Capturing beautiful moments and making them accessible quickly is no longer a rich man's forte. Most of us have access to our memorable moments in just a click away. Digital cameras save you a lot of time. Once the photo has been taken, you can just download those images in a computer and make them accessible on the net in various ways. Digital cameras record and store photographic images in digital format. Capturing pictures is usually accomplished by use of a photo sensor, using a charged couple device (CCD.) After transferring the pictures to your computer, you can edit and save them in a compact disc or hard drive.
With digital cameras you can instantly seize the picture you would love to keep forever. Delete unwanted pictures easily. No hassle of buying films. You don't have to print every picture; you have complete control of the final print after editing on computer. No worries of negatives getting spoiled or lost. You can store many images without having to change or buy films.
There are many brands of digital cameras available in the market today. These include: Sony, Canon, Olympus, Nikon, Kodak, Minolta and Fuji. These are a few famous brands worldwide. Even basic digital camera models have plenty of features, levels and menus. This makes it difficult for beginners to select the right camera meeting their needs. Digital cameras are available in all price ranges depending on the amount of features they have. Before you start comparing the features you should decide for what purpose you would like to use your digital camera. The best way to start your search is to log on to the net and visit all the sites that offer feature and price comparisons for different types and brands of digital cameras.
Almost all digital cameras today have live-preview functionality, where a screen is provided in the camera to see the preview of the image that you just clicked. The most commonly compared feature in digital cameras is the "mega pixel." This means the amount of pixels in millions. Therefore, a four mega pixel camera would have four million pixels. The other important features to compare include optical and digital zoom capacity; connectivity with other devices such as computer, printer, etc.; the internal storage space as well as compatibility with external storage devices; memory cards; batteries; and image file formats.
Many digital cameras offer connectivity through USB port, FireWire port, USB PTP mode, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc. These days, many cameras are offering PictBridge mode that allows direct printing from the digital camera without the mediation of a computer. Though all cameras have some amount of internal memory, external memory cards are required to save more pictures. These include Micro Drives or Compact Flash memory cards that are generally used for high-end professional cameras. Memory Stick by Sony is a proprietary flash memory card. SD/MMC, Mini SD and Micro SD cards are the ones used mostly for commercial digital cameras.
If you are an amateur photographer, then you should select a camera with automatic settings and features. This will help you in getting the right pictures based on the amount of light and scenes without too much effort. But if you are looking for a professional camera then you should pick the one that allows you to select all shooting modes manually. There are many shooting modes available in the latest models of digital cameras including landscape, portrait, panorama, action settings, night mode, beach mode, snow mode, and sunset/sunrise modes.
The common formats in which you can take out the image output include JPEG, TIFF, DNG, etc. For videos, the most common formats are AVI, DV, MPEG, MOV, WMV, ASF, and MP4.
Roberto Sedycias IT Consultant for PoloMercantil
This article is under GNU FDL license and can be distributed without any previous authorization from the author. However the author´s name and all the URL´s (links) mentioned in the article and biography must be kept.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Facts You Should Know About Perfume
Perfume (Latin "per fume" meaning "through smoke") was highly favored by the Egyptians, Romans, and Arabs. In East Asia, perfumes were incense based. People used to make perfumes from spices and herbs like bergamot, myrtle, coriander, conifer resin, and almond. The use of flowers came only after Avicenna, an Iranian doctor and chemist showed the process of distillation, whereby oils could be extracted from flowers. In 1370, at the behest of Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, the world's first modern perfume - "Hungary Water" was made by blending scented oils in alcohol solution.
The composition of a perfume is of vital significance and is handled by an expert known as a perfumer, who deals with primary scents like rose, jasmine, cola, etc; modifiers like esters; blenders like linalool and hydroxycitronellol; and fixatives like resins, wood scents, and amber bases. The resulting scent is explained in a musical metaphor of three 'notes', namely, top notes (consisting of fast evaporating small size molecules) like citrus and ginger scents; middle notes (consisting of slow evaporating medium size molecules) like lavender and rose scents; and base notes (consisting of slowest evaporating largest size molecules) like fixatives etc. All these notes work together like a musical chord.
Perfume oils contain volatile compounds in high concentrations and thus have to be diluted by solvents, so that injury is not caused when applied directly on skin or clothes. The common solvent is pure ethanol or ethanol mixed with water. Fractionated coconut oil or wax, neutral smelling fats such as jojoba, can also act as solvents and dilute the perfume oil. The perfume oil is further mixed with other aromatic compounds. Generally, the percentage of aromatic compounds in perfume extract is 20% to 40%; in eau de parfum is 10% to 30%; in eau de toilette is 5% to 20%; and in eau de cologne is 2% to 5%.
The oil concentration in a perfume along with other aromatic compounds, determines the intensity, longevity, and price of the perfume and thus it is a closely guarded secret of every perfumer and perfume house. By adjusting the percentage level and the notes of the perfume, variations on the same brand may be created like Chanel's Pour Monsieur and Pour Monsieur Concentrée.
Classification of perfumes is never complete, due to its ever-evolving nature. The traditional classification comprises of categories like Single Floral, Floral Bouquet, Ambery, Woody, Leather, Chypre, and Fougère; while the modern classification comprises of Bright Floral, Green, Oceanic/Ozone, Citrus/Fruity, and Gourmand. In 1983, Michael Edwards, a perfume consultant, created a new fragrance classification "The Fragrance Wheel", which classified and sub-grouped five standard families, namely Floral (Floral, Soft Floral, Floral Oriental), Oriental (Soft Oriental, Oriental, Woody Oriental), Woody (Wood, Mossy Woods, Dry Woods), Fougère (has fragrance elements from all the families), and Fresh (Citrus, Green, Water).
