Digital memory cards are a camera's equivalent of a computer's floppy drive except they are static chips with no moving parts. Most digital cameras only have a small amount of internal memory, what is known as RAM on a computer, and this internal memory is really just for emergencies, because often it will only hold three to six photos at the highest quality that the camera can produce. IOn the other hand, it may hold 50-100 low quality photos.
When you are choosing a memory card for your digital camera bear in mind that not all makes of cards, often known as flash memory cards or flash cards, will fit into all cameras. If you cannot know which one you require, tell the shop assistant the make and model of your digital camera.
When you have the right sort of memory card for your digital camera you may start considering size. However, there are one or two items that we should run through first. to help you realize why size is important.
A digital photo is made up of points of colour called pixels. The more pixels there are per square inch, the better the quality will be the picture. In other words, the photograph will have a higher resolution.
Another thing about these pixels is that some of them can record one of only a few thousand colours at a time and others are able to record one of millions, which makes for more accurate shades and tints - truer colours.
However, this higher capacity to record true colours comes at a price because each pixel has to have a larger amount of RAM allocated to it - one byte will allow 256 colours; two bytes will permit 65,536 colours; three bytes 16,777,215 ; four bytes 4,294,967,296.
These byte sizes are usually expressed in their bit sizes (eight bits is the equivalent of 8 bits), so you have 8-bits, 16 bits, 24 bits and 32 bits. To put this into a context that might be more familiar to most individuals, Windows 7 comes in two versions 32-bit and 64-bit.
However, all these bits take up space, so the higher the resolution you require for your photos and the truer you want the colours to be, the larger the space you will require per photograph. So, how good do you want your photographs to be? Well, one question to pose to yourself is: what do I want to use the photographs for?
If you only would like to email them to your friends a lower resolution is better because it will send faster, but if you would like to print them out onto paper then a high resolution is better, particularly if you want large prints. The larger the print, the higher the resolution the better.
So now you know how good you would like your photographs to be because you know what you are going to use them for, so the last question to answer is: how many photos do you want to take? The solution to this usually depends on what you are doing.
If you are going on holiday, say a cruise calling in at five different ports, you may want to take five flash cards of 256 MB or larger and use one for each port. If you are going to one location, a card of 1 GB might be enough, but you could always take two or three.. If you are going to a wedding, you might like 3, 4 or even 5 GB of memory, because you may like to print the photos out
When you are choosing a memory card for your digital camera bear in mind that not all makes of cards, often known as flash memory cards or flash cards, will fit into all cameras. If you cannot know which one you require, tell the shop assistant the make and model of your digital camera.
When you have the right sort of memory card for your digital camera you may start considering size. However, there are one or two items that we should run through first. to help you realize why size is important.
A digital photo is made up of points of colour called pixels. The more pixels there are per square inch, the better the quality will be the picture. In other words, the photograph will have a higher resolution.
Another thing about these pixels is that some of them can record one of only a few thousand colours at a time and others are able to record one of millions, which makes for more accurate shades and tints - truer colours.
However, this higher capacity to record true colours comes at a price because each pixel has to have a larger amount of RAM allocated to it - one byte will allow 256 colours; two bytes will permit 65,536 colours; three bytes 16,777,215 ; four bytes 4,294,967,296.
These byte sizes are usually expressed in their bit sizes (eight bits is the equivalent of 8 bits), so you have 8-bits, 16 bits, 24 bits and 32 bits. To put this into a context that might be more familiar to most individuals, Windows 7 comes in two versions 32-bit and 64-bit.
However, all these bits take up space, so the higher the resolution you require for your photos and the truer you want the colours to be, the larger the space you will require per photograph. So, how good do you want your photographs to be? Well, one question to pose to yourself is: what do I want to use the photographs for?
If you only would like to email them to your friends a lower resolution is better because it will send faster, but if you would like to print them out onto paper then a high resolution is better, particularly if you want large prints. The larger the print, the higher the resolution the better.
So now you know how good you would like your photographs to be because you know what you are going to use them for, so the last question to answer is: how many photos do you want to take? The solution to this usually depends on what you are doing.
If you are going on holiday, say a cruise calling in at five different ports, you may want to take five flash cards of 256 MB or larger and use one for each port. If you are going to one location, a card of 1 GB might be enough, but you could always take two or three.. If you are going to a wedding, you might like 3, 4 or even 5 GB of memory, because you may like to print the photos out
About the Author:
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with cameras for beginning photographers. If you have an interest in cameras, please go over to our website now at cameras Studio Cameras
