So you own the best digital camera? That is good news. However, does it have effective photo software? After a few clicks you will feel the need to edit/enhance a few photos that were just clicked.In order to ensure that you move to the next level you should seriously think about a good and professional photo-editing software. You might face many problems after you have snapped a few photos. I think the most troublesome of them all is the red eye. Most photo software’s come with a red-eye elimination or reduction method. The red eye reduction method should ensure that the eyes are left looking lifelike by not eliminating the pupil reflection. Using the red eye reduction should be easy. The most easy and useful photo software that I have come across is photolightning. There are others like adobe and acdsystems which are also good. The most recommended features that a photo software should include are:
1) Photo Editing: To apply special effects to your photos and resize, modify, cut them.
2) Image viewing: The photos are shown to you in a thumbnail view with the ability to edit the photo while viewing them.
3) Batch Processing: Easily resize, rename, add captions/watermarks, change format, and change timestamp. The feature that is a need of any photo software nowadays.
4) The photo album - or organizer: This feature lets you add captions to your photos.
5) Photo Enhancing Feature: The ability to adjust Brightness, Saturation etc automatically/semi-automatically that enhances the picture quality.
6) Create Slideshows: This is an optional feature but very useful indeed.
7) A How To-Manual
8) …. There are so many features that the list may be never ending make your choice today and get enhance your photography skills with a good photo software.
All these features may be common to many other photo software’s but the ease of use is what should be looked out for. Remember that each and every software has its positives and negatives, you should look for a proper blending of both.
About the Author
Mahesh Mhatre is an SEO pioneer in India. Make Money Online with xpertcoders. Outsourcing projects for freelance is easy at Lanceboard.com
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Selling Your Digital Photos
How to turn snapshots into cold, hard cash.
It seems that there's something glamorous about being a professional photographer. For me, National Geographic's wildlife photographers were like rock stars; I was a camera groupie even before I was a teenager.
If you, too, have been seduced by the idea of getting paid for your photos, I have some good news for you: Thanks to the Internet, it has never been easier to sell your work. In the old days, photographers had to negotiate with stock photo agencies and send negatives through the mail. These days, you can just upload your digital files to online agencies, many of which are friendly to casual photographers who aren't experts at the stock photo sales game. You don't have to be a pro to sell your photos online.
What Is Stock Photography?
That's a good question. Stock photography includes images of landscapes, buildings, landmarks, people, animals, and events that can be sold to and used by a wide variety of media outlets. It's the meat and potatoes of many working photographers.
Stock photos are routinely used in Web sites, magazines, newspapers, corporate publications, and more. The same image can be sold over and over again, because the organizations that buy stock photos don't get exclusive rights. So if you have a great photo of a windsurfer, it could theoretically be sold to a sports magazine, an inspirational poster company, and a Web site--and the stock photo agency does all the work.
Online Stock Photo Agencies
Ready to try your hand at the world of online photo sales? Why not? After all, all it takes is one or two sales and you can call yourself a professional photographer--and it doesn't take a lot of effort, either. Just sign up for an account at an online stock photo agency, upload some photos, and wait.
Two of the best stock photo agencies that I've found are iStockphoto and Shutterstock. Shutterstock has a superb FAQ page. And istockphoto.com has a similar page .
Both iStockphoto and Shutterstock pay photographers for their sales, but the two sites have very different pay structures.
iStockphoto for example, offers royalty rates of 20 percent for most photos--on sales that range from $1 to $40, depending upon print size.
Shutterstock, in contrast, pays 25 cents per sale. That doesn't sound like much--and let's be honest, it's not--but Shutterstock boasts that at 2000 downloads per month, you can rack up $500 per month. In real life, you'll probably see a fraction of that, unless you have a lot of really great photos and can consistently upload new stuff to freshen up your portfolio. A friend of mine claims to have made $300 with Shutterstock in the last three months. That's not bad, especially since he doesn't think of himself as a professional photographer.
What Is a Photo Really Worth?
You might be curious about the going rate for a photo. Should you get $5, $50, or $500 for your work? Are you being ripped off with each quarter that rolls in? Well, the truth is that you're not going to get rich from selling your work online, although print publications often pay a bit better.
