Fox's Photo Shop

The Fall season is here once again which means battery checks for all digital cameras, and strobe units for the film cameras. Remember, film cameras, because of all the moving plastic and metal parts in the shutter system, do not do well in cold weather. Action-reaction times in film camera shutter systems slow down considerably in temperatures below 40 deg. F. Except for the zoom system, digital cameras do nicely in cold weather providing fresh batteries are used. It's a good idea to keep your cameras in a good, insulated camera bag during cold weather shooting. Don't let the cold weather stop you from shooting beautiful winter scenes. Holidays are THE best time for family pictures. One last thought. Some film cameras have film transport mechanisms to move the film automatically after the shot is taken. Be sure and check those batteries too.

Unless you are a professional photographer working for a newspaper, or a portrait photographer, the big, full-bodied Canons, Olympus, or Nikons are not for you. First of all most pros use cameras that are bought by their employers. Some telephoto lenses cost over $10,000. The camera bodies sell for well over $3,000 to $8,000. The point-and-shoot 5 to 10 megapixel small format digital cameras are the standard for most people. Models like the Canon EOS with interchangeable lenses are just fine for the serious photographers. Remember, it's not the camera that makes a good, if not beautiful, picture. It's a variety of things you do that does the job. How you frame the subject, good subject material, depth of field, and the arrangement of color, usually will put the "wow" into your pictures. Think before shooting.

Depth of Field
Here is a brief explanation of the term "depth of field". This is a determination of how much of your field of view stays in focus in front of, and behind your primary subject. It is how great photographs are born. The smaller the aperture the greater the depth of field. When you want to create a portrait of a person you open the aperture of a lens and speed up the shutter to create a vignette effect. Every thing within two feet in front and two feet behind your portrait will be in focus. Everything else beyond that range will be out of focus. On most good film camera's you can set the camera to aperture priority or shutter priority. This means that you set the lens opening and the camera automatically compensates by setting the shutter speed. If you set a shutter speed the camera will automatically set the aperture. On the digital point-and-shoot cameras there may or may not be a setting for aperture or shutter priority. You can set aperture or shutter priority on the more expensive digital SLR camera's with interchangeable lenses.

Another good example of depth of field is when taking a landscape shot of mountains in the background and trees in the foreground. If you set your aperture to a very small setting and let your shutter compensate with a very slow speed everything in the background and foreground will be in focus. The trick is to get that one point where the aperture is at it's smallest and the shutter will still compensate. This depends on the speed of the film (ASA) too. An ASA of 200 is a good starting point. Digital point-and -shoot camera's do not give you the luxury of some advanced settings. Most have a settings wheel that will allow you to shoot portraits, correct for red eye, advance the telephoto capabilities and so on. Everything depends on the type of camera you have, your technique, framing the primary subject, and the settings your camera will allow.
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THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FILM AND DIGITAL MEDIA

The differences between the different medias is great, and yet the lens and shutter systems have remained unchanged for many years. It's an awe-inspiring thing to go out into the world and take images of the planet we live on, and the animals and birds we co-exist with. It helps to remind us that maybe our problems aren't so great after all.

The photographic process involved in putting images on film is complicated to say the least, but the film camera and the corner drug store simplify this process greatly. The image is sent through the lens and shutter system and is captured on the light sensitive side of the film. The film is then processed through a series of chemical solutions to produce a negative. This negative is then put into an enlarger or contact printer, and the image is transferred to light sensitive photographic paper. The paper is once again processed in a series of chemical solutions to produce a finished color or black-and-white print.

Of course you never see any of this processing because after you set the camera to automatic and take your pictures, you hand the roll of film to the clerk in the corner drug store, or a Wal-Mart store and they put the film into a machine that does everything in less than a hour.


The film resolution, and speed (sensitivity to light and dark) was much greater than that of the digital process, but with the advent of newer technologies in computer and camera electronics the digital picture is, by far, much better and has taken the lead in resolution and color. To a much lesser degree there will be film media produced for the medical and dental profession. Portrait photographers still prefer film media and cameras to the digital process. They can achieve museum quality prints and negatives rather than jet printing on plain or glossy paper. Museum quality means that chemically treated film and the resultant prints can last for a hundred years or more while jet or laser printing can only last for ten to fifteen years before fading. It is my belief that color film will be produced for the next ten to twenty years. It is only a matter of time before film cameras break down and dissapear, in which case film media will dissapear with them. In this ever changing world no one really knows for sure. There are still a great number of people who love their film cameras. The movie industry will always rely on film media.

THE DIGITAL SYSTEM

We are seeing great breakthroughs in the digital light detector system (CCD's) that allow the resolutions to far exceed that of the film system.

CCD is a Charge Coupled Device that works like a bucket brigade, shifting amounts of light from one capacitive point to another in millionths of a second, eventually becoming an image. This Image is then stored in digital memory and also seen on the back of the camera. The images can be downloaded to a computer for printing and viewing.

These points of light are called pixels and the greater amount of pixels per inch will produce a greater resolution. The military can take such high resolution photos that we can see a license plate on a car from an aircraft flying at 50,000 feet above the earth. Megapixel means millions of pixels in a given area.


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The Pixel
Short for Picture Element, a pixel is a single point in a graphic image. Graphics monitors display pictures by dividing the display screen into thousands (or millions) of pixels, arranged in rows and columns. The pixels are so close together that they appear connected.

The number of bits used to represent each pixel determines how many colors or shades of gray can be displayed. For example, in 8-bit color mode, the color monitor uses 8 bits for each pixel, making it possible to display 2 to the 8th power (256) different colors or shades of gray.

On color monitors, each pixel is actually composed of three dots -- a red, a blue, and a green one. Ideally, the three dots should all converge at the same point, but all monitors have some convergence error that can make color pixels appear fuzzy.

The quality of a display system largely depends on its resolution, how many pixels it can display, and how many bits are used to represent each pixel. VGA systems display 640 by 480, or about 300,000 pixels. In contrast, SVGA systems display 800 by 600, or 480,000 pixels. True Color systems use 24 bits per pixel, allowing them to display more than 16 million different colors.


ASA stands for American Standards Association. ISO stands for International Standards Organization, and DIN is the German version of a standards association. These standards identify the sensitivity of the film to light. The range is from 100 to 1200. The 1200 ASA is the most sensitive to light and is used in the military or in situations involving taking pictures at night in starlight or moonlight. The 100 ASA is used in very bright sunlight as in beach scenes. Most film people use ASA 200 which is an in-between speed used for typical ambient daylight or strobe pictures at night.