One technology that hasn’t kept up with the rapid pace of new digital cameras is camera batteries. The more features a camera has, the quicker it seems to use up precious battery power. There are three features of digital cameras that chew up battery life the quickest:

- LCD Screen. This is by far the most power thirsty feature in digital cameras. You can turn the screen off to conserve power, but I don’t recommend this because the screen is very useful to determine if you have taken a great shot.

- Flash. Another big power user. The flash uses lots of battery as it’s charging, so minimize usage.

- Zooming in and out also uses battery power to drive the motor. Refrain from changing your zoom too much. I recommend staying close to full optical zoom.

Make your batteries last longer

Given the two biggest power users on your camera are the LCD screen and Flash, there are ways to reduce the usage of these. If your camera allows you to, reduce the brightness of the screen to get more time from your battery. This will still allow you to see your photo, but it won’t use as much power.

How do you minimize usage of the flash? Try doing without the flash when you’re in low light by increasing the light around you. Or increase the “ISO Speed”. The higher the ISO setting, the less light is needed to record the image.

Other secrets for making your batteries last longer:

- Most digital cameras have a Power Saving mode. This ’shuts down’ the camera - not switch off - after a period of time without use. Make sure Power Saving mode is on, or simply switch off your camera when you’re not using it.

- In cold weather, keep your camera and batteries warm in your jacket until you are ready to use them. Cold weather to batteries is like RAID is to bugs!

- Store batteries in a cool, dry location away from sunlight and other heat sources.

- Avoid unnecessary playback of your already taken images, as this can also use a lot of juice.

- If you haven’t used your camera for a while, your rechargeable batteries will have lost some of their charge. Ensure you charge them fully before leaving the house.

Buy a spare battery

This has two advantages. You can get double the time from of your camera before needing to recharge by using two batteries. If you don’t need an extra battery all the time, you can have one charging at home when you’re using the other. Then when you get home, swap them. Never leave your camera behind again because you don’t have a charged battery.

What kind of battery should I purchase?

You will need to purchase a battery that is compatible with your camera, so I recommend taking your camera’s battery to the shop with you when purchasing so the staff can find another compatible battery. You don’t need to purchase a battery from the same manufacturer as your camera, although be aware that choosing another brand may void your warranty - check your manual.

Go for a rechargeable nickel-metal hydride battery if possible. These battery types have a greater capacity than the rechargeable ni-cad batteries and will pay for themselves in a short period of time.

Use the AC adapter

Most cameras have an adapter to allow you to plug directly into a power point. If you’re going to be shooting for a long period of time in the one location, a camera plugged into a power point can be very handy. Note that some cheaper cameras have the plug for an AC adapter, but not the adapter itself.

David Peterson has a great love of photography and has created a series of free tips at http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com/ to help digital photography users everywhere take better photos.

Choosing the right digital camera for general use can be more challenging than actually taking a good picture. Like all things technical, digital cameras come in a vast array of styles, sizes and abilities.

However, you don’t have to research in great depth to make the right choice — you need only know what you want your camera to do for you. You’ll need to consider your own skills, your budget and how you will use your photographs.

Regarding your skill level, first consider your willingness to learn the technicalities of photography. Do you simply want to point and shoot? If so, there are plenty of automatic cameras made to do just that.

Or, do you want to be creative — experimenting with self-timers, flash, shutter speed, lighting, and photo enhancement features? To fulfill these creative desires, you’ll need a camera with a full range of manual controls.

Of course, with the hundreds of digital cameras that are on the shelves, you don’t have to make a commitment — many cameras have both automatic and manual settings. It all depends on what you want to spend.

Speaking of budget, you should know what you want to spend before you shop online or in a store. Then, only look at the cameras that match the amount that you came up with — it will keep you from suffering buyer’s remorse later.

In addition to your skill and your budget, consider how you will use the camera. Are you planning to email more pictures than you plan to print? Are you uploading them for online auctions or to share with your best friend who lives miles away? If so, carefully consider whether the pictures need to last for the next 100 years, or just until your online auction expires or your friend gets a chance to take a look at them.

If you are looking for professionally finished prints, brilliant color and a sharp image, you will need a camera with high image quality. The quality of an image is directly related to how many pixels it can capture horizontally and vertically. To print quality standard sized photos that will last, you’ll need a minimum of a 1-2 megapixel digital camera. Larger photos will require 3 megapixels to get the same quality. With at least 4 megapixels, 11 x 14 enlargements will look sharp.

Zoom lenses can also play a key role in the appearance of your photos. Many cameras will have zooms, but the size and type of zoom are important to consider. The larger the zoom (a 3x would be average and 10x large), the closer you will be able to get to subjects like sporting events and wildlife. But for good quality photos, be sure the camera has a true optical zoom rather than a digital zoom, which merely enlarges the center of the basic image.

Also, be aware that not all cameras with the same megapixels are created equal. Some have better optics and better zoom lenses. Some have more features such as the ability to make short videos. Some have better LCD screens for reviewing photos. Some have batteries that are proprietary and expensive to replace. Some are more prone to needing repairs.

So before heading to the store or to your favorite online site, check out the reviews for the models that interest you. Simply state your need at a search engine — something like 4 megapixel digital camera+review.