Perfumery has used a number of aromatic sources like plants, animals, and synthetic sources in the making of perfumes. Plants are used as a source of aroma compounds and essential oils. The parts of plants that are used are:
1 - Bark (cinnamon, cascarilla); 2 - Flowers (rose, jasmine, osmanthus, tuberose, mimosa, vanilla); 3 - Blossoms (citrus, ylang-ylang, clove); 4 - Fruits (apples, strawberries, cherries, litsea cubeba, juniper berry, vanilla, oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit); 5 - Leaves and Twigs (lavender, patchouli, citrus, violets, sage, rosemary, hay, tomato); 6 - Resins (labdanum, myrrh, gum benzoin, Peru balsam, frankincense/olibanum, pine, fir, amber, copal); 7 - Roots, Bulbs, and Rhizomes (vetiver roots, ginger and iris rhizomes); 8 - Seeds (coriander, cocoa, mace, cardamom, anise, nutmeg, caraway, tonka bean); 9 - Woods (agarwood, birch, rosewood, sandalwood, pine, birch, juniper, cedar).
Animal sources include Ambergris, Castoreum, Musk, Rom terpenes, Honeycomb, and Civet. Other natural sources include Lichens and Protists. Synthetic sources include synthetic odorants synthesized from petroleum distillates, pine resins, etc. Modern perfumes are mostly made from synthetic sources as they allow fragrances not found in nature, like Calone is a synthetic compound that imparts a marine metallic ozonous fragrance. Synthetic aromatics are more consistent than natural aromatics, and are hence, widely used nowadays in modern available perfumes.
Roberto Sedycias IT Consultant for PoloMercantil
This article is under GNU FDL license and can be distributed without any previous authorization from the author. However the author´s name and all the URL´s (links) mentioned in the article and biography must be kept
The composition of a perfume is of vital significance and is handled by an expert known as a perfumer, who deals with primary scents like rose, jasmine, cola, etc; modifiers like esters; blenders like linalool and hydroxycitronellol; and fixatives like resins, wood scents, and amber bases. The resulting scent is explained in a musical metaphor of three 'notes', namely, top notes (consisting of fast evaporating small size molecules) like citrus and ginger scents; middle notes (consisting of slow evaporating medium size molecules) like lavender and rose scents; and base notes (consisting of slowest evaporating largest size molecules) like fixatives etc. All these notes work together like a musical chord.
Perfume oils contain volatile compounds in high concentrations and thus have to be diluted by solvents, so that injury is not caused when applied directly on skin or clothes. The common solvent is pure ethanol or ethanol mixed with water. Fractionated coconut oil or wax, neutral smelling fats such as jojoba, can also act as solvents and dilute the perfume oil. The perfume oil is further mixed with other aromatic compounds. Generally, the percentage of aromatic compounds in perfume extract is 20% to 40%; in eau de parfum is 10% to 30%; in eau de toilette is 5% to 20%; and in eau de cologne is 2% to 5%.
The oil concentration in a perfume along with other aromatic compounds, determines the intensity, longevity, and price of the perfume and thus it is a closely guarded secret of every perfumer and perfume house. By adjusting the percentage level and the notes of the perfume, variations on the same brand may be created like Chanel's Pour Monsieur and Pour Monsieur Concentrée.
Classification of perfumes is never complete, due to its ever-evolving nature. The traditional classification comprises of categories like Single Floral, Floral Bouquet, Ambery, Woody, Leather, Chypre, and Fougère; while the modern classification comprises of Bright Floral, Green, Oceanic/Ozone, Citrus/Fruity, and Gourmand. In 1983, Michael Edwards, a perfume consultant, created a new fragrance classification "The Fragrance Wheel", which classified and sub-grouped five standard families, namely Floral (Floral, Soft Floral, Floral Oriental), Oriental (Soft Oriental, Oriental, Woody Oriental), Woody (Wood, Mossy Woods, Dry Woods), Fougère (has fragrance elements from all the families), and Fresh (Citrus, Green, Water).
Perfumery has used a number of aromatic sources like plants, animals, and synthetic sources in the making of perfumes. Plants are used as a source of aroma compounds and essential oils. The parts of plants that are used are:
1 - Bark (cinnamon, cascarilla); 2 - Flowers (rose, jasmine, osmanthus, tuberose, mimosa, vanilla); 3 - Blossoms (citrus, ylang-ylang, clove); 4 - Fruits (apples, strawberries, cherries, litsea cubeba, juniper berry, vanilla, oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit); 5 - Leaves and Twigs (lavender, patchouli, citrus, violets, sage, rosemary, hay, tomato); 6 - Resins (labdanum, myrrh, gum benzoin, Peru balsam, frankincense/olibanum, pine, fir, amber, copal); 7 - Roots, Bulbs, and Rhizomes (vetiver roots, ginger and iris rhizomes); 8 - Seeds (coriander, cocoa, mace, cardamom, anise, nutmeg, caraway, tonka bean); 9 - Woods (agarwood, birch, rosewood, sandalwood, pine, birch, juniper, cedar).
Animal sources include Ambergris, Castoreum, Musk, Rom terpenes, Honeycomb, and Civet. Other natural sources include Lichens and Protists. Synthetic sources include synthetic odorants synthesized from petroleum distillates, pine resins, etc. Modern perfumes are mostly made from synthetic sources as they allow fragrances not found in nature, like Calone is a synthetic compound that imparts a marine metallic ozonous fragrance. Synthetic aromatics are more consistent than natural aromatics, and are hence, widely used nowadays in modern available perfumes.
Roberto Sedycias IT Consultant for PoloMercantil
This article is under GNU FDL license and can be distributed without any previous authorization from the author. However the author´s name and all the URL´s (links) mentioned in the article and biography must be kept
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)