Digital Art Photography For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Making the Digital Leap

In This Chapter

• Comparing film and digital cameras and equipment

• Exploring digital cameras

• Selecting lenses, flashes, and other accessories

• Downloading images from your camera to your computer

• Understanding resolution

• Discovering file types

So you decided to jump into this century and go digital, eh? Bully for you! This chapter (and the next) cover all those nuts-and-bolts kinds of digital photography issues — you know, the digital side of digital art photography.

Whether you're a budding photographer whose first foray involves using a digital camera or a film buff who wants to use traditional and digital film technology, this chapter walks you through some of the jargon and nuances between these two formats to help you along your path.

The Digital Path

Any image that ends up in your computer is digital — that is, bits of data organized electronically. Even if a photo begins on film, it ends up being digital when you scan it into your computer. Ever look at a photo attachment in an e-mail? Maybe it started out as a hard copy print from film, but you view it in digital format. Your goal when making the digital leap is to manipulate those bits of data with electronic means — your computer, some image editing software, and perhaps a scanner — to create an image that looks simply fantastic and cutting edge, no matter what special effects you do (or don't) apply. ...