With so many dissimilar types of digital cameras usable to purchase these days, it can be difficult for anyone to make a rational decision. This mental confusion can gain when confronted with the ranks upon ranks of dissimilar photographic camera models and brands which are available today. To help clear this quandary you should try and do a comparing of types of features that are usable for the best prices digital photographic camera brands can offer.

These dissimilar cost ranges vary, because each of these digital cameras is jammed with features which are said to make life simpler for the average photographer. For this cause, when you are looking at the best prices digital camera models have, you should ask for aid in understanding all the dissimilar features that are found within the digital camera that you are thinking about purchasing.

Some of the digital cameras mix camcorder features with that of a high speed unit. Other digital cameras will be improvements on older versions that have more capabilities for other users. For these reasons it is also good to find the present prices for your selected digital camera.

You can find the best prices digital photographic camera brands like Canon and Nikon have to offer, from the Net consumer cost reviews. These reviews will supply you with the cost range that was found for the different digital cameras. You will also receive information that will help you decide if you want to purchase this digital camera.

Another way to look for what the best priced digital photographic camera brands have to offer is to look through the experts? reviews. Through these you can find out what the factual prices are for the cameras and you can also see if you?re acquiring economic value for your money.

These assorted methods of finding out the best prices digital photographic camera brands have to offer for you, along with the different features they have, will let you find the camera that best suits your qualifications.

And with the help of the Net you can also find retail stores where you can get terrific bargains for your digital cameras. You should be able to search out the best prices digital camera brands and models are being sold for at these establishments.

Once you have found the best prices digital photographic camera models can cost you, you can make a conclusion about which type of digital camera you need. These comparisons are the best way for you to select the type of digital camera that will give you many programmed features as well as a low-cost price.

–

This information is Copyright January 2006 by http://www.santaclausca.com and Loring Windblad. References for this article include the author’s personal knowledge and experience. Additional information references with first article. This article may be freely copied and used on other web sites only if it is copied complete with all links and text, including this header, intact and unchanged except for minor improvements such as misspellings and typos.

The title of this article is actually Digital Photography: Using Windows XP (to manage your digital pictures). If you have read my previous articles, Digital Photography: The Basics and Digital Photography: Choosing Your Camera, you have a pretty good idea that all of a sudden one trip can really put a lot of megabytes onto your computer hard disk.

Just as an example here, if I shoot 20 still images (JPGs) I will be adding about 16-17 MB of pictures to my collection. If I shoot 1 minute of .AVI video clip that alone is about 14 MB of data. So 10 minutes of video runs about 145 MB. You have a 128 MB memory chip? Well, better go to 256 MB and a couple of them. If you’re doing lots of video, get more. So 10 minutes of video and 30 pictures takes up 170 MB. It only takes about 6 of these sessions to put a whole gigabyte of pictures on your HD! You’re gonna take a trip for 2 weeks? Someplace you’ve never been before? You had better take along about 5-6 or more extra 512 MB memory chips. You came home and you’ve got 3 gigabytes of pictures and video to sort and store and prepare for the web? And take selected pictures and make photo prints of them for your photo album? WOW! HELP! Well, that’s what I’m here for.

Let’s take a look at our old computers. They were 1.1 gHz AMD Duron CPUs with 2 each 60 GB HD’s and Windows 2000…and we were running out of space. Both HD’s were partitioned*. My sweetie and I have one computer each, twins of one another, and networked for file sharing, etc. Well, they got old (3 years, 4 now) and so 31 December a year ago we built new ones. These are 3200 AMD Athlon-64s with 1 gb of RAM, 2 each 160 gb of HD, Windows XP SP2 and most of the basic bells and whistles. Further, the first HD, with the O/S, is partitioned, but the second HD is not partitioned, giving us a single 160 GB “work space” to edit videos and movies and etc.

Partitioning your HD is not important to your digital photography and your digital or film camera. But it is important to how you handle and store and work with your digital images when you put them onto your computer. First, as a minimum, you should have at least two partitions. They would be C, D and E. Then you would have your second HD, un-partitioned, as F.

