Welcome to the Digital Camera Pyramid!

Remember the old food pyramid?  At the bottom of the pyramid was all the good stuff you were supposed to eat a lot of. At the very narrow top was all the food that was, shall we say, not so good for you!

This pyramid is like that. There’s nothing to eat, but a lot to “chew on.”

At the base are things you really should understand about your digital camera. As we move up the pyramid items become less important.

And at the very tip are things that quite frankly, if you never learn, you may never miss.

Naturally there will be some who find something way up the pyramid that they think belongs down below, and vice-versa.  Fine. Go make your own custom pyramid and congrats for learning so much already!  

Let's get started.


Right at the base is the word "resolution." Resolution refers to the size of the image being taken. Generally speaking, it is important to use all the resolution your camera has to offer. You can always reduce the size of the image later if you need to e-mail it.

And, since most of us tend to include more in the picture than we anticipated, we often crop or cut away portions of the existing photo. So, for example, if you cut away 50% of a 12 megapixel image it’s like you took the picture with a six megapixel camera. Spend time with your instruction manual or my tutorials to get a firm understanding of what resolution is all about and where you set it on your camera.

The next level of the pyramid is “compression.” Compression is used with JPEG camera files to reduce their size by removing certain variations in color that are often not noticeable to the human eye.

But if too much is removed (via too much compression) the images show so-called "artifacts" which are really errors in the picture.

Originally we compressed images to make smaller files to save space. This Is not needed today with our very large storage cards. It is important to check your camera to make sure is set for the least compression which delivers higher quality.

The third level of the pyramid is digital zoom. Digital zoom claims to extend the telephoto range of your camera. But in fact, all digital zoom does is take the closest picture possible using the lens and further crop it. And, as you just learned with resolution, cropping an image reduces the overall resolution. It is important to know when digital zoom is being used and if it can be permanently turned off on your camera.

The fourth level of the pyramid is exposure compensation. Simply put, on your camera there is a button or menu that allows you to lighten or darken the picture if needed. This is a very important and powerful control that will allows you to take a better picture without having to deal with the cumbersome manual controls involving f-stops and shutter speeds. Locate where your exposure compensation control is located and spend time practicing its use.

The fifth level of the pyramid is about the buttons controlling flash, self timer and multiple shot or "burst" mode. Usually the multiple shot “burst” mode is controlled by the same button that offers the self timer. These apparently are grouped together to save space. But if you want to use them, you will need to know how to select each choice.

The flash button or menu is another multiple choice item. The flash is not simply “on” or “off,” but has many other settings such as red eye reduction, night shot, etc.), depending on how many times the flash button is pressed. It is also important to understand the flash is mainly for snapshots and does not carry a long distance. There may also be an unrelated button nearby to change the amount of information displayed on the camera screen as well. Few people discover this button.

The sixth level of the pyramid is ISO. The sensitivity of your camera to light is represented in a numerical value called ISO. When the camera is taken off the decision free mode it is possible to change the ISO to increase or decrease the sensitivity of the camera. This may result in better pictures in low light or sharper or more colorful pictures in bright light. It is important to learn how to use the ISO settings if you are moving past the decision free setting, as it expands the range of photos you will be able to take.

The seventh level of the pyramid shows settings not every user needs to worry about. These include white balance, metering patterns, and in some cases focusing patterns. You will need to read about them and decide how much you want to know about them!  

The eighth level of the pyramid is a mixed bag of aesthetic settings. These include black-and-white photos, sepia, soft focus, vivid or muted colors, and perhaps settings for photographing text. Note that most of these visual effects can be accomplished with more control using software on a computer and working with the original color image.

And finally at the top of the pyramid are a variety of what I call specialty gadgets that are built into some cameras. These include face detection, smile detection, blink warning and panoramic stitching. While they each do work, and in some cases well, you need to decide how important they are to you and how difficult they are to turn on and off.

These are just some basic components found in digital cameras. I did not include anything about movies because this is a pyramid for still photography. I also left out “scenes” as they are self explanatory.

Spend quite a bit of time on the first three or four lower levels, as they are critical taking better pictures. When you find something that you want to remember in the manual I would suggest that you highlighted with a yellow marker and perhaps put a tab on that page. Thanks for taking the time to look at the digital camera pyramid!