If you are a new compact digital camera user you may be bewildered by a number of features of digital camera equipment and terminology. We have put together this guide to make it easier to sort out the confusion in order for you to begin to know the technology much better. We also would like to make it easier when deciding on your new digital camera. Some of the important expressions you need to be aware of include ppi, pixel, sensitivity and white balance and we will endeavor to describe each of them in this article.

Pixels or Picture Elements

The expression is derived from picture element and each digital photo is composed of many millions of these square pixels. When seen together the visual effect is of a continuous and smooth image. One method to describe digital camers is by their pixel count, the number of pixels in the image. ppi is the number of pixels per inch. The more pixels the smoother the photograph will appear and the larger you can blow up the image. In most modern cameras the pixel count is usually between one and fourteen million. Cameras are designated as 2 Mp or 5 Mp (Mp =million pixels) for instance. The majority of the popular digital cameras will have anything from two and five million pixels for each picture.

Excellent 4×6" prints can be produced from a three million pixel digital camera whereas large five by seven inch prints will be slightly poorer in quality. If you want to produce 8×10" prints a four or five Mp digital camera would be more suitable. For even larger prints choose a camera with more pixels. Occasionally effective pixels and total pixels are quoted for a camera. Consider the total pixels as this is the number of pixels you will actually see in the photo.

Sensitivity Settings

The settings for sensitivity on a digital camera are similar to the ISO ratings for film. The majority of digital cameras will have settings equivalent to the ISO 100 or 200 ratings seen on film. A few have ISO 400 equivalant setting. More expensive SLR digital cameras have even higher settings, even up to ISO 6400. Most digital cameras can automatically adjust to the most suitable sensitivity setting for the lighting and mode.

Digital and Optical Zooms

The majority of digital cameras have the choose of optical or digital zoom. Digital zoom will result in lower picture quality as it crops the image and then enlarges it to the size required. This is similar to the technique an image editing program uses. Optical zooms work in a similar way to a film camera's zoom by adjusting the magnification and focal length. The image quality is not affected by this so than using a digital zoom.

White Balance

For a digital camera the white balance can be changed depending on the light source. This lets you ensure, in a wide variety of lighting conditions, that white looks white, not blue or yellow. Most cameras adjust automatically depending on the source of light but you can generally manually set this if you prefer. The white balance can be adjusted for fluorescent or tungsten lighting, shade or sunlight.

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