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Digital photography was quickly embraced in several professional fields of endeavor where the cost of $12,000–$30,000 cameras was easily outweighed by the convenience of having digital images instantly. I list these in detail in Mastering Digital Photography, but here’s a quick summary:

• Photojournalism: Newspapers, news magazines, and news Web sites need visuals quickly, and can’t wait for their photographers to fly images back from Afghanistan. Digital images, which could be transmitted by phone lines in the early 1990s, can be zapped across the Internet today, sent by satellite phones, and be ready for publication immediately. However, even if you’re not a pro photojournalist, the speed of access to digital images can be vital. I once took a publicity shot for my kids’ school and had a print to the local newspaper an hour later. Do you need a picture for that presentation you’re giving in one hour? Think like a photojournalist and go digital.
• Portrait photography: Digital technology has been important to professional portrait photographers because it gives them the opportunity to sell prints and enlargements immediately after the sitting, when the customers’ interest is highest. Digital portraits are easier to retouch, too. If you decide to produce portraits of your own family and friends, or need a passport photo quickly, you’ll appreciate digital technology, too.
• Photoillustration: Commercial, corporate, and industrial photographers all have taken to digital photography in a big way. Photoillustration can take many forms. For the amateur photographer, it often involves taking attractive photos of hobby collections, such as model ships or Lladró porcelain. Or, perhaps you’re interested in photographing flowers or animals, or want pictures for your eBay auctions. For catalog work, digital photography has become the way to go because repetitive setups can be shot one after another quickly, and the finished images are immediately ready for placement in a catalog layout.
• Everything else: Although the preceding three fields were the first to adopt digital technology, today every other kind of picture taking is rapidly turning digital. Travel and vacation photography benefit from the ability to reshoot immediately if a picture is not to your liking (rather than schedule a repeat trip back to the Taj Mahal). Family and pet photography thrive on the instant feedback digital photography provides. What better wayto encourage your kids to cooperate for that shooting session than to show them each group of pictures on your camera’s LCD? There aren’t many kinds of photography that won’t be predominated by digital technology in the next few years.

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JPEG, RAW, white balance, sensor dirt…with digital capture you need to understand many new terms and make decisions that will influence your picture-taking. Here we look at some of these issues so you can ensure your camera is working the way you want it to.

Choosing a file format

Before you take a picture with a digital SLR camera will offer you a choice of formats that the image file can be saved as. There are two main options to choose from, JPEG and RAW, and each has its advantages and disadvantages and is more suited to certain situations.

JPEG vs RAW

What is JPEG?

JPEG is a very common format that’s compatible with most software, including Internet Explorer and even Microsoft Word. JPEG uses a variable lossy compression, which can really crunch down the file size, allowing you to get more shots on a memory card. However, because it’s lossy, some picture data is discarded, causing the image quality to suffer – although with high-quality JPEGs this is hardly noticeable. The smaller file size also means that camera write times are much shorter, so the camera buffer is quickly cleared allowing for a greater rate of shots to be taken. This format is ideal where a fast turnover of shots is required, such as press or sports photography. It’s also good when full resolution pictures are not needed, such as web use.

What is RAW?

RAW files contain the information exactly as it comes off the camera. All the data is intact, which means a
smoother tonality and wider range of colours is available than with a JPEG file. RAWs offer the ultimate quality. However, RAW files need to be converted into a standard fi le format (such as TIFF or JPEG), using a dedicated RAW converter package, in order to extract the best possible image and become compatible with other imaging packages. Every model and make of camera produces it’s own type of RAW file, so finding a compatible converter can be a problem, particularly with new cameras. This format is best for situations where the ultimate quality and flexibility is needed but speed is not so critical, such as portrait, landscape and still-life photography.

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The type of light falling on your subject makes a massive difference to the colour of the scene. The light in the middle of the day is much more blue than it is at sunrise or sunset, while a household bulb produces light with a strong orange cast. This is due to what’s known as the colour temperature of the light source. Our eyes adjust to these changes automatically, but that’s not necessarily how your digital camera will record the scene. Every digital SLR has a white balance (WB) setting to adjust the way it records colours, so to get the most out of your camera you need to know when to use the settings available.

Auto

As the name suggests, this mode adjusts the white balance automatically for different lighting conditions to give neutral results. This mode works well for point-and-shoot situations or if there’s a mixture of light sources. The problem with auto white balance is that it will try to produce a neutral image, even though you may want the image recorded as a warmer or cooler tone. This is especially true when you’re shooting at the start or the end of the day. Sunrise or sunset shots will be ruined by the neutral results of an automatic setting.

Raw Advantage

Using the RAW file format means that you can change the white balance after shooting when you convert your images. You should still try to choose the right setting when you take the shot though, as this will save you time having to change the setting later on.

Pre-Set White Balance

When you’re shooting under a fixed type of lighting you can use one of the pre-set options available on your camera. This means that you’ll get consistent results while the lighting remains the same. This is especially important when you’re using many filters, as using the automatic setting will try to compensate for their effect.

Custom Pre-Set

This mode works out the correct colours for a scene by taking a reading from a neutral subject and recording this setting in the memory. To use this setting you need to select the custom or pre-set option in the white balance menu on the camera. Then fill the frame with a white or neutral grey subject in the same lighting as your main subject.

A grey card or white reflector is ideal for this. You then have to measure the white balance, which is usually done by pressing the shutter release. Once this white balance setting is settings available programmed into the camera you’ll get consistent results as long as the lighting remains the same, so it’s more useful under artificial lighting rather than the changing conditions usually encountered when shooting in natural light. Some pro D-SLRs allow you to pre-program a number of different custom white balance settings, but most models only offer one pre-set option.

You don’t always have to select the ‘correct’ white balance to get a completely neutral result. Using the cloudy setting on the camera has a similar effect to fitting a warm-up filter to your lens. Use this in sunny conditions and you’ll add extra warmth to your images, which is great for portraits, or for eliminating the slight cooling effect of using a polariser filter.

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