Digital Camera Basics

If you are purchasing a camera for 4 x 6 snapshots a 3-4 Megapixel is fine, but you will find as you shop for this holiday season – December 2019 – that most cameras today come with 12 Megapixels or more, so that isn’t a problem. If you like a particular brand of camera, go with it. Some features to look for are:

Battery Type
Depending on your preference you may want regular AAA batteries because they are everywhere and easy to replace or a proprietary rechargeable battery that comes with your camera. It’s really just a matter of choice.

LCD size
Generally, the larger the LCD, the better. The larger your view, the better idea you have whether the picture is good, or if you should take another.

View Finder
Most new cameras don’t have an eyepiece to view your subject, you use the viewfinder instead. If an eyepiece viewer is important to you, make sure the camera you purchase has one. Only in very bright sun is the eyepiece viewer important.

Zoom
For me, Optical Zoom, is the most important feature. When you frame a picture, you usually want a part of the scene- maybe just the face or faces – maybe the whole body and the interactions between people- maybe the people as they relate to the vast scenery. The larger your zoom, the better chance you have of capturing what you’d like to see in a picture. The average zoom sold today is 4X. So ask about Optical Zoom (not Digital Zoom)

Image Stabilization
This helps make your picture more sharp and less fuzzy. Image stabilization is more important the longer your zoom and has become a standard feature in most cameras today .

Our next post will discuss memory and memory cards...

INCREASE YOUR LAPTOP BATTERY'S LIFE

Without fail, the battery on our laptops – notebooks or netbooks, always stop working and run our of juice at the most inconvenient time – in the middle of that rush report or when you are on a flight and watching a DVD movie

Laptop screens take up significant amount of power and we usually don’t require maximum brightness, so check your system and decrease the screen brightness it to a comfortable point.

Stop your wireless signal when you aren’t using it - After turning off your Laptop, right click on your WiFi control signal and be sure it is off to save a considerable quantity of battery power

Check your power plans - Windows XP has several predetermined power plans to control settings like how rapidly your laptop turns off and when your screen saver boots in. You can change your laptop power scheme by choosing Control Panel, then choose Power Options. For maximum battery life from the “Maximum Battery” option from the "Power scheme" and decline the list. Other good choices might be "Low Power Mode" and Portable /Laptop – they may not conserve as much power as Max Battery, but they still help. After choosing the power scheme, click Ok to finish the process.

What is the Fn key on my laptop?

Small portable computers (laptops, notebooks, netbooks) have fewer keys than larger desktop keyboards, but most come with a special function key, the Fn key, which when used in combination with other keys, like the Shift key, give those keys multiple purposes.

In some of the newer laptops/notebooks, the Fn key is used primarily to activate special laptop functions. These functions share other keys on the keyboard, typically the Function keys. They're marked by special icons, and these icons are color coded to match the Fn key.

THERE IS NO STANDARD LIST FOR THESE FN KEY COMBINATIONS - But many laptops do use Fn key combinations to do the following – so when you find the combination that works create your own “reference list”:

Fn +UP ARROW increases the brightness of the screen (decreasing battery life)

Fn +DOWN ARROW decreases the brightness of the screen (increasing battery life, but also increasing how much you need to squint to read the screen).

Fn +ESC suspends your computer, switching it to a mode where the hard drive and screen are disabled in order to save battery power. (Usually closing the screen accomplishes the same task, but sometimes you want to leave the screen open.)

Fn +F2 toggles your wireless on and off. (Practice it a few times so you can recognize how the icons in the system tray appear, so you’ll know to switch it back on if you ever disable it by accident.) If you’re on a plane or in a hospital, you should disable your wireless receiver. Or suppose you’re riding in a train or car and you know there’s no wireless signal, you’ll increase battery performance if you disable the wireless receiver.