I have a pentax optio e30 now from what i know about cameras you just point and shoot and WHALA now I have this digital alien,
what is awb, and iso and I only just found out that optical zoom and digital are NOT the same, and what should ev compensation be on? or better still what is it? and should i use digital zoom or optical? whats better for clear pics.
Oh and why don;t they put in big fat letters that if you FORMAT your camera you can kiss your pictures goodbye, I thought format ment to put things in order not WIPE!!! stop laughing so not funny,
so if anyone can clear any of this up for me that would be great, and as far as looking at the disk it came with well that had an unfortunate encounter with my now 3 yr old so that would be a negative.
so if anyone could help that would be grrrreat!!! Go to dpreview.com and on the left of the screen click on LEARN/GLOSSARY. That will explain all the terms associated with digital cameras.
Next, download the Owner's Manual for your camera. Trying to use your camera without READING & STUDYING the Manual is like trying to thread a needle blindfolded while wearing boxing gloves. Downloadable Owners Manual for Pentax Optio E30 (.pdf format)
http://www.pentax.co.uk/downloads/photo/...
review of your camera:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0701/070103...
(on the left it has links for Learn/ Glossary & Buying Guide)
Hope this helps! Well, first, enjoy your new digital alien.
AWB is automated white balance. The camera records light slightly differently than our eyes, and AWB helps adjust for this. Without AWB, your photos may come out bluish or reddish or really dark or really washed out because of the light conditions when you take the photo. Sometimes AWB interprets a really bright situation, like photos of sky or snow, in an improper manner, causing the photo to appear gray and leaving less well lit areas as too dark (the camera adjusts to an average light intensity and automatically reduces the received light if the field of the photo is dominated by bright areas).
Iso is a standard for film speed, the higher the number the faster the response (the film or light sensitive area will respond to lower input levels, collecting info faster at the expense of detail).
There is a bit of an interplay with F-Stop, which is a measure of how wide open the iris is (imagine your eyes in a bright light, the iris closes to keep the amount of light entering your eye at an acceptable level-you can override this with a camera), and shutter speed that can be fun to play with.
If you use a slow shutter with a narrow aperture (keeping total light input in the optimal range), you can get photos where moving objects blend or distort, whereas a wide aperture with fast shutter speed tends to give a sharp photo, no blurring of moving objects. You need to narrow the aperture to maintain total exposure at the optimum when increasing the shutter speed, but you can offset this a bit by adjusting ISO (film sensitivity) to a slower level, allowing a better picture for the conditions.The depth of field is also affected by F-Stop-a narrow aperture gives a better focus range over distance, but a wide aperture gives a very restricted distance of focus.
Examples: a photo of a flower that shows only the flower with the plants in the background out of focus is best obtained using a wide aperture (note that aperture is inverse to fstop number, a low number is wide aperture).
A photo of a waterfall can either show it as a sharp, not blurry, image by using fast shutter speed with open aperture, but that nice artistic flow of the water (the water is a bit smeared) using a slower shutter speed.
You really need to play with the settings to see what they do. The advantage you have with your digital camera is the ability to see the differences right after taking the photo, instead of waiting days for the film to develop to see what happened, which is what I had to do when I learned how to use my original camera.
Sorry if this seems confusing, but it really isn't once you play with the settings a bit, and with a little bit of practice, you can learn to take some pretty nice photos. If all you want is to take pictures of the kids playing, leave it on auto settings for most situations.
Oh, as for optical and digital zoom, optical zoom involves the physical movement of the lens, and doesn't change the pixel density of the resultant photo while allowing you to enlarge the object of your picture. Digital zoom is simply taking one section of the image received by the camera and enlarging it, which, since the camera only has a certain fixed maximum sensitivity (pixel density) requires decreasing the density of the recorded image.
I don't use digital zoom because I can photoshop the pic afterward to get the zoom I want with the same result. (I actually don't use photoshop, I use the GIMP, but you get what I mean I am sure). http://www.picturecorrect.com/photograph...
That is a great article on ISO settings, You may find you really like having the options! I Do!
As far as Zoom goes you want to use Optical and NOT digital as most of the time using the digital zoom is the same as cropping it down on the computer later! It is important to your photo quality to try to stick with only the optical zoom if you can. The best way to be able to tell, is if your actual lense is moving your still in optical zoom... of it stops and your still zooming your just pre cropping and you may end up with a more blurry picture in the end.
Im sorry to hear about the formatting problem, I have seen it done with someone else and she lost her Daughters First Christmas Photos So SAD!!!
Anyways The best way to really get those pictures looking good is to take as many as you can! Good luck and have fun! lol not everything in life is point and shoot, but with the cam you have, you can get some decent results with it. The setting described as AWB stands for automatic white balance. Balancing is involving all the colors that make up your image. Easily seen is when you shoot a pic and the light bulb from a home has a temperature associate with that light that can throw a undesired color through the image... usually orange tint to it... white balancing is a way to get a color accurate image. ISO is a setting that is based upon times when photographers had to use diff film for diff circumstance. Easy rule to understand the higher the ISO the less light is needed for good exposure. So when dark, raise ISO, when lots of light LOW ISO. EV compensation, prob won't be something you will use a great deal. As far as your zoom goes, I wouldn't try to use it too much as the images will come out soft or not quite in focus. You paid a certain amount of money and this is where the cam falls off... in low light situations or in the optical zoom. Use the cam without as much of the zoom, meaning make your angles or move to give what you want, and the images should be clear.
D.
for more info write to
www.deaftoneimaging.com It's all explained in the book that came with your camera.
If you didn't get one, go to the Pentax Web site.
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