Your C partition would be about 15-20 GB and it would hold your installed O/S and all your installed operating programs – and nothing else! Your D partition would be about the same and it would hold all your email files. Your E partition would be the rest of your work, all the things you create and save, letters, pictures, designs, writing, etc. And your F would be un-partitioned to provide the maximum sized workspace you can have for manipulating your digital picture files, making movies, etc. It would also provide, if you wanted it, a backup of your C partition.

Example: You are hit by a virus, you cannot clean it as there is no cure out for it yet and it will destroy your computer the moment you boot your system. If you use any of your programs you will begin infecting other things. Your only solution is to format your C partition. If you only have one partition on your HD, this means you have now lost everything you had on your computer and must start over. If you have partitioned it as above you will only lose your installed programs and Windows. You can format it, copy the backup from your F drive and you are back in business – and no virus.

Remember in the previous articles that we went to http://www.santaclausca.com twice and checked for two different things about the video clips? Well, what you need to know about them is this (dealing with only the second one, the video CD). It is approximately 23 MB on the web – and on my HD. That’s BIG you say? Yes….and no. Yes, it is pretty big. But no, its also actually pretty small. Lets take a look at just how it was created and how big – or small – it really is!

First, all versions of Windows came with a sound recorder; Windows XP is no different in that respect. But Windows XP SP2 also comes with a Windows Movie Maker. It makes movies for you in .WMV format – Windows Media Video. And it makes those movies from either video clips or still jpg clips or a combination of video and still images. Finally it will use either .AVI or .MPG video and probably just about any stills, including .JPG and .GIF all scrunched into one final video output.

But that’s just the icing on the cake. It will also play the audio you had as part of your video clips as part of the final output and you can add in your own audio clips made in the Sound Recorder. You can also add in MP3 music clips and possibly even MIDI (MP2) audio clips, and make them a part of your .WMV presentation. You just have to be a little careful not to overlap your audio portions. Finally you can add in titling on your finished video production, especially helpful if you are making a slide presentation.

OK, back to my Santa video. I used two 1-minute video clips and a couple which were shorter. The 1-minute clips were 14+ mb each. The shorter ones were 2, 4 and 5 mb. And I used several stills at 500 kb each. Then I added a couple of audio .WAV clips at a couple of megabytes each! The total was about 45 megabytes and I was aghast! But, well, I did it, I liked it (finally), and so I saved it. I figured that Windows Movie Maker would create something larger than the composite parts – a very reasonable supposition, ordinarily! Much to my surprise, the resultant .WMV production came in at a slim, trim and svelte 23 MB! Voila! I was impressed. It also runs 3? minutes of play time.

So what we’re looking at here is a working file which has, just for this production, nearly 50 mb of files, and an additional 23 mb of final production – actually 3 copies. Close to 110 mb total in this one file! This is why I have a 160 gb HD that is un-partitioned. This is just my “working folder for this Santa video clip”; every piece of my work goes into its own individual folder.

On my HD I have a Digital Pictures folder and it holds almost all of my digital pictures. It will hold all of them as soon as I get them all arranged and sorted and filed properly. Right now that Digital Pictures folder holds 9.15 gb of digital files, audio, video and still. I have a second section for Music where I store all of my MP3 music and .WAV music files. It occupies 16.7 gb of music, but there are another 8 gb of mp3 music stored on CD and not on my HD. I also have another 4.07 gb of digital video in .VOB format, which is my digital 8 videos converted from digital 8 format to a usable Windows format. These are the four video presentations I produced for a third party and the represent only 2 ? hours of video footage.

If we look at the Digital Pictures folder we find it has sub-folders for every trip we have made, for pictures I have converted from photographs to digital to use on the internet, from our backyard in bloom and in snow to fishing, fossil hunting to gold panning. And I have a Family folder which is subdivided to 22 different sub-folders Altogether my digital pictures folder contains 14,888 files and 277 sub-folders.

What I suggest for your digital picture storage is a similar system of filing. 1) Take if off your C partition. 2) Provide as many folders as you will need and label each appropriately so that you can find what you are looking for when you need it. 3) Add new folders as they are needed, with appropriate folder names. 4) Finally, and probably first, make sure that you correctly label each picture with a short name and date before you put it in its final file folder.

