Pixel Crazy World
In visual art, it’s one thing to invent beyond the ordinary, and another to see the ordinary with some invention. That practically sums up the art of Photography and the photographer’s quest to amalgamate these two seemingly ambiguous intentions.
There are a lot of things that separate professional photographers from regular click-happy camera enthusiasts. Surprisingly, that separation does not end with the kind of cameras pros use. Some people are just born with a flair for “creating” pictures. You can give them a bad camera and you’ll still find that they’ve managed to produce works of art with it. I learnt that, in order to be a photographer you need a good eye, a sense of what the camera can do and the skill of getting it to do what you want it to do. The last one, as always is the toughest and the most important considering it’s also the only point that involves actual work.
That being said, there are some pointers to taking good snaps. For a non-pro, this starts with owning a good camera. It helps to be wise to the things that a pro looks for in a regular affordable camera.
Pros, to some extent are more willing to physically carry the weight of what they think represents their life and their primary form of expression. Simply put, light weight pocket-size cameras won’t do. In fact, pros are willing to bear with a lot more inconveniences for what they think will fetch them that perfect snap. In general, the bigger the camera, the more features it has. They offer a lot of gimmicks and advanced manual features and possibilities like lens changing and speed controls. Still, most pros will agree that a standard light-weight camera will do well for regular use, like sending photos over the email to share with friends and family.
Cameras are getting smaller all the time. In fact, some of the smaller cameras offer more features than the standard-sized cameras. Does that mean all compact cameras are better?
Here are some things to think about. Compact cameras are convenient, they are light and fit in your pocket, but as a result, they also have small inconvenient buttons that are hard to access especially when you need to zoom. Standard-sized cameras on the other hand fit in a palm-size bag and are a lot more affordable. By the virtue of being slightly bigger, the buttons are easier to control and the weight helps with taking a steady shot. My vote therefore is for the standard-sized camera. Of course, you lose points for looking passé but that’s small price to pay for big value. :-)
One of the most paradoxical factors to bear in mind when buying a digital camera is that not everything digital is better. Take the zoom for instance. It is apparent that the zoom helps with switching between close-ups and long shots. However, its job doesn’t just end there. There are essentially two kinds of zooms, the optical and the digital.
As outmoded as it sounds, the optical zoom is much better than the digital zoom for a bunch of reasons. It measures the ability of the lens to capture more light and detail from a faraway point and thereby offers better-quality pictures. Whereas, the digital zoom captures only the central portion of the image received by the sensor and cuts off the parts that are out of the field of view.
Here, it is also important to understand the function of the lens aperture. It is the least appreciated part of the camera, although possibly most important. After all, the biggest struggle is to take bright pictures at night and unbleached pictures in the daytime. The aperture of a lens is its maximum opening capability. The bigger the lens the more light is gathered and the less light you will need to take a good photo. The aperture of a lens is measured in f/numbers. Smaller numbers mean bigger openings. An aperture of f/2.0 literally means that the lens opening is half the focal length of the lens. So you would rather have an f/2.0 lens than an f/4.0 lens. This way, you can shoot indoors without a flash. The best available apertures for standard cameras seem to be between f/2.8 and f/3.5.
All said and done, sometimes a good focal length and aperture will still render you a bad picture if you have been cheated with a poor quality lens that may exhibit chromatic aberration in which all colors are not brought to the same focus. This usually shows up as colored fringes at high contrast edges. For a regular consumer, it is hard to differentiate a good quality lens from a bad one. Unfortunately, most camera manufacturers incorporate good electronics over good optics. My best method is to stick to a trusted company.
Then comes the infamous “pixel” dilemma. Pixel can be a bad word sometimes, especially when it is accompanied by a decimal number and a price tag that’s outrageously steep. Let me explain why. A digital photograph is essentially made up of tiny dots called pixels. The more dots that can fit in a one inch space, the sharper the image. If an image is taken at 100 dpi, composed of 100x100 pixels, it may look good at one square inch, however, if you blow it up to twice the size, it will make the image look grainy, since it still contains the same 100x100 pixels and is now only 50 dpi. Digital camera resolution is measured in megapixels. One megapixel is made up of one million dots. Therefore, the more megapixels, the higher the resolution, the better the quality of the photograph. Then again, after a point it doesn’t make a difference what the megapixel capability of a camera is, unless a photographer is going to blow up his picture into a wall-size poster. Keeping this in mind, going beyond 6MP is meaningless.
Secondly, small compact cameras have very small sensor chips, almost the size of a little fingernail. As a result, it is more difficult to get a lens to focus on an image perfectly on a small sensor. The precision of internal focusing becomes more and more critical for a given pixel count thus, increasing the signal to noise ratio and affecting the graininess of the image. In conclusion, a lower resolution camera can be a better product in every respect. Truth be told, real resolution hasn’t improved much since the 2MP days. However, cameras with 5MP or more has become the norm even with manufacturers. In view of this, it makes no sense to get your hands on a new camera at all. Old stock or even second-hand cameras do the job just as well. You may only have to worry about the wear and tear and dead lithium ion batteries.
I care less what in-camera software today’s cameras have to offer. Moreover, there is no scope of undoing changes and retrieving the original photograph once it is edited within the camera. I prefer adjusting my picture using a computer software like Photoshop that has hundreds of options. Afterall, there is nothing in the world like Photoshop. :-)
So that’s my two cents. :-)