If you ever get a note from a magazine or a corporate publication asking to use one of your photos, what's a reasonable amount of money to agree on?
Believe it or not, my 14-year-old daughter was recently contacted by the editors of a small, regional trade magazine in the energy industry. They wanted to use a photo she had taken of a lake and posted, of all places, on imeem.
Off we went to the Stock Photo Price Calculator. Here you can get ballpark numbers for various kinds of publications and photo sizes. If a local magazine offered you $100 to publish one of your photos, for example, I'd take it.
The Old-Fashioned Way
Also, keep in mind that you can still sell your work the old-fashioned way.
I know plenty of folks that print, matte, and frame a slew of their best photos and offer them for sale at local craft fairs and art shows. If you're sufficiently motivated, this can be a really fun way to sell your work. You get to meet real people, chat with them about your photos, and get the satisfaction of physically handing them your work and knowing that it'll probably be displayed in their homes. Also, you're likely to make more on each sale than you would by selling through a Web-based stock photo service. And it gets you outside in the fresh air. What could be better than that?
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: " Flowers in the Sun," by Ashlyn Smith, Redford, Michigan
Ashlyn is 10 years old, and her dad submitted this photo. And we're happy that he did--this scene looks like it could have been captured by an old hand at impressionist photography. She took this shot at the Detroit Zoo with her Canon PowerShot SD200. That's her mom in the background.
Hot Pic of the Month: Each month we choose one of our weekly winners to be the Hot Pic of the Month. For August, we chose " Window Kids," by Alex Boyd, from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Congratulations to Alex and to everyone else who won a Hot Pic of the Week last month. Keep those entries coming!
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126972
It seems that there's something glamorous about being a professional photographer. For me, National Geographic's wildlife photographers were like rock stars; I was a camera groupie even before I was a teenager.
If you, too, have been seduced by the idea of getting paid for your photos, I have some good news for you: Thanks to the Internet, it has never been easier to sell your work. In the old days, photographers had to negotiate with stock photo agencies and send negatives through the mail. These days, you can just upload your digital files to online agencies, many of which are friendly to casual photographers who aren't experts at the stock photo sales game. You don't have to be a pro to sell your photos online.
What Is Stock Photography?
That's a good question. Stock photography includes images of landscapes, buildings, landmarks, people, animals, and events that can be sold to and used by a wide variety of media outlets. It's the meat and potatoes of many working photographers.
Stock photos are routinely used in Web sites, magazines, newspapers, corporate publications, and more. The same image can be sold over and over again, because the organizations that buy stock photos don't get exclusive rights. So if you have a great photo of a windsurfer, it could theoretically be sold to a sports magazine, an inspirational poster company, and a Web site--and the stock photo agency does all the work.
Online Stock Photo Agencies
Ready to try your hand at the world of online photo sales? Why not? After all, all it takes is one or two sales and you can call yourself a professional photographer--and it doesn't take a lot of effort, either. Just sign up for an account at an online stock photo agency, upload some photos, and wait.
Two of the best stock photo agencies that I've found are iStockphoto and Shutterstock. Shutterstock has a superb FAQ page. And istockphoto.com has a similar page .
Both iStockphoto and Shutterstock pay photographers for their sales, but the two sites have very different pay structures.
iStockphoto for example, offers royalty rates of 20 percent for most photos--on sales that range from $1 to $40, depending upon print size.
Shutterstock, in contrast, pays 25 cents per sale. That doesn't sound like much--and let's be honest, it's not--but Shutterstock boasts that at 2000 downloads per month, you can rack up $500 per month. In real life, you'll probably see a fraction of that, unless you have a lot of really great photos and can consistently upload new stuff to freshen up your portfolio. A friend of mine claims to have made $300 with Shutterstock in the last three months. That's not bad, especially since he doesn't think of himself as a professional photographer.
What Is a Photo Really Worth?
You might be curious about the going rate for a photo. Should you get $5, $50, or $500 for your work? Are you being ripped off with each quarter that rolls in? Well, the truth is that you're not going to get rich from selling your work online, although print publications often pay a bit better.
