The Toolkit

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I think it is about time to talk about digital, and specifically digital images, how to label them, how to view them and most importantly how and with what to capture them. As you may or may not know I am a photographer and have been one for well over 50 years. I grew up with a dark room and had one available for most of my adult life. While I enjoyed my years of playing in the dark, I was always hounded by a persistant feeling that the process could not keep up with my creative vision. Many of my techniques would take hours and even days to turn out an acceptable result. Well…that all changed with the introduction of digital imaging! I bought my first digital camera in 2000, a small 3 mega-pixel Nikon for $850.00 and it was all plastic! when Nikon came out with the first digital SLRs ( single lens reflex which allows you se through the lens instead of a rangefinder) I resisted because of it’s $5k + price and instead waited for the D-100 which was a little more affordable. Within less than a year of purchasing that camera I had already outgrown it. As a professional I needed something that could focus fast, hold more than 3 frames in its memory buffer and reproduce good color.  So what is my point? …Taking a risk and being an early adapter opened new doors for me and released the pent up demons that were haing on from film. I also wanted you to know that I have been doing this for a long time and feel that it is important for me to share what I have learned.

Where we are going…

If you are reading this post it is probably safe to say you as an artist are thinking about doing your own jury/pr photos and are a bit confused by all the choices. So here is what we will be covering in this article:

• The basics why all mega-pixels are not created equal
• The most important part of the camera or where to put your $$$$
• Memory cards

In other articles  of this series we will cover

• Shooting your own photos
• Putting your photos into your computer
• Software for editing and organizing
• Protect your images
• Importance of back-up
• Labeling your digital media

The basics

One of the first things people think about and ask about when considering a digital camera is Mega-pixels, the term is used by camera companies mainly to advertise to an unknowing public. Without being technical lets take a look at what these things called pixels are.

The easiest way to think of pixels is to compare them to dots of ink on printed matter except the coparison ends there. Briefly a pixel is like a bucket that stores information, in the case of a digital camera it stores color information. Digital sensors contain mega-pixels which collectively receive and store color information. But as I mentioned earlier all pixels are not created equal. The easiest way to visualize this is to think of 2 glasses each of the same diameter but one 3x the height of the other. Which one holds the most water? Duh….the taller one! When describing a digital camera’s ability to capture a thorough representation

the colors it sees its’ pixels need to be able hold as many color photons as possible. In this case the color spectrum is represented as Red Green and Blue so there need to be enough pixels to capture each color. But it doesn’t stop there… remember the glass example? The same concept applies here, the depth and surface size of a pixel determines the sensors ability to capture more colors.This is known as bit depth, the greater the bit depth the better the color range and resolution.

Now that you are totally confused, lets look at this in reality. The cameras shown above are DSLRS they have interchangeable lenses and generally have a greater bit depth than point and shoot cameras like the ones below. So even though a $399.00 point and shoot has 14+ mega-pixels it cannot capture as wide a range of color as my $5k 12 mega-pixel DSLR. The reason is in size and depth of the pixel buckets (along with other tech stuff which I won’t go into here) so the point and shoot may have an 8 bit depth to its’ pixels while my DSLR has 24.  The point and shoot can only represent 256 colors while mine can represent 16,777,216.

The most important part of the camera

Now that you understand (?) the pixel thing and you won’t let that salesperson entrance you with a mantra of mega-pixels lets look at what else is really important. Believe it or not the absolute most important part of any camera is its’ lens. If the lens is not good the light it transfers to either film or digital sensor will also not produce a good image. Generally speaking, there are far fewer lense elements within a point and shoot lens and often those elements are not glass and if they are glass they are not ground to the specifications as those for a DSLR which are interchangeable. Furthermore, there is a direct correlationbetween the  money spent on a lens and it’s quality. You see where I am going with this right? If you want to be your own photographer and get the best images possible of you work it is important to look at pixel bit depth and lens quality. We’ll go into camera features as selection criteria later.

The difference…

So given this information am I saying you need to spend $5K for a camera? Of course not but you do need to be aware of what you are buying and the differences so your work can be captured as best as possible. The real difference is in the features and flexibility and ease of use of those features. You will be photographing your work against a background using some sort of artificial lighting and you are going to want to have those images not only represent the color of your work as accurately as possible you will also want it to show the depth as in the case of 3D work. So accurately showing the full depth of 3D work is very much dependent of the camera’s ability to keep the entire depth of the piece in focus. Two key features that make that happen are the ability to change the f-stop of the lens similar to the retina of your eye it helps to  controls how much light is let in by changing the diameter of the area letting in the light. The other feature is the shutter speed which controls how long the light is allowed to enter to the sensor. These two features working together produce  the Depth of Field (DOF) or the depth of the area that is being photographed that is in full focus.

If you have ever seen a photograph of someone or something that is in sharp focus and the background is blurry you are seeing depth of field. It is important when you are photographing your work to be able to not only adjust you DOF but also be able to preview it. Why… because you want your work to be ALL in focus and not just part.

Now to confuse you even more there is another feature that comes into play when talking about Depth of

Field and that is the light sensitivity range of the sensor which is called its’ ISO. The greater the ISO range generally the more flexibility you have in making adjustments. The range is usually measured from 200 to as high as 3200, the lower number meaning that the whole system needs more light to get a good shot and the higher end is for those shots in dark rooms. The beauty of digital cameras is that unlike film cameras you can adjust this range on a shot by shot basis. Film was not as flexible, each role had a rating and that was it, if your light conditions changed mid role you had to either change film or do magic in the dark room.

So, to summarize about the difference between point and shoot and DSLR…

Light flexibility

• Point & Shoot offers lower price but less flexibility to work under lights by not being able to work f-stop,shutterspeed and ISO together.
• DSLR offers pricing not  much higher than a point & shoot and greater flexibility to shoot under lights because it gives you more flexibility with f-stop, shtter speed and ISO and generally a higher ISO range.

Color range

• Point & shoots are generally limited to lower bit depth in their sensor pixels thus limiting the color range.
• DSLRs generally have a greater bit depth that captures greater color range

Lens

• Point & shoots generally have much lower quality lenses with fewer elements and often no glass instead plastic.
• DSLRs have the ability to interchange lenses and even the lower end lenses included in most kits are better than those found on Point & shoots.

Storing those pitchers!

Digital cameras store their pictures on memory cards point and shoot cameras and some lower end DSLRs small Secure Digital (SD) cards while higher end cameras use Compact Flash (CF) cards. For the perpose of this discussion the difference is mostly in what the camera will accept, the convenience of use, and the number of images that can be stored.  They both accomplish the same thing so the real important difference to be aware of is the quality of the card and the reputation of the manufacturer. As always you get what you pay for, cheaper cards are prone to failure something you won’t know until you start downloading and discover nothing is on the card!! Lexar and Sandisk are the leaders with Sandisk having a lower frequency of failure.

The great thing about digital is that once you buy your cards that is it, unlike film we had recurring costs associated with using film. Prices for digital media now are very affordable and will just keep getting that way. So one important thing to remember is not to buy just one card, buy a couple not only to have more image capture ability, but also to have back-up incase you lose a card. This is especially true with SD cards because of their size.

That’s all for now stay tuned for the next installment..What to look for in a digital camera.

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