Subject:
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Re: taking good photos
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Sun, 18 May 2003 04:17:10 GMT
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Viewed:
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1528 times
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In lugnet.space, Ryan Wilhelm writes:
> Also, try to use digital zoom and focusing options whenever possible.
No, digital zoom is a complete joke, and it's a really lame way to
justify charging more for a camera. Optical zoom actually uses true camera
optics to magnify the image before the camera records it. Digital zoom
takes the image _after_ the camera has recorded it, crops the center, and
expands it to fit the designated image size. The result is that the
pixelation gets ugly. For instance, if you use 4x digital zoom, each
original pixel will now take up a 2x2 grid of pixels, and it will be very
obvious when you look at it. Basically, digital zoom doesn't do anything
that you can't accomplish by enlarging the image with MS Paint.
Focusing options are just options, and do not necessarily need to be
used unless the situation warrants doing so. If your camera is capable of
shooting photos with higher quality, then yes, you'll want to take advantage
of that option as much as possible, but you shouldn't use macro focus unless
you really need to shoot something from a very close range. The greater the
distance you can get between the camera and the subject, the less blurring
you'll get in the immediate foreground and background. When you shoot from
a very short distance, your in-focus range shrinks down considerably, to the
point where you might find that parts of even small MOCs end up being out of
focus, while others look crystal clear. If you could shoot from across the
room with at least 10x Optical Zoom, you could take a good low-angle shot of
a diorama spanning a 2x2 grid of large baseplates without any part of it
being out of focus. If you try to get the same shot without using any
optical zoom (ie: by shooting from a much closer range to fill the same
amount of view), you'll probably find that the extreme edges of the diorama
end up being at least a little out of focus.
The other thing that can drastically improve photo quality is to always
use a tripod (digital cameras have a really long shutter time, and if you
aren't using the flash it's nearly impossible to not lose image quality due
to camera shake) and to use directional lighting sources _instead_of_ the
flash (especially when photographing little plastic bricks with highly
glossy surfaces). Servicable directional lighting need be nothing more
complicated than a couple of incandescent study lamps, preferably with bulbs
that produce as soft a light as possible. Placing three of them at 45
degrees to either side and directly above the camera POV will usually give
good illumination over most viewable surfaces without leaving any harsh
shadows, and without causing bounce-back glare the way a flash will. In
addition, you can reposition them prior to hitting the shutter button so you
can make any necessary adjustments should there be any problems that pop up.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: taking good photos
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| (...) I don't think that's quite correct. If your CCD or CMOS chip has greater than 8 bits of depth on each spectral band (most do), then an on-camera digital zoom should contain more information than a post-processed zoom. For example, suppose you (...) (22 years ago, 21-May-03, to lugnet.space, lugnet.publish.photography)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: taking good photos
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| (...) Ahh, digital frustration. I have the same problems with my camera. ALWAYS use the Best setting, and try to get a photo editing program that allows you to right-size the picture. The pictures usually become 'huge' because Windows picture (...) (22 years ago, 18-May-03, to lugnet.space)
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