GS-DC: RAW Photography and More...

Review:

1. The Basics
2. Using Automatic

Exhibit Tip:

• ICP - 43rd and 6th Ave.

Things do sometimes go wrong:

1. If the camera seem to be turned off, it may just have entered sleep mode. If you don't use any controls for a specified time, the camera enters this mode to reduce battery drain. To wake it up, press the shutter button halfway down, or turn the camera off and back on. After an hour or so of inactivity, some cameras shut off completely. You can often change the time it takes before the camera enters sleep mode or turns off completely.
2. If you can't turn on the camera, the batteries are dead or have been removed or a memory card hasn't been inserted.
3. If your batteries drain quickly, stop using the monitor to take and review pictures. If it's cold, keep the batteries or camera under your coat. Consider buying two sets of batteries!
4. When you turn the camera on, a battery shaped icon on the control panel indicates when the batteries are fully charged, getting low, or run down empty and should be replaced immediately.
5. When you turn on the camera, an error message will be displayed if there is a problem with the memory card. You should also have a number of memory cards - label them so you can remember what's on what.  Keep the memory cards in the plastic cases!
6. If you can't take a picture, it may be because the memory card is full. To free up room for new pictures, move the images to a computer and erase the memory card, delete some you don't need, or switch to a smaller image size.
7. Some cameras have a delay between your pressing the shutter button and the shutter opening. This can cause you to miss fleeting expressions.
8. To control which part of the scene the camera focuses on, read your user guide so you understand how focus works in various exposure modes.
9. If the focus lamp blinks when you press the shutter button halfway down, the camera may be having trouble focusing.
10. If flash photos are too dark, you are probably too far from the subject. Most built-in flash units are good only up to about ten feet. They don't have the power to illuminate subjects much father than that.
11. If photos are too light when using flash, you may want to reduce the flash power (or use the wax paper trick)
12. If your pictures are blurred, you may not be holding the camera steady as you smoothly press the shutter. Most blurry photos are caused by jabbing the shutter button. You may also be too close to the subject or the subject may be moving too fast.
13. Never take pictures of the sun or other bright light sources. Doing so can injure your eye or the camera's image sensor.
14. If your pictures are not at all the way you expect, it may be because the camera remembered a change you made in the settings and continues to use that changed setting. Some cameras remember changes even when you turn a camera off and back on. See if your camera has a procedure that resets all settings to their factory defaults.

Digital SLR's:

• expensive
• you can change lenses.
• You see the scene through the lens so what you see is what you get. (Fixed lens cameras with electronic viewfinders differ from SLRs in that they don't use a movable mirror to bounce light into the viewfinder).
• You can select from a large variety of accessories, including powerful flash units.
• they won't fit in your pocket

Evaluating Mega Pixels:

• Beware of claims about resolution for cameras because there are two kinds of resolution; optical and interpolated. The optical resolution of a camera or scanner is an absolute number because an image sensor's pixels or photosites are physical devices that can be counted. To improve resolution in certain limited respects, the optical resolution can be increased using software. This process, called interpolated resolution, adds pixels to the image to increase the total number of pixels. To do so, software evaluates those pixels surrounding each new pixel to determine what its color should be. For example, if all of the pixels around a newly inserted pixel are red, the new pixel will be red. What's important to keep in mind is that interpolated resolution doesn't add any new information to the image— it just adds pixels and makes the file larger. This same thing can be done in a photo-editing program such as Photoshop by resizing the image. 

 RAW vs. JPG/JPEG:

• JPEG is the default format used by almost every digital camera ever made. Named after its developer, the Joint Photographic Experts Group (and pronounced "jay-peg") this format lets you specify both image size and compression. The smallest size is best for the Web and e-mail (although it will usually have to be reduced) and the largest for prints.

• The JPEG format compresses images to make their files smaller, but many cameras let you specify how much they are compressed. This is a useful feature because there is a trade-off between compression and image quality. Less compression gives you better images so you can make larger prints, but you can't store as many images. Because you can't add pixels as well or remove the effects of compression after the fact, it's usually best to use the largest size and least compression. If you have to reduce either, you can do so later in a photo-editing program.

