Subject Navigation
This is the second page of Digital Cameras
The Shutter Release Button.
On all digital cameras the shutter release button operates in two stages and in a similar way to modern film cameras.
There is a two step action in that the button is pressed halfway down and fully down.
When the button is pressed down halfway the camera will automatically focus and set the required exposure. When this has been set the camera may bleep and / or flash an led to let you know it is ready.
Pressing the shutter all the way down will then record the image.
Because of the sophistication of the cameras electronics the first step can take a moment, but if you are aware that this is going to happen then it does not cause a problem. By following the above that is pressing the shutter half way, waiting for the bleep and / or led, you should find you record better images than by pressing the shutter all the way down in one movement.
Zooming the Lens
You will probably find that you have two types of zoom facility, optical and digital. The images below will show the differences.
You can clearly see that the distortion is greater when using the digital zoom. This is because the quality of the clever electronics that produce this are not yet as good as the quality of the lens that produces the optical zoom. This is shown as a 10 time zoom which is extreme but the image does make the point.
When you zoom the camera moves through the optical range first and then through the digital range. It will let you know while you are zooming when you move from the optical range to the digital range. If it doesn't then it is probably because you have not set the camera to use digital zoom. Your instruction manual will tell you how.
Despite the lack of quality when comparing optical and digital zoom there are times when an image presents itself that has to involve the use of the maximum zoom range, including the digital and it would be shame to miss that image because the quality may not be the best.
Again it is well worth practising and looking at the results.
What's happening at ictWeb.org
tell us what you think of our site, any comments or suggestions
This site is constantly being updated... please watch this space