voltage coming from an Alkaline (non-rechargeable) battery decreases steadily as the battery is discharged. Ni-MH and Li-ion batteries have a lower starting voltage than Alkaline (typically 1.2-1.3V vs. 1.5V for Alkaline), but rechargeables maintain this level until they are almost discharged. One potential problem: the battery life indicator of the camera may be calibrated for alkaline batteries, which could make it somewhat inaccurate. |
| What kind of camera do I need to print out a 4 x 6 inch image or a 8 x 10's? |
Most, if not all, cameras have several image quality settings to choose from. They are first broken down by resolution (e.g. 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200, 1024 x 768, etc) and then by quality (e.g. SHQ, HQ, SQ). What's the right one to use?
The deal is this: quality is inversely proportional to the amount of JPEG compression the camera uses. Thus, a higher quality image will have less compression, and vice versa.
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|
High quality, low compression |
Low quality, high compression |
As you lower the quality and increased the compression, there will be more "artifacts" in your image. The artifacts are a result of the higher JPEG compression. You will notice that edges will seem blurry, or little squares will appear. See the example above for a good illustration of this.
We recommend using the middle setting for everyday shooting. If you're making big prints, consider using the highest quality JPEG level. Skip over TIFF mode, as the quality really isn't any better than high quality JPEG, but they take up much more space on your memory card. TOP
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| What sort of problems will I have with rechargeable batteries? |
| Rechargeable batteries lose their charge sitting in the camera. Ni-MH batteries lose between 1% - 4% of their charge a day. Since many cameras start reporting a low battery at 80% of full charge, the batteries could be reported low in as little as ten days. This Number will vary greatly depending upon the age of the battery, temperature, and camera.
Memory effect was a problem with older Ni-Cd batteries. This problem has been reduced with newer batteries and chargers, though how you use your batteries may also impact performance. Ni-MH batteries do not have this problem, nor do the Li-ion batteries. |
| What's the difference between optical zoom and digital zoom? |
It's important to understand this difference, as you could end up mighty disappointed with the results if you get one rather than the other.
- Optical zoom is similar to what you'll find in a regular 35mm camera: When you push the button to zoom in or out, physical lens elements move inside the camera, to achieve the desired effect.
- Digital zoom, on the other hand, has no moving parts. Using the "electronic brain" within the camera instead, the camera takes a look at what it's "looking at", and digitally zooms in, usually two to four times closer.
The problem with digital zoom is that you lose quality when you do this -- your images will tend to be more "pixelated" than the same image taken with an optical zoom camera. This is due to the "interpolation" the camera uses, which is a nice way of saying that it makes a guess about how the picture should look while zoomed in. Having optical AND digital zoom on a camera isn't bad, but we suggest try to avoid cameras with only digital zoom. TOP |
| Why is there a delay after I push the shutter release button before I can take another picture? |
There are many reasons for this delay. The camera must:
- Set the focus, exposure time, white balance, etc.
- Charge up the CCD
- apparently it can't hold the charge for long, so it does it right before you shoot
- Copy the image out of the CCD into RAM.
- Compress the image after it's been taken
- Write the image to the flash memory.
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| Why my camera reports a low battery after only ten minutes of use? |
| Digital cameras are power high-drain devices. They will take the life out of your battery, particularly if you take a lot of pictures in rapid succession. It is not uncommon for some digital cameras to report a low battery after only ten minutes of use, if you are using the flash and the LCD display at the same time. |
| Will a high resolution camera make better prints than a lower resolution camera? |
| To be more specific: will you get better 4 x 6 inch prints from a 3 or 4 Megapixel camera versus a 2 Megapixel camera? Possibly, but the average person won't notice. The real advantage of a higher resolution camera is that with the larger image size, there's more room to crop images. In terms of quality though, it's not a huge deal. At print sizes like 8 x 10 inch, you will notice a difference. |
| Will an airport X-Ray scanner erase my pictures on a digital camera card? |
| No, the chance of this happening is very remote. |
| Bring a Battery Charger on Trips |
SUMMARY: Even if you have lots of rechargeable AA batteries, you should still bring a charger with you on trips.
First off, if your battery takes AA batteries and you are not using rechargeable batteries, read the other digital camera tips on MalekTips on why you should.
