Professional Digital Camera
Features of a Professional Digital Camera
The stunning results that professional photographers get is no accident. They not only have an eye for color, lighting, and composition, they also have the best equipment for the job. There are many brands of cameras available on the market today. No matter what the brand, there a certain features that will be present in any professional digital camera.
Megapixels
Digital images are made up of pixels. The more pixels and image has, the clearer it will be. A megapixel is one million pixels. One of the ratings a digital camera will have is how many megapixels it is. The higher the number, the better the quality of the photographs. Currently, a top of the line professional digital camera will have anywhere from 13 to 15 megapixels. As technology advances, the possible number of megapixels will continue to increase.
Interchangeable Lenses
Most professional photographers will have multiple lenses to cover the wide variety of shooting conditions. A professional digital camera will support interchangeable lenses. Types of lenses often owned by professional photographers include zoom, macro, and wide angle. Lenses are typically taken off and placed on the mount by pushing a button and turning the lens. Each brand has their own mount configuration that will only work with lenses made specifically for that brand.
Single Lens Reflex
With point and shoot digital cameras, there is often a delay between the time you press the shutter release and the time the camera captures the image. Professional photographers use single lens reflex (SLR) digital cameras where the image is captured at the same moment the shutter release is pushed.
File Formats
Most standard digital cameras will save the images it captures as JPEG files. These are files that can be read by any computer. A professional digital camera can save images as a JPEG file, but can also save images as RAW files. RAW image files are much larger than JPEG image files and have a lot more data in them. This gives the photographers more to work with when editing the photos.
Manual Operation
Part of the creative process in photography is being able to control aspects like focus, shutter speed, exposure, and white balance. The digital cameras used by professional photographers allow for complete manual operation. This means that the photographer has to set everything themselves before taking each picture. Many cameras will also offer an automatic mode which will adjust all the settings for each picture without input from the photographer.
Attachments
Professional photographers use cameras that allow them to use a wide variety of attachments. Common attachments include auxiliary flashes, remote shutter releases, and white balance meters. The cameras have various ports built in that allow for these attachments to be used.