Televisions > Create high-quality images with Digital cameras

Create high-quality images with Digital cameras

Digital cameras have recently grown in popularity because
of their increasing image quality and easy interaction with
desktop PCs. Digital cameras create high-quality images
that allow you to send to others over the Internet or print on
a color printer. Red Hat Linux supports several brands of
digital cameras and has applications that help you access,
view, and modify your digital photographs.

digital camera has many advantages. It saves you money
in the long run because you don??t have to buy rolls and
rolls of film and you don??t have to pay for development.
You don??t have to go to the store to drop off an then pick up
your pictures.

A digital camera shows you the images
before they are printed, an if you don??t like it, you simply
delete them.
Digital photographs are incredibly easy to distribute and
use. You can insert them into word processing documents,
send them to friends by email, or place them on a website
where anyone in the world can seem them. You can also
connect your digital camera to the TV and show them like
a slide show. It??s like instant photography without the film
costs.
You can also use photo-editing programs to improve your
pictures. Red eyes are easily removed, you can change
colors or contrasts, element can be deleted or added?? It??s
like a darkroom without the chemicals.

Some digital
cameras are also capable of capturing sound an video.
They are so useful that they are being incorporated into
more and more devices like PDAs and cell phones. This
way you can send your images to other phones or post
them on the internet.

Digital cameras have recently grown in popularity because
of their increasing image quality and easy interaction with
desktop PCs. Digital cameras create high-quality images
that allow you to send to others over the Internet or print on
a color printer. Red Hat Linux supports several brands of
digital cameras and has applications that help you access,
view, and modify your digital photographs.

Shopping for a digital camera can be a difficult task
considering the sheer number of choices out there.

The
number of manufacturers, models, and price ranges that
need to be sorted out
make the process difficult enough, but throw in all the
buzz-words that need to be understood, and even a short
list of cameras can become difficult to analyze.

This Tech Tip will take a look at a few key words that may
come up when researching a digital camera,
and will hopefully reduce the headaches associated with
the process.

Pixels

Digital images are composed of thousands or millions of
tiny squares called picture elements, or pixels for short.
Each square has its own color assigned to it, and the
compilation of all of these little colored squares allows for
images to appear smooth when viewed at original size. If
an image is magnified several times, the appearance of
the pixels can become more obvious, and at high
magnifications each colored pixel can be distinguished
individually.

Megapixels

Basically, the term megapixel means one million pixels,
and it is used to describe the maximum number of pixels
found in an image produced by a digital camera. It is
generally the criteria used to classify cameras, and
checking the Geeks.com selection
(http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=CAM) shows that
their cameras are all sorted into ranges of megapixels
(MP).

Many people assume that because cameras are marketed
so heavily by their megapixel specification, that this is the
single most important criteria when choosing a camera.
More megapixels do not necessarily equal better images,
they mean larger images (both in physical size and in file
size).

The megapixel count is achieved by multiplying the
number of pixels in one horizontal line by the number of
pixels in one vertical line.

So, if a camera can produce
images at a maximum resolution of 1600 by 1200 pixels, it
is a 1.92 megapixel (1,920,000 pixel) camera.

It is not fair to assume that the images from the 5.0 MP
Kodax CX7525 are automatically better than those from
the 4.0 MP Kodak CX7430 strictly based on their
megapixel count. All it means is that the maximum image
size of the CX7525 is 2560 x 1920 and the maximum
image size of the LS743 is 2408 x 1758. Many other
features in the cameras can impact the quality of the
images they produce, and may be far more important for
the typical user to consider than the maximum overall size
of each image.

Larger image size may do nothing for a user who only
wants to view images on his computer screen, or for use
on the web, but the higher megapixel images are
important for those looking to make prints of their images.
Generally, higher pixel counts in an image translate to the
ability to create larger prints.

Sensors ?C CMOS and CCD

Digital cameras use a small sensor to capture the image
before transferring it to flash memory for storage.
Equivalent to a negative in a film camera, these sensors
come in a variety of sizes, with most being between 20 and
40 millimeters squared.

There are two types of sensors
that may be found in cameras: CCD (Charged Couple
Device) and CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide
Semiconductor). CMOS sensors are usually found in
cheaper cameras and offer lower image quality than a
CCD sensor that would probably be found in a more
expensive camera.

There is an exception to the rule that CCD is better than
CMOS, and that is with the Digital SLR-type (Single Lens
Reflex) cameras. They use a much larger sensor (greater
than 300 millimeters squared) and can provide excellent
image quality, but the quality does come with a much
higher price tag.