Now, assuming you use rechargeables, and that you take several sets of charged batteries with you on a vacation or photo-shoot, realize that it just makes sense to also bring a battery charger or two with you. When you return to your hotel room, condo, etc. for the evening, after backing up your photos to your laptop or external digital media storage (hint, hint!), take your used-up batteries and give them a recharge. If you are new to digital photography, you might think three or four sets of batteries are enough for a multi-day trip, but you'll be surprised when you start using up a set or two of batteries each day! TOP |
| Battery Conservation Tips |
SUMMARY: Make your digital camera batteries last longer. Here's how.
Are you always running out of battery power just before you take that perfect picture with your digital camera? Here are some tips to conserve your batteries when you are out "snapping away".
1) Turn off your digital camera when not in use. If you are in a situation where you must snap pictures quickly, this may not apply as turning digital cameras on and off take a few seconds, and may cause you to miss a picture-taking opportunity. However, if you are taking a leisurely stroll and can afford a couple of seconds before snapping a still subject, by all means, conserve your digital camera's energy!
2) Many digital cameras have a regular viewfinder and an LCD viewfinder. While the digital LCD viewfinder has its benefits, it can drain battery power. Turn it off when applicable and use your regular viewfinder for taking pictures.
3) Don't stop after taking every photo and look at the picture in your digital camera's playback mode. Granted, you sometimes need to look at photos immediately after shooting them in order to make sure your exposure is correct, the lighting is ok, etc., but doing this does use up your digital camera's battery power.
4) If you are using MicroDrive media, be forewarned that these miniature hard drives may take up quite more power than Compact Flash cards.
Use these tips and you'll save some digital camera battery power for when you want to take that perfect picture. But, of course, the best tip to make sure that you don't run out of power is . . . take some extra charged batteries with you on trips!
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| Keep Extra Batteries Handy! |
SUMMARY: Got a digital camera? Always keep extra batteries handy!
Alright, this is a simple tip and it should be a no-brainer. However, I will mention it anyway, because, as the maxim goes, "common sense is not so common".
Whatever you do, wherever you go, always, ALWAYS bring extra batteries when shooting photos! Cameras suck the power out of batteries quickly, even rechargable ones, so you should always carry extra batteries in your camera bag (you did buy a camera bag to protect your camera from the elements, didn't you?) |
| What is mAh? |
SUMMARY: What does mAh mean when it comes to digital camera batteries?
mAh stands for Milliamp Hour, a technical term for how much power a particular battery will hold. Digital camera batteries with higher mAh values theoretically last longer without requiring a recharge, allowing you to take more photographs before you have to replace your batteries.
It is recommended when placing batteries in a digital camera that their mAh values match. Otherwise, it is possible that one lesser mAh battery will drain before the others, causing extra strain on the remaining batteries or causing your digital camera to not work until all batteries are replaced. |
| Take Batteries Out of the Digital Camera |
SUMMARY: Remove batteries from your digital camera when not in use.
If you are not planning on using your digital camera for a while (months?), it may be wise to take your batteries out of your digital camera for storage. This reduces the chance of battery leakage and corrosion, which can seriously damage your digital camera's internals. TOP |
| Never Charge Incompatible AA Batteries |
SUMMARY: To prevent fire, only insert similar batteries into your battery charger.
Never charge incompatible AA batteries in your AA battery charger! Do not try charging non-rechargeable batteries in a battery charger, or NiCad batteries in a NiMH charger or vice-versa. Also, if you purchase special 'fast-charging' AA NiMH batteries, only insert those in the charger they were made for. Doing otherwise could result in damage to the batteries or the charger, and in some extreme cases, a fire could ensue. |
| Never Get Batteries Wet |
SUMMARY: Water can corrode batteries, damaging them and possibly your digital camera.
If it is raining, or if you are near an area of running water such as a waterfall, be extremely careful when changing out your digital camera battery or batteries. Get a safe distance away from the water or water vapor before you do so. Water can corrode your battery or batteries, possibly causing leakage, and this can damage your digital camera as well if you insert the wet batteries. |
| Combo Media/Battery Wallet |
SUMMARY: Make it easier to find your digital camera memory and batteries.
A media wallet is a great way to store your digital camera memory in one place, reducing the time it may take fumbling through your camera bag. What about your AA NiMH batteries?
Some manufacturers make digital camera accessory cases that can store a couple of media cards and a full set of NiMH batteries, making it easy to find everything in one place. Here are a few companies that produce such products; note that these manufacturers are listed for informational purposes only.
