Should you use your camera's digital zoom?

It is unfortunate, but more and more digital point and shoot camera manufacturers are choosing to describe their camera’s zoom capability as “total zoom,” instead of quoting the camera’s optical and digital zoom capability separately.

Most people are familiar with the concept of zooming, but I’ve found that few understand the difference between optical and digital zooming. As a result, many travelers are devastated when they come home from a fabulous trip, with highly digitally zoomed photographs, to find them blurry, with the jaggies, and lots of noise.

In optical zooming, the individual pieces of glass (The are the glass elements -seen above in the cutaway view of the lens; the vertical pieces in the photo having convex and concave shapes.) of the lens are mechanically moved to manipulate the image the photographer wants to capture. By realigning the glass elements of the lens, the subject of the image is either magnified or reduced in size, with the angle of view either narrowed or expanded.

When zooming optically, all the magnification or reduction of the subject in the image is manipulated by the lens itself, so that the photograph captured uses the entire sensor area of the digital camera. This is true from the widest angle shot (wide angle focal length) with the least magnification, to the narrowest angle shot (telephoto focal length) with the maximum magnification.

It's spring! Getting those close-up shots while traveling

Spring has just come to the Northern Hemisphere. Flowers are blooming and the colors are spectacular. Each spring more and more travelers tour famous gardens to photograph and drink in their magnificent blooms.

Around Philadelphia, traffic to Winterthur and Longwood Gardens dramatically increases in the spring. In the Netherlands it’s time to visit Keukenhof Gardens, just outside of Los Angeles, the amazing Huntington Botanical Gardens, and also in Scotland, Castle Kennedy and Gardens. They are all exquisite.

This spring, travel photographers will pull out their macro lenses to get close-ups of garden blooms. If you don't have an expensive SLR (single lens reflex), or DSLR (digital single lens reflex), with extra care, a good P&S (point and shoot) camera can grab the shots too.

In general photography, we record sharp images with ease, as most photos such as landscapes, are taken at a distance. In macro photography, we take photographs of small and sometimes tiny objects, which require the lens to be positioned close to the subject, often less than a foot away. That makes it much more difficult to record a sharp image.

If you have a quality SLR or DSLR with a macro lens attached, you will have a great advantage over other cameras to get that sharp close-up image. If you have a tripod you'll have an even greater advantage.

That being said, here are some tips to get great close-up photographs:

• Compose your photo carefully, as the subject’s background can make or break a close-up picture. Use the background to complement the main subject, not detract from it.


• Consider opening up the lens’ aperture to reduce depth of field. In the photo above, on the right, taken at the Morris Arboretum, note the background is not in focus, while the plant is in sharp focus, making the plant stand out, almost in 3D. This was accomplished by opening the lens to f/5.6.


• Focus your camera carefully. As in telephoto photography, focus is critical. Focus on the most important element in a scene. Shoot at a small aperture (f/11, up) for good depth of field, unless you want the area in front of and behind your subject out of focus. In the lotus flower photo to the right, I focused on the bee, and used an aperture which kept the entire lotus in focus.


• Steady your camera. Close-up shots exaggerate camera shake. To reduce camera movement, which is most noticeable in natural light pictures, use a tripod. For the photo of the bee in the lotus, I used a tripod when I took it at the Garden of Eden Arboretum and Botanical Garden in Maui.


• Another way to reduce or eliminate the effect of camera shake is to use your camera or lens’ image stabilization or vibration reduction ability. Please remember, however, while they can really help, they are no substitute for using a quality tripod.


• Set your digital camera’s image quality to RAW, if your camera has it. The RAW setting gives you more exposure latitude than JPEG (JPG). In close-up photography you try to record tiny details, so save the image at the highest quality available in your camera. If you can’t save images in RAW, use the highest quality JPEG setting, such as "superfine, large."


• Set your digital camera's ISO (sensor sensitivity) to the lowest possible setting according to conditions, to reduce noise and artifacts which are troublesome in macro photography. For film cameras, use film with a low ISO rating. An ISO of 100 is ideal.
  


• Consider adding light (flash), even when outside. A ring light, or a system like the Nikon R1 is a good choice. The light they produce can add contrast to a photograph, making it look sharper. The built-in flashes in DSLRs and P&S generally will not work well for macro photos, and are better turned off.


• Look for different viewpoints. Different angles and shooting distances can greatly affect your macro shot. Sometimes moving just a faction of an inch can provide a completely different view of the same subject. Experiment with color, and black & white.


• Many point and shoot cameras have a macro mode. Use it. Macro mode allows your camera to focus on a subject closer to your lens than normal. Most macro modes will set your camera to choose a larger aperture, so that your subject is in focus but the background is not.

I love visiting gardens myself, and taking hikes through parks and forests while taking close-ups of flowers. I hope you enjoy bringing home great plant, flower, and insect photos from your spring travels.