{"id":27,"date":"2018-02-21T19:08:02","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T19:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca\/digitalphotographyforgcm\/?post_type=chapter&p=27"},"modified":"2019-03-04T20:36:57","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T20:36:57","slug":"chapter-2-%e2%80%a2-studio-equipment","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/digitalphotographyforgcm\/chapter\/chapter-2-%e2%80%a2-studio-equipment\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter 2 \u2022 Studio Equipment","rendered":"Chapter 2 \u2022 Studio Equipment"},"content":{"raw":"This chapter discusses what you\u2019ll need to set up a digital photography studio. In addition to the digital camera, you may need additional lenses, filters, studio lighting, lighting diffusers and reflectors, light stands and quality control devices to help make your photos accurate and consistent.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_325\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1024\"]\"\"<\/a> Figure 2-1.<\/strong> Camera systems. A. A Canon S120 (12MP) professional point-and-shoot camera with fixed lens. B. A Canon EOS M100 mirrorless camera (24MP) with removable lenses. C. A Pentax K-r DSLR (16 MP). D. A Hasselblad H6D professional\u00a0medium-format digital camera (100MP). (Hasselblad photo courtesy of Hasselblad.)<\/em>[\/caption]\r\n

Camera System<\/h2>\r\nA digital camera is the first thing you\u2019ll need for a digital photography studio. Digital cameras are commonly discussed as belonging to one of three categories: consumer, prosumer, and professional. To illustrate these camera types and what they can do, consider this example: A high school basketball team comes to a print business and would like to have a poster showing their team, the team logo, and the team bus. To capture these images, you\u2019ll need to take a portrait of the team members, scan their logo from a decal, and take a picture of the team bus.\r\n\r\nPoint-and-shoot. <\/strong>Point- and-shoot cameras (<\/span>Figure 2-1 A<\/strong><\/span>) are generally compact cameras with 3\u201310 megapixels, a built-in zoom lens, and price from $100\u2013 500. They\u2019re made for family and travel photography. To do the nec- essary captures for our basketball team example, you could use a point-and-shoot camera, which would probably have enough megapixels for the capture, a zoom lens for adjusting the field of view, and even have a tripod mount on the bottom. However, it won\u2019t have interchangeable lenses, attachable filters, or an optical viewfinder that accurately frames the scene.<\/span>\r\n\r\n35-mm DSLR. <\/strong>Digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs,\u00a0<\/span>Figure 2-1 B<\/strong><\/span>) are adapted from\u00a0cameras designed to shoot 24\u00d7<\/span>35-mm slides and negatives. These\u00a0cameras have interchangeable\u00a0lenses that provide a variety of\u00a0focal lengths and applications,\u00a0including zoom, wide-angle,\u00a0macro, portrait, telephoto, and\u00a0low-light shooting. These cameras generally record from 6\u201312 or more megapixels and cost from $500 to several thousand dollars. SLRs use a single lens that both records the image and previews the shot through the viewfinder. (Twin-lens reflex cameras used separate lenses for the image and viewfinder.) SLRs use a mirror to deflect light from the sensor plane to the viewfinder. During exposure, the mirror flips up to allow light to reach the sensor plane. <\/span>\r\n\r\nThe 35-mm DSLR would be the ideal camera to use for our basketball team poster example. You could use a short telephoto lens to take the team\u2019s portrait in a studio, mount the camera to a copy stand to capture their logo from a supplied decal, and take the camera outdoors to shoot the team bus.\r\n\r\nProfessional Cameras. <\/strong>These cameras (Figure 2-1 C<\/strong><\/span>) are made for shooting publication images as in magazines, catalogs, posters, banners, and billboards. They are generally based on 6\u00d7<\/span>6-cm medium-format cameras, shoot up to 40+ megapixels, and can cost well over $10,000. Their large image size requires that these cameras be attached or \u201ctethered\u201d to a computer to hold the image files. The main advantage of these cameras is that they can record enough megapixels for full-page or two-page magazine covers or spreads, or for large posters or banners.<\/span>\r\n\r\nA professional camera would be overkill for our basketball team poster. The camera could do the portrait and copy-stand captures but would be clumsy to move around the studio due to its large size and computer cables. It would also be difficult to take outdoors to shoot the team bus. However, for shooting products from team coffee mugs to team vehicles in the studio, its quality could not be beat.\r\n\r\nTo show some differences among cameras, the same still-life scene was shot with a point-and-shoot, a 6-MP DLSLR, and a 10-MP DSLR camera (Figure 2-2<\/strong><\/span>).<\/span>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_70\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"600\"]\"\" Figure 2-2.<\/strong> The same still-life scene was photographed with (A) a 5-MP point-and-shoot camera, (B) a 6-MP DSLR, and (C) a 10-MP\u00a0DSLR. A small square in the image was\u00a0then cropped to a size of 1.6 in. at 300 ppi. Differences in camera resolution are apparent in the relative sizes of the cropped areas. Also, slight differences in color rendition are visible among the cameras.[\/caption]\r\n

