After you bring your brand new digital camera home, it’s time to set it up for photography. The process is a bit different than it is for film cameras that don’t require quite as much tweaking as digital cameras do. It’s important to understand how to prepare your digital camera because setting certain controls improperly is the electronic equivalent of forgetting to put film in the camera or accidentally loading the wrong film. I help you get things set up correctly so that you can begin taking memorable pictures right from the start. Fortunately, the list of adjustments you have to make to your new camera is relatively manageable. Although this article goes into detail about lots of possibilities, after you’ve selected some favorites, you won’t have to worry about them again. Gone are the days when a camera could function without any battery power at all. Not only do cameras require power to drive zoom lenses, auto-focus, and auto-exposure, but those LCD screens suck up juice, too. All digital cameras require some form of power supply, most commonly AA batteries. Because these cameras tend to drain batteries quickly, I always recommend taking along a supply of rechargeable batteries instead of regular ones. Rechargeable batteries come in several forms, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. An Internet search for digital camera batteries provides a long list of battery suppliers and options. The simplest and easiest answer is to go with a set of rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries (Ni-Cads), but there are other viable battery options. Here’s a rundown on your battery options. Keep in mind that battery longevity is based on how many pictures you take and how much time you spend reviewing images on your camera’s LCD screen. In other words, your mileage may vary. Heavy users may need multiple sets of batteries to get them through the day (recharging them at night), whereas casual photographers who only fire off a few frames a day might go a couple of days between battery charges.

Ni-Cads: An inexpensive and easy solution to digital camera battery concerns. Two sets of Ni-Cads plus a back-up set of alkaline AAs will usually get the hobbyist photographer through a family outing, event, or vacation day.

Nickel-Metal-Hydride Batteries: Another form of rechargeable AA battery. Nickel-metal-hydride batteries cost a little more than Ni-Cads, but they aren’t subject to the memory effect Ni-Cads sometimes suffer. The memory effect happens when you repeatedly recharge a Ni-Cad battery before it’s fully discharged. After a while, the battery drops its maximum capacity to the levels you’ve been recharging them at.

Li-Ions: Lithium-ion batteries constitute another form of rechargeable power supply. Not found in AA or AAA form, this technology is frequently used in proprietary battery designs. Li-Ion batteries generally store more power with less storage loss when idle than the other two types but are more expensive to manufacture. Li-Ion batteries don’t have a problem with the memory effect either. Your shooting habits will determine how much battery power you need. If you’re going to spend a lot of time reviewing images on the LCD or showing pictures to your friends every time you trip the shutter, plan on carrying extra batteries or a larger power pack. Although today’s batteries pack plenty of power, sometimes a layer of corrosion can build up on both camera and battery contacts. It can be a good habit to carry a pencil with a full eraser, which you can use to clean off those contacts when a set of “good” batteries stops working. Another power option is a portable battery pack. These tend to provide more power than AAs and also last longer, but they are bulkier than regular batteries. A portable battery pack is a nice option, however, if you take a lot of pictures. These units range from small packs costing about $40 for ones capable of powering a point-and-shoot digital camera, to large units costing $300 or more that can simultaneously power a pro digital SLR and portable flash unit.Some manufacturers offer memory cards that are capable of receiving data from your camera faster than others. (Kind of like a 16x CD-ROM versus a 4x CD-ROM.) Depending on your particular camera model, this high-speed memory may be an option for you. Is fast memory particularly important? Maybe, maybe not. First off, many cameras (including some very high end pro models) simply don’t process data fast enough to take advantage of anything faster than 4x or 6x memory. If your camera falls into this category, then worrying about high-speed memory is unnecessary. High-speed memory is also not necessary if your camera doesn’t offer a highspeed motor drive function. So how much memory should you buy for that new digital camera? This is a fiendishly difficult question to answer. Unlike film, where you can just pick up an extra roll or two as needed for special occasions, digital memory costs more and sits around a lot. What may be more than enough capacity for a birthday party or day trip, clearly won’t suffice for a two-week vacation. Fortunately, you can purchase additional memory in the form of a memory card.

Pros and serious hobbyists generally get around this problem by bringing along a laptop computer or portable hard drive such as those offered by Sima, Nixvue, Mindstor, and others. Certainly a laptop computer is an ideal answer because you not only get storage space to relieve your memory cards, you can also view and edit photos while on vacation. The challenge is greatest for the family photographer who just wants to take some nice vacation photos without having to turn photography into a project that distracts from the fun. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of good advice for this person. If you have a laptop computer, consider bringing it with you on vacation. This does provide the added advantage of letting you get a good look at your pictures at the end of the day. When possible, I suggest spacing out memory purchases over as long a time as possible rather than buying a full collection of cards all at once. Because memory prices over the long term keep moving downward, this approach can reduce the overall cost of memory. Waiting until just before your vacation to add capacity will at least save you a little money. Of course, this isn’t much help if you just bought a camera to take on the vacation you’re taking next week. One other option that is becoming more common is the photo processing kiosks that offer a CD-ROM archive disc. These machines are becoming more common in department stores and tourist centers, so they may be an option depending on how remote a vacation you’re planning. Most of these machines accept the most commonly used types of memory (compact flash, smart media, memory stick, and xd memory), and cost about the same as photographic reprints. To use one, simply insert your memory card into the appropriate receptacle and follow the directions on the kiosk. Some of these machines even make an archive CD-ROM for you (at extra cost of course).

