Focusing your Digital Camera on Moving Objects

Posted by admin | Wednesday 28 January 2009

Focusing is an important part of shooting a good photo alongside with composition and lighting. Focusing on static objects is relatively easy either by manually focusing or by using the camera auto focus feature. Focusing is much harder when the objects are constantly moving.

There are many techniques used by photographers in order to take in focus sharp photos of moving objects. Here are a few of them:

  • Infinite focus: When the objects are far enough from the camera focus can be set either manually or automatically to infinite. As long as the moving objects stay within the infinite focus range the photo will be sharp and clear. Although this is applicable in some scenarios it is not useful in many others such as shooting sport events or air shows.

  • Manually correcting the focus: Using this method the digital camera is put into manual focus mode. Focus corrections are done manually by moving a focus ring n the lens or pressing focus in and out buttons. When the objects move and change their distance from the camera the photographer manually corrects the focus as needed. This is good in some scenarios where the objects are moving relatively slow and their movement is predictable. Manually correcting the focus for objects that move very fast or move unpredictably is not practical.

  • Single focus mode: When using this method the digital camera is put into single focus mode. The camera will automatically focus on the object when the shutter button is pressed. This method can be combined with the manual focus method. The photographer manually focuses on the object and the camera is executing the final focus fixes when the shutter is pressed and the photo is taken. This method is limited to either slow moving objects or high end fast focusing cameras. Focusing is a mechanical process and takes time. If the camera takes too long to focus by the time it is focused on a fast moving object the object will move and the photo will not be in focus anymore.

  • Continuous auto focus: In this method the camera is put into continuous focus mode. Once the shutter button is pressed and as long as it is held half way down the camera continuously focuses on the objects in the photo. In this method the camera continuously corrects the focus as the objects distance from the camera changes. This method is very useful. Even if the object is moving fast the camera can track its movement and continuously correct the focus. By holding the shutter button half way down and continuously moving the camera to follow the moving object the camera will continuously keep the object in focus. When you are ready to shoot the photo simply press the shutter button all the way down. One drawback of this method is high power consumption as the camera continuously corrects the focus it uses the power hungry motors in the lens in order to move the optical components.

    • Taking good photos of moving objects is not easy. It requires practice and experience. In addition to making sure that the objects are in focus you have to continuously consider the composition, the changing lighting conditions, shutter speed to freeze or capture movement, the changing zoon and more. Go and practice shooting a lot of moving objects photos. By shooting a lot of photos in different situations you will grow the instincts that will make all these processes and considerations an unconscious automatic process.

    Ziv Haparnas is a technology veteran and writes about practical technology and science issues. This article can be reprinted and used as long as the resource box including the backlink is included. You can find more information about photo album printing and photography in general on http://www.printrates.com - a site dedicated to photo printing.

    The Truth About Pixels - Part I Digital Cameras

    Posted by admin | Tuesday 20 January 2009

    Most digital cameras today boast of greater resolution and picture quality. What does that mean to the amateur or occasional photographer? You hear of cameras with 3 megapixals up to 6 or 7 megapixals. What is that? The book that comes with the camera explains all the buttons, bells and whistles, but does not explain megapixels. Most people do not like to work with numbers much, but it is necessary to understand pixels. So here’s my attempt to explain pixels. I’ll try not to involve too many numbers.

    To understand pixels, one must first remember the good old days when you took pictures on film and let the development labs worry about pixels. But, they didn’t really have to, because the exposed negative just captured the image that was reflected through the lens. It was all there and the only thing that affected quality was the size of the negative. The bigger the negative was, the larger the picture that could be produced. When the world went digital, the pixel was invented. So what is a pixel? If you divided a picture in hundreds of horizontal and vertical lines, you would actually have a large number of little squares that when put together, created the picture. Each square is a pixel. So, when a digital camera says it has 1-megapixel capabilities, it means that the total number of horizontal and vertical squares produced when a picture is taken equals 1 megapixel (1,000,000 pixels).

    A 3 megapixel camera produces a picture that has 3 million pixels in its makeup. If all the pictures were the same size in each camera, it would be easy to understand why a camera that produces more pixels would be a better quality camera. Here is where the camera makers are not forthcoming with information. What they don’t tell you is that as far as I can tell, every digital camera produces pictures that have 72 pixels per inch per picture both horizontal and vertical. The only difference is that a 3 megapixel camera produces a larger picture than a 1 megapixel camera and a 5 megapixel camera produces an even larger picture yet. The reason I say “as far as I can tell” is that I have not tried all cameras or studied the information on all cameras. There may be some out there different, but they probably are not in the amateur photographer’s price range.

    Conclusion: For video uses only, your camera purchase decision should be based on features other than the number of pixels.

    Wayne Rockwell is a professional videographer at Legacy Pictures to Video and specializes in Video Montage creation and Photo Retouching.

    Choosing A Digital Camera Printer

    Posted by admin | Monday 12 January 2009

    There are so many types of digital camera printer on offer that finding the right one for your personal and business needs can be a very daunting task. However, there are a few main points to consider when choosing a digital camera printer that will help make the process a little easier.

    It isn’t necessary to have a high-resolution digital camera printer to make great pictures. The higher the printer resolution you use, the more pixels you’ll need in your original image file to produce a decent size print with your digital camera printer. The actual file size (in pixels) of the image from your camera, divided by the printer resolution (in dots per inch), determines the final print size. So, if the image file size is 1,478 x 1,280 pixels, and you print the file at 163 dpi with your digital camera printer, the final print size will be 9 x 7.8 inches.

    If your digital camera printer resolution is 300 dpi, then you will have a higher resolution with more dots per inch laid down on the paper but a smaller print size. It is therefore important to ensure that you have the image file size to support the resolution of your digital camera printer.

    The price of a digital camera printer is lowering whilst the quality is increasing. If you choose the right digital camera printer you can have your own photo lab, greeting card designing and sign making department with just your digital camera, some software and a printer.

    The aim of having a digital camera printer is to produce photographic prints that look as close to real photographic prints as possible. This type of digital camera printer was once very expensive to buy and run, but technological advancements and competitive pricing have made them much more accessible to the average buyer. Ink-jet printers are now available that can produce excellent prints and a near photo-quality printer is much easier to find for people with a small budget. You will probably want to have a digital camera printer with a scanning feature built-in. If you want to produce same-size scans of photos you don’t need scan resolutions higher than 300 samples per inch for the scanner.

    Your digital camera printer should also have the same interface that you already have on your computer. So if you have USB, then get a digital camera printer with USB, a Firewire printer if you have Firewire or a SCSI printer if you have SCSI. There should be no need to buy a digital camera printer that requires a different interface to the one you already have on your computer or it will cost you more to upgrade if necessary.

    About The Author
    Steve Gargin is the administrator of http://digital-camera-reviews.helper-guru.com/camera-digital-photography-wedding/index.html which is a great website dedicated to giving free advice on Digital Cameras.

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