The Digital Photography Companion

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FILE FORMATS STILL IMAGES

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When face detection is activated, the camera will find people regardless of where they are

in the frame, and then set the focus and exposure for them.

Face detection is very helpful for events such as birthday parties, wedding receptions,

and graduations. It allows you to work quickly and bypass the focus-lock technique that

is slower than just composing the scene and letting face detection take it from there.

Face detection is very popular on compact cameras, and many DSLRs are beginning to

embrace this technology too.

Using face detection couldn’t be easier. You turn it on and watch it work its magic as

it finds the people in your shot. You may want to hold down the shutter halfway for a

second to let the camera lock in, but that’s about all you have to do.

File Formats (Still Images)

JPEG is the format most digital cameras use. JPEG files are very portable and nearly every

computer and web browser can read them. JPEG files use compression to keep the file

size small for easy transport. You can determine the amount of compression by select-

ing options from the menu function on your digital camera—usually “high,” “medium,”

and “low,” but not always using those exact terms. For example, the terms “superfine,”

“fine,” and “normal” are sometimes used instead. See Compression and Image Quality

earlier in this chapter for more detail ...