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A Short Course in
Digital
Photography
Navigating this on-line
Book
Like in a real book, the
introduction sets the tone
and introduces the
concepts that follow.
What Kinds of Digital
Photos are Being Taken?
-
Who's Taking Digital
Photos?
-
How are Digital
Photos Used?
The Development of the CCD
-
Image Sensors and Pixels
-
Image Size
-
Resolution of Digital
Devices
-
Image Sensors
-
Image
Sensors and Colors
-
Area Array
and Linear Sensors
-
CCD and
CMOS Image Sensors
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To jump to a specific
section in a chapter, click
one of the topics listed in
CONTENTS at the top of
the page.
The Arithmetic of Image Sizes
-
The Arithmetic of Displaying
Images
-
The Arithmetic of
Printing Images
-
Understanding
Pixels Per Inch
-
The Arithmetic
of Color Depth
Scanning Basics - TWAIN—Don't
Leave the Store Without It - Film
Scanners - Flatbed Scanners -
Print Scanners - Drum Scanners -
Kodak Picture Makers - Getting
Images Scanned - Scanning
Images Yourself - Scanning Black
Magic
Bit-map vs. Vector Images
-
Native vs. Transfer
Formats
-
Digital Camera
Formats
-
Web Formats
-
Printing Formats
-
Editing
Formats
-
Scanning
Formats
- Compression
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Selection Criteria - A Word About
Printer Resolutions - Bypassing
the Computer - How Color
Images are Printed - Liquid Ink-
jet Printers - Dye Sublimation
Printers - Solid Ink-jet Printers -
Thermal Wax printers - Color
Laser Printers - Other Printers -
Printing Services - Film
Recorders - Papers, Inks, &
Longevity - Color Management
Systems - Evaluating your Prints
Photographic Information on the
Web - Internet relay Chat (IRC) -
Protecting your Work—Digital
Watermarks - Copyright Issues -
Preparing Images for the Web
Early Panoramic Photographs -
Specialized Panoramic Cameras -
Panoramas with Regular
Cameras - Panoramic Stitching
Software - Panorama Viewing
Software - Object Photography
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The First Stereo Photographs -
Taking Stereo Images - Viewing
Stereo Images - Web 3D Viewers
- Making 3D Images - Stereo
Panoramas
If you're wondering what you can
do to keep your camera safe and
sound, check out this chapter.
If you don't have a camera but
want to see what it's all about,
here's how to get started.
 A Short Course in Digital Photography
Introduction
All great images, digital or otherwise, start by
capturing a great photo and capturing great photos
requires an understanding of your camera. It's
these aspects of digital photography that this book
is all about.
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Digital cameras are only a few years old and are just now beginning to make serious inroads into
photography. They have yet to be fully accepted by some photographers. However, despite some current
limitations, digital cameras are the wave of the future and it's only a matter of time before most
photographs are taken with these kinds of cameras rather than traditional film-based cameras.
Photographers who don't accept digital cameras generally base their arguments on the fact that the images
are not as good as film-based cameras. Yet these same photographers most likely use 35 mm SLR cameras
that are not as good as 8 x 10 view cameras. And if they do use 8 x 10 cameras, they don't use the even
better mammoth glass plate view cameras used by Jackson and Muybridge after the Civil War. If they
really wanted quality, they'd be using mules to carry their equipment. So much for their argument being
based on the quality of the image.
The sad truth is that the quality of images has hardly improved at all since the first daguerreotypes of the
1840's and albumen and platinum prints of the late 1800s. What's happened is that both cameras and
photographic processes have become easier and more convenient. Digital cameras are just another step
along this path. Images captured with these cameras are admittedly different, but you'd be hard pressed to
prove they are inferior. Many of the arguments you hear today about digital cameras are but echoes of the
sentiments expressed when the 35mm Leica was introduced in 1925. Suddenly there was a camera that
was easy to handle in the most difficult situations and with a long roll of motion picture film, capable of
 capturing one image after another. It may have used a much smaller negative, and hence been "inferior,"
but photographers who held onto their big, awkward box cameras were soon bypassed by history.
Another argument against digital cameras is that they are mainly of the point and shoot variety. That
means they are fully automatic and don't have the controls that photographers have traditionally used to
get great photos. This implies they are used for vacation pictures or photographs are taken as documents of
family events. However, there is a certain elitism and snobbishness about this point of view. In general, the
photographer brings more to a great photograph than the camera does. The history of photography is
replete with stories about photographers who didn't know or care much about cameras. Jaques Henri
Lartigue was getting great images before he was 10 years old--and with an old box camera to boot. It's said
that Dorthea Lange (or was it Margaret Borke White) used the printed instructions that came with her film
to set her camera's setting--"bright sun 1/125 at f/16, cloudy bright 1/125 at f/11, and so on."
But even if objections to image quality and lack of controls were true, these will change over time as more
sophisticated, yet still affordable, cameras are introduced. Image quality already rivals or exceeds 35 mm
film in high-end cameras. And these cameras also have the same controls as a professional 35 mm SLR.
Their only drawback is their price, but prices are falling rapidly now that image sensors are solid state and
Moore's Law is at work. In the meantime, you can get good pictures with point and shoot cameras, but to
get great ones you still need to understand what the camera is doing for you automatically. If you
understand the basic functions of your digital camera, you’ll find it easier to expand and improve your
photography. It's this understanding that gives you the creative control you need to record a scene
realistically, just the way you saw it, or to instead capture the feeling or mood instead of the details making
up the scene. Your understanding of a few basic principles makes it possible to take a photograph that best
expresses what you want to convey.
The flowers in the foreground add both depth and interest
to what might otherwise be a pretty dull picture.
Putting a dead steer in roughly the same position in this
image as the flowers are in the previous one has quite a
different effect.
Like artists in other mediums, as a photographer you have a set of "tools" that can make your photographs
not only exciting and interesting to others but also unique to your own, very personal view of the world
around you. The basic tools you have to work with are the way sharpness, tone, and color interact in the
scene being photographed, the vantage point from which to take the picture, and the light under which it’s
photographed.
You can choose to keep everything in a scene sharp for maximum detail or to blur it all for an
impressionistic portrayal. You can keep some parts sharp and dramatic while letting others appear soft and
undistracting. You can use black-and-white to emphasize tone, the innumerable shades of light and dark in
every scene, or color to capture bright and powerful or soft and romantic colors. You can photograph the
same subject at dawn, noon, dusk, or at night, in sun, rain, snow, or fog. Each of these variables will
influence the image you get.
This ice-locked marina is in a lake in the Colorado Rockies.
The melting ice takes on the look of surrealistic water.
All of this is possible by adjusting only three controls on your camera: focus, shutter speed, and aperture.
These three controls, however, when combined with patience, experience, and your own personal view of
the world, lend themselves to an infinite variety of possibilities, which makes photography a life-long
interest and challenge for even the most experienced professionals.
With traditional photography, the final image varies very
little from the original scene unless you have some serious
darkroom skills.
With creative digital photography, the image can be
just a starting point. Making photographs look like
paintings has been frowned on in photography for
the past 80 or so years. Maybe this form of
pictoralism will make a comeback.
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