Happy New Year!

Wishing Everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR! I guess this will be my last post this year. I am taking a new year resolution to be more regular next year. Hope to see y'all more frequently.... Seeyaa.. Have a great time and stay good...

Shutter Speed

Shutter Speed is an indication of how much time the shutter remains open. Contrary to the actual term, the unit used here is usually 'second' instead of '1/second' (for example 1/30 second, 1/60 second, 1/125 etc..). The more the denominator, the more is the speed in which the shutter opens and closes (or lower the time shutter remains open). Usually lowest shutter speed for digital cameras is kept at 1/60 or even 1/125. Lesser speed can cause 'shake' in the pictures taken. Sometimes landscape photographers or night photographers use lower shutter speed for taking photos with special effects. Change in ISO for photos, or aperture is usually accompanied by change in shutter speed also to avoid over exposure or under exposure as the case may be. So remember to keep the proper setting in shutter speed when you change the other settings too.

ISO

ISO is actually technically misleading. ISO refers to a standard defined by the International Standard Organization. It was initially defined for analog film cameras and refers to the sensitivity of the photographic film. Lower ISO's mean that the film needs longer time for correct exposure (also know as slow burn films). Higher ISO numbers indicate that the film needs shorter time for correct exposure. Translating these terms into digital camera has been done only a few years back. ISO for digital camera depends on sensor sensitivity and sensor noise. But the basic concept remains the same, how fast the sensor is able to capture an image with the correct exposure. An ISO rating of 100 is used for normal sunlight and is the default for most cameras. An advantage of digital photography over analog is that the ISO rating can be varied on the fly, rather than rewinding the film, taking it out and putting in a new film with different ISO rating. Usual ISO ratings in digital photography is 100, 200, 400 etc.. (power of 2 * 100). ISO rating is usually used in conjunction with shutter speed and apperture to gain a desired effect.Increasing the ISO rating while keeping the shutter speed and apperture would cause over exposure, which is sometimes done when we are using a camera for specialized photography, especially during night. In that case, make sure that it is tripod mounted, since movement of camera or object can cause blurring (unless that is the desired effect of course). Usually for sports and wild life photography we use a higher ISO rating, since we need a faster response time.

Pixels!

The word itself is a play on "Picture Elements". It is directly related to the number of elements in the CCD sensor. Each pixel is represented by three values, one each for red, blue and green. This value can vary from 0-255. A combination of these three values gives a total of around 16 million ( actual value is 256*256*256 ) colors. Usually each camera manufacturer touts its Mega-pixel count the loudest. Here is a rough estimate of the biggest size picture you can usually take for each megapixel count.

3 Mega Pixel Cameras - Usually 2048 pixels (length) * 1536 pixels (height)

4 Mega Pixel Cameras - Usually 2272 pixels (length) * 1712 pixels (height)

5 Mega Pixel Cameras - Usually 2592 pixels (length) * 1944 pixels (height)

Basic Digital Photography

Compared to analog photography, digital photography makes use of CCD sensors to capture the data rather than photographic film. This marks the basic difference between the two. The CCD sensor consists of millions of tiny sensors arranged close to each other in a grid pattern. Each sensor captures and encodes the light/ color falling on it. When you hear talk about mega pixels you can keep this CCD sensor in mind. They are talking about how fine a detail we are able to capture using the sensor in the camera. Of course, after a point, it doesn't matter, since the human eye is not usually able to pick up that fine a detail (usually after around 4-5 megapixels). Unless, you are planning to take a really big print of that on paper.