Decision made on what sort of digital camera you want.
You have now decided to go a head and purchase a digital camera, but like many other electronic devices available to consumers now days the digital camera is changing all the time. You may find that for the same amount of money you would have spent a few months ago on a camera you will now get one with more and more features such as megapixels, storage space and zoom facilities. This article will hopefully provide you with a few hints and tips on what you should be looking for and how to choose the best camera for you.
There are a number things that you will need to consider when making this all important purchase. Firstly you need to work out how much you are willing to spend, some can cost from as little as ten dollars to ones that will cost a thousand dollars or more. You will also need to decide what you will be using the camera for as well as how much you are going to spend. The best way of solving this is by writing down a few simple questions such as will I be using it to take family pictures? Will it be used to take photographs of the landscape? Will I be traveling a lot? Will I need it for taking lots of flash photography? By having these questions in mind it will make your choice of camera easier.
Now that you have decided on how much you want to spend and what it will be used for you can look at a range of potential cameras that fit in to your criteria and build up a list of the ones you are interested in and include details such as price and the features that each one has to offer.
Below I provide a list of features with a short explanation that should be included when you are making up a list of features for the cameras that you are interested in.
Firstly there are Megapixels. Many cameras now come with an ever increasing number of megapixels and many people ask if the more megapixels a camera has is better. Having more megapixels all really depends on whether your are going to print photographs (especially enlargements) or you want to zoom in and crop the fine detail out of large photographs. Or is it just that you want to look at them on your computer and may be occasionally print of a few small prints. I would suggest that you look at using a 2 megapixel camera for the latter as you will find that most computer screens have a resolution of 1024x768 which even when viewing a photograph on a full screen which equates to less than 1 megapixel. Even a photograph (4x6) printed off will have a DPI higher than 300 which will be more than enough to produce a high quality print.
However, if you plan to print enlargements of your photographs then you need to look at the different print sizes and what megapixels are required to produce high quality prints. The table provided below shows you the photograph size and the megapixel required.
Photo Size Megapixel
4x6 2
5x7 3
8x10 7
11x14 14
16x20 28
20x30 54
However, if money is no object where the purchase of your camera is concerned then the more megapixels you have may out weigh other features that could be available to you. For example should you spend money on the extra megapixels or a better lense, or an external flash unit? Really, it all depends on how you camera will be used. So remember to decide what your camera will be used for and make the decision on what is more important to you based on this.
Next is the Zoom feature. In some cases it is very handy to have the use of a good quality zoom on your camera, especially say when you want to take a good quality portrait photo where the object/person’s face fills the complete photo frame, whilst when taking a photo of a group of people you want to make sure that everybody is in it.
You will find that there are two types of zoon now available, optical and digital. The optical zoom works by physically moving the cameras lense and changing the focal length of the picture. By changing the focal length you are able to make objects or subjects appear bigger than they are and that will fit the full photo frame. Whilst a digital zoom works by using built in software in the camera to clearly define a certain section of the photo that you are interested in taking. Then once this has been chosen the software inside will remove the rest of the photo surrounding the area and will then enlarge the chosen section and this will fit into a complete photo frame. Unfortunately the one downside of using a digital zoom is that the quality of the enlarged photo is less than that of the original photo taken.
So in conclusion if you are serious about taking photographs and not just to use it for taking those all important holiday snaps I would suggest you opt for the optical zoom and from a practical point of view a digital zoom should not be considered as a zoom lense at all.
However you need to be careful when looking at a camera you are thinking of buying as not always do the manufacturers stipulate whether the zoom figure specified is actually optical or digital. It can become quite confusing for those people who do not understand the difference between these two. So for example if a camera says it supports a 5X optical zoom and 10X digital zoom then is being advertised as a “10X zoom camera” you can see how the confusion can arise. A 10X digital zoom can be done to any camera just by using some simple PC software.
Once you have compared different cameras zooms then always compare their optical zoom capabilities as well. Really you can totally ignore the digital zoom figures that you will be provided with.
Allison Thompson who lives in Spain and is a work at home mum has set up a site with her husband Mark that is specifically tailored to the needs of those interested in digital photography. If you would like to learn more then please visit www.photoreport.info.
New Inventions - How To Dream Them Up
How do you dream up ideas for new inventions? Use any of the many excellent idea-creation techniques. One of the easiest is the use of a modifying-word list.
