Benefits of Digital Photography
Both
digital photography and traditional film based photography are based
on certain fundamental ideas like capturing the image through a
lens, use of a shutter to achieve it etc. The main difference
between the two lies in how the image coming through the lens is
converted and stored.
In conventional photography, the incoming light rays react with the
chemical coating on the film and forms an image which is then
developed in a dark room into a negative. This negative is turned
into a positive by passing light through them on to a light
sensitive paper which results in the photograph.
The process of capturing the image is totally different in digital
photography. The light coming through the lens falls on electronic
sensors made of Charge Coupled Devices (CCD) which convert the light
into electrical impulses. The screen on which the image is captured
comprises millions of pixels or picture elements which each pixel
being a CCD. These impulses are processed instantaneously, converted
to digital image and displayed on the screen as well as stored in
memory or other storage devices.
The quality of digital images is measured in terms of the no. of
pixels or the resolution of the screen. A typical computer monitor
has a screen resolution of 800x600 which means that the monitor can
display 800 pixels from left to right and 600 from top to bottom.
The total no. of pixels adds up to 480 000 in this case. The
resolution of the background screen in digital photography is much
higher of the order of Mega pixels. The image size can be anywhere
between 1.8 and 13.1 mega pixels depending on the quality of camera.
The range of colors is dependent on the bit size per pixel. For
example 8 bits per pixel can store up to 255 shades of black and
white pictures. 16 bits per pixel can have up to 65,536 shades of
color while 24 bits per pixel can have 16 million color
combinations. Most modern digital cameras for general use operate
with 24 bits per pixel size while some of the professional ones can
have 48 bits per pixel meaning 280 billion color combinations.
The quality of pictures printed is dependent on the number of pixels
per inch of the photograph. The higher the number, the better the quality of
photograph. Most photos printed in photography labs have 300 pixels
per inch of print resolution. Thus the biggest picture that can be
printed with a 2 mega pixels camera is 5.8 inches by 3.8 inches size
while a 4 mega pixels camera can print 8.2 inches by 5.4 inches size
photos. These are the photo sizes with 300 pixels per inch print
resolution.
However with lesser 200 pixels per inch print resolution larger
pictures with less detail can be printed. The quality would be
sufficient for most general use. The size correspondingly increases
to 8.7 inches by 5.8 inches for a 2 mega pixels camera and 12.2
inches by 8.2 inches for a 4 mega pixels camera.
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