The camera has one small, slow chip and very little memory to do that interpolation. Your computer has a big, powerful processor and lots of memory, not to mention, no particular need to compromise their software routines to fit into a small amount of memory or trade quality for speed to avoid long delays after taking a picture. In short, your computer will do a vastly better job at interpolating the picture than your camera will, and to top that off you can choose different algorithms (often named after the mathematicians or programmers who created them, like Lanczos or Mitchell) and experiment with how well they work on a particular image. You can even save different versions of the file, including the original, which you can't if the camera is doing the work. There's nothing to be gained by compromising image quality, which is exactly what you're doing if you don't use the best filter you can get your hands on. The interpolated image even takes up more space on your camera's memory card, but it doesn't hold any more information than the original. Finally, as I mentioned above, it adds time between shots, as the camera has to grind away at reshaping your picture before you can take another one.

You can recreate the settings of a favorite shot or repeat a favorite effect, and higher-level information such as special lenses and light metering modes can be invaluable as you advance your knowledge of photography. You can even share this information with friends or colleagues to help duplicate tricky shots, or create a database or spreadsheet of the effects of specific settings to help you recreate effects or types of shots under different conditions. An example would be keeping track of how white balance changes affect the appearance of particular colors. Instead of making notes of what changes you made and what order photos were taken in (particularly when the string of photos were all taken of the same scene), you can skip the notes and compare the settings in the EXIF data instead. Then, when you work on your log, you can copy setting information over and just make a note about which settings worked best.

Rough Side of RAW: RAW formats differ from camera to camera and there are debates about camera programming that provides some control over your RAW files by the camera manufacturer. Where protests have been issued, there is an effort to provide standardized RAW formats that would better serve the consumer where general market software could be used to edit the RAW material. If your computer is equipped with lots of processing memory, RAW data will not be as much a problem, however presently, RAW files take a lot more time to open and process than JPEG and TIFF files. That is where the option to capture in RAW and JPEG simultaneously is a strong benefit. While standard editing software is now offered on the market, the way that software processes RAW files may differ depending on how the software from the manufacturer is recognized by the software. Thus, be sure to find and ask a savvy sales expert. Most sensors record light over a 12-bit range, with intensities of more or less 4096 possible values. Each sensor with 12-bit output is one and a half bytes. So our small chip with 20,000 light cells gives a raw output of 30,000 bytes. In an actual file there is some non-image information, but that can be ignored for simple calculations.

Higher temperatures and long exposures may increase the occurrence of hot pixels. Fixed pattern noise is unique where it often shows similar distributions of hot pixels even if taken under the same ISO speed, temperature and length of exposure. Fixed pattern while the most objectionable visually, is the easiest of the three to remove because it is a repeated pattern. Once the internal electronics of a camera knows the pattern, it can subtract the noise away to reveal the true image. Banding noise is associated with the camera model and related characteristics. It is most visible at high ISO speeds and in shadows. When brightening an image, banding noise may become noticeable when using white balances. It is not always the number of pixels that reduces noise, but actually the greater the area of a pixel in a camera which allows a greater amount of light into the pixel causing the sensor to produce a stronger signal. Cameras with physically larger pixels generally appear less noisy since the signal is larger relative to the noise.

For the photographer that has a tight budget, it's good to know that there are free resources out there! If you take digital photos, then you can use some great editing software that is absolutely free, made available by Windows. Editing your pictures is a very important step in the photographic process, and can end up costing a pretty good amount of money by the time you are done. Anyone that needs to save money can take advantage of some great editing programs that are free and easy to use! Almost all digital cameras purchased today have a photo editing software program that comes as part of the purchase. These can provide simple cropping and picture modification. One of the many free photo editors offered by Windows is Paint.net. It is offered by Washington State University. You can freely download this freeware and use it to edit your own digital photos. The software has a ton of really cool features, including special effects! It is easy to use and you can even log onto a user forum, if you should need any help or want to see how others are using this great freeware! Another user-friendly freeware program that you can download to edit your photos is VCW VicMan's Photo Editor. This freeware is similar to Adobe's Photoshop. This software has a limited free version, but you can purchase the software for a great price. If you take a little time, you can find it offered at many online merchant websites and can even stumble across some great discounts!

At the opposite end of the spectrum, you can take advantage of the extremely short duration of the flash in low-light situations. Flash firing time can be as short as 1/50,000 of a second, and while the camera's CCD sensor will remain active longer than that, almost all of the light in a dark scene that reaches the CCD will be from that flash event. This can effectively "freeze" the action as if you were using a shutter speed faster than your camera can support. Small built-in flash units have a very short "reach," often providing effective light only as far as two or three meters. This weakness, however, can be turned into a strength if you think about how you want to compose your scene. Certainly for "isolating" or emphasizing your subject, the ability to move only a short distance from background objects and radically reduce their light level is handy. In night shots outdoors or low-level indoor shots, the "weaker" flash gives more control over the content of the shot by dramatically reducing the "foreground" and magnifying the effect of distance.

The good news in the world of memory cards for digital photography is that new media is cheaper, faster, and more readily available than ever. The abundance of choices means you can always find a method of storage that fits your needs and budget, and you'll likely not end up with a camera that you can't find storage media for. Most of the time you choose your memory card based on which camera you have, and then you're more interested in size and brand than technology. When you're shopping for a new camera, however, you want to take memory type into account. That being said, here's the latest news on the available choices. Multi-Media Cards (MMC) are definitely worth looking out for. Developed as a royalty-free standard, anyone can make the cards or the devices that support them. As an added advantage, the full-size MMC cards can be used in SD card slots. As a disadvantage, the standard is growing - in the sense that there are now five versions of the MMC standard with different sizes, voltages and features, in use. So watch your eBay purchases carefully. Available in sizes up to 2 Gigabytes