Several times now I have seen giant chairs. The most recent one was in a bar, being used by the host of a trivia contest. It was eight feet tall. Someone made and sold that chair, but how did he think of the idea? The simplest way would be to look at things and ask "what if it was bigger?"
That is the essence of the modifying word list. You look at things and ask, "What if it was..." and insert a word from the list to stimulate ideas for new inventions. To show the technique in action, I just looked around the room and chose a table as a test subject. I look at the word list and ask "What if it was..."
Bigger: If it had leaves that spread from a central pivot, it could be opened up easily into a larger surface, like a hand fan opened horizontally.
Movable: The obvious idea here is to put wheels on it. Another possibility is a line of super light tables that can be carried from room to room easily.
Cheaper: I once used an old door as a table. Are there cheap and available materials that could be used to make doors?
Interesting: Make tables that are covered in family photos (or anything else you want). The top would then be encased in acrylic. Easy to clean too!
Divided: Four small tables that can be used on their own or connected into one large table?
Subtracted from: Take away the legs and it would be easier to clean under. Could it hang from the ceiling?
Hotter: A warming tray built into the center of the table might be convenient for keeping meals hot.
Happier: Use colors that evoke positive emotions. Make cartoon-covered tables for day-care centers.
Take notes as you do this, and develop or discard the ideas later. Most words won't give you useful ideas, but don't dismiss them without a few seconds of thought. Creative solutions can begin with unrelated thoughts. "What if it was boring?" may seem useless, but then it could lead to the development of a line of furniture based purely on function: simple and cheap.
Words For New Inventions
You can make your own list for this technique. Generally it will need a lot of adjectives, but any words that have the potential to change your perspective can work. You may want to include some of the following.
What if it was... larger... smaller... farther away... closer... sooner... later... easier... more difficult... softer... harder... poorer... richer... wetter... drier... higher... lower... longer... shorter... certain... uncertain... newer... older... divided... combined... more common... less common... faster... slower... better... worse... hotter... colder... added to... subtracted from... left alone... hopeless... imaginary... cheaper... more expensive?
Take notes as you do this exercise, and give each word a few seconds of thought. Creative solutions can begin with unrelated thoughts. "What if it was hopeless?" may seem useless, if you are looking for new inventions to replace existing shopping carts, but it could also make you look beyond ways for customers to gather their groceries. Maybe an invention to bring the groceries to the customer would be more radical and marketable.
Copyright Steve Gillman. For more Idea Generating Techniques, and to get the Brain Power Newsletter and other free gifts, visit:
http://www.IncreaseBrainPower.com
How To Prevent The Next Data Recovery Incident
Almost all of us experience data loss at some point in our electronic life. This can happen for a few reasons: viruses, physical damage, Configuration errors, lost letters and more. It's important not to panic, as there are good solutions that will help you restore the lost data, in many cases. Software such as Bad Copy Pro or Multi Data Rescue will be able to correct corrupt or lost data, in most cases.
In more complex problems you may want to turn to the professional companies that deal with data recovery issues, such as OnTreak. These companies offer a variety of tool :
Remote treatment - where they treat your computer from their site and do the recovery work from a far.
Onsite treatment - data recovery specialists come to your office or home and work on your computer. This is a more in-depth treatment that is required in the more serious cases.
The lab treatment - your computer is taken to the lab for data recovery. This is done in the most extreme cases, for example when the computer is destroyed in fire of explosion. In the lab, the technicians will try to save as much as possible from that device.
Data recovery evolve all the time and makes it possible to save more of the lost data. There is a lot to be done about lost files, so make sure you give it your best efforts.
After you have recovered what needs to be recovered - how do you prevent the next Data loss event? How do you make sure you never lose any data again?
There are a few possible solutions to that, and they depend on your budget and just how paranoid you are as to the possibility of another incident. Here's a quick list of a few of the best preventive measures:
Daily manual back up - you can backup your daily work from you hard drive straight to CD. You can than place the CD in a safe place and this will pretty much guarantee you will always have a latest version of your work. This method is time consuming, and it may not fit you if you're doing a lot of work during the day and add a lot more data. This method may suit small operators.
Remote backup - This method is used by many organizations. The data is backed up automatically in a remote site. This way nothing ever gets lost and everything is backed up in a second place. Even if there's a fire in your office all the data is preserved. The disadvantages here are information security risks, as well as the costs involved. Nonetheless, this is a popular method among medium and big organizations.