If you ever get a note from a magazine or a corporate publication asking to use one of your photos, what's a reasonable amount of money to agree on?
Believe it or not, my 14-year-old daughter was recently contacted by the editors of a small, regional trade magazine in the energy industry. They wanted to use a photo she had taken of a lake and posted, of all places, on imeem.
Off we went to the Stock Photo Price Calculator. Here you can get ballpark numbers for various kinds of publications and photo sizes. If a local magazine offered you $100 to publish one of your photos, for example, I'd take it.
The Old-Fashioned Way
Also, keep in mind that you can still sell your work the old-fashioned way.
I know plenty of folks that print, matte, and frame a slew of their best photos and offer them for sale at local craft fairs and art shows. If you're sufficiently motivated, this can be a really fun way to sell your work. You get to meet real people, chat with them about your photos, and get the satisfaction of physically handing them your work and knowing that it'll probably be displayed in their homes. Also, you're likely to make more on each sale than you would by selling through a Web-based stock photo service. And it gets you outside in the fresh air. What could be better than that?
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: " Flowers in the Sun," by Ashlyn Smith, Redford, Michigan
Ashlyn is 10 years old, and her dad submitted this photo. And we're happy that he did--this scene looks like it could have been captured by an old hand at impressionist photography. She took this shot at the Detroit Zoo with her Canon PowerShot SD200. That's her mom in the background.
Hot Pic of the Month: Each month we choose one of our weekly winners to be the Hot Pic of the Month. For August, we chose " Window Kids," by Alex Boyd, from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Congratulations to Alex and to everyone else who won a Hot Pic of the Week last month. Keep those entries coming!
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126972
Take Sharper Pictures
How to steady your hands, adjust camera settings, and more.
Based on questions I get from friends, readers, and my wife, it appears that the most vexing problem affecting photographers today doesn't have anything to do with photo editing, flash media cards, or image sensors. Nope, the question I get all the time is, "How do I take sharper photos with my digital camera?"
When my wife asks, I often give her the same answer I'd give to a musician asking how to get to Carnegie Hall: "practice, practice, practice." She's getting tired of my snarkiness, so this week let's look at all the ways to shoot sharper photos.
Steady Hands
The single most important thing you can do to improve your pictures--especially if you're new to photography--is to keep a steadier hand. Specifically, press the shutter release more gently. It takes only a tiny amount of pressure to activate the camera's shutter. Try this: Look in a mirror while you take a picture and watch what happens when you press the shutter release. If you see the camera wobble or jiggle, you're pressing it too hard. The camera should not move at the moment of exposure. Practice in the mirror until you can shoot pictures with minimal camera shake.
Something to Lean On
As I'm sure you know by now, I am a huge fan of tripods; I recommend using them whenever possible. And here's a little secret you might not know: the more megapixels your camera is capable of, the more important it is to use a tripod to get sharp photos. New 10-megapixel cameras have problems with camera shake a lot more often than 4- or 5-megapixel models, because they record much finer detail. If carrying around a tripod is too much trouble, consider a monopod--my wife has a combination monopod/walking stick for hiking, and she loves it--or a bean-bag support like The Pod.
If all else fails, just brace yourself against something, like a door frame. Use common sense, of course, and make sure that what you're bracing against is stable. Trying to stabilize your camera against a sapling on a windy day could introduce unwanted movement. The ground is dependably stable--unless you happen to get caught in an earthquake, of course.
Last week, I wandered through a Japanese garden and snapped some shots of a waterfall at a fairly slow half-second exposure. I didn't have a tripod, so I got down on the ground and positioned my camera on a rock. Despite the agonizingly slow shutter speed, I managed to get some sharp photos, like this one.
Tweak Your Camera Settings
Don't forget that your camera is an ally in your quest for sharp photos. Take advantage of your camera's exposure settings. In general, the faster your shutter speed the better, so use your camera's shutter priority mode (if it has one) and set the fastest shutter speed possible. For tips on using this setting, read " Making the Most of Shutter-Priority Mode," one of my August columns.
