1. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. Compact Digital Camera – 49 slides DSLR owner’s will have to ‘translate’ some of the information Copyright © 2003 – 2009 Kenji Tachibana

2. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: Parts 1.Camera body 2.LCD monitor and viewfinder 3.Zoom lens 4.Meter & Sensors 5.Sensor chip 6.Firmware

3. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 1. Camera body topic T ypes: 1 of 2 1.It comes in variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. 2.A light tight box containing sensors and meters to deal with exposure, focus, and color. 3.A mini-micro computer is inside running software called firmware. 4.On the outside, buttons, dials, and switches can be found to control the digital camera.

4. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 1. Camera body topic T ypes: 2 of 2 5.Zoom lens, flash, IR sensor port are mounted on the front. 6.LCD monitor and most of the camera controls are in the back. 7.There are also connector (USB, A/V, & AC) ports which are usually on the sides. 8.The battery and digital film card compartment are on the bottom or the right side. 9.Many compact also have a microphone and speaker ports to support a modest video capability.

5. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic F acts: 1.Most compact digital viewfinders are often hard to use and marginally reliable. And the current trend is to remove the viewfinder. 2.Most compact digital users prefer to use the LCD monitor instead of the viewfinder. 3.If you still have a viewfinders, learn to use it correctly. When done correctly, it helps to steady the camera and can help to improve camera framing.

6. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic A djustments: 4.Most models allows for some LCD brightness control for ease of use at night, day, or in bright conditions. 5.Digitals with viewfinders often have diopter adjustments for eye glass wearers. This allows for eye-glass-free use of the digital camera. 6.Most LCD monitors are fixed to the body. Although a few allow the screen to flip or swivel which can be an extremely useful feature.

7. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic L imitations: 7.Most monitor images are not very accurate in terms of brightness, color, saturation, and even framing. To see an accurate rendition of your image the, view it on a CRT monitor. 8.Most LCD screens and laptop monitors tend to have a very narrow angle-of-view. If you view it from anything less than straight on, the image brightness might become too light or too dark. 9.Don’t use LCD screens for any critical viewing or image editing purposes.

8. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic T rend and Special: 10.The current trend is to remove the optical viewfinder to reduce cost and increase the LCD screen size. Many image-makers don’t like this trend. 11.EVF (electronic viewfinder) on super zooms are more accurate but the slow screen refresh rate makes them hard to use for sports or fast action photography. 12.EVF viewfinder resolution and screen refresh rate have been slowly but steadily improving.

9. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic U sage: During shoot 1 of 4 13.Fill the screemn/Viewfinder with the subject by at least 85%. 14.I prefer using the viewfinder most of the time. It makers it easier to… o concentrate on the image o steady the camera o use in both easily in bright or dim light 15.Place the focus bracket [ ] on the subject, press the shutter button halfway, and make sure the bracket turns green [ ] before you shoot. But once the focus is achieved, do not change your camera to subject distance.

10. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic U sage: During shoot 2 of 4 16.Study the scene brightness using both your naked eye and the histogram, exposure graph. 17.Exposure – image brightness should not be too dark or too light. Check the image brightness against reference image(s) on your digital film card. Also do your best to match the LCD against the real life scene or subject. This will take a lot of practice – maybe even the whole quarter.

11. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic U sage: During shoot 3 of 4 18.Histogram – keep the exposure graph from touching the right edge like this... Except for the right edge issue, there is no perfect exposure graph shape. Even the right edge rule does not work if you have a light source in your image. This is okay

12. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic U sage: During shoot 4 of 4 19.Sharpness – use the default Auto-Focus setting with the focus-bracket [ ] set to center. Although it’s far from fool proof. 20.Focus variations – always shoot focus-point variations and review the results on your camera Playback set to ‘Maximum Magnification’ and also on a computer screen at ‘Actual Pixel’ image size. 21.Critical focus – it will take a lot of practice and you’ll probably have to raise your critical focus standard.

13. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic U sage: Playback Review 1 of 7 22.Exposure (brightness) – learn to eyeball normal exposure. Use the exposure graph to confirm your eyeball assessment. 23.Contrast – if you use the recommended Skylight, contrast is usually not a issue. If you use direct sunlight, a high contrast problem called HDR (high dynamic range) is to be expected in blown out highlights or detail less shadow areas. Squint-viewing often makes high contrast HDR situations obvious. It’s important for you to be able to identify these kinds of high contrast tonal range problems.

14. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic U sage: Playback review 2 of 7 24.Focus – only way to critically check sharpness is to view the image in Photoshop at ‘100%’ or ‘Actual Pixel’ image size. Motion-blur and back- focus are the common problems. Camera motion blur is a result of poor camera handling. Slow shutter speed is also often involved in camera motion blur. Shutter speed requirement for hand holding the camera changes with the specific zoom setting. Wide angle– 1/30 second minimum Standard (normal)– 1/60 second minimum Telephoto – 1/125 second minimum Super-telephoto – 1/250 to 1/500 second minimum.

15. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic U sage: Playback review 3 of 7 25.Color – it should be neutral and/or match the scene or subject. Make this a non-issue by setting your WB to Auto. The WB set to Auto will only work when the assignment recommended Skylight light source is used. If you use indoor lighting (incandescent or fluorescent), the color fidelity will be skewed. And skewed color can play havoc with skin tone.

16. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic U sage: Playback review 4 of 7 26.Composition – avoid stuff o Crooked horizon line o Tangencies and/or amputations o Odd growth from the head or shoulder o Dead-centering the subject the subject centered and/or small o Have irrelevant stuff in the background o Having clutter, clashing, or weird growth in the background.

17. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic U sage: Playback review 5 of 7 26.Composition – do it stuff o Use the A, B, C, or D grid position for locating the focal point. o Use the 1/3 rule for breaking up the background (negative space). o Make the subject shape interesting, which will also do the same for the negative space shape. o Crop tight but don’t crowd the subject and add back 10% for the ‘image-safe’ margin.

18. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic U sage: Playback review 6 of 7 27.Story – last but the most important. It influences all the aspects of image creation: -Basic technique (exposure, focus, & color) -Composition (image design and layout) -Lighting (side lighting for drawing form) -Staging from location choice, model choice and direction, to accessorizing Example - if the story is about someone leaving, a possible compositional device might be to have the subject close to the edge facing out…

19. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 2. Monitor and Viewfinder topic U sage: Playback review 7 of 7 28.Lighting can be used in similar ways. A person can be moving into or away from the light depending on your particular story angle. 29.These compositional or lighting ideas are directly related to the idea of packing-for- story. 30.Use 3 story-consistent packing ideas. Using more than three (3) may start to confuse or water down your story idea.

20. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 3. Zoom lens topic F ocal Length: Zoom lens range 1.2.5 to 3x is an average zoom range. A better range starts at 4x with the wide starting at the super wide field-of-view. 2.The preferred zoom range goes from 28mm to at least 112mm which is 4x (28 x 4 = 112).

21. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 3. Zoom lens topic F ocal Length : Equivalents 3.The traditional 35mm camera is the master reference point when it comes to focal length. The standard focal length on a 35mm camera is 55mm. The standard on a compact is only 10.3mm. And the difference is the result of the much smaller sensor chip size. 4.Equivalency Conversion Chart: Ultra wide 5.0mm24mm (35mm equiv.) Super wide 5.8mm28mm (35mm equiv.) Normal wide 7.2mm35mm (35mm equiv.) Standard 10.3 mm55mm (35mm equiv.) Long focus 17- 28mm85 –135 (35mm equiv.) Telephoto 42mm200mm (35mm equiv.) *Equivalent number are based on the 35mm film camera

22. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 3. Zoom lens topic F ocal Length: Naming trend 5.The conversion table is based on a specific chip size. But the recent trend seems to be to use a slightly smaller chip with the super zoom compacts. With that being the case, the equivalency numbers becomes unreliable. That is balanced by another trend of using false 35mm equivalent numbers to describe compact zoom range.

23. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 3. Zoom lens topic M y Preferences: 105mm & Super zoom 6.The 105mm (Compact 22mm/DSLR 70 mm) telephoto is my favorite zoom setting for shooting both People and Things. The actual numbers might be 22mm for the compact and 70mm for the DSLR. 7.My current favorite digital category is the compact super zoom. I own the Panasonic FZ18 which has an 18x zoom range going from 28mm super-wide to 504mm super-telephoto. And that is an impossibly amazing range!

24. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 3. Zoom lens topic 18 x Zoom Range: Example 8.Top shot was captured using the 28mm super- wide setting. The bottom shot was captured using the 504mm super-telephoto end of the zoom lens. This range is not possible with the 35mm or the DSLR formats.

25. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Aside: Very cool On the Daily-Go Shot: In the 3 minutes that I had waiting to pick up

26. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 3. Zoom lens topic A ccessory: Lens shade 9.If your camera came with it, use it. It acts as a light block to help cut down on light glare. And that helps to preserve image contrast. 10.Mount and use correctly as shown to the right. And think about why the shape is so weird. 11.It can also act as a lens protector from finger prints and more serious things.

27. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 3. Zoom lens topic A ccessory: Filters 12.They are things that might be mounted in front of the lens. They Can help in some ways And they can also get In the way. 13.Less filters are needed today because the digital camera is a computer. The firmware can take care of controlling image contrast, brightness, color, saturation and more. Of the four (4) filters shown, only the Polarizing filter is still needed. Polarizing Neutral Density SoftContrastSkylight

28. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 3. Zoom lens topic A ccessory: Polarizing filter 14.Light level is very important for making images. Any reduction of luminance (light level) is considered very bad. Notice that the Polaroid filter is dark. There is a 2.5 to 3 f/stops of light loss when it’s used. So, its use should be limited to emergency use only. It is good at cutting down on glare and to darken blue skies. It’s dark

29. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 4. Meters & Sensors topic L ight Meter: 1.Every digital camera comes with a built-in light meter. It reads the reflected-light in the scene and sets the proper exposure settings on the camera. The camera firmware does so by balancing the lens opening (f/stop) and the shutter speed. For the DSLR user, chip sensitivity (ISO) setting becomes another practical adjustable setting for getting the correct exposure. Even with the DSLR, you must do what ever you can to remove the ISO factor from the exposure setting mix. The preferred ISO setting is 100. Higher speeds (200, 400, 800 and faster) generally tend to produce lower image quality.

30. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 4. Meters & Sensors topic W hite Balance: Color Meter 2.WB reads the color of the light in the scene to set the correct Kelvin temperature for neutral color. We’re usually not aware of different light source colors because we see on Automatic. WB is a mature technology which was ported over from the video camera. Set WB to Auto. It’s the simplest and the fastest way to deal with light source color differences. I use my camera set to Auto most of the time. For this simple method to function properly, the class recommended Skylight must be used.

31. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Aside: Lighting S kylight: No direct sun Skylight is the recommended soft light source. It’s the sky only portion of Daylight. And Daylight is a combination of the direct sun and the blue (cyan) sky.

32. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Aside: Lighting S kylight: Warning… Skylight can easily end up being top light. The desirable light direction is from the side. The example image shows a light source condition which will produce a beautiful quality side light on a front facing subject. In the example situation tree branches are ‘blocking off’ part of the sky. Tree branches can be replaced by buildings and a porch roof or some other kind of an over hang.

33. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Aside: Lighting L ight Direction: Use side-light to draw the forms on the face. Avoid the ‘flat’ front or ‘harsh’ top direction light. Also avoid light coming from the extreme side. Please study the recommended light direction diagrams below. Side ViewTop View

34. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Aside: Lighting S kylight: Avoid peak-a-boo cloudy lighting The examples show the not recommended cloudy lighting situations.

35. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 4. Meters & Sensors topic IS : Image Stabilization 3.This is another mature technology which was ported over from the video camera. Leave it on but set it to the ‘while shooting only’ mode. The ‘continuous on’ mode is a battery hog and generally does not work as well. There are two different types used in DSLR cameras. Most are built into the lens. Sony is unique in putting the IS in the body… … …

36. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 4. Meters & Sensors topic E volving Technology: Comparisons 1.Next to the lens, the sensor chip is the heart and the most expensive part of all digitals. And the compact chip size Is tiny in comparison to the 35mm film. DSLR chip size is much larger but still small in comparison to the 35mm film frame. 35mm frame

37. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic E volving Technology: Easy to imagine 2.The compact digital sensor chip is about the size of a postage stamp. Divide a stamp into 10 sections as shown to the right. Divide it 10 more times horizontally in your minds’ eye creating 100 tiny stamp shapes. That is easy enough for most of us to imagine.

38. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic E volving Technology: Hard to imagine 3.Dividing it into 1,000 sections would be both hard to imagine or even see without a microscope to see. Today’s sensor chips have 10 million discrete light sensitive pixels, which is unimaginable and way beyond even the ordinary microscope scale to see. You might be able to see it using an electron microscope.

39. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic E nough is Enough: 4.Five (5) megapixel is more than adequate for most people’s use. 10 megapixel is overkill and is the result of Marketing. Bigger number is an easy sell. Our assignment image size requirement is only 5 megapixels, which is also 2548 by 1955 pixels.

40. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic P ractical: Image and file size: 5.A skillfully shot 5 megapixel image is capable of producing an excellent 8x10 or a good 11x14 print. The 5 MP image produces 2 to 2.5megapixel image file size. And that’s relatively easy and fast to work with (process) and store (save). Larger file sizes image can become harder to handle, slower to process, and take up much more storage space.

41. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic M ini Summary: 6.I‘ve been talking about different topics as if they are stand-alone ideas. I did that to teach you about the different aspects of the digital camera. Although, in reality, they are all part of a whole process of making an image to tell your story. Making a change in one part can often affect other facets of the whole process. To fully appreciate this, it will take a lot of practice on your part…

42. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic DSLR : Superior image advantage 7.DSLR chips are much larger than the compact digital. And it’s not only the sensor that’s larger, the pixels are also larger. The larger chip size helps to reduce over crowding. That, in turn, helps to reduce heat. And heat is the enemy of all electronic equipment. So the cooler chip produces better images. For the DSLR, the 10 MP does not produce over crowding. Although it is starting to push the edge of over crowding…

43. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic DSLR : Big disadvantage 8.The latest DSLR sensors are starting to move into the ‘over-crowded’ arena. Besides the heat, dust is another big enemy of the sensor chip. Dust is huge in relation to the tiny pixel. Most current flock of DSLR camera bodies comes with an assortment of dust fighting mechanisms. Some work better than others, but dust is still a problem. Compact are sealed and they don’t suffer from dust issues.

44. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic P ixel Arrangement: Array pattern 9.Most chips contains a 16 pixel checker board arrangement (Bayer Pattern) of light sensitive receptors called pixels. Receptors are photo diode which responds to light by producing electricity. Sophisticated circuitry and firmware interprets and amplifies the signals to ‘process’ the black and white image into a full color one.

45. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic T ypes 1 of 2: Favorites 10.CCD (charged couple device) is the most popular sensor type found in digital cameras. CMOS produces less heat and is cheaper to make. For those practical reasons, it is starting to replace CCD’s. It was first successfully used in the Canon Rebel DSLR cameras.

46. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic T ypes 2 of 2: Others 11.Sony was the first to use the CMOS chip for its high end prosumer compact digital CyberShot R-1 with a 10 MP pixel count on a APS size chip. Foveon is another kind of sensor chip design. It sounds great on paper but only Samsung has put it into a full production digital camera. I am looking forward to seeing its development.

47. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic Compact Digital: 5. Sensor chip topic S ensitivity: Use ISO 100 12.Most compact digitals have ISO speeds ranging from ISO 100 to 800. Some have even higher numbers such as 1200 or 1600. And a few have lower numbers such as 80, 64, or 50. From an image quality point of view, only the ISO 100 is worth using. All the other faster speeds are for marketing purposes. The higher numbers increase light sensitivity by electronic means which contribute to image degradation.

48. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Compact Digital: 6. Firmware topic S oftware for the Digital Camera: 1.Digital camera is a computer that is capable of capturing still images and sometimes video. And the firmware is the software that makes it all happen. Firmware is the name for the software that runs in all small handheld devices. Each camera maker has its own unique blend of program solutions for turning the ‘raw’ electronic signal from a B&W into a full color photographic image. Serious digitals allows the user to upgrade the software. The process is called firmware upgrade which is usually an internet download.

49. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Extra Stuff: D igital Noise: Similar to film grain 1.For the most part, it is equivalent to film grain and you usually want to avoid it. 2.Panasonic firmware over processes the image data to remove the noise which makes the final image smooth looking but not truly sharp. 3.Canon and Nikon both minimize electronic noise reduction to keep the image optically sharp. Sony is somewhere in the middle.

50. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Extra Stuff: M y RAW Story: My current digital is the Panasonic Lumix DMC- FZ18, a compact digital super-zoom. To work around Panasonic’s over processing, I turn off the noise cancellation to improve optical sharpness. RAW is a standard capability on a DSLR but it is a rare find on a compact digital. Both Canon and Nikon have long since removed the RAW capability from their own compacts. Their focus is on selling DSLR which have higher profit margins. Compacts with the RAW capability become a serious competition to the low end DSLR’s.

51. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Extra Stuff: D esirable Features: 1.Tripod thread – This is needed to mount the camera on a tripod. Most tiny pocket size compacts lack this useful feature. 2.Hot shoe – this allows for an external flash to be mounted and synchronize properly with the camera. This is a pro preferred capability. 3.External flash – example shown to the right is a low cost ($100) generic unit. Camera maker’s produce dedicated flash with more power for about $250 to $400.

52. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I x End