Gill Reese is the owner of http://www.data-recovery-101.info/. You may visit the site and learn all about hard disk data recovery, data recovery services, data recovery software and more.
There are a number things that you will need to consider when making this all important purchase. Firstly you need to work out how much you are willing to spend, some can cost from as little as ten dollars to ones that will cost a thousand dollars or more. You will also need to decide what you will be using the camera for as well as how much you are going to spend. The best way of solving this is by writing down a few simple questions such as will I be using it to take family pictures? Will it be used to take photographs of the landscape? Will I be traveling a lot? Will I need it for taking lots of flash photography? By having these questions in mind it will make your choice of camera easier.
Now that you have decided on how much you want to spend and what it will be used for you can look at a range of potential cameras that fit in to your criteria and build up a list of the ones you are interested in and include details such as price and the features that each one has to offer.
Below I provide a list of features with a short explanation that should be included when you are making up a list of features for the cameras that you are interested in.
Firstly there are Megapixels. Many cameras now come with an ever increasing number of megapixels and many people ask if the more megapixels a camera has is better. Having more megapixels all really depends on whether your are going to print photographs (especially enlargements) or you want to zoom in and crop the fine detail out of large photographs. Or is it just that you want to look at them on your computer and may be occasionally print of a few small prints. I would suggest that you look at using a 2 megapixel camera for the latter as you will find that most computer screens have a resolution of 1024x768 which even when viewing a photograph on a full screen which equates to less than 1 megapixel. Even a photograph (4x6) printed off will have a DPI higher than 300 which will be more than enough to produce a high quality print.
However, if you plan to print enlargements of your photographs then you need to look at the different print sizes and what megapixels are required to produce high quality prints. The table provided below shows you the photograph size and the megapixel required.
Photo Size Megapixel
4x6 2
5x7 3
8x10 7
11x14 14
16x20 28
20x30 54
However, if money is no object where the purchase of your camera is concerned then the more megapixels you have may out weigh other features that could be available to you. For example should you spend money on the extra megapixels or a better lense, or an external flash unit? Really, it all depends on how you camera will be used. So remember to decide what your camera will be used for and make the decision on what is more important to you based on this.
Next is the Zoom feature. In some cases it is very handy to have the use of a good quality zoom on your camera, especially say when you want to take a good quality portrait photo where the object/person’s face fills the complete photo frame, whilst when taking a photo of a group of people you want to make sure that everybody is in it.
You will find that there are two types of zoon now available, optical and digital. The optical zoom works by physically moving the cameras lense and changing the focal length of the picture. By changing the focal length you are able to make objects or subjects appear bigger than they are and that will fit the full photo frame. Whilst a digital zoom works by using built in software in the camera to clearly define a certain section of the photo that you are interested in taking. Then once this has been chosen the software inside will remove the rest of the photo surrounding the area and will then enlarge the chosen section and this will fit into a complete photo frame. Unfortunately the one downside of using a digital zoom is that the quality of the enlarged photo is less than that of the original photo taken.
So in conclusion if you are serious about taking photographs and not just to use it for taking those all important holiday snaps I would suggest you opt for the optical zoom and from a practical point of view a digital zoom should not be considered as a zoom lense at all.
However you need to be careful when looking at a camera you are thinking of buying as not always do the manufacturers stipulate whether the zoom figure specified is actually optical or digital. It can become quite confusing for those people who do not understand the difference between these two. So for example if a camera says it supports a 5X optical zoom and 10X digital zoom then is being advertised as a “10X zoom camera” you can see how the confusion can arise. A 10X digital zoom can be done to any camera just by using some simple PC software.
Once you have compared different cameras zooms then always compare their optical zoom capabilities as well. Really you can totally ignore the digital zoom figures that you will be provided with.
Allison Thompson who lives in Spain and is a work at home mum has set up a site with her husband Mark that is specifically tailored to the needs of those interested in digital photography. If you would like to learn more then please visit www.photoreport.info.
New Inventions - How To Dream Them Up
How do you dream up ideas for new inventions? Use any of the many excellent idea-creation techniques. One of the easiest is the use of a modifying-word list.
Several times now I have seen giant chairs. The most recent one was in a bar, being used by the host of a trivia contest. It was eight feet tall. Someone made and sold that chair, but how did he think of the idea? The simplest way would be to look at things and ask "what if it was bigger?"