• RAW format is available on many cameras. One of Ansel Adam's better known expressions, drawn from his early experiences as a concert pianist, was "The negative is the score, the print is the performance". In digital photography, the image file is your score and your photo-editing program is where you perform. The printer then just does what you've told it to do as you edited the image. To get the highest possible quality, you want to start with the best possible score— a RAW image file. These files contain all of the image data captured by the camera's image sensor without it being processed or adjusted. You can interpret this data any way you want instead of having the camera do it for you. If you want total control over exposure, white balance, and other settings, this is a format you will learn to love. Only four camera settings permanently affect a RAW image— the aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and focus.  (memories of the Pentax K-1000...)  Other settings may affect the appearance of the thumbnail or preview but not the image itself. Since each camera company has defined its own proprietary RAW format, many operating systems and even photo-editing programs are unable to recognize some or all of these files. If the camera supports the RAW format the camera manufacturer always supplies a program along with the camera.

• With many cameras you can capture RAW images by themselves or with a companion JPEG image that gives you an identical high quality RAW file and a smaller, more easily distributable image file. Both the RAW and JPEG files have the same names but different extensions.

Advantages of Using the Raw Format:

1. RAW lets you decide on most settings after you've taken the picture, not before. For example, when you shoot a JPEG image under fluorescent lights, the camera adjusts the image to remove the yellow-green tint. Any changes you make later are on top of this initial change. If you shoot the image in RAW format, the camera just captures the images as is and you decide what white balance setting to use later. You can even create different versions of an image, each with its own white balance.
2. RAW images aren't compressed using a lossy compression scheme that throws out data to make image files smaller. Although some cameras have a compressed RAW format, these images are compressed using lossless compression. When you open these images, they contain all of the original image data.
3. RAW images aren't processed in the camera as JPEG images are. When you take JPEG photos, a processing chip with the power of a small computer manipulates them based on the camera settings you have used and then compresses them to reduce their size. The changes made to your images cannot be undone later because it's the final, altered image that is saved in the image file. Some of the original image data is lost for good. With RAW images, all of the original data captured by the camera is saved in the RAW image files so you can process them later on your computer. The settings used to take RAW images are saved, but they are not permanently applied to your images until you save a version of them in another format such as JPEG or TIFF.
4. RAW images have greater color depth and that gives you smoother gradations of tones and more colors. For example, JPEG images use only 8 bits per color (RGB) or 24 bits total. This means that JPEG images can have only 256 tones (2⁸) and 16,777,216 colors (2²⁴). Meanwhile many RAW images are initially captured by the sensor in 48 or 36 bit RGB (16 or 12 bits per channel) and only reduced to 24 bit RGB (8 bits per channel) when converted into JPEG files. The full 48 or 36 bits are retained in the RAW file after the images are processed on your computer because the original file isn't overwritten with your changes. You can even retain all 16 or 12 bits per color by saving images in a format such as TIFF or Photoshop's PSD format.
5. RAW images can be processed again at a later date when new and improved applications become available. Your final image isn't permanently altered by today's generation of photo-editing applications.
6. You can use a RAW image to generate alternate versions of the same image. For example, many photographers will adjust highlight and shadow areas and save these versions separately. Using a photo-editing program, they then combine the two images and by selectively erasing parts of the top image let areas of the lower image show through so all areas have a perfect exposure.

Disadvantages of Using the Raw Format:

• RAW files in the camera are quite large. If you use this format a great deal you will need more storage space in the camera and computer and processing times will be longer.
• Since RAW images aren't processed in the camera, you have to process them on the computer. When you are done shooting for the day, there is still work to do. You need to convert them to another format when you want to e-mail them, post them on a Web site, print them, or import them into another program to create a slide show or publication. Many cameras help you get around this by simultaneously capturing JPEG versions at the same time they capture RAW images. You can use these more universally supported images for many of your applications and reserve the high quality RAW versions for when you need the highest possible quality.
• RAW images are not always noticeably better. Where they shine is when you have exposure or white balance problems. Because RAW images have 16 or 12 bits per color instead of the 8 bits used by JPEG's you have dramatically more information to work with when making adjustments.

RAW and Photoshop CS5 or the less-expensive, Photoshop Elements:

• http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html
• http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopel/
• http://www.digicamhelp.com/processing-photos/advanced-editing/photoshop-elements-7-vs-photoshop-cs4/

GS-DC: Basics and When Simple Things go Wrong...

