Tutorial two: Digital camera use and application

In this tutorial we looked at how to use a digital camera, the reasons for use in the occupational therapy setting, and the ethical issues that could arise from their use. We also looked at flick.com and upload the shots we took to this. These can be seen on the Blog.
When comparing digital camera to the older versions of cameras there are some upside and downsides to the change. On the up side they allow many photos to be taken and previewed before developing them. On the down side they rely heavily on technology and need many other gadgets, such as memory sticks and batteries, in order of them to work. Some terminology of a digital camera that you may not be familiar with include digital and optical zoom, and megapixel. Digital zoom expands the photo from the middle, which results reduced quality of the photo. Optical zoom changes focal length and magnification as it is zoomed so the quality of the photo remains high. To define megapixel you must think of the image of many tiny square that are each filled with a primary colour. All these coloured squared are filled in to form an image. A pixel is one of these tiny squares and a megapixel is one million of these.
In occupational therapy images can be used for a variety of reasons. A major use is taking images during an assessment and then working of the image when writing up the report. This allows the therapist to get more accurate information and pick up on things they may have missed otherwise. Because of this their may be ethical issues that arise. This could be the privacy of the client, so to avoid this happening the therapist must have informed consent. There are also large amounts of information stored on them which means that others may get access to them.
The tutorial showed that digital cameras are a good way to capture images however there are down sides in comparison to older cameras there and the potential for ethical issues to arise from the use of them in an occupational therapy setting.