Megapixels<\/h2>\r\nWould you rather look at an image that\u2019s sharp and detailed, or one that\u2019s pixelized with the \u201cjaggies\u201d? To avoid the jaggies, you\u2019ll need enough megapixels for your output device and enlargement size. Digital camera image size is measured in millions of pixels, or megapixels (MP, Figures 2-3<\/strong><\/span> and 2-4<\/strong><\/span>). Current camera models range in image size from a few to nearly forty megapixels. Three questions that the prepress professionals want to know about digital cameras are:\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. I have a digital camera. How large an image can I get from it? <\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
  2. I want to buy a digital camera to make images of a certain size. How many\u00a0<\/span>megapixels do I need? <\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nAnswering both questions requires calculating image size based on prepress parameters including screen ruling, image sampling ratio (pixels per halftone dot), and image resolution required.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_72\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"512\"]\"\" Figure 2-3.<\/strong>\u00a0Printed images require\u00a0sufficient megapixels to support their\u00a0resolution and screening. This diagram shows the relative sizes of various megapixel images in relation to an 8.5\u00d711-in. page (white dotted outline), which requires 8.5 MP for full coverage. (Original photo courtesy of Printing Industries of America.)<\/em>[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_87\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"768\"]\"\" Figure 2-4.<\/strong> Relative sizes of images for the web on standard (1920\u00d71080 21-in.), 4K (4096\u00d72304, 21-in.), and 5K (5120\u00d72880, 27-in.) displays (compare with Table 2-1).[\/caption]\r\n

    Calculating Megapixels Needed for Print<\/h3>\r\n
      \r\n \t
    1. Determine the sampling ratio you want to use (e.g., 2:1 for presses, 1.5:1 or 1:1 for digital printers). <\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
    2. Calculate the pixels per inch (ppi) needed: <\/span>\r\n
        \r\n \t
      1. Litho: ppi = screen ruling (lpi) \u00d7 sampling ratio (e.g., 300 ppi = 150 lpi\u00a0\u00d7 2)<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
      2. Large format: viewing distance <\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/li>\r\n \t
      3. Megapixels per sq.in. = ppi2<\/sup> (e.g., 3002<\/sup> = 90,000 pixels = 0.09 MP) <\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
      4. Multiply MP\/sq.in. by image size (e.g., for an 8\u00d710-in. photo, 0.09 MP \u00d7 8 \u00d7 10 = 7.2 MP<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

        Calculating Megapixels Needed for Web<\/h3>\r\n
          \r\n \t
        1. Determine the horizontal and vertical resolution of the display (Table 2-1<\/strong><\/span>).<\/li>\r\n \t
        2. Multiply the horizontal and vertical resolution, then divide by 1 million to get the number of megapixels in the display.<\/li>\r\n \t
        3. From the table you can see that a 16-MP digital camera should produce photos of adequate resolution for a 5K display.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
          Table 2-1. Megapixels for 21.5- and 27-in. iMac Displays<\/caption>\r\n
          Display<\/em><\/td>\r\nResolution<\/em><\/td>\r\nMP<\/em><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
          iMac 21.5 in. Standard<\/td>\r\n1920\u00d71080<\/td>\r\n2<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
          iMac 21.5 in. 4K Retina<\/td>\r\n4096\u00d72304<\/td>\r\n9.5<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
          iMac 27 in. 5K Retina<\/td>\r\n5120\u00d72880<\/td>\r\n15<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n

          Calculating the Print Image Size You Can Get from Your Camera<\/h3>\r\n
            \r\n \t
          1. As above, determine the ppi you need, e.g. 300 ppi for print or 72 ppi for web.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
          2. Calculate the number of MP per sq.in. (e.g., 300 ppi2<\/sup> = 90,000 pixels\/sq.in. = 0.09 MP\/sq.in.) <\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
          3. Divide camera MP by MP\/sq.in. (0.09) to get available sq.in. (e.g., 6 MP camera \u00f7 0.09 MP\/sq.in. = 66.67 sq.in. of image area). <\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
          4. Take the square root of the available image area to get image size, e.g., the square root of 66.67 sq.in. = 8.16 in. <\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
          5. So a 6-MP digital camera will give you an image 8.16 \u00d7 8.16 in. at 300 ppi. <\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
          6. Convert the image size to the proportion you want, e.g., 6-MP image in the proportion of 8\u00d710 would be 7.3 \u00d7 9.1 in. <\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

            Lenses<\/h2>\r\nAssuming you have a 35-mm or medium-format digital SLR camera, you\u2019ll need a variety of lenses for the widest variety of photos. Lenses are classified by their focal length, which is the distance from the lens center to the camera\u2019s imaging sensor. The longer the focal length, the more telescopic the lens; the shorter, the wider its\u00a0angle of view. The image sensor of a digital 35-mm SLR may not be as large as the standard 24\u00d735-mm. This extends the focal length of a lens by the camera\u2019s focal length factor, which is usually specified in the owner\u2019s manual. For example, a digital camera with a 16\u00d724-mm sensor will have a focal length factor of 1.5. This means that a 50-mm lens on a 35-mm film camera will have an effective focal length of 75 mm. Lenses are loosely categorized as:\r\n