OK, you have your picture files all organized on your HD, you are ready to make movie presentations using your sound recorder and movie editor in Windows, and you even have an idea for a family web site to display all your pictures. Oooops! You just can’t load 9 GB of pictures onto the internet. It would take you forever to upload them, it would cost you a fortune to host a web site with that much space used, and it would take visitors forever just to view a couple of pictures – even at modern ADSL speeds? So each picture you propose sending via email, and each picture you are going to use in your web site, needs to be processed and reduced. Pictures you send by email or upload to a web site should be no larger than 50 kb and shooting for 20-25 kb each is desirable. Even if you achieve a 25 kb average, if your web site holds 100 pictures that comes out to 2.5 mb. Just try sending 2.5 mb by email – it takes a little while to send and it takes a little while to receive and download, even by ADSL. And if you are on standard hotmail or yahoo mail your limit is 1 mb per message or thereabouts.

So your final step for preparing your files, jpg, that is, is to “reduce” them for web and email use. There are several programs out there, including some freeby programs, which will do this admirably.

Picassa is a free program from Yahoo which organizes your pictures on your computer and prepares them for email attachments. How well it prepares them for web use I don’t know…I tend to do this myself so I know what and where everything is.

Adobe Photoshop is not a free program but it does come with a second internal program which is very useful. It’s called Image Ready and with it I can process 20 pictures in about 20 minutes or less, including renaming them, color correcting them and reducing them from 800 kb to 20-45 kb and filing them back beside the original pictures.

Whatever name I use to identify the picture I simply add an “x” to it when I save it. This “x” tells me that I have reduced the image size and quality. If I also “crop” the picture I add “xy” to the end of the name. This tells me it has been color corrected, reduced and cropped. As an example, these labels would be something like:

SweetieBDay1-1-01-001.jpg 865 kb original in full resolution SweetieBDay1-1-01-0001x.jpg 34 kb for the web SweetieBDay1-1-01-0001xy.jpg 3.2 kb for email

About the Author

Loring Windblad worked as a freelance photographer for more than 20 years. He and his wife presently own and regularly use 1 VHS camcorder, 2 digital 8 camcorders and two digital still cameras. His latest business endeavor is at: http://www.santaclausca.com.

Digital Photography is a highly complex activity, with a steep learning curve and many advanced techniques that take years to master! However, we all have to start somewhere. So, here’s a list of 5 Great Tips that will ultimately help you improve your digital photography, and set you off on the right foot.

1. Use a Tripod or Bean-Bag.

Yes, these can be such a pain to carry around, but they’re definitely worth the time. Using a Tripod or alternative such as a bean-bag will add stability to your camera, meaning you have greater control over exposure times and composition. You’ll also never see that annoying camera shake ruin a picture again whilst using a tripod!

2. Get a High Capacity Memory Card.

Have you ever had one of those photography days which is going perfect? The light was great, your subjects look fantastic, the weather is holding off, your capturing the shots you only dreamed of…Then it happens.. Your Memory Card is full and you don’t have a spare! You could manually sort through and delete, but it’d take hours. It’s a much better idea to spend a bit more and invest in a high capacity memory card. They’re now available up to 8GB!!

3. Use a UV Filter.

Using a UV filter on your camera lens is a great idea. They’re small circular pieces of glass that screw over the end of your lens, and offer great protection from scratches, dust, finger prints and also filter out UV rays, improving the color of your images. Best of all they’re dirt cheap!!

4. Add Warmth To Your Tones.

The White-Balance settings on your digital SLR control the tonal effects of your images, so try experimenting with them. Don’t think that just because a setting is called ‘cloudy’ that you can only use it when it is cloudy! In fact, using the ‘cloudy’ setting when taking pictures adds warmth. Perfect for a sunset or evening landscape shot.

5. Shoot, Shoot, Shoot!

This will obviously depend on your memory card size as discussed in point 2, but is still very important in trying to get those great shots. Simply put, do not rely on a single shot to capture a great image. Imagine taking time finding a fantastic composition, only to find later that the shot you took has a lens flare or dark shadow in it! Its very frustrating indeed! Take several shots for each composition, try slightly changing the angle each time. This way you can compare and choose the best one later. Remember you can always delete the images you don’t want, that’s the beauty of Digital Photography!

