Polaroid Cameras I brochure Big/Small Rugged/Fragile, Lenses

Good, Better, Best or Normal, Fine, Superfine

At the highest quality, Best or the JPEG scientists decided picture quality is near perfect.

Superfine, the compression removes only the artifacts that that humans cannot resolve anyway, in other words the

Setting your camera to the lower quality setting, with higher compression, will result in the algorithm reducing the detail in the picture, reducing the file size and also reducing the detail in the image. Highly compressed images can look blocky or blurry, especially in areas of high detail. The effect is the same as reducing resolution. The file size is greatly reduced, so more photos will fit on the card, but at the cost of resolution.

With memory as inexpensive as it is, why compromise your pictures to save space on your memory card? When a 64 Mbyte card cost $100, which was as recent as 2002, this may have been important. Memory has dropped in price substantially, so a large card is affordable and will hold many pictures. Always use you camera in the highest resolution and with the best (best or superfine) compression available.

Big/Small – Rugged/Fragile

Consider how you are going to use the camera. Do you want to put in your jacket pocket on a downhill ski trip? Do you want to take it traveling on airplanes in your carry-on luggage? Do you want to carry it in a shirt pocket or a purse? Some cameras have metal cases and sliding covers that cover the lens; that’s tough. Some have pop up flashes, large lenses that don’t retract and that’s not tough. Large cameras also require a neck strap and will not fit into your pocket.

When you buy a camera consider also how you will be carrying and using it. You will still get great pictures, but carrying a small camera may not give you access to all the features a large professional model has.

Lenses

The lens of a digital camera is the most important individual element in getting a good picture. It is one of the only differentiable features in the camera, but the most often ignored. If the lens of the camera is not good, the picture quality will be compromised.

Most manufacturers of cameras do not make their own lenses, but contract out for their manufacture. For the most part the quality of lens in midrange cameras is very good. Watch out for low cost cameras! They may have a lens of lesser quality. Some midrange to high-end cameras boast lenses from a specific lens manufacturer. For example the Carl Zeiss Company is advertised as a producer of lenses for some cameras. This is also an assurance that you are getting a lens of the highest quality for the type of camera you are buying. Will you notice the difference? That depends on how exacting you are with your demands on that particular camera.

Another feature of lenses is the objective diameter; the size of the opening at the front of the lens. Larger lenses gather more light than smaller ones. Any aberrations in the lens

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