Tutorial Two: Digital Camera use and applications

Digital cameras are of use in occuapational therapy practice, so it's important to have knowlege about them and their applications

“A new technology is rarely superior to an old one in every feature”.
Although digital cameras are the new, upgraded technology from the more traditional film based cameras, both have their pros and cons.

Digital cameras.
Digital cameras have functions which film cameras do not, such as; displaying images on a screen straight after they have been captured, storing hundreds to thousands of images on a memory device, recording moving images with sound, and deleting images to free store space. Images can then be transferred to other technology such as a computer of television where they can be viewed and/or edited. The ability of digital cameras to transfer their images to other technology devices means you can be travelling the world and showing your family back at home your pictures a matter of moments after taking them!
However to use digital cameras the user needs to be familiar with the technology and all it’s functions. The fact that it stores many images on one memory device means risky business for the non-techno savvy users who can easily accidently delete all recorded images with a simple click of a button (something I know from experience!). If the user struggles to be able to switch between the functions of viewing photos/taking photos/taking videos it can be a tricky, frustrating and unsuccessful process! For some of the lower end digital cameras, there is a delay between when the camera button is pressed and when the image is actually captured. This meaning there is a risk of not capturing the precise targeted moment the photographer is aiming to catch. On some of these lower end digital cameras there can also be delays between capturing the photo and storing it to memory, hence meaning that another image cannot be captured directly after. This limiting the cameras ability to take efficient sequence photos. Digital cameras require batteries which creates a risk of the camera running out of battery just as the user wants to use it. This also limits how far a photographer can go to shoot images without having to get replacement batteries.

Film cameras
Whilst digital cameras seem to have quite the number of functions and options, film cameras can create quite a different quality of printed photos: Film cameras produce sharper images, without the need for sharpening adjustments as there are with digital images. No digital display medium can match the brightness and vividness of a transparency on a light table, which is used to bring film images to print. Film prints never lose the highlights of an image because it’s nearly impossible to overexpose a colour or black and white negative.
When shooting with film cameras there isn’t any need to worry about having back up memory devices as film cameras don’t erase or lose data. This is however a hassle when a lot of unwanted images have been captured.
Film cameras don’t need batteries, which is hassle free and means the photographer can shoot photos anywhere, any time without worrying about the cameras ability to function. The film in a camera is much bigger than a digital cameras storing device of a memory chip, and is therefore much less likely to be misplaced or lost.
The nature of the images being stored on a film means the images captured are limited and a very minimal amount compared to the hundreds to thousands that a digital camera can capture and store in one photo shoot!
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Some of the ways that digital images can be stored transferred and manipulated using other communications technology:
The images shot from a digital camera are stored onto the memory card in the camera. These images can then be transferred (and stored onto) to other technology devices such as
-computers
-televisions
-cellphones
Through either:
Connecting the memory chip to the technology that it’s being transferred to or
Connecting the camera and the technology the images are being transferred to through a cord connected to both.

A common device images are transferred to are computers. Once images are stored into computers they can then be transferred to and stored in other technology devices such as ipods, CD’s and USB sticks by connecting the technology to the computer and transferring the images.

Digital images can then be manipulated in ways such as
-adjusting colour (by cooling the temperature, tinting, saturating, black and white effects)
-adjusting the exposure (changing brightness, contrast, shadows, highlights)
-zooming and cropping of images
-fixing red eyes
-straightening the photo


Ethical issues witht the use of cameras:
Regarding taking photos of people, people are not protected by intellectual property rights but ethical considerations do need to be taken into account. It is unethical to take a photo of a person if it discloses private or sensitive matters about them, this being in issue of people’s human right to privacy.
It is also unethical to take photos of people if they are exploiting the person or misrepresenting the truth.

If someone is seeking someone’s permission to take a photo of them or something they own, it is important that the consent given is informed consent. This meaning that the person giving consent for the photo being taken has an understanding of the facts, implications, and future consequences of the uses of the image.

When taking photos of paintings, buildings, sculptures or anything which is under intellectual property (such as trademark of copyright) and will be exposing them to the public (publishing, using on websites, exhibiting, etc.), then it is ethical to make sure the author’s name appears on or in relation to the work wherever possible. If you don’t give attribution it is ethical to get informed consent from the author or artist to expose their work to the public.


In Occuational Therapy practice digital images can be used for:
-Measuring treatment progress, e.g. an initial photo of a patients arm flexion to compare to flexion later during and after treatment
-To emphasise instructions to patients e.g. photos of the step by step process of putting socks on with a sock aid
-As a means of therapeutic/meaningful activity e.g. manipulation or viewing or taking photos
-To show a client what a piece of equipment is like (a website for this would be www.invacare.co.nz)

Flickr
Flickr.com is a place where people can create their own account and upload and organise their photos and crop, fix and edit them. The photos can then be shared with the flicker community where the photos can be viewed by others and people can comment on the photos creating discussions about them.
It allows you to keep in touch with friends and family as you can get updates from them.

Photobucket.com is another photo storage website where photos are uploaded, organised and shared.

The difference between a digital and an optical zoom:
Digital zoom is a method of decreasing (narrowing) the apparent angle of view of a digital image. This is done by the image being cropped into a smaller size and enlarging the cropped portion into the full frame again.

Optical zoom is when the lens changes it’s focal length to zoom in on and magnify a part of an image. This causing much better quality than digital zoom.

Megapixels
A megapixel (that is, a million pixels) is a unit of image sensing capacity in a digital camera. In general, the more megapixels in a camera, the better the resolution when printing an image in a given size.