Digital Photography 101: Understanding Your Digital Camera

Are you transitioning from a traditional film camera to the digital format? The similarities between the two are significant, but there are some key differences that may cause confusion. In this article, we will guide you through the essential parts of a digital camera to help you navigate this transition seamlessly.

1. The LCD Screen: A Clear Window to Your Shot

    

One of the most obvious distinctions between digital and film cameras is the presence of the LCD screen. Acting as a preview window, the LCD screen allows users to see exactly what their shot will look like before capturing it. Gone are the days of relying solely on the viewfinder! Furthermore, the LCD screen provides valuable information about the camera, such as battery life and other settings.

2. Storage Media Slot: Safeguarding Your Digital Memories

   

Unlike film cameras that house the film on the back, digital cameras utilize storage media to store your images. The type and location of the storage media slot can vary among different digital camera models. To find the precise location of this slot, consult your camera's user manual for guidance.

3. Data Transfer: From Camera to Computer

   

To transfer the pictures you have taken, you have a couple of options. You can physically remove the storage media card from your camera and insert it into a card reader on your computer. Alternatively, you can connect your camera directly to your computer using a USB cable or other available ports, eliminating the need for a separate card reader.

Mastering the Basics of Your Digital Camera

Understanding the fundamental components of your digital camera is crucial for capturing stunning photographs. Familiarizing yourself with the LCD screen, storage media slot, and data transfer methods will help you unleash the full potential of your device. Stay tuned for more helpful tips and tricks on our digital photography blog.

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Digital Photography Explained

Welcome to the exciting world of digital photography! The journey of digital photography began in the late 1980s to the mid-1990s when digital cameras became commercially available. Since then, many individuals have stored away their film cameras and embraced the wonders of digital photography.

Before we delve into the intricate details of digital cameras, it's crucial to understand what digital photography truly entails. In simple terms, digital photography involves capturing images and saving them in a digital format. Even a scanned photograph can be considered a digital photograph.

The preference for digital photography over film stems from various reasons. Firstly, one of the greatest advantages is the instant gratification it offers. With digital photography, you can immediately review the results of your shot. This allows photographers to quickly assess and decide if they are satisfied with the outcome, saving time and resources. In contrast, film photography requires the printing of all photographs, including those that may not meet expectations, leading to unnecessary expenses.

Additionally, digital photography provides a wide range of options for sharing your images. You can effortlessly send them via email, burn them onto discs, transmit them using Bluetooth technology, or even print them just like traditional film photographs. The convenience and versatility of digital formats have made sharing and distributing photographs easier than ever before.

While many embrace the benefits of digital photography, there are still purists who remain loyal to film. They argue that film photographs possess a unique quality, capturing lifelike images that digital cameras struggle to replicate. However, with the continuous advancements in digital camera technology, it's only a matter of time before even the staunchest film enthusiasts are impressed by the remarkable results achievable with digital cameras.

So join us on this captivating journey into the realm of digital photography. Explore the intricacies of digital cameras, discover helpful techniques, and unlock the full potential of this remarkable medium. Whether you're an amateur enthusiast or a seasoned professional, digital photography offers endless possibilities for creativity and expression. Stay tuned for more insightful articles and tips to enhance your digital photography skills.

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The Underwater World Captured With Photography

Underwater photography is growing every year, those who go diving wish to bring the diving world visible to those who do not dive.  We have always been fascinated with the oceans and bays of the world as an unknown world.  Bringing vacation pictures home to your friends or selling them as professionals has been a time honored tradition and now we can bring the underwater world home through the use of digital photography.

There are many types of underwater cameras.  You have the highly expensive professional cameras and the one time slightly effective versions.  Knowing which camera will work for you is very important.  Part of finding the right camera may lie with in the housing you wish to purchase.  Underwater photography requires you to protect your camera from the harmful affects of water so you will have to purchase housing with seals to eliminate the water.  

The housing you find may fit the camera you have.  In fact, most companies will sell the housing for the cameras you have.  If you find you, need a better camera for the underwater world you will need to look at packages.  These packages will include the housing.


Let us look at the 35mm cameras.  Most of these cameras are just point and

shoot.  If they were meant for underwater chances are they have at least a mild filter to correct for the lack of color underwater.  These cameras will not filter out the particles you find floating along in the water on a poor visible day.  Usually they are limited to less than 100 feet.  I would not use this type for anything below 80 feet.  You would not want to loose pictures because the housing failed under pressure.  While this is not common, it is a concern for most photographers.

The more professional cameras are larger with a huge lens to let light in as well as have filters to help bring clarity to any photograph.  Typically, these cameras require you to have a deep-set hobby in underwater photography, as the expense is high.  Digital cameras are the best way to take underwater photographs because you can make sure you have the desired affects before leaving the seen.  Of course, most underwater life will not hang around for a second shot, but coral reefs and the animals that inhabit them may remain.  

Most underwater cameras will also have a flash.  It is best to take an underwater photography course before delving to far in your hobby.  Sometimes the flash will help you with the photographs, but other times it will wash the subject out and ruin the print.  You can also use underwater cameras when you are snorkeling.  Some flashes are built in to the camera while others are external.  The external flashes can be a stick with a little light bulb on top.