That is the essence of the modifying word list. You look at things and ask, "What if it was..." and insert a word from the list to stimulate ideas for new inventions. To show the technique in action, I just looked around the room and chose a table as a test subject. I look at the word list and ask "What if it was..."
Bigger: If it had leaves that spread from a central pivot, it could be opened up easily into a larger surface, like a hand fan opened horizontally.
Movable: The obvious idea here is to put wheels on it. Another possibility is a line of super light tables that can be carried from room to room easily.
Cheaper: I once used an old door as a table. Are there cheap and available materials that could be used to make doors?
Interesting: Make tables that are covered in family photos (or anything else you want). The top would then be encased in acrylic. Easy to clean too!
Divided: Four small tables that can be used on their own or connected into one large table?
Subtracted from: Take away the legs and it would be easier to clean under. Could it hang from the ceiling?
Hotter: A warming tray built into the center of the table might be convenient for keeping meals hot.
Happier: Use colors that evoke positive emotions. Make cartoon-covered tables for day-care centers.
Take notes as you do this, and develop or discard the ideas later. Most words won't give you useful ideas, but don't dismiss them without a few seconds of thought. Creative solutions can begin with unrelated thoughts. "What if it was boring?" may seem useless, but then it could lead to the development of a line of furniture based purely on function: simple and cheap.
Words For New Inventions
You can make your own list for this technique. Generally it will need a lot of adjectives, but any words that have the potential to change your perspective can work. You may want to include some of the following.
What if it was... larger... smaller... farther away... closer... sooner... later... easier... more difficult... softer... harder... poorer... richer... wetter... drier... higher... lower... longer... shorter... certain... uncertain... newer... older... divided... combined... more common... less common... faster... slower... better... worse... hotter... colder... added to... subtracted from... left alone... hopeless... imaginary... cheaper... more expensive?
Take notes as you do this exercise, and give each word a few seconds of thought. Creative solutions can begin with unrelated thoughts. "What if it was hopeless?" may seem useless, if you are looking for new inventions to replace existing shopping carts, but it could also make you look beyond ways for customers to gather their groceries. Maybe an invention to bring the groceries to the customer would be more radical and marketable.
Copyright Steve Gillman. For more Idea Generating Techniques, and to get the Brain Power Newsletter and other free gifts, visit:
http://www.IncreaseBrainPower.com
How To Prevent The Next Data Recovery Incident
Almost all of us experience data loss at some point in our electronic life. This can happen for a few reasons: viruses, physical damage, Configuration errors, lost letters and more. It's important not to panic, as there are good solutions that will help you restore the lost data, in many cases. Software such as Bad Copy Pro or Multi Data Rescue will be able to correct corrupt or lost data, in most cases.
In more complex problems you may want to turn to the professional companies that deal with data recovery issues, such as OnTreak. These companies offer a variety of tool :
Remote treatment - where they treat your computer from their site and do the recovery work from a far.
Onsite treatment - data recovery specialists come to your office or home and work on your computer. This is a more in-depth treatment that is required in the more serious cases.
The lab treatment - your computer is taken to the lab for data recovery. This is done in the most extreme cases, for example when the computer is destroyed in fire of explosion. In the lab, the technicians will try to save as much as possible from that device.
Data recovery evolve all the time and makes it possible to save more of the lost data. There is a lot to be done about lost files, so make sure you give it your best efforts.
After you have recovered what needs to be recovered - how do you prevent the next Data loss event? How do you make sure you never lose any data again?
There are a few possible solutions to that, and they depend on your budget and just how paranoid you are as to the possibility of another incident. Here's a quick list of a few of the best preventive measures:
Daily manual back up - you can backup your daily work from you hard drive straight to CD. You can than place the CD in a safe place and this will pretty much guarantee you will always have a latest version of your work. This method is time consuming, and it may not fit you if you're doing a lot of work during the day and add a lot more data. This method may suit small operators.
Remote backup - This method is used by many organizations. The data is backed up automatically in a remote site. This way nothing ever gets lost and everything is backed up in a second place. Even if there's a fire in your office all the data is preserved. The disadvantages here are information security risks, as well as the costs involved. Nonetheless, this is a popular method among medium and big organizations.
Gill Reese is the owner of http://www.data-recovery-101.info/. You may visit the site and learn all about hard disk data recovery, data recovery services, data recovery software and more.