Digital Camera

When my wife and I first found out a few years ago that we were going to have a baby, we both automatically shifted to baby-prep mode. She spent her time buying pretty things for the nursery and shopping for cribs and car seats. Like the ultra geek that I am, I started shopping for a digital camera so we could forever celebrate little Haley’s birth with pictures. She’s now almost three and little Will has joined our family as well. Of course, daddy still has to carry that little digital camera everywhere so I can capture any moment at any time. With the sheer number of pictures taken, if we were to have used a traditional film camera, we surely would have gone bankrupt within a year considering the price of film and processing. A digital camera can be very cool, but it helps to know what features to look for. Whether you want to commemorate your children growing up or just want a cool toy to play with on weekend outings, a digital camera is a very wise and money-saving purchase. This week, we’ll discuss some things to look for when making that purchase.

The most obvious perk of having a digital camera is that you will never again have to buy film. Digital cameras store pictures either into internal memory or an external memory card. You simply download the pictures onto your computer and then reuse the memory to take more pictures. Also, you no longer have to pay for film processing, though you can still buy prints of your pictures by simply taking your memory card into most department and dug stores and using a digital print kiosk. As a better alternative, you can print some fine pictures from a photo or color printer using specially-designed picture paper.

One thing to watch out for when buying a digital camera is the number of mega pixels. This is a number that indicates how large a picture the camera can take. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you have to have a 6 MP (mega pixel) camera. A 3 MP model will print very nice looking 4X6 pictures and will be more than enough to take a picture to use as wallpaper on your PC desktop. 4 MP cameras will take pictures that will print up to 8X10 pictures quite nicely, while a 5 MP will print up to 11X14 pictures. For most usage, a 3 mega pixel camera will work just fine. I suggest you buy as much camera as you can afford, however, as it never hurts to take pictures that are larger than you need, and you never knowyou might want to print a poster of that image some day

One of the single most important features to look for in a digital camera is its zoom ability. There is a very real difference between optical and digital zoom. Optical zoom means that the camera’s lens will zoom in on the subject, retaining the original quality of the image. Digital zoom, on the other hand, uses software within the camera to modify the image to make it appear closer that it really is. This leads to something called ‘pixelation’ and is a very bad thing. Using digital zoom can ruin an otherwise very nice photo. When buying a digital camera, I completely ignore the digital zoom capabilities, instead looking only at the optical zoom. Try to get a camera with at least a 3X optical zoom.

There are a number of memory card formats on the market today. These include Compact Flash, Secure digital (SD), Memory Stick and xD. Any of these will work just fine, just be sure to buy the kind of memory card that fits your camera, and get a card that will hold as much memory as you can afford. Well, a 1 gigabyte card might be overkill, but try to get at least a 128 or 256 megabyte card.

Now, for the Cool Site of the Week… This week’s site is WebMD.com. WebMD is a wonderful health and medical site. No matter what ails you, WebMD will have some useful information on it. It has a really cool feature where you can even answer some questions on your symptoms and it will provide a diagnosis. Of course, this site should not be used in place of visiting a real doctor, but it can give you some very useful information for your research.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions for future articles, please email me at mike@MikeBryant.com.

Mike Bryant has worked as a professional software developer for over ten years. A born entrepreneur, he currently owns Centrant, LLC, a software consulting firm specializing in custom software for small businesses. He currently resides in Jackson, Kentucky with his wife, two kids, and five computers. For more information, please visit MikeBryant.com.

Bob pushed the shutter release button andNOTHING HAPPENED. The football passed into his son’s hands and the actual photo he took was one of a cheerleader’s pom-pom. Bob missed the touchdown too. He resisted an insane urge to slam the camera to the ground and jump on it.

This was his first digital camera, and Bob had just experienced an unpleasant surprise. He had used film cameras all his life, but when his Yashica went into the shop a friend loaned him a digital camera. He naively decided to take some action shots and discovered the most maddening “feature” of digital cameras - the shutter delay.

MADDENING AND FRUSTRATING

Articles on this subject have attributed shutter delay to:

1. The camera’s focus system

2. The time it takes the camera to digitally process the image

3. Reaction time of the photographer

Numbers one and three are lag times that most people using digital cameras are accustomed to. Most have used a film camera and know it needs a few milliseconds to focus.

The no-brainer solution is to reduce the aperture of the lens to increase depth of field, or aim the camera at the object you wish to be in focus and depress the shutter button half way in order to “tell” the camera what to focus on, then move the camera to center the image and depress it the rest of the way.

As far as human reaction time, well, it hasn’t really changed much for users of film cameras, and people experienced in taking action shots usually get what they want.

So let’s look at number 2, the time it takes to process the picture.

TIME TO DO THE PROCESSING

Processing the picture (so the camera can be ready for the next one) comes in several steps to move it from the image sensor to flash card storage:

1. Color corrections. The camera has to examine each and every Charge Couple Device (CCD) element on the photo sensor. It adds green, blue, and red to achieve the right color balance. For a 3 mega pixel camera, the processor has to make 9 million calculations.

2. Sharpening. This boosts the contrast by detecting and sharpening edges.

3. Compression. This process converts the 12 to 14 bits of each CCD sensor to 16 bits by “padding” the information and compressing it to 8 bits. This compresses the file size to 9 megabytes.

These steps require a tremendous amount of computational time. No wonder Bob missed his shot!

CATCHING THE ACTION

There are two ways of capturing action:

1. The “consecutive mode”. If the camera has this mode, you can take a series of rapid shots moving through the event. This requires a camera with a large ‘buffer” to hold photos for processing.

