Digital Camera

Conversion of film cameras to digital

 

When digital cameras became common, a question many photographers asked was whether their film cameras could be converted to digital. The answer was yes and no. For the majority of 35 mm film cameras the answer is no, the reworking and cost would be too great, especially as lenses have been evolving as well as cameras. For most a conversion to digital, to give enough space for the electronics and allow a liquid crystal display to preview, would require removing the back of the camera and replacing it with a custom built digital unit.

Many early professional SLR cameras, such as the NC2000 and the Kodak DCS series, were developed from 35 mm film cameras. The technology of the time, however, meant that rather than being a digital "backs" the bodies of these cameras were mounted on large, bulky digital units, often bigger than the camera portion itself. These were factory built cameras, however, not aftermarket conversions.

A notable exception is the Nikon E2, a camera followed by Nikon E3, using additional optics to convert the 35mm format to a 2/3 CCD-sensor.

A few 35 mm cameras have had digital camera backs made by their manufacturer, Leica being a notable example. Medium format and large format cameras (those using film stock greater than 35 mm), have a low unit production, and typical digital backs for them cost over $10,000. These cameras also tend to be highly modular, with handgrips, film backs, winders, and lenses available separately to fit various needs.

The very large sensor these backs use leads to enormous image sizes. The largest in early 2006 is the Phase One's P45 39 MP imageback, creating a single TIFF image of size up to 224.6 MB. Medium format digitals are geared more towards studio and portrait photography than their smaller DSLR counterparts; the ISO speed in particular tends to have a maximum of 400, versus 6400 for some DSLR cameras.

 Digital Single-Lens Reflex Camera

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

5 Digital Photography Terms To Improve Your Understanding of Photography

Digital photography terms can be confusing at first. If you have no background in photography you may not understand some of the jargon used on photographic websites or by other photographers. Understanding the language used when talking about digital photography will help put you on the fast track to understanding your camera and how to use it. Then you'll be on the road to becoming a better photographer.

Megapixels

Are the tiny dots that make up a digital image. A digital picture is made up of many dots called pixels. There are one million pixels in a megapixel. When you look for a digital camera you often see the number megapixels in an image produced by that camera prominently displayed with the camera information. It is commonly thought that a higher number of megapixels denotes a better picture quality. That's not always the case.

Noise

Is a term used to described the amount of distortion in an image. This distortion is caused by a build-up of electrical charge on the sensor or by a fast shutter speed.

Aperture

Refers to the size of the opening of the lens. Like your pupil expands and contracts, the opening in your lens can open or close to allow more or less light into the camera. The aperture number is denoted by an f-stop number. For example, you may see numbers like f/16 or f/3.5. The higher the aperture number is the smaller the opening in the lens. The lower the number is the larger the opening in the lens.

ISO

Numbers are used to determine how sensitive the camera's sensor is to light. In the days of film photography this number was used to describe the speed of film you used. As with film photography, the higher the ISO you use the more noise or grain will appear in the photograph. The most common ISO numbers are 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, and 3200. The higher the ISO the more sensitive the senor is to light. It's best to use the lowest ISO you can for image clarity unless you are trying to take a picture with lots of noise.

JPEG

Is a lossy compression mechanism used by your camera to store images in a small file. Lossy compression means that some image quality is lost in the compression process. Though there are better types of files that can be used for image storage this is the most commonly used.

                                                                                                                                by Lovelyn Bettison

The Basics of Digital Photography and Scanning

If you are new to digital photography or scanning - then this article is for you. This will show you the basics of all you need to know in order to get started. The author prefers that you use a scanning service if you have a lot of photos to scan - and when it also comes to scanning slides to photos.


Digital Photo

A digital photo is made up of millions of pixels. Pixels are essentially the "atom" or building block of a picture. Pixels are actually picture elements and have tiny sections that consist of color or tone. They are usually depicted on a two dimensional graph and are usually represented by the use of squares. Every pixel consists of three values: red, green, blue, or RGB. RGB is information used to select the color of each pixel. A goodexample of RGB is a 24 bit color image. These RGB values are made of 8 bits for green, red,and blue. To show the range of these bits, 256 color options exsist from 0 to 256 scale. Next,the grid, in which all of the pixels are contained,is yet another important element. The grid is really the housing for the "atom" or pixel.

Scanners and Resoultion

Scanners operate by reading color information from the photo selected and record the information in a pixel format. This is how resolution is created because the information is gathered by the scanner. In definition resoulution is really the final product of the picture. The scanner and resolution work together in creating a good picture quality making the images clear.

Megapixels

What in the world are megapixels? Well it simply means one million pixels or it is also seen in the abbreviation MP. If you look at the information contained on a digital camera you would find that they are rated by megapixels. To find the number of megapixels get a photo and just do the simple math equation length times width (in pixels) and there you have it.

High Resolution

An amateur might guess that a higher resolution is the best choice, however that is not always the case. It really depends on what type of picture is being scanned. A lot of photos were taken with today what we call obsolete equipment. Now take that photo with a high tech piece of equipment and you are creating more detail than the photo originally had. This is one example why high resolution is not always the best way to go.
Finally, what kind of resolution would fit best with my photo? Well it really depends what application you are going to lay on that photo. Some people would like to send these photos through their email or make CD-ROMs and others would actually like to print the photo out on a sheet. The resolution will be different for both of these people, so keep that in mind when you are deciding what resolution you want.

by Mark Shrigley