About the Author

For free Digital photography Tips, Tricks and Tutorials visit www.Your-Digital-Photography.com –

The popularity of digital cameras may have enjoyed amazing increase but film has still an important part to play in photography and will continue to be important for some time, a few years at the least. Film has many advantages that photographers continue to recognize. Major players in the production of film like Kodak is still putting into it millions though experts all agree that digital film will reign supreme in the near future. These are the reasons though why some photographers prefer film over digital:

1) Facilities and Investment

Ordinary people, not only photographers, have invested considerably in photographic equipments that use film. Cameras and lenses still have capabilities that digital photography cannot match. Compared with a high-end professional 35mm camera, a digital camera still lacks facilities that only the traditional camera can provide. A photographer who decides to switch to digital may find himself spending big especially if his lenses, flashes and other accessories are not compatible with a new digital system.

2) Wide Angle

The absence of extreme wide-angle lenses and a slow start-up time are two of the most disadvantages of even the best digital cameras. 35mm cameras modifies to digital bodies usually employ a CCD image sensor that is smaller, usually around 245mm x 16mm) as opposed to the 36mm x 24mm x 35mm film that results to a narrow angle. Photographers who are fans of wide angles may find the traditional 35mm more of their liking.

3) Action

Film cameras also offer an advantage during fast-changing and unpredictable photography scenarios. Unlike digital camera that uses batteries than can ran out in the most unexpected time, a 35mm camera can be easily switched on and ready for use whenever you need take a shot. Moreover, digital cameras usually take several seconds before you can use it which obviously is a disadvantage for photographers who wants to capture actions which can’t be repeated anymore.

4) Tough Conditions

Film cameras are also sturdier equipments than their digital counterparts and can withstand harsh conditions that photography may demand in the line of work. Count on film to be more reliable than digital especially when your are working in a not-so-good weather conditions.

5) Comparing Costs

When it comes to cost, film and digital advantages and disadvantages vary considerably depending on the usage. A photographer with a film budget amounting to thousands of dollars in one year may find digital camera more practical. But if you are not a busy photographer, your income may not defray the cost of going digital.

About the Author

Michael Colucci is a technical writer for Photography Tips and Digital Camera Reviews – Free sites that offer photography tips and camera reviews.

Panoramic digital photos cover a wide angle of view. In its extreme a panoramic photo can cover 360 degrees of view. Such panoramic photos are for example taken from a sky scraper to convey the view it provides. Most new digital cameras provide a panoramic mode that supports such photography.

There is no formal or definitive definition of what a panoramic photo is. It is common practice to define panoramic photos as such that cover a wide angle of view. How wide? A common definition is “wider than our eyes can see” – or in other worlds – provide an artificial view that otherwise we could not have gotten by just looking at the scene (without moving our head left and right or up and down of course). Panoramic digital photos can be taken in a single shot using special panoramic wide angle lenses. This technique is limited of course as for example a 360 degree panoramic photo can not be taken this way.

Another way in which panoramic photos are created is in segments – a few photos are taken in series and are later attached to each other to create one big panoramic photo. The process of attaching the photos together is fast and easy thanks to modern digital photo processing software (as long as you’re following some guidelines when taking the photos). Panoramic photos are not limited to capturing landscape or wide angle view. They can be very useful when capturing objects that are just too big to be captured from where you stand. For example if you are standing too close to a tall tower and can not retreat to a farther position – using panoramic photography will enable you to capture the complete tower (in 2 or more shots).

Most digital cameras support a special panoramic mode. In this mode the camera optimizes its optical settings for panoramic wide angle photography. But more than just setting the optical parameters the camera also provides tools that allow you to more easily take the photos series and later on stitch them together. When put in panoramic mode the camera will first let you choose if you plan to take a horizontal panoramic photo (i.e. taking photos from left to right or right to left while keeping the vertical position fixed) or to take a vertical panoramic photo (i.e. taking the photos from bottom to top or top to bottom while keeping the horizontal position fixed). You can also choose a combination.

