This is one the presentations given during Digital Photography workshops at the Pontiac Public Library. Instructor: Devan Green

1. Basic Photography Class Instructor: Devan Green

2. Today you will learn

3. Digital Cameras A digital camera (or digicam for short) is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. Many compact digital still cameras can record sound and moving video as well as still photographs. In the U.S. market, digital cameras outsell their 35 mm counterparts.

4. Digital vs. Film Digital cameras can do things film cameras cannot: displaying images on a screen immediately after they are recorded, storing thousands of images on a single small memory device, recording video with sound, and deleting images to free storage space. Some can crop pictures and perform other elementary image editing. Fundamentally they operate in the same manner as film cameras, typically using a lens with a variable diaphragm to focus light onto an image pickup device. The combination of the diaphragm and a shutter mechanism is used to admit the correct amount of light to the imager, just as with film; the only difference is that the image pickup device is electronic rather than chemical.

5. Digital Cameras in other Devices Digital cameras are incorporated into many devices ranging from PDAs and mobile phones (called camera phones) to vehicles. The Hubble Space Telescope and other astronomical devices are essentially specialized digital cameras.

6. Memory Cards Miniaturization is evident in memory card creation; over time, the physical sizes of the memory cards grow smaller while their respective logical sizes grow larger. The memory cards listed from left to right are: Compact flash (32 MB), SD (128 MB), miniSD (1.0 GB), and microSD (2.0 GB).

7. Memory Cards A memory card or flash memory card is solid-state electronic flash memory data storage device capable of storing digital contents. These are mainly used with digital cameras, handheld and mobile computers, mobile phones, music players, digital cinematography cameras, video game consoles, and other electronics. They offer high re-record-ability, power-free storage, small form factor, and rugged environmental specifications. There are also non-solid-state memory cards that do not use flash memory, and there are different types of flash memory.

8. Types of Memory Cards There are many different types of memory cards and jobs they are used for. Some common places include in digital cameras, game consoles, cell phones, and industrial applications.

9. Types of Memory Cards Some popular brands are: Smart Media, Compact Flash & PCCard In digital cameras SmartMedia and CompactFlash had been very successful, in 2001 SM alone captured 50% of the digital camera market and CF had a strangle hold on professional digital cameras. By 2005 however, SD/MMC had nearly taken over SmartMedia's spot, though not to the same level and with stiff competition coming from Memory Stick variants, xD, as well as CompactFlash.

10. The Price of Memory Prices vary depending on the amount of memory on the card or stick. Each camera takes a certain type of card (ie. CF, SD, PC etc.) and the price of the card is proportionate to the amount of memory it holds. A card with more memory will hold more picture and video files. Video files are much bigger than picture files. For example a 32 MB card can only hold 60 pictures of - quality while a 2 GB card can hold 240 pictures of the same quality. Prices vary from as low as $15 to as high as $60

11. Demonstration Consult your camera’s manual for specific eject method Inserting/ejecting card into cameras Inserting/ejecting card into computer/printer/kiosks

12. Your Digital Photos Managing your collections The ease of digital photography makes it easy to quickly grow a collection. You can move the files from your camera to your computer. (Demonstration) Once on the computer the photos can be edited, renamed, printed, and uploaded to the internet for display, cataloging, or to be printed by a vendor.

13. Printing Color printer Black & white printers Photo printers Photo paper glossy/matte Send photos to vendors to print

14. Places That Print Walgreens (kiosk & online) CVS (kiosk & online) Sam’s Club Rite Aid (kiosk & online) Target (kiosk & online) & probably many more!

15. Online Resources The following companies have editing, storage, printing and gift services Shutterfly.com Photobucket.com Kodakgallery.com Snapfish.com Flickr.com

16. Snapfish.com

17. Snapfish.com Tips Snapfish has a lot of deals Usually you get free prints with your first upload. Storage on Snapfish is free Quality affordable prints

18. Flickr.com

19. Flickr.com Tips Flickr has limited storage for free Flickrpro account costs $24.95/year. You can send prints from Flickr to your local Target to be printed and pay when you pick them up.

20. Sample FlickrPhotostream

21. Printing Options

22. Pick up at Target

23. Social Networking You can store and share pictures on social networks like Myspace & Facebook Storage is practically unlimited and FREE!

24. Questions ? Thanks for taking Basic Photography at the Pontiac Public Library. If you haven’t all ready, register at the circulation desk for Advanced Photography.