Tutorial Two: Digital Camera use and application – 20th February 2009

“New technologies are never totally superior to the older technologies they attempt to replace.”
This concept can be seen with digital cameras. A digital camera is an electronic device used to capture and store photographs electronically in a digital format – instead of using photographic film like conventional cameras. There are many pluses and minuses about digital cameras compared to the more conventional film camera. With a digital camera people are able to see their photos as they take them therefore if the photo hasn’t worked out they have the opportunity to re take the photo, whereas with film you cannot preview therefore never know how the photos will turn out. Digital photos can be distributed easily as they can be loaded onto a computer. Therefore they can be emailed, added to disk or put on a USB. Film photos can only be developed as a photo on paper. Once digital photos are loaded onto the computer they can then be manipulated or changed. For example cropped or red eyes removed. This is once again efficient in making sure you have a good photo. With a film photo, once taken they cannot be changed.
A minus of using a digital camera is people tend to leave photos on the camera or saved on the computer and never actually get them printed out. Therefore if technology failed they may lose all their photos. With film photos you must get them printed to actually see the photos. This is great as you then have a hard copy of the photo. A minus of the film photo is that once printed you only have the copy of the negatives, therefore if this is lost you are unable to get these photos printed again.
Digital photos can be stored, transferred and manipulated using other communication technologies for example computer, memory stick, compact disk and USB. There are also many computer programs available to manipulate and save photos for example photoshop and flickr.
As digital photos are easy to transfer and such like this can cause ethical issues. For example photos can be added to or emailed on the internet without the consent of the person in the photos. The person in the photos has no control over photos taken by someone else. This is an ethical issue as the person in the photos or videos has no control over the situation. For this to be ethically correct the person would have to gain permission from the person to add them to the internet. This would ensure the person agreed to having their picture on the internet.
Digital imaging is being used in practice every day. Whether it’s showing clients pictures taken of equipment or staff using them in presentation, it’s becoming more common. This is because the technology to do so is more readily available and staff are now getting educated on how to use it. It is also a lot cheaper to purchase and access.
Flickr is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community platform. Therefore people add photos and videos on here for other people to view and comment on. (Retrieved 25th May 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flickr)
Other photo storages available on the internet include
• Webshots - provides a stage for members to upload and share their personal videos and pictures in albums in a variety of areas. (Retrieved 25th May 2009 from www.webshots.com)
• fotop.net - provide easy to use and feature rich online photo sharing service. (Retrieved 25th May 2009 from www.fotop.net)
Digital zoom is a method of decreasing (narrowing) the apparent angle of view of a digital photographic or video image. Digital zoom is accomplished by cropping an image down to a centered area with the same aspect ratio as the original, and usually also interpolating the result back up to the pixel dimensions of the original. It is accomplished electronically, without any adjustment of the camera's optics, and no optical resolution is gained in the process. (Retrieved 25th May 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_zoom)
Optical zoom uses the camcorder's lens to magnify part of the image without losing any image quality. (Retrieved 25th May 2009 from http://img.shopping.com/cctool/WhatsIs/1/410_1151.epi.html)
The difference between the two is optical zoom can enlarge an image without losing the quality of the image whereas the quality is lessened with digital zoom.
Digital cameras capture images as pixel elements, known as pixels. Simply put, a megapixel is equal to one million pixels.
Digital images are made up of thousands of these tiny, tile-like picture elements. The more pixels, the higher the image resolution. (Retrieved 25th May 2009 from http://www.digicamhelp.com/camera-features/camera-parts/megapixels/)