Unit 27: Digital Photography

Applications and uses of digital photography

Digital photography is a form of photography which uses cameras to capture images focused by a lens and it is used in  various ways such as; magazines, newspapers, billboards, books, web pages, etc.

Many different applications use digital photography to illustrate the main focus of the application or to add additional information. For example advertisements in the use of magazines and billboards. Quality of the design of a magazine can have an impact on whether the reader will experience a negative or positive interest. This is similar with the photography in the magazine; if the quality of photography is poor the reader will not have an urge to read the magazine. Therefore the digital photography on the cover page needs to be of a high standard allowing it to be eye-catching. Below is an example of 4 different magazines which all include a picture of Taylor Swift on the front cover, this implies that the main focus is Taylor Swift which can allow the audience have a sense whether they will have an interest in it before reading it.Advertisement is a presentation of a product, idea or organisation in order to induce the audience to buy, support or approve of it.They are many different types of advertising including: television advertising, radio advertising, online advertising, press advertising and product placement. Advertising in a printed medium, in this case magazines is an example of press advertising.

Another example would be photojournalism in newspapers. Photojournalism is when you collect, edit and present news material for publication. The images all have meaning which can tell a story and have context of a recently published record of events. By capturing images with the use of digital photography they have to be at a high standard because they need to be detailed and show emotion to allow the audience to have a connection with the images telling a story. The story is often done in one single photograph and allows the world to see through the eyes of the photographer for just a moment. They must be true stories and the journalist must try and tell the story in the most fair, balance and unbiased way possible. You generally find them at newspapers, magazines, news stations and websites. A photojournalist needs to be able to gain the trust of their subjects and do their work in a way that it will not violate the trust they gained. The image should act like a window into the event and therefore it should not be manipulated in any way as you will be changing the story and false information is going to be shared.

Documentary is a style of photography that provides a straightforward and accurate representation of people, places, objects and events, and is often used in books, magazines and e-magazines. The purpose of a documentary is that it will tell a story based on a event that has happened in the past. Documentaries in newspapers can be presented with photographs of the events as well as the written form. Documentaries bring viewers into the new worlds and experiences through the presentation of factual information about real people, places, and events. They can vary from being funny/amusing to being disturbing and shocking. Most people think of a documentary as being a film, but both newspapers and books have a documentary. In newspapers most of the stories that are told may not come across like it but they are in-fact a documentary.

Manual cameras are DSLR cameras (digital single lens reflex). Manual mode is one of the main settings on your camera, and it lets you manually control shutter speed, aperture and ISO. These three settings work together to control how bright or dark the photo is, as well as the overall look of the image. The opposite DSLR camera you can get is an automatic camera this means it will automatically set your aperture and shutter speed, but gives you control over other settings like ISO. Another example of digital equipment would be hand-held devices such as smartphone cameras and a point and shoot large format camera.

Medium format cameras is referred to a film format in photography because of the size of the photograph. In digital photography medium format refers either to cameras adapted from medium format film photography users, or to cameras making use of sensors larger than that of a 35mm film frame.

Lightweight cameras are mirrorless interchangeable- lens cameras built entirely for digital, fitting DSLR- like image sensors into compact bodies. These cameras are best for travelling because is offers a great image quality and in a lightweight set-up

Gopro, Drift stealth and Ion are all examples of extreme sport cameras (action camera). An action camera is a digital camera designed for filming action while being immersed in it. Therefore they are typically compact, and rugged, and waterproof.

A still video camera is a type of electronic camera that takes still images and store them as single frames of video. High definition describes the picture quality of a program. It will deliver a much clearer, crisper picture than standard definition.

A viewfinder is what the photographer looks through to compose and in some cases to focus the picture. Also is it where the image captured by the lens is projected electronically onto a miniature display. Most viewfinders are separate. However the single-lens reflex camera lets the viewfinder use the main optical system.

In photography a shutter is a device that allows light to pass for a period of time, exposing a light-sensitive electronic sensor to let light in, in order to capture a permanent image of a scene. For example a slow shutter speeds allows more light into the camera sensor and are used for low-light and night photography, whereas a fast shutter speed help to freeze a motion.

Types of camera lens:

 

Standard lens- This is a mid-range focal length. They have an angle of view which is roughly the same as the angle that the human eye can comfortably view, meaning that they produce images which appear to be natural to the viewer. Usually they have a fixed focal length and wide aperture, giving them a good performance in low light scenes.