Zoom ?C Optical and Digital

Most digital cameras offer some sort of zoom, but it is
important to identify which type is being provided. Optical
zoom functions just as on a film camera, where the lens
physically moves to produce the magnification. Digital
zoom uses circuitry to enlarge a portion of the standard
sized image and crops the content outside of the zoomed
area.

The quality of images produced using digital zoom
suffer due to the nature of the process, and optical zoom is
a far more desirable feature.

The price of a camera with optical zoom may be a good
deal more than one with digital zoom, but the quality of the
images cannot be compared. The Kodak CX7330 and the
Kodak CX7300 are comparable cameras in many regards,
but the CX7300 features only digital zoom, while the
CX7330 features both optical and digital zoom for about
$30 more.

Memory - Digital Film

The two important things to consider when choosing flash
memory for a digital camera is that the right format is
chosen, and that a quality module is chosen that can
record quickly and be ready for the next picture as soon as
possible. A photographer looking to snap a rapid series of
high resolution images on their Kodak DX7440 has many
options in SD (secure digital) memory to choose from but,
they would be far better off with something like the SanDisk
Ultra II SD card capable of a sustained write speed of 9
MB/s, than with a generic SD card capable of a burst speed
rated at only 2.5MB/s.

Aliasing

Even if you think you know the basic definition of this term,
it may seem confusing in the context of digital cameras.
Aliasing refers to the appearance of jagged edges
generally seen on diagonal or curved surfaces in images.
This effect is caused by the fact that all pixels are square,
and that even non-square shapes in an image need to be
created with square components.

The solution to aliasing is not surprisingly called ??anti-
aliasing.?? Through software, the edges generally affected
by aliasing are blended and the jagged appearance can
be made much smoother.

Video game enthusiasts may be
familiar with anti-aliasing and the impact the varying levels
of it can have on the overall performance of game play.
Although the technology is similar, the personal
importance of having the best digital images possible
makes applying anti-aliasing just about a no-brainer.

Aspect Ratio

Aspect ratio describes the shape of a digital image, or any
image for that matter, where the first number represents
the width of the image and the second number represents
the height. People may be familiar with the term as applied
to televisions (as 16:9 wide screen televisions are now all
the rage to replace traditional 4:3 units), and the concept is
the same here.

Standard film cameras generally use an aspect ratio of 3:2,
but most digital cameras have adopted a 4:3 aspect ratio
so that images better fit on a standard computer monitor.
Monitors with typical resolutions of 800x600, 1024x768, or
1280x960, for example, all have an aspect ratio of 4:3, so it
only makes sense to produce images that will fit well on
these screens. Although images can be manipulated to
print on any size paper, special photo-quality paper is
available to allow for high-quality prints to be made at the
correct aspect ratio.

Connectivity

The pictures taken by a digital camera have to be extracted
by some means in order to get them onto a computer, or
perhaps directly onto a printer.

In general, cameras
provide a cable to connect to a computer either via serial,
USB, USB 2.0, or Firewire.

Serial ports are just about extinct at this point due to their
slow connection speeds and lack of plug-and-play support,
but some older or lower-end models may still offer serial
connectivity.

USB may be the most common form of connectivity, and if
speed is important to you, look specifically for USB 2.0
support, as it is up to 40 times faster.

Some specialized cameras may take advantage of the
high speed Firewire protocol for connecting to a computer.
Just about all modern computers come with at least a pair
of USB ports, but not all computers include Firewire.
Firewire capabilities can be added to any computer with an
available PCI slot by using an expansion card such as this
one.

Some cameras don??t require any cables at all, as they can
transmit the images to a PC wirelessly. The Concord EyeQ
is such a camera that utilizes Bluetooth technology in lieu
of wires.

Even with all the modes of transmitting images listed so
far, one other method may serve as a universal
replacement for all of them. Many people find flash
memory card readers to be a quick and convenient
alternative to using the camera??s native means of
connecting.

You simply remove the memory from the slot
on the camera and pop it into the appropriate slot on the
reader, and then the computer system can access the card
like a local disk drive.

Final Words

Every high-tech field has its own set of specific buzz words,
and digital photography is no different. Although by no
means an exhaustive resource of digital photography
terminology, this Tech Tip provides insight to a few key
terms worth knowing in order to make shopping for a
digital camera just a bit easier.
.

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