digital camra storage: jpg or tiff?

In which format does my camera store pictures?

Pocket cameras store pictures in usually these two formats:

TIFF: This is a very high quality format of photos, but the picture takes a lot of memory. A usual 5 MP picture in TIFF format can be of about 15 megabites -  a very big file size to handle. Because of this, many pocket cameras do not have the option to save files in TIFF format.

JPEG or JPG: This is the most common format in which pocket cameras – and also PCs and websites -  keep pictures. The camera converts the big picture into a small .jpg picture through a ‘lossy’ compression. In most cases, howev er, the loss is not of much impact.

Some manufacturers keep their pictures in their proprietary formats, but that is mostly with high-end cameras.

Nowadays, .jpg is the standard format in which most pocket cameras keep photos. If your camera gives you the option to keep photos in formats other than .jpg, go for .jpg only. In case you want to go for other formats, consider this: (i) Photos  in TIFF or other formats such as RAW and NEF will usually take more space on the camera memory or the memory-card / memory stick. So, you will be able to take fewer photos if you don’t have enough memory available on camera or cards / sticks etc; and (ii) The photos in formats other than JPG will be of higher intrinsic quality. If you later edit the photo on a professional photo editing software, you will get better results from a TIFF photo than a JPG.

One word of caution about handling JPG files: If you load a .jpg picture from your camera into a picture viewing program and then close it, no harm done. However, if you save it again, chances are that the software compresses the file further and there is more loss in quality. With one or two such actions, the picture’s quality may become perceptibly poor. So, (i) Do not edit the original file but take a copy and edit it; (ii) check the compression setting on the picture viewing program at the time of saving a .jpg file.

Inter-changeable lens pocket cameras: win win!

The new generation of pocket cameras launched by all major manufacturers come with big lenses that give fantastic results – in some cases comparing with highly expensive digital single-lens reflex cameras [DSLRs] or the professional cameras. Yet, they are relatively very less expensive. For example, the Sony Nex 3 – among the first in this series – now comes for around Rs. 20,000.

These cameras can be fitted with professional lenses with different zoom capacities and filters. Of course, if you buy such lenses, the cost can go mani-fold.

Where these camera score over pocket cameras with smaller lenses is they have big lenses and a large sensor. So, there is more light, and more detailed and rich photos. It is another plus point that the photos are also  large [up to 14.2 megapixel]. Besides, there are many aperture and speed steps. Since these are high-end pocket cameras, they have noise reduction, high quality video recording, image stabilization, and many more controls. The video quality is also good.

These cameras are also much less bulky than the DSLRs and so can be a great choice for travel / wildlife photography.

So, if you are planning to buy a pocket camera but will like to get very high quality pics, go for this new series of cameras [Sony: Next3, Nex 5, Nex 7; Nikon 1 J1; Canon Powershot G11; etc] . If you can afford a few dollars / rupees more, it is worth investing that much more money in this category of cameras. These days, there is good demand for quality stock photos - and such photos can be sold through many photo selling websites. While ordinary pocket cameras do not always capture photos that meet professional standards, photos taken with these inter-changeable lense pocket cameras are fine enough.

Setting the correct ISO level on the digital camera

One of the settings that you can change in digital cameras is ISO setting. ISO number refers to the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor to  light. Most pocket cameras have a standard normal ISO of 100 and it can be raised up to 1600 or even more.  More the number, more sensitive the sensor becomes to light and so you can take pictures in low light too.

Why should I not always keep a high ISO becaasue pocket cameras tend to get low light in many situations?

Raising ISO leads to grainy  or noisy look of the photo. The colors, instead of transiting smoothly over different parts of the object, seem to have differentiated into ugly dark and light grains of different colors.  If you have an old pocket camera, chances are that the picture would be grainy even at ISO of 400 or 800; however, newer cameras use new technology that reduces noise over higher ISO settings.

But ISO is very useful in these situations:

• When there is dim light but you cannot use flash, e.g. in museums;
• When reducing shutter speed to get more light will lead to shake either because of shaking of the camera or movement of the object [and yet you cannot use flash];
• When the light is very dim and you need to use more than one techniques for getting maximum light. In such situations, you are often left with no choice: if you don't take picture with high ISO, you may be left with no picture at all.  

Taking photos in low light with pocket digital camera

My pocket camera gives dark pictures with poor details. What should I do?

Pocket cameras have many limitations and yet, if used properly, these can give stunning pictures. In this post, we are limiting ourselves to low-light conditions. In many cameras, we find that pictures taken in dim light, even with flash, have poor details. Everything looks to have been enveloped by a bluish or grayish mist. If you use the computer’s photo viewing software to brighten it, the photo looks washed in white. Such problems can be overcome if you apply your mind to the available light while shooting.

