Will a camera memory card increase picture quality?

Question

I have a Kodak C875 and have never used a memory card, just the internal memory. Its an 8 mega pixel which is good, but the photos could sometimes do with being better quality, I've ordered a 1GB memory card, will this improve the quality of my pictures?

Answer 1

Nope

Answer 2

As others have indicated, the quick answer is No.  However, if you are using a low resolution setting due to small amount of memory then having larger memory will allow you to set it to use the better resolution.  Either way, you will not be able to increase the resolution beyond what the camera is capable of by using a larger memory.

Answer 3

The quick answer to your question is no, adding a larger flash memory card will NOT increase the image quality. Adding a memory card will (de)/increase the amount of pictures you are able to store before having to transfer them to the Computer/pritnt them out or delete them.

To go into a little more detail:

Camera quality is based on a few things:

1. MEGAPIXLES: (the larger amount of pixles, the better the quality of image (more dots per square inch)

2. LENSE/CHIP: Some cameras have poorer lenses than others. I don't know the specs on that camera lense. I am not familiar with what chip is used in still-digital cameras but I know that digital video cameras have either a C-MOS or CCD sensor that process the light, color, etc that the lens focuses on.

3. ZOOMS: Sometimes with zooming in, a slightly shaking camera will take a slightly blurry image. Get a yardstick, hold it at the end and slowly shake your hand (very slightly). You will notice that the shake by the hand is not that great BUT the shaking that is happening at the end of the stick is amplified the further down the stick. The same is with zoom. It is best to get close to an object than zooming in (depending on the effect IE: depth of field, etc.. more on that another time).

DIGITAL ZOOM: This is a poor innovation. In order to get a bigger image digital zoom actually takes an image and expands the pixels to make it 'zoom'. look at a piece of graph paper. imagine every square box represents a pixel. Optical zoom uses one square for every pixel. Lets say you use Digital zoom, looking at that graph paper, filling in 4 square boxes (2 on top, two just below it) to make a 'new' larger square. the new square becomes the new pixel. Meaning that instead of a tight pixeled image, you end up with large pixels (decreasing quality).

LIGHTING: I suggest getting a book at the library or store, or take a photographic course on how to light for photography.

Old Black and white cameras were sensitive to lighting and with poorer lighting, would produce poorer Luminance (quality of black/white/greyscale part of the image where Chromanince is to do with the color blended with the blacks and whites to make up the overall image).

Also, color gels in lighting enhance photos. IE: using red color filter son lights will create a warmer looking image, blue color gels/filters on lights will produce a cooler image (of course if your camera had white balance that you could set manually, setting the camera white balance (what color the camera sees as white) to a faint red (to produce a cooler image) or  faint blue (to make warmer image ). There are all kinds of other photographic tricks out there that will help with image quality.

USER SPECIFICATIONS: Such as focusing the lens on the camera, User specific settings in the camera (Some cameras I have let you set the quality of image from poor, good, best).

There is a section in your manual (under troubleshooting) with a couple tips on troubleshooting image quality (and other settings I imagine). If you don't have the manual, you can read all about it here:  http://www.instructionsmanuals.com/u2/pd...

PHOTO EDITING: Many times I run my photos through Photoshop to enhance picture quality and such. Auto fix is a feature I use to see if the new quality tweak is better than the original. It usually is!

Anyways, hope was helpful in answers your question.

Answer 4

The pictures will be the same.  I guess the only way the memory card would improve your pictures is if you were previously required to use a lower resolution to fit pictures onto the internal memory.  So once you have 1GB memory, you can take many full-size, 8 megapixel pictures.

Answer 5

in a word no.

Read on if you wish for more tips...

1. For picture quality the lens is king - always, ALWAYS buy the best lens you can afford.  

2. Don't mistake higher megapixels (i.e. higher resolution) for higher image quality. For a given sensor size, the more pixels you have, the smaller each receptor is, the less data it can record (although greater pixels will give greater resolution - the quality of the info in each pixel will decrease - symtpoms include colour bleeding, fringing, image noise and lack of dynamic range)

3. In addition to the obious tips on camera shake, correct focus, etc. one tip is expose to the right - i.e. the histogram on your camera display should always be as far to the right as possible without clipping the highlights (producing pure white areas).  this maximises the amount of useable data the camera can record.