'Cause you said, said he was the one
Baby yes you said, said you were in love
Back to basics: Step 1
Arthur
JJC
Outgrowing 17
Dreamer
Poet
Lover
Atheist
Left-Handed Saggitarian
My passions: Step 2
Food
Company
Writing
Movies
Music
Debates
What i am: Step 3
Strengths:
Confident
Sensitive
Eloquent
Weaknesses:
Paranoid
Unorganized
Careless
Dreams of a globetrotter wannabe: Step 4
Paris
Shanghai
London
Gold Coast
Japan(Tokyo)
Rome
Taiwan
Hong Kong
New York
San Francisco
South Korea
Wishlist
My own domain
Scholarship
To publish a book
Want to know more about me?
Read my blog and you would start discovering fragments of me
P.S. All the works here posted belong to me unless stated otherwise. If you want to post them elsewhere, please seek prior permission from me before doing so. Thanks.
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Icon: reruntherace
The Camera Paradox
Tuesday, June 17, 2008, 6:09 PM
When we think camera, the first thing that comes to mind for most of us would be the quality of the image which is in turn inevitably intertwined with the number of image sensor elements of the digital camera i.e. megapixels.It seems that those who aren't particularly well acquainted in the area of photography would always source for cameras with a high megapixel count when they go shopping for cameras. It is true that the higher the megapixel is, the clearer and the better will be the quality of your images. But it seems that the "megapixel chase" has gone too far today. Apart from the technical parts of the camera, what is more important in affecting the quality of the picture is the technique of the photographer. If one is sloppy and not well-acquainted with the art of photography, the photo would probably turn out equally bad whether you have a 3.2 megapix camera or 7.2 megapix camera. That's the reason why photography societies still exists in some schools. As much as technology can help to improve the photos, the most important factor in determining the outcome of the photo is YOU. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars trying to make up for our lousy techniques through upgrading our digital cameras, we should invest this money into a short photography course to equip us with the necessary skills to last us for a life time. Have we become so lazy now that we choose the shorter route out as usual and employ technology (which does fail at times) to make up for our shortfalls?
Even if we choose to employ technology, not all our problems would be resolved. To truly make a real difference to your photo, you would have to at least triple or quadruple the number of megapixels. Anything less than that, the photo would probably look the same. The question then comes, why do we still purchase a camera with megapixels higher than our current one when it dosen't make a real difference? This can be partially attributed to ignorance about how a difference in megapixels makes a difference to our photos. We simply assume that increasing our megapixel would improve our picture quality, which is something we start pondering about when we look at our photos which, at times, don't turn out so well after all.
There are also the measurebators, a lingo used by photographers to describe people who like the group described above, think that higher "specs" equates to better photos and thus go chasing after the numbers as the megapixel count continues to shoot upwards. Measurebators go around comparing the prices of their cameras and specs which seems to be the category that some of us happen to fall under, knowingly or not.
For those who fall under this category unknowingly, they belong to the category described in the previous paragraph i.e. people who are unaware about how differences in the components of camera affect the photo. However, feigning ignorance in the 21st century dosen't seem like a very plausible excuse for getting caught up in the number chase. As much as we have the technology to make up for our shortfalls, we can also tap into this technology to open the doors that were once closed to us. With Internet and the library so accessible for us as transport infrastructure improves, ignorance is just an excuse, a ludicrous one in fact. It's time we open up the internet explorer and google for photography tips.
There are also those who fall under the second category, those who knowingly join the chase, albeit uncommon, relative to the first. These are the people who faithfully believe that their worldy possession, money, can purchase anything and all else is subordinate to money. I find it silly to compare the monetary value of cameras for the sake of flaunting wealth. Why not flash your bankbooks to each other instead? That would probably be a better way to compare your wealth without having to have the numbers in the bank book falling drastically.
That aside, having a camera with higher megapixels does come with it's own implications. For those of us who are more tech saavy, the story does not end after taking the photo and developing it, that's if you develop your photos. After countless repeats of snapping shutters, we plug in our USB cable into the computer and start uploading our photos. That's when the problem comes in. Do you find yourself starting to resize your photos so that they can fit both in dimension and size to the website that you may want to upload your photo to? It is a known fact that many websites out there put a limit on the size of the photos you can upload to their website and in fact the cap is usually rather low. When you start resizing your photos, the photo quality drops correspondingly as well. Is there then any point in having a photo with extremely high quality? The answer is no, particularly for those of us who love to cam whore because we usually the photos taken at our camwhore parties. The difference in a photo taken with a high megapixel camera and low megapixel camera only becomes blatantly obvious when you develop it and print it out (particularly if the photo is literally large) This is the case too for those of us who want to share our photos with friends. The problem isn't too big when it is one or two photo. When the photos amount to 50, 100 or even more, it is impossible to send all these photos in one zip file. Why? Because the file size is too big even after compressing it via zipping. The solution? To reduce the photo quality.
To prove my point, i did a little experiment with the two cameras i own. One of them is a 7.2 megapixel camera and the other is a 3.2 megapixel camera. The 7.2 megapixel camera's photo file size was on average 2-3MB and the 3.2 megapixel camera's file size was 400-800KB. The difference in file size is stark and shocking isn't it? Don't believe me? Try it out yourself.
This post was inspired by my friend, Marilyn, who recently purchased a new 10.1 megapixel digital camera which got me thinking about cameras. Thanks Marilyn.
"I bought a new digital camera." says Arthur
"How many megapixels does the digital camera possess?" askes friend
"It's more than that." says Arthur
Labels: Camera