There is no need to spend hours researching every term and every available feature. Simply familiarize yourself with basic terminology, know your needs and know which models have the best ratings in your price range. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be more satisfied with your investment.

About The Author

Todd Nelson is webmaster at Triple Exposure Photography. Visit http://www.tephotography.com for the large photography resources or to register for the free Photo Age newsletter.

Bob pushed the shutter release button andNOTHING HAPPENED. The football passed into his son’s hands and the actual photo he took was one of a cheerleader’s pom-pom. Bob missed the touchdown too. He resisted an insane urge to slam the camera to the ground and jump on it.

This was his first digital camera, and Bob had just experienced an unpleasant surprise. He had used film cameras all his life, but when his Yashica went into the shop a friend loaned him a digital camera. He naively decided to take some action shots and discovered the most maddening “feature” of digital cameras - the shutter delay.

MADDENING AND FRUSTRATING

Articles on this subject have attributed shutter delay to:

1. The camera’s focus system

2. The time it takes the camera to digitally process the image

3. Reaction time of the photographer

Numbers one and three are lag times that most people using digital cameras are accustomed to. Most have used a film camera and know it needs a few milliseconds to focus.

The no-brainer solution is to reduce the aperture of the lens to increase depth of field, or aim the camera at the object you wish to be in focus and depress the shutter button half way in order to “tell” the camera what to focus on, then move the camera to center the image and depress it the rest of the way.

As far as human reaction time, well, it hasn’t really changed much for users of film cameras, and people experienced in taking action shots usually get what they want.

So let’s look at number 2, the time it takes to process the picture.

TIME TO DO THE PROCESSING

Processing the picture (so the camera can be ready for the next one) comes in several steps to move it from the image sensor to flash card storage:

1. Color corrections. The camera has to examine each and every Charge Couple Device (CCD) element on the photo sensor. It adds green, blue, and red to achieve the right color balance. For a 3 mega pixel camera, the processor has to make 9 million calculations.

2. Sharpening. This boosts the contrast by detecting and sharpening edges.

3. Compression. This process converts the 12 to 14 bits of each CCD sensor to 16 bits by “padding” the information and compressing it to 8 bits. This compresses the file size to 9 megabytes.

These steps require a tremendous amount of computational time. No wonder Bob missed his shot!

CATCHING THE ACTION

There are two ways of capturing action:

1. The “consecutive mode”. If the camera has this mode, you can take a series of rapid shots moving through the event. This requires a camera with a large ‘buffer” to hold photos for processing.

2. Anticipating shots by depressing and holding down the shutter release prior to the event. This requires an ability to predict the future, something most of us don’t possess.

THE FUTURE OF FASTER SHOOTING

Obviously this would all be simplified if micro processing were faster. Even with large buffers, the speed in which data is transmitted to the processor is prohibited by the rate at which data is conveyed from the CCD. Micro processing speed is the next bottleneck.

Faster clock rates and data transfer speeds would reduce or even eliminate “shutter lag” time. There are several technologies in the wings that offer hope:

1. Nanotube and nanowire technologies. These are both the offspring of “nanotechnology”, the ability to make tiny machines at the “nano” level, a billionth of a meter in size rather than a millionth of a meter (micrometer) and offer hope for a 500 GHz clock rate or more.

2. DNA Yes, you heard me right. Computing based on DNA strands in which information is stored and processed.

3. Other materials

Gallium Arsenide with much a faster speed has been used for years for military purposes.

Silicon-Germanium chips increase the transfer of light signals to silicon. These traditionally have worked best at ultra cold temperatures, but many computer simulations have shown that they may be made to approach 1000 GHz (1 THz) at room temperature.

Indium-antimonide. Much faster than silicon

Optical transistors. A glass material known as chalcogenide becomes a switch as its refracting properties are changed. No need to translate those photons into anything else.

Coated Viruses. The latest research involves coating viruses with a conducting material. Much higher speeds at the molecular level can be obtained. This will give a new meaning to the term “computer virus”.

4. Parallel Processing. As we’ve noticed lately with the war between Intel and AMD over the number of parallel processors crammed into a CPU, digital camera processing would benefit from parallel processors handling the focussing, sharpening and squeezing.

5. Software. Improvement in instructional efficiency by reducing the lines of code would make the whole process more efficient.

HOLD ON AND WAIT FOR THE FUTURE

The REAL solution to this maddening shutter delay appears to be in the material the processor is constructed of, as well as advancements in the software.

But we’ve got awhile to wait for it. Although a few alternate materials have been around for awhile, everything else is still in the research and development phase. Even when it finally trickles out of the labs, it will probably make your future digital camera cost around $10000 - $15000.

Quite a price tag for the ability to take pictures as fast as a film camera! Still

Except for the lag, the digital camera has it all over film cameras, once the photo is captured by the memory card. The new technology will be worth the wait.

Digital camera owners are known for their ability to waitas they desperately punch the shutter release trying to grab the fleeting smile of their new baby, or the football that lands in his hands eighteen years later, when he scores the winning touchdown.

John Young is a writer and editor with a technical background living in California with his wife and cat Bear. Take a look at his new ezine “The Digital Zone” at http://www.pcreveal.com/digitalcamera