Digital Photography Basics
Canon Powershot SD 1100 IS Manual (pdf) Current District Sandard and featured here with settings below. Note - your specific camera may not use exact same settings or terms.
There are now so many digital cameras
on the market and at schools that makes it impossible to go through the
specific features of every camera. Here are some essential basics to
follow no matter the camera or maker.
1. Resolution Settings of your camera
-
"Why is my
PowerPoint so slow?"
"Why is grandma trying to send me 8mg photos to my email?"
" How come when I open my pictures in Preview, I get a close up of the person's right nostril?"
The higher the resolution the larger the photo in dimension and file size. Also, if you are shooting at a high resolution,
you will have a smaller number of pictures available in your flash
memory card. Camera Setting
| Megapixels | Image Dimension
| Purpose
| L (large)
| 8M
| 3264 x 2448
| 11x 17 prints | M1 (medium 1)
| 5M | 2592 x 1944
| 8 x 10 prints
| M2 (medium 2)
| 3M | 2048 x 1356
| 5 x 7 prints
| M3 (medium 3)
| 2M
| 1600 x 1200
| 4 x 6 prints
| S (small)
| 0.03M | 640 x 480
| computer/web images
|
2. Compression Settings of your camera
- Along with image dimension, the compression setting will determine the file size of a digital photo.Compression
Settings
| Quality
| File Size for 640 x 480
| | Superfine | High | 249 KB
| Fine
| Normal | 150KB
| Normal
| Lower
| 84B
|
3. The Essential Camera Controls to Know
a. Mode Switch
- Camera Mode (Camera symbol) - take pictures
- Movie Mode (Video camera symbol) - not recommended unless needing video for 10-30 seconds, otherwise buy a video camera.
- Play Mode (right triangle symbol)- view pictures
b. Function Set Wheel
- Flash ON/OFF (lightning bolt symbol) - made for all SD Charger fans!)
- Flash is ON if there no circle around the lightning bolt
- Flash is OFF if there is a circle around the lightning bolt
- Trash Can - When set to Play Mode you can erase that one photo
- Flower (macro - close up) / Mountain (infinity - farther back from subject)
c. Menu - In Play Mode- Erase All
- This allows you to wipe out all your pictures in one easy step. This
is important for cameras being
checked out by different classrooms, as
the teacher needs to Format the camera after loading pictures onto a computer and before returning the camera. For the Canon SD 1100 it is found in Play mode/Erase/Scroll Down to All Images/Select OK.
d. Menu - In Camera Mode - Red Eye Correction - this varies from camera to camera, you will have to open the manual on this one but is directly related to using the flash. For the Canon SD 1100 it is found in Camera mode/Menu/Flash Settings/Red Eye Correction On and Red Eye Lamp On.
Basic Shooting Tips Slideshow |
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