Remember that poorly lit photos can be improved only marginally with an editing software such as Photoshop. So, do not think that loss of picture quality can be fully corrected by photoshopping it.

Use natural light; use all the available day light that you can. However, take care not to have too much light, especially too much of direct sunlight and reflected light [as near a snow-covered mountain].  

Usually go for multi-point focus. This will help the camera in calculating the correct auto settings based on the average light falling on the main object and its surroundings. if the main object is poorly lit and the background is bright, go for single point focus setting.

Take more than one shot of the same frame in three or more light settings. In most cameras, this multi-shot facility is in-built. Choose the best photo and discard others.

If there is low light, avoid focusing on a bright object. It will make the surroundings very dark.

Change partial settings. These are allowed in all cameras. Changing the ISO setting from the normal 100 to 200 will give you double the exposure; keeping the aperture to the lowest available value will give the maximum light to the lens; keeping the shutter speed to a low level [1/20 - 1/30 seconds] will give better light as compared to higher speeds. However, do not raise ISO to a high level or the photo will be grainy. Do not reduce the shutter speed below this level or the picture might shake.

If the camera has setting for over- or under- exposure, use that, but only by one or two stages.

Use flash even during day settings unless the main object is well lit. If ‘auto flash’ or ‘filler flash’ settings are there in the camera, use them.

When using flash in low light, go close to the main object. Flashes in pocket cameras are no effective beyond 7-8 feet.

In very dim light conditions, use night setting. However, be careful since even a slight shake of hand will spoil the photo. To avoid shake, use a tripod or at least keep the camera stationed on some solid platform.

digital cameras: optical and digital zoom

Cameras come with two types of zooms: optical and digital. 

Optical zoom is the zooming capacity [=the capacity to enlarge] of the lens. This is the real zoom. It is achieved by a lens combination. Expensive cameras mostly have lenses with high zoom range. Still more expensive cameras have one regular lens and a number of zoom lenses that can be fitted in place of the regular lens. The bulky cameras with very long hood as seen with sports and wildlife photographers have lenses with zooms of even 2000 times. However, the size and depth of the pocket camera poses a severe limitation on optical zoom. In most pocket cameras, zooms of 2 to 30-40 times are available.

For normal cameras used for general day-to-day photography and amateur travel photography, a zoom of around 3-4 times is good enough. In most cases, you end up using the camera without zoom.

Zoom should not be used without applying mind. When you use zoom, the lenses adjust themselves in a manner that a smaller portion of the scene is captured and is blown into a bigger size than normal. This leads to some distortion in the apparent distance between the distant and near objects [called ‘depth of field, to be discussed separately]. It also reduces the focus of the picture beyond the main object.  

Why is digital zoom not useful?

Digital zoom is nothing but artificial shortening of image taken by the camera sensor and then expanding it to a higher size. It is like cutting the sides of a photo print of 10” x 8” by 2” and then stretching the 8” x 6” photo back to 10” x 8”. So, this zoom spoils the photo rather than adding anything to it.

So don’t get fooled by ‘4x digital zoom ‘ or ‘12x total zoom’. In calculating this ‘total zoom’, manufacturers and sellers multiply the optical and digital zoom capacities of the camera.

Cellphone-cameras usually have digital zoom only. These cameras already suffer from a poor quality lens and other aspects; applying digital zoom tends to further spoil the quality of photos taken with such cameras.

Canon Powershot A 810

Canon Powershot A 810 is a basic camera but with great feature at this price [less than $85, Rs. 3500]. It is a good camera if you do not want to experiment too much with aperture and speed, and do not have to do low-light photography. Great for travel. 

It produces good and very colorful photos in proper lighting. Yes, keep the lighting in mind and use flash when in doubt.

Use rechargeable Asian Age batteries. Keep extra batteries if going out in the field for a long time.

Its 10 megapixel photo size is very high and you need not bother about it.

It has 3.3 x zoom. It means, you can increase the size of objects by 3.3 times of the usual size. Use it when taking photos from a distance. But it is better not to use zoom when not required. Avoid ‘digital zoom’

It can take good quality video but without zoom. The quality is not very good but passable; you get only such quality from this range of point-and-shoot cameras. Keep light in mind and do not move camera too much during shooting.

How important is ‘megapixel’ for a camera?

We have given this matter a high priority because most beginners into digital photography are confused about it, and most camera sellers confuse buyers with this.