Your digital camera has a number of internal settings that help determine your overall image specifications. Some of these you only have to set once and then can forget about; others you have to consider every time you pick up the camera. One of the first things to consider when rigging your new camera is making sure its resolution is set to the quality level you want to use. Unlike film cameras, your digital camera gives you a choice of several quality settings ranging from 640 x 480 all the way up to the camera’s maximum setting. That maximum may be 1600 x 1200 for a 2.1 megapixel camera to 2160 x 1440 for a 3.4 megapixel camera or even more for higher resolution cameras such as the Kodak DCS SLR/n that creates a whopping 13.8MB file and a 4536 x 3024 pixel image. Remembering to check your camera’s resolution setting before using it is one of the most important habits you can develop. Few things are more disappointing than taking a bunch of photos during a once-in-a-lifetime vacation and then finding out you shot them at your camera’s lowest resolution setting instead of its highest. Some cameras default to a specific menu of settings each time the camera is turned back on, so even though you may have set it to your preferences the last time you used it, it’s not set that way now. There is the temptation when you’re on vacation to dial down the camera’s resolution setting in order to stretch your memory—shooting as many pictures as your memory device can hold. It’s not a bad idea as long as you’re still shooting at a high enough quality setting to get the size prints you want once you get back home. The problem with this approach is that it leaves you in a bind if you get a great photo and don’t have enough resolution to get a bigger print.

The higher the file resolution, the larger the print you can make. If you’ve ever seen a digital image with jaggy, pixelated edges, the file was printed too big for its file size. Generally, a 1 megapixel image makes an acceptable 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 photo. A 2 megapixel file can be printed effectively at 8 x 10 and maybe even 11 x 14. The size of your print depends largely on the printer you’re using and how well the image is set up in an image editing program. The bar is shifting on print quality too. As printer and sensor technologies improve, it becomes possible to make bigger prints from smaller files. A good general rule is to aim for a 1600 x 1200 resolution image, which equates to a 2.1 megapixel file. This setting gives you more than enough resolution for a high-quality (rather than an “acceptable”) 4 x 6 print. Thanks to improved printing technology and better match-ups between digital files and photographic printers, a 2.1 megapixel file can even produce a good 8 x 10 print. Even if you don’t plan on making prints, I always recommend choosing a resolution setting that enables you to make good quality prints. Never mind that you may only want to use the images for your web site or for presentations. I suggest this for two reasons. First, you never know when you’re going to get a remarkable or memorable image. If this happens while you’re shooting at a low-resolution setting, there’s not much you can do to get that lost resolution back. Second, a higher resolution gives you the chance to crop your image as needed while still retaining enough image quality for effective use. Ever wonder why certain film is labeled as daylight film? This designation is used to differentiate between films created for daylight lighting, Tungsten (studio) lighting, or infrared lighting. Film comes with various light ratings because different types of light have different color casts that can affect the quality of your photos. A classic example is the heavy green cast film prints suffer from when pictures are taken under florescent lighting. Just because photography has gone digital, it doesn’t mean that problems from different types of light have been solved. It just means that the digital photographer has more control over these lighting situations than his film counterpart. The easy way to handle various lighting situations is to make sure your camera’s white balance (WB) setting is on auto, and just forget about it. Most digital camera’s auto white balance features do a good enough job of choosing the right setting. Sometimes though, the right setting isn’t the best setting. There’s no rule that says that just because it’s sunny out, your white balance has to be set for sunlight. You can experiment with white balance settings to create different colorcasts that may be more in tune with the image you want to create. When in doubt, take two pictures: one at the indicated setting and one with the experimental one. Here’s one example. Because heavy shade has a lot of blue light, digital camera white balance settings for shade will add some red to neutralize that blue light. Setting your white balance to shade for a picture taken under direct sun will produce a “warmer” image because of that red.

Next, consider your choice of ISO settings. ISO (International Organization for Standards) is a measure of how sensitive your film or recording sensor is to light. One of the great advantages of digital cameras is that you can change the ISO settings on the fly. Back in the days when film ruled, if your lighting conditions changed, you had to change your film to match. Digital cameras enable you to change ISO settings to adapt to both changing lighting conditions and also to respond to different shooting situations. Most point-and-shoot digital cameras offer ISO settings of 100, 200, and 400, with each increase doubling the sensor’s sensitivity to light. Many DSLRs offer even more choices and a greater range of sensitivities. Light sensitivity doesn’t come for free. As you change ISO settings to compensate for falling light levels, noise becomes more of an issue. Noise is a problem caused by individual pixels within the camera’s sensor misfiring as their sensitivity is boosted. This problem shows up as individual pixels in the image being the wrong color. Noise becomes most apparent in shadow areas where, instead of a solid black, you find individual red, yellow, and green pixels mixed in with the black ones. Generally, you want to choose the lowest ISO setting that gives you a workable combination of lens opening and shutter speed for the kinds of photos you want to make. Remember, changes in ISO setting affect the overall exposure needed to expose an image properly. Your lens opening and shutter speed are part of that equation, so changing ISO affects those settings too. Properly exposed photos are the result of the right combination of shutter speed and lens opening (aperture). Most cameras give you a series of choices for settings that achieve different exposure goals. These choices range from ones in which the camera does everything for you, all the way down to full manual control by the user.