Chapter Four Digital Photography Foundations (How to use the various settings on your digital camera)

Image Size

Image Size Large, medium, small, etc. Choose whatever the largest image size gives you the most flexibility (enlarging, cropping, high-quality printing, etc.) Drawback: large image sizes mean less taking images on the same memory card Comment: memory cards are getting cheaper all the time; get a spare one if necessary

File Format

File Format JPEG RAW RAW+JPEG Size Compression (e.g. Normal, Fine, Extra fine) RAW Compression or uncompressed RAW+JPEG

Compression: JPEG JPEG compression is lossy The less compression, the higher the image quality The higher compression, the smaller the image file size Many digital cameras allow you to set the levels of compression RAW file format has no compression

JPEG Quality

JPEG Compression

RAW vs JPEG

iPhone 7 RAW vs JPEG

ISO setting Typical settings: 50,100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200 Auto ISO: the camera chooses an ISO value depending on lighting conditions, e.g. well-lighted scenes 100-200, dark scenes 800-1600

ISO setting High ISO settings (e.g. 1600 or above) tend to cause noise in images

ISO 1600 Low-cost compact digital camera with a small sensor Professional DSLR camera with a large full-frame sensor

ISO setting tips For well-lighted “normal” shots, use 100-200 for best image quality For “action” shots, use 400 or 800 for faster shutter speed For indoor or night shots without flash, use 1600 or above

How to check ISO on phones? IOS You need to download an app, e.g. Photo Investigator Android Open a picture in your Photos/Gallery app, select Details on menu

Color Temperature Light sources 2000K Sunrise 2500K Light bulbs 5000-5500K Daylight, flash 9000K Overcast sky Lower color temperature means “warmer” color (reddish) Higher color temperature means “cooler” color (bluish)

Ambient light with different colour temperatures

White Balance (WB) A piece of white paper would look pure white under broad day light. A piece of white paper would look a little bit blue under fluorescent light. We would “see” a white paper in both cases because our brains (not our eyes) already “adjust” the color in real time. An image sensor would “honestly” record the slightly blue color in the second case. It is up to the camera’s CPU to “adjust” the color of the image to compensate for the non-white light source. http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial_white-balance.html

Auto White Balance (AWB) The camera evaluates the scene and tries to determine the white point(s) of the scene. Not always successful, e.g. when bright colors fill most of the scene, or in low temperature lighting.

Presets and custom WB Daylight, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, flash, etc. Best to take test shots to determine the most appropriate presets. Most digital cameras allow you to manually set a custom WB for a particular lighting condition by taking a shot of a white subject under that condition. Some digital cameras even allow you to set WB in terms of color temperature, e.g. 5000K

White Balance Presets

Try White Balance settings On iPhone: VSCO On Android: Adobe Lightroom (Professional mode)

Sharpening Most digital cameras use in-camera sharpening to compensate for color interpolation. In-camera sharpening of images may not give the most desirable results as sharpening could remove useful details of an image. Some cameras allow you to set different levels of sharpening or even disable sharpening.

Color Spaces A color space determines how many different colors can be recorded on a digital camera. The most commonly used color space: sRGB Some digital cameras provide other color spaces which are usually richer than sRGB, e.g. Adobe RGB

Miscellaneous settings LCD brightness LCD/system sleep Date and time (when travelling abroad) File-numbering Formatting the memory card