When storing your underwater camera and flash you usually want to store them

without the batteries as the batteries can die quickly.  This is mostly for the cameras that use double AA batteries.  Underwater photography is a great world to take home with you especially if you are on a dive vacation.  Underwater photography requires a few more skills than regular photography due to the lighting conditions, but once you understand them you will be bring home great pictures every time.  

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Getting Your Groove Back: Unique Perspective, Critical Angle, happy trigger finger and mind-blowing

Creative photography may be the most demanding of them all.  That is because unlike commercial photography, your boss is your creative imagination and the artistic marketplace.  And who knows from one week to the next what is considered artistic and what isn’t. 

It isn’t just poetic license that we are using when we talk about you following your creative muse when you use your photography as an expression of your art.  You can look at a hundred settings and scenes and only you can know if any have the raw materials for a great artistic piece using your camera.  It’s a huge drain on your emotional system and your creative side but it is also one of the most satisfying things you can do.  And if you can make a living at it, so much the better.

But one of the problems any artist has is when that muse just won’t talk to you for a while.  Never mind if you have orders in or deadlines that mean that you have to be creative on a schedule.  She just won’t cooperate.  So we need some tricks to get around these little dry spells and ways to can coax that muse back to work.

One trick is to use the normal highs and lows of your creative side.  You know that when it comes to inspiration, its either feast or famine.  Sometimes the creativity explodes like a volcano and you have to pick and choose only the best stuff to work on right away.  Well when that flow is exploding, take some time and get some of that inspiration recorded.  An inspiration journal either on paper or on tape can be used to capture it as fast as it comes out of that side of your soul.

Now this is where you are outsmarting that muse.  When the well dries up, that inspiration journal can carry you through.  You can start plucking the ideas out of there and developing them.  Don’t worry if you don’t “feel” creative.  You can ride the momentum of your creative high to keep your work moving forward.  

The other great thing about using your journal is often reading your inspiration from when things were popping in your imagination, that will prime the pump and get the fresh inspiration going again.

Above all, don’t panic when you feel your creative engines grind to a halt.  Sometimes a day or so of rest will turn things around.  Or go and see some artistic work done by others at the local museum.  Seeing your fellow artists best work can do wonders to start the flow of ideas coming your way again.

Creative funks are as much a part of the process of creativity as the flow of ideas are.  So give yourself permission to go through dry spells and don’t run yourself down about it.  A trip into your archives to review your best work from the past is a great moral booster and it will help you remember that, yes, you are a creative person and, yes, you have done good work before and so, yes, you will do good work again.

The final trick is to give yourself permission to create some crap.  In other words, don’t stifle the restarting of your creative mind by holding it to too high a standard of quality in every idea you get.  You know from previous times of great creative flow that the good ideas come out with the bad.  It doesn’t help to try to edit them as they flow.  So by telling yourself, I am going to go make some bad art, that liberates your creative side to just be free to express as it wills.  It could be that such a trick may be all it takes to unstop the pipe and get the creativity going again.

But it will flow again and you need to have the confidence that it will.  And when it does the creative photography you start producing will be as good or better than anything you have done before.

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Canon SLR Digital Camera Taking Photography To A Higher Level

As a photography enthusiast or even a newbie, you probably have been looking around shops for a good camera. With all the new models coming out and seemingly highly mechanized systems, you might find yourself in the middle of doubt and confusion. Which camera should you get? What is the advantage of one model over the other? Does it necessarily mean that bigger cameras give better results? To give you a hint, the elements of a certain camera system (flash units, lenses, etc) is more important to consider than the model itself. Canon SLR Digital Camera surfaces satisfaction for every element. The following is an overview of this camera.

Before going into the general picture, let us discuss the basics. The acronym SLR means single-lens reflex. From the term, it simply means that the camera has one lens that is used for picture-taking and view finding. It gives you command over a wide choice of settings that affects the quality of the photos you take. As you look through the viewfinder, you are directly looking through the picture-taking lens. What you see then will be pretty exactly what will be in the final outcome. Canon SLR Digital Camera offers this fantastic feature for you to even more enjoy photography.

Digital camera or also known as digicam is a camera that takes still photos or videos or both digitally. This means that it records images by means of electronic image sensor. Canon SLR Digital Camera obviously offers this option. When compared to a film camera, digital cameras are more convenient. It immediately displays images on a screen after they are shot. Images of film cameras are numbered; the image you take is what comes out. Digital cameras on the other hand can store thousands of images in a memory device and it also gives you the option to delete images and lets you choose whether or not to print a certain image.

But wait, you say, other cameras offer these features too. Indeed, you can find these features in other cameras but Canon SLR Digital Camera offers you more than just that. High-performance digital imaging is at its reach with this in hand. All the great features you see from different SLR cameras are perfectly combined in Canon SLR Digital Camera with its advanced color processing technology and imaging. It is the ideal tool to improve your pictures as it offers high quality images for transmission, archiving or reproduction, digital image editing and many more.

Canon SLR Digital Camera also comes with uncommon features like dust control, image stabilization, live view, and extra dynamic range. Additionals, however, come into place as you go to a higher level of camera group (consumer, semi-professional, professional and über-professional). Depending on what group you belong, you still get the total satisfaction from a Canon SLR Digital Camera because it caters to every level and photography experience. With all these within your reach, photography will never be the same again. Taking your photography skills to another level is not as difficult as before.

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