* Case Logic
* DigiCase
* HAMA
* OmegaSatter
* Pro-Pix
Check with your local camera store or online outlets for products from the above manufacturers. TOP |
| Don't Use Alkaline AA - Use Rechargeables |
SUMMARY: Why you should use rechargeable batteries with your digital camera.
If your digital camera supports AA batteries, read the camera manual and check to see if it also supports a kind of battery called NiMH. These batteries tend to last much longer than most standard alkaline AA batteries - plus, they are rechargeable, so they can be re-used for quite a long time. Granted, the cost of four NiMH batteries plus a charger is more expensive than four alkaline batteries, but you'll more than make up the difference in costs once you recharge and use the batteries a few times.
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| Consider Buying a Media Wallet |
SUMMARY: Protect your digital camera memory from the elements.
Tired of juggling with your digital camera media packed into individual hard plastic cases? You may want to consider purchasing a digital media wallet. While protecting your media from outside elements, a digital media wallet lets you organize all your CompactFlash or other cards into one convenient place. If you decide to purchase a media wallet, make sure to buy one with plenty of pockets so you can separate your used versus unused (empty) cards.
You should be able to find a digital media wallet at your local camera store. Make sure to purchase one that matches your media type and size. |
| Recycle Your NiMH Batteries |
SUMMARY: Don't throw away your old rechargeable AA batteries - they are recyclable.
Have your AA NiMH batteries stopped accepting a charge? If so, you may be tempted to throw them away. Instead of doing this, consider contacting your battery manufacturer, local recycling agency, or waste management center to see if they can recycle your dead battery.
For a location of places you can drop off your rechargeable batteries, you may also wish to visit the following website (provided for informational purposes only). The RBRC has a simple form you can fill out to find recycling points across the USA and Canada.
The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation - http://www.rbrc.org/ TOP |
| Batteries in Cold Weather |
SUMMARY: Bring along extra batteries if you plan on taking photos in the cold winter months.
If you plan on taking digital photos in colder weather, such as right after a snowstorm, note that batteries may hold their power for shorter periods of time than in warmer weather. You may either want to bring extra batteries during your photo shoot or look for digital camera batteries specially rated to handle colder temperatures.
Why does this occur? Check out the following website:
Why do Batteries Discharge More Quickly in Cold Weather? - http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/blbattery.htm |
| Keep Playback to a Minimum |
SUMMARY: Using the playback mode of your digital camera may wear out your batteries.
I know it can be tempting to show your friends and family pictures you take with a digital camera immediately afterwards, but try to keep image playback to a minimum while you are still out taking pictures. Picture playback can drain batteries, and nothing is worse than seeing something great to photograph and watching your camera's battery meter flash empty. Just politely tell your friends and family that as soon as you are done shooting, you'll be happy to run a slideshow of the photos.
Of course, feel free to play back one or two photos while you are out having fun; just don't take 100 photos and show people the results of every single image capture. TOP |
| Use an Add-On NiMH Power Pack |
SUMMARY: Get more use out of your old AA NiMH batteries.
If your digital camera only supports proprietary batteries, see if it also supports an add-on power pack that uses AA NiMH batteries.
If you have many extra AA NiMH batteries from previous digital cameras or other digital technology purchases, a battery pack may be a wise investment. Though a power pack may add a little weight to the camera and cost more than a couple of proprietary batteries, it may save money in the long run if you have plenty of NiMH's that would otherwise no longer be useful in your new digital camera. |
| Don't Mix and Match Brands and Types |
SUMMARY: To prevent possible damage, only insert similar digital camera batteries.
To prevent possible damage, only insert similar digital camera batteries.
Don't mix different rechargeable AA NiMH batteries together in the same digital camera. For example, don't put in two Rayovacs, one Energizer, and one Duracell. This may damage the batteries or digital camera.
Batteries may have different amounts of power. For example, I have batteries containing the following amounts:
* 1400 mAh
* 1600 mAh
* 1700 mAh
* 1850 mAh
If you put different types of batteries in your digital camera, assuming the camera even works (which it may not), one battery may run out before others do, rendering the camera useless until you recharge all the batteries or insert a new set.
Either make sure you use same brand and type of batteries when inserting batteries into a digital camera, or commit to buying just one type and brand of battery. Even if you do the latter, make sure the mAh powers match. TOP |