2. Anticipating shots by depressing and holding down the shutter release prior to the event. This requires an ability to predict the future, something most of us don’t possess.

THE FUTURE OF FASTER SHOOTING

Obviously this would all be simplified if micro processing were faster. Even with large buffers, the speed in which data is transmitted to the processor is prohibited by the rate at which data is conveyed from the CCD. Micro processing speed is the next bottleneck.

Faster clock rates and data transfer speeds would reduce or even eliminate “shutter lag” time. There are several technologies in the wings that offer hope:

1. Nanotube and nanowire technologies. These are both the offspring of “nanotechnology”, the ability to make tiny machines at the “nano” level, a billionth of a meter in size rather than a millionth of a meter (micrometer) and offer hope for a 500 GHz clock rate or more.

2. DNA Yes, you heard me right. Computing based on DNA strands in which information is stored and processed.

3. Other materials

Gallium Arsenide with much a faster speed has been used for years for military purposes.

Silicon-Germanium chips increase the transfer of light signals to silicon. These traditionally have worked best at ultra cold temperatures, but many computer simulations have shown that they may be made to approach 1000 GHz (1 THz) at room temperature.

Indium-antimonide. Much faster than silicon

Optical transistors. A glass material known as chalcogenide becomes a switch as its refracting properties are changed. No need to translate those photons into anything else.

Coated Viruses. The latest research involves coating viruses with a conducting material. Much higher speeds at the molecular level can be obtained. This will give a new meaning to the term “computer virus”.

4. Parallel Processing. As we’ve noticed lately with the war between Intel and AMD over the number of parallel processors crammed into a CPU, digital camera processing would benefit from parallel processors handling the focussing, sharpening and squeezing.

5. Software. Improvement in instructional efficiency by reducing the lines of code would make the whole process more efficient.

HOLD ON AND WAIT FOR THE FUTURE

The REAL solution to this maddening shutter delay appears to be in the material the processor is constructed of, as well as advancements in the software.

But we’ve got awhile to wait for it. Although a few alternate materials have been around for awhile, everything else is still in the research and development phase. Even when it finally trickles out of the labs, it will probably make your future digital camera cost around $10000 - $15000.

Quite a price tag for the ability to take pictures as fast as a film camera! Still

Except for the lag, the digital camera has it all over film cameras, once the photo is captured by the memory card. The new technology will be worth the wait.

Digital camera owners are known for their ability to waitas they desperately punch the shutter release trying to grab the fleeting smile of their new baby, or the football that lands in his hands eighteen years later, when he scores the winning touchdown.

John Young is a writer and editor with a technical background living in California with his wife and cat Bear. Take a look at his new ezine “The Digital Zone” at http://www.pcreveal.com/digitalcamera

HP has started making digital cameras only recently. However, the firm provides a one-stop-shop for all digital facilities. The company has made a large number of innovations over the years. Let us view the interesting history of this company.

Started by two Stanford University graduates, Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett in 1938 in a rented garage with a mere working capital of $538 - Hewlett Packard is a multi-billion dollar company today. With net revenues of $7.2 billion in the year 2004 and over 28,000 employees all across the globe, HP has come a long, long way.

Both Hewlett and Packard being students of electrical engineering, started with the invention of a resistance-capacity audio oscillator. They continued to make similar test and measurement products, and by 1942, had constructed a 10,000 square foot company- owned building in Palo Alto, California. One interesting fact to note is that they decided the name of the company on the basis of just tossing a coin!

In the 50’s, the company continued to grow dynamically, making major advances in microwave instrumentation and in the year 1962, Hewlett Packard appeared in Forbes Top 500 List of Companies for the first time at number 460.

After this, there was no turning back for HP. The company went from strength to strength, constantly innovating new technologies - whether it was in the field of medicine, laser technology, computers, printers, microprocessors etc.

After HP entered the consumer market with its computers and allied products, it also recently decided to introduce its own digital cameras as well. In fact, in order to make its mark in digital cameras, HP has invested nearly $300 million in its consumer advertising for the same. This is the largest investment made by the company in advertising till today. HP believes that digital photography is a booming business and is slowly going to take over the film camera market. The trend to purchase digital cameras is spreading all across Asia and Europe - and HP does not want to be left behind.

Hence HP says that it is the only company which is providing a one-stop-shop for all digital camera users. You can buy a HP digital camera, take snaps, and then load them onto your HP computer and take printouts (you guessed it) from your HP printer as well. And even the paper and ink used in your printer, is yes, HP again.

HP has yet to make a niche for itself in digital cameras, however, with its current aggressive marketing strategies and brand image, it is most likely that the company will surpass all market expectations as it has done in the past already. Here is a list of the latest cameras by HP:

HP Photosmart 945 digital camera series and HP Photosmart R707 digital camera series: The camera for all users with an optional dock, can be used for slideshows as well.

HP Photosmart R717 Digital Camera series: Slightly advanced series with digital zoom and Real Life technology.

HP Photosmart R607 digital camera series: With 4.1 nega pixels, this series is good for home use.

HP Photosmart M407 digital camera series, HP Photosmart M417 Digital Camera series, HP Photosmart M307 digital camera series, HP Photosmart M22 Digital Camera series and HP Photosmart 435 digital camera series: all these series have 3-5 mega pixels and are nice and cheap for users.

Kevin Rockwell worked as a network TV cameraman for 20 years shooting news and sports. Now a devoted fan of digital photography and video he works to gather information, tips and news for digital camera users. Oh and he loves to shoot pictures of his kids playing sports.
http://great-digital-cameras.com/gdcj.html