Learning Digital Photography Terminology

(August 19 is World Photography Day)

Choosing the right digital camera for beginners can be quite confusing. There are many factors to consider like the size of the camera and its features. Understanding the basic terms in digital photography will help you decide which camera suits your needs. Whether it is a compact digital camera or a digital SLR, these basic terms apply to both. Below is three of the basic photography terms you need to understand before buying a camera.

1. Pixel: A pixel is derived from the term Picture Element. A digital image is composed of millions of tiny squares, which are similar to a mosaic design. These tiny squares have their own color that makes up the whole digital photograph. A way camera manufacturers categorize their digital cameras is by the pixel count. Megapixel (MP) is the common term used today to describe the camera’s pixel count. A 1 Megapixel is equal to 1 million pixels and so on. Generally, more pixels will result to higher resolution.

2. Zoom: There are two kinds of zoom that can be found in cameras today. These are the optical zoom and digital zoom. The optical zoom works by changing or adjusting the focal length of the lens to magnify the subject. On the other hand, the digital zoom works by simply enlarging the image, which is similar to the zoom found in most programs for image editing. The image quality of the optical zoom is obviously higher, as compared to digital zoom, wherein significant image quality is loss. Usually, the digital zoom is only used as a secondary tool for zooming if the desired magnification is not achieved by the optical zoom.

3. Memory cards: Digital cameras use different kinds of memory cards like Compact Flash (CF), Secure Digital (SD), Smart Media, Multimedia, Memory Stick, etc. These memory cards differ in size, memory capacity, and features. The Compact Flash (CF) memory card is the original card used by cameras and is the largest in terms of size. Its dimension is 42mm x 36mm x 3mm. Due to the demand of smaller compact cameras in the market, smaller memory cards are now used. Secure Digital (SD) memory card is small, with dimensions of 24mm x 32mm x 2mm. It has a write protect feature to prevent accidental erasures of data. The Multimedia card is basically the same as the SD card, but without the write protect feature. The Memory Stick card is produced by Sony and is usually used in Sony products.

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