“A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.”
How often is it when we do see some nice scenery, an interesting situation or some exciting colour? And how often is it that we fail to translate it into words when we explain it to someone? That is exactly where a camera comes in.
To know how to take good pictures is an obsolete concept. After all, nobody tells you how to think. You just cultivate a method of thinking. In the same way, you will develop a style of photography, if you wish to choose, as unique as your fingerprint.
To whet the technical appetite of us, engineers, here are the details of what exactly is inside a camera. A digital camera takes light photons and focuses it with the help of the lens onto a sensor made out of silicon. The sensor is made up of a grid of tiny photosites that are sensitive to photons. The photons excite these spots to give a sense of colour to the picture. Each photosite is usually called a pixel or a “picture element". Millions of these pixels make up a picture on the screen of your camera.
Each photosite on a sensor chip is composed of a light-sensitive area made of crystal silicon in a photodiode which absorbs photons and releases electrons through the photoelectric effect. The electrons are stored as an electrical charge that is accumulated over the duration of the exposure. The charge that is generated is proportional to the number of photons that hit the sensor. This electric charge is then transferred and converted to an analogue voltage that is amplified and then sent to an Analogue to Digital Converter where it is digitized into bits (turned into a 0 or 1).
The image sensors in cameras are of two types; CCD (charge-coupled device) sensor and CMOS (complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor) sensor. The basic function of the sensors remains the same i.e. they convert light rays into electrons. They act as millions of tiny solar cells whose electron beam is converted to a picture. The next step is to read the value (of accumulated charge) of each cell in the image. In a CCD device, the charge is actually transported across the chip and read at one corner of the array. An analogue-to-digital converter turns each pixel's value into a digital value. In most CMOS devices, there are several transistors at each pixel that amplify and move the charge using more traditional wires. The CMOS approach is more flexible because each pixel can be read individually.
However, a big difference in both these sensors is their way of manufacturing. CCD sensors require a special process since the charge has to be transferred across the chip without distortion. On the other hand, CMOS sensors can be manufactured on conventional manufacturing lines of microprocessors as they require an even distribution of transistors across the chip. However, these two radically different processes have their own pros and cons. CCD sensors are known for their high detailed, visibly enhanced, light sensitive and noise-free images while CMOS sensors are cheap and energy-efficient that resultantly prolongs battery life.
In a conventional camera, the light is focused on a photographic film and so the end result of your camera depends a lot on the quality and type of film that you use. However in digital camera it all depends on the image sensor; so the same shot taken with different cameras differs in the end result.
The frequently used terms in photography settings are primarily Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO. Aperture is the amount of area through which light is allowed to enter into your camera. This is what ultimately composes the brightness and white balance of your image. Shutter speed controls the duration of exposure of the image. It varies akin to the casual glance or the hard stare that we give to objects. High shutter speeds are used to capture an object in very high motion (e.g. a sprinting cheetah) while slow shutter speeds are used to track the path of a slow moving object (like the path of stars) or objects in low light (like sceneries at dusk). ISO speed controls the sensitivity of the sensors to the amount of light. But I really think that it is a useless setting invented by the gimmicky companies to exploit customers, as it makes for very noisy and unappealing photos and find not much use except in spy cameras!
The zoom in your camera is of two types: Optical and Digital. Optical zoom is the zoom done by the lens of your camera and it brings the subject closer to you while Digital zoom is the zoom that is done on the computers where you zoom into an already clicked photograph. In cameras, the internal mechanism does this and is not of any valuable use. So, while buying a camera one should be concerned about the high value of optical zoom only. The other important thing is Megapixels. It is the amount of pixels that make up the photograph (1 Megapixel= 1 million pixels). Take my word for it, but 6 megapixels is the maximum amount of megapixels that one would ever need to print photos of any size appealing to normal humans. Anything above that is just a useless waste of money and memory space!
Now comes the important part: ‘Taking Pictures’. The basic thing to keep in mind is that we see things in 3D while a camera captures it in 2D. So a scene that appeals to your eye might not translate into a great pic. That is the reason why people close one of their eyes and see through a square made by their fingers, to compose a photograph. The other tip is to use contrasting colour combinations in your photographs. This sense of colours is acquired by experience. This can also be noticed by the fact that Black & White photographs are generally more receptive to our minds.
The final word in photography remains that the camera does not make a great picture; it is the photographer that makes it. Remember just two things; all great photos come with great experience; and the scene that you see today will never be the same in your lifetime! So do not give much importance to what kind of camera you have, just go ahead and click photos. Best of Luck with your Camera!
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