Which Camera

Cameras can be classify into three types:

• Point and shoot cameras
• Bridge Camera
• Professional Camera 

 

Point and shoot camera

As the name says "point and shoot" camera is for those situations where one has to point the camera to the object and just click. Almost all the compact digital cameras fall into this category. They are designed and automated such a way that everything is done in one click. Suggested for everyone, even to those who want to be a professional photographer because it very compact, easy to handle and quick.

Pros: Automatic features, Portability, Compact and Quick.

Cons: Very few manual options.

Some of the most popular point and shoot cameras are:

• Nikon COOLPIX
• Sony Cyber-shot
• Canon PowerShot / IXUS
• Panasonic Lumix

Bridge Camera

It is a bridge between full automatic and total manual camera. It carries all the technology from point and click camera and adds some more manual features to it making it more versatile and good starter kit for enthusiastic learners.They tend to have more zoom capability as well.

Pros: Like DSLR and Versatile

Cons: Almost DSLR but not DSLR.

Some of the most popular bridge cameras are:

• Canon PowerShot SX
• Panasonic Lumix TZ
• Sony Cyber-shot DSC
• Nikon COOLPIX S

Professional Camera

All DSLRs and SLRs with full manual operation fall into this category. These cameras have standard 35mm film and high sensitive sensor. These are very accurate and have true colours.

Pros: Everything

Cons: No hands on it until you know how to use it.

Some of the most popular DSLR cameras are:

• Nikon DSLR
  Samsung NX100
  Sony Alpha DSLR / NEX
  Canon EOS

Camera

A camera is a device that records images that can be stored directly, transmitted to another location, or both. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the word camera obscura (Latin for "dark chamber"), an early mechanism for projecting images. The modern camera evolved from the camera obscura.

How camera works?

To know this, lets look at all the parts that a camera has in it. Following figure briefly shows how light passes through different parts of camera. It is an SLR camera which is the most common and traditional equipment used in photography.

The light reflected from a object passes through a set of lenses, and onto a hinged mirror. From there it is reflected to a five sided prism called Pentaprism in such a way that what ever you see through the eye piece is exactly the same light falling onto film. The click button flips the mirror. While looking through the eye piece, the mirror is in inclined position(as shown) and as soon as one presses the click button the mirror just moves upwards so that all light falls on film and therefore the image is captured. 

 

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film, or electronically by means of an image sensor. 

Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure. The result in an electronic image sensor is an electrical charge at each pixel, which is electronically processed and stored in a digital image file for subsequent display or processing.

 

 

It is all about Light

Photography is an art of capturing moments in a frame. An object is seen when light falls on it and is reflected back to our eye, everything that can be seen in this world is only because of light. So in order to take a picture of an object, one has to capture light reflected from that object. When we talk about photography, we actually talk about light and different ways to capture it. A little knowledge about light and its properties is necessary to understand photography. So lets start with the basics of light.

 

Light and its Properties

Light: It is a spectrum of electromagnetic waves. Human eye can observe only a part of the light whose frequency is between 400nm to 780nm(approx.). So in photography all the light we see fall into this frequency range.

Things to remember:

• Light travels in straight lines.

• Intensity of light decreases by square of the distance.

  

So if you think that light is too bright on the object, just move it away by keeping the above relation in mind until you have desired exposure.