A pixel is the basic unit of measurement of a picture. These tiny squares when joined in thousands make a big picture. These days, pocket cameras and even mobile-phone cameras come with a high pixel rating, in the range of 3 to about 40 megapixel. What a 5 megapixel photo means that the photo is made up of about 5 million pixels. It will roughly have 2592 x 1944 pixel [width x height]. When the senor of the camera takes a photo, it puts a vaule to each pixel. This value represents the color and other qualities of the small part of photo that it represents. When we see the photo on a computer screen or print it, the pixel shows up these qualities.

A big picture has two main advantages: One. When you want to print a picture with lower size into large sizes, it will not print well. The photo will break into sqaurish patterns rather than being a smooth picture. This simple calculation will show this:

A picture of the size given above [= 2592 x 1944 pixels] when printed at 320 dpi, can give fine prints of about 8” x 6” [because 2592 pixels will approximately fill 8 inch width if 320 pixels are printed in one inch]. But if you print it to a higher size, the quality will sharptly deteriorate.  [This dpi is dots per inch and it shows how fine the printing quality will be. A higher dpi will usually result in better print, other things being equal.]

The second advantage of high pixel numbers is that you can ‘crop’ [=cut and remove unwanted portion from an image] a big photo and the photo will still be good. But if you try to remove some unwanted areas from a small image [=with less pixels], the remaining photo may turn out to be very small.

Beyond what has been said above, pixel numbers are not very important. There are numerous other aspects relating to lens, sensor, lighting, camera settings and the expertise of the photographer that are important for the quality of a photo.

Basic but good digital cameras in Delhi

The most popular basic cameras that are good too arte listed below. As of June-July 2012, these are in the range of $100 or Rs. 5000 or less:

Canon Powershot A 810: 10 megapixel; 3 x zoom

Sony Cybershot DSC W 330/ 350: 14 megapixel; 4x zoom

Nikon Coolpix S30: 10 megapixel; 3 x zoom

All these come from good companies. The problem with Sony is that you have special batteries. If the batteries drain during your holiday, you cannot put normal AA/ AAA batteries into them.

Digital camera basics - an elementary post for the very beginner

In this post, we’ll be talking about a basic pocket camera.

A simple pocket camera has the following main components that take and store the picture:

The lens is the main optical part in front of any camera. The light from the object goes into the camera through a small aperture behind which a lens is situated. Lens quality therefore matters a lot in cameras. You must have seen big lenses in cameras used by professional photographers. These lenses are very powerful in different qualities and are very expensive. A pocket camera usually has a fixed lens. There are two very important aspects relating to a lens assembly are the aperture and zoom. We’ll talk about these later.

The light then enters what we call the sensor. It is the real eye of a digital camera. It analyses various characteristics of the light entering the camera, such as light intensity, colors, specific properties of different objects in the scene, and so on. The size and quality of sensor decides how clear, focused, well-lit and detailed a picture would be.

The picture so taken then gets stored in the camera. Cameras also allow you to have external storing devices such as ‘micro-SD' memory cards. Pictures can be stored in various formats, the main ones being .jpg. 

All pocket cameras have a view-finder and a display panel on the back of the camera. There are a number oaf dials and buttons that allow you to change verious settings. Most cameras have inbuilt modes for night photography, scenic photography, portrait photography etc.  Most cameras have an in-built flash but it is usually not very effective under low light conditions.All cameras also have a 'USB' port that allows you to transfer photos to a PC or laptop. Some cameras allow such transfers through wireless and internet too.  

Finally all camras must have a power source. Mostly it is provided by batteries. In some models, special batteries are provided by the manufacturer, but in most other cases, heavy duty regular cells of AA / AAA sizes are used. Since digital cameras take a lot of load, re-chargeable batteries are more cost effective.

Many terms are often thrown at novices by camera sellers and others. We explain below some popular jargons often used in connection with digital cameras:

Pixel: It only means a small unit of measurement of a picture's size. Picture sizes are therefore measured in pixels. A 5 megapixel camera can take up to 5 million pixel sized photo. A bigger pixel size does not necessarily mean good quality of photo, as we will discuss later.

Zoom. Zoom means how big an object looks in a photo or when you look through the display panel / viewfinder. A higher zoom allows you to take good photos of distant objects that otherwise look small. However, the really useful zoom in  a camera is only the optical zoom, not 'digital' zoom that many cameras mention. When you take photos with higher zoom, the photo may lose picture quality and focus.

Macro. Cameras have a special setting called macro for taking photos of very small objects such as insects or a detail in some very small object. 

Auto-focus. Most cameras have the capacity to focus on their own, without your having to adjust anything. You just put the camera on 'auto' mode and keep clicking. That's why the pocket cameras are also called 'point and shoot' cameras.

More in the detailed posts.