Review:

1. The Camera as an Object
2. Manuals

The Basics:

1. Most shutter buttons have two stages. When you press it halfway down, the camera sets focus and exposure. When you press it all the way down, you take the picture. To capture action shots, hold the button halfway down while focused on the scene. When you then press the button the rest of the way, the camera shoots immediately because focus and exposure have already been calculated. On some cameras you can also press the shutter button all the way down in one action, but there will be a delay before the photo is taken and it may be out of focus.
2. If the viewfinder appears blurry, see if the camera has an diopter adjustment that makes it sharper.
3. To take pictures, hold the camera in your right hand and support the camera or lens with your left. Don't block the flash, autofocus port, or lens. 
4. Don't Drop it! - wrap the camera's neck strap around your wrist
5. Steady yourself - Always try to position yourself so you can lean on a table, against a wall/tree/etc.  If you don't have a tripod, improvise and make yourself a tripod
6. As you take photos, they are first stored in the camera's internal memory called a "buffer". When the buffer is full you'll have to wait until one or more of the images has been transferred to the memory card before taking any more pictures.
7. Don't open the battery or memory card access covers while an image is being saved. Doing so can not only damage the image being saved, it can also damage the card.
8. Some cameras will briefly display the image you just took as it is being saved. Usually you can turn this feature on or off.
9. You can usually adjust the brightness of the monitor. Make it brighter in bright light and dimmer in dim light.
10. Many cameras have a tripod socket so you can attach it to a tripod/monopod when you want sharper pictures.
11. Take as many shots of a given scene as you can think of; changing positions, distances, and angles. You may be surprised later at what works and what doesn't.
12. When done shooting, turn the camera off.

Using Automatic:

1. Getting ready. Turn the camera on and set it to automatic mode—usually spelled out or indicated by a camera icon. To conserve your batteries, turn off the monitor and compose your image through the optical viewfinder if your camera has one. (Digital SLR cameras don't let you compose the image on the monitor and some point and shoots don't have optical viewfinders). If the camera has a lens cap, be sure to remove it.
2. Framing the image (Don't be the human zoom...). The viewfinder or monitor shows you the scene you are going to capture. To zoom the lens to frame your image, press the zoom-out button or lever to widen the angle of view and the zoom-in button or lever to enlarge subjects. If using an SLR, you zoom by turning a ring on the lens.
3. Autofocus. Cameras have one or more focus zones or areas, each of which is often indicated in the viewfinder with cross hairs, boxes or brackets. The part of the scene that you cover with one of these focus zones will be the sharpest part of the photo. Many cameras will focus on the center of the scene but others will focus on the closest part of the scene covered by any of the focus zones. How close you can focus depends on the camera and lens. (Photographing people is best with pin-point focusing, not broad areas).
4. Autoexposure. The camera's exposure system measures light reflecting from the scene and uses these readings to set the best possible exposure.
5. Autoflash. If the light is too dim, the autoexposure system will fire the camera's built-in flash to illuminate the scene. If the flash is going to fire, a flash lamp usually glows when you press the shutter button halfway down.
6. Automatic white balance. Because the color in a photograph is affected by the color of the light illuminating the scene, a camera automatically adjusts white balance so white objects in a scene are white in the photo and other colors are free of a color cast.

GS-DC: Reading the Manual then Shifting into Automatic

1. Welcome and Introductions:
1.  Introduce yourself and your camera
2. What do you typically photograph?
3. What do you want to photograph?
4. Do you edit your photos at home/work?
5. How comfortable are you with your camera?
6. What do you want out of this course
2. The Camera as an Object:
1. Temperature/Moisture - condensation too!
   
2. Physical abuse - dropping, wrist straps, neck straps, tripods
3. Left hand/Right hand
4. Thumb - navigator
5. Index Finger - decider
6. Lens cover - our friend
7. Lens Cleaning Cloth
8. Digital Lens Cleaning Fluid
9. Compressed air
3. Manuals:
1. Read 'em - and then read 'em again
2. Download them - updates, product recalls, new programs to go with the camera
3. A downloaded manual is searchable 
4. The Basics:
1. The first time you use the camera, or if the batteries have been removed or dead for an extended period, you should enter the date and time. The date and time will help you organize, locate, and identify your images later.
2. Always check camera settings on the control panel and in the viewfinder. Notice how many pictures you can take at the current settings and the status of the battery charge. Also, learn what the icons mean because it's not at all unusual to change a setting, then forget you have done so.
3. If an image is being stored when you turn the camera off, the image will be completely stored before the camera powers down.