Macro lens- This type of lens is designed for close-up photography. This lens will give very good sharpness and contrast, meaning that they produce some really eye-catching photos. They are useful for photographing any subjects at a very close range, for example insects, animals and plants etc.

Telephoto lens- This lens has a long focal length and provides a high level of magnification, which allows you to photograph subjects at a moderate distance. They tend to be bigger and heavier than other types of lens.

Wide angle lens- It is a lens with a short focal length. They can provide an angle of view beyond that of a standard lens. Therefore this allows them to capture more of the scene in a single shot. This useful for photographing landscapes and cramped interiors etc.

There are two types of image sensors which are CCD and CMOS.

CCD- A circuit that stores and displays the data for an image in such a way that each pixel in the image is converted into an electrical charge of which is related to a colour in the colour spectrum.

• Relatively noise free
• Shifting pixels was electrically
• inefficient
• Serial readout is slow
• Sensors require electricity

CMOS– This is an active- pixel sensor consisting of an integrated circuit containing an array of pixel sensors, each pixel has a built in capacitor and amplifier.

• Low power requirement
• Parallel  processing allows faster image capture
• Higher noise
• Rolling shutter – fast readout

Aperture refers to an opening of a lens of which light passes through. It is calibrated in f-stops and is generally written as numbers such as 1.4, 2 , 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11 and 16. The lower f-stops give more exposure because they represent a larger aperture, while the higher f-stops give less exposure because they represent smaller aperture.

You can store you photos in a variety of different formats, which include RAW, JPEG and TIF. Both RAW and TIF formats do not apply any compression to the photo to save space on your memory card. However JPEG is a more common file format and it does use compressions.

 

Internal storage is the primary storage a device uses to store a users files and applications. Whereas a memory card is a small, flat flash drive used in digital cameras and mobile phones. The main difference between the two is you are able to remove the memory card and insert it into other devices and you can easily replace it, if its full.

Flashlight, portable flash, speed-lights: This is the enabling of being able to put light where there isn’t any. Portable flash guns are fitted on the top of a camera, tripod or hand-held and they are battery powered.

 

Studio flash or strobes-  often used in conjunction with soft boxes.

Tungsten-  A continuous light meaning it is always on.

HMI (Hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide) – This is a type of light that requires an arc lamp instead of an incandescent bulb to produce light much closer to daylight. HMI lights are high-quality resulting on them being expensive. Films and television companies are familiar with these lights but their price puts them out of reach of those with modest budgets.

Natural light- This is where a photo is lit only with the suns light without the use of electric and artificial lights involved.

When doing photography camera support is useful as it will aid you and allow you take high quality photos due to being supported. Some of the support equipment include a tripod, monopod, hand-held and a drone. The difference between a tripod and monopod is a monopod is a single pole, whereas the tripod is a three-legged frame.

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During photography the exposure of the photo is important because it will allow you to have a high quality photo, but if the exposure is bad the quality will be poor. If a photo is overexposed the image will have too much light, which will minimise the detail in the image. Whereas, if a photo is underexposed the image does not have enough light and the image will appear to be dark and detail wont be seen. Therefore correct exposure is a balance between light and the detail in the image.

H.D.R is another type of exposure, but this is where you take multiple photos with different exposure and then mash them together to make a complete photo.

Auto-exposure bracketing (AEB) is an option on a camera and when selected the camera automatically takes three or more shots, each at a different exposure. This is very useful for capturing high contrast scenes for H.D.R.

Photo manipulation involves transforming or altering a photograph using various methods and techniques to achieve desired results. There are a number of different software applications available for digital image manipulation.  When editing a photo it will allow you to remove any unwanted material for example you can easily remove a piece of content such as an object, background or person and you can replace it. You can also convert the file for example changing it to JPEG. The reason to changing the file format could be due to loss of compression in the photo or loss of detail etc. Compressing an image is minimising the size in bytes without degrading the quality of the image. The reduction in file size allows more images to be stored as there will be more memory space.

File transfer is the movement of one or more files from one location to another. A collection of stored files can be moved by physically moving the electronic storage medium such as digital camera, smart device, computer and hard drive etc.

When storing files you can do this through a variety of different ways. For example a hard drive, which is a memory hardware device that permanently stores and retrieves data on a computer.

However instead of storing information to your computers hard drive or other local storage device, you can save it to a remote database (in this case cloud storage). The Internet provides the connection between your computer and database.

External storage device is a form of a stand-alone device that is separate from the computer. External devices are connected to a computer with a cable plugged into a USB port. Data will then pass back and forth.