After you choose the panoramic mode – the camera will let you start taking the photos. On its LCD screen you would always see the previous photo you took and the new photo you are taking. This allows you to easily compose each photo in a way that it complements the previous one. You would also want to make sure the photo overlaps a bit with the previous photo – this allows for easier photo stitching later on. The camera also names the digital photos files in a special format that further helps stitching.

Photo stitching can be easily done on a computer at home. Many digital cameras come with a photo stitching software. If your digital camera did not come with one you can find either free or low priced commercial software that can stitch single photos. Basically what the photo stitching software does is: based on the photo file names it orders the photos in their right order. Then it identifies the overlapping areas in each pair of photos and places the photos in a way that these overlapping areas match (this is why having a bit of overlap is important). The final step is to attach all those pairs of files and create a single panoramic digital photo.

It is a good practice to use a tripod when taking panoramic photos. A tripod will help you maintaining either a fixed horizontal or a fixed vertical position. Also it is good practice to keep the optical settings fixed between shots and to make sure that the lighting stays the same. As always practice makes perfect – go and experiment with panoramic photography and master your digital camera panoramic mode.

About the Author

Ziv Haparnas writes about science and technology. Find more on photo printing and photography is on printrates.com – a place about digital photo printing This article can be published as long as the resource box including the backlink is included. Ziv Haparnas is an expert in technology. –

If you haven’t taken your first digital photograph, or even heard of digital photography, then I really must congratulate you. You are truly a contradiction. Since your reading this article, you must be browsing the web, yet you still haven’t heard of digital cameras. Apart from the computer itself, and perhaps the cell phone, photography has been more revitalized than practically any other industry in the digital universe. During it’s early introduction, it was reviled by professional photographers, as being a sub par and mediocre technology. In other words, the picture quality was pathetic. However, Like any high tech toy these days, it has matured at an alarming rate, and the cries of mediocrity have been gagged and silenced. Everyone, even a multitude of pros engage in the sinful passion that is digital photography.

Digital Delights vs Digital Dystopia

Not to say that aren’t a cornucopia of complications to overcome in this new digital wonderland. And hardly the least of these is the managing of the overflow of new pictures you now own copyrights to. It seems that being cheap little buggers, is a genetic trait of most human beings. Way back in the old days, when taking pictures actually meant buying real film with real cash, we were very judicious in what pictures we took. Now that digital photography allows us to endlessly reuse those overworked little bits on our memory sticks, we click, snap and shoot every cute, furry, adorable thing that comes into range. Once are hard drives are crammed with a gazillion of these images ranging from dubious to heirloom quality we really start to worry. What happens if our hard drive makes that klunk-grind-klunk-kratch sound that next time we boot up our pc? Or . . . however will we find that one really priceless picture we’re looking for, in that wasteland of hopefully-forgotten digital visions? Gotta have backups folks. And really you must get more organized. It’s that simple. And hey, while your at it, dump that crappy and boring old screen saver of flying toasters, and crappy windows logos, for your own maniacal barge sized load of digital pictures on your hard drive. Why not at least view your images on your own pc periodically before your hard drive commits digital Hari-Kari.

Revenge is the Ultimate Panacea

Of course there are many more creatively satisfying tactics for dealing with all this digital photography abundance. All those free picture sharing sites that allow us to inflict our photographic genius on other unsuspecting travelers of the net. You upload your pictures in varying sizes, and mediums of presentation. Yes, the already tortured world really needs to see a slideshow of my 4 year olds magnificently produced, directed and choreographed version of the Teddy Bear Picnic. As harmless as this strategy may seem, it’s effectiveness is not ruthlessly devoid of passion. Of course why just settle for a inner feeling of joy, when you can turn all those pictures into hard cash. Start a picture blog, and surround your beautiful works of sublime art with greed driven capitalistic advertisements. Nothing like that oh so moving picture of junior playing with his very first barf, and a caption of “Ads by Gaaaaaaagle” eloquently underneath. I’m sure once you put a little thought into it, you can come up with your own wonderful form of digital dysentery. Best of luck, I’ll be watching for you.

About the Author

For more on digital photography visit photographyfunonline.com or read other digital photography articles.