If your camera doesn't have a shutter priority mode, then dial in its Action or Sports setting. You might also be able to choose Program mode and then use the camera's adjustment dial to increase the shutter speed while the camera keeps the aperture setting in sync. Of course, a fast shutter speed means you'll have less depth of field in your photos, but depth of field doesn't contribute much to sharpness unless you're taking extreme close-ups (macro photos) of tiny objects. For more on this topic, read " Master Your Camera's Depth of Field," one of my May columns.
In lower light conditions, when the shutter speed is too low to generate sharp prints, you should increase the camera's ISO setting. As you increase the ISO from, say, 100 to 200 to 400, the best available shutter speed increases from 1/15 to 1/30 to 1/60 second, for example. Remember that higher ISO settings add digital noise to your photos, so return the setting to the lowest position when the lighting improves. For more on ISO settings, read " Use ISO to Take Low-Light Photos," one of my January columns.
Sharpen Your Photos Afterwards
Finally, don't forget that you can add sharpness on your PC afterwards. Most digital cameras capture a slightly "soft" photo anyway, and you can use a tool in your favorite image editing program, like Unsharp Mask, to increase contrast and enhance sharpness.
In Corel's Paint Shop Pro, for example, open your photo and choose Adjust, Sharpness, Unsharp Mask from the menu. The default settings are generally just fine; click OK to sharpen your photo.
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: " Tight-Lipped Fellow," by Brian D. Watters, London, Ontario
Brian writes: "With a Canon 20D EOS in hand (including an 18-to-55 mm lens and a Canon 420EX Speedlite with Luminance Bouncer attached), and lying on my stomach in the wet muddy leaves at the edge of a bog, I waited patiently for this little fellow to surface. Surface it did, but not in front of the lens. So I began to move my camera. When I thought everything was just right, the frog dove again. We played this game for about five minutes. Finally, I thought I figured out the pattern, and my little green playmate came up right in front of the lens. Without an active display on the back of the camera, I had no idea if the frog was in focus, but the camera's beep told me something was. This is the end result of my time in the mud."
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126978
Based on questions I get from friends, readers, and my wife, it appears that the most vexing problem affecting photographers today doesn't have anything to do with photo editing, flash media cards, or image sensors. Nope, the question I get all the time is, "How do I take sharper photos with my digital camera?"
When my wife asks, I often give her the same answer I'd give to a musician asking how to get to Carnegie Hall: "practice, practice, practice." She's getting tired of my snarkiness, so this week let's look at all the ways to shoot sharper photos.
Steady Hands
The single most important thing you can do to improve your pictures--especially if you're new to photography--is to keep a steadier hand. Specifically, press the shutter release more gently. It takes only a tiny amount of pressure to activate the camera's shutter. Try this: Look in a mirror while you take a picture and watch what happens when you press the shutter release. If you see the camera wobble or jiggle, you're pressing it too hard. The camera should not move at the moment of exposure. Practice in the mirror until you can shoot pictures with minimal camera shake.
Something to Lean On
As I'm sure you know by now, I am a huge fan of tripods; I recommend using them whenever possible. And here's a little secret you might not know: the more megapixels your camera is capable of, the more important it is to use a tripod to get sharp photos. New 10-megapixel cameras have problems with camera shake a lot more often than 4- or 5-megapixel models, because they record much finer detail. If carrying around a tripod is too much trouble, consider a monopod--my wife has a combination monopod/walking stick for hiking, and she loves it--or a bean-bag support like The Pod.
If all else fails, just brace yourself against something, like a door frame. Use common sense, of course, and make sure that what you're bracing against is stable. Trying to stabilize your camera against a sapling on a windy day could introduce unwanted movement. The ground is dependably stable--unless you happen to get caught in an earthquake, of course.
Last week, I wandered through a Japanese garden and snapped some shots of a waterfall at a fairly slow half-second exposure. I didn't have a tripod, so I got down on the ground and positioned my camera on a rock. Despite the agonizingly slow shutter speed, I managed to get some sharp photos, like this one.
Tweak Your Camera Settings
Don't forget that your camera is an ally in your quest for sharp photos. Take advantage of your camera's exposure settings. In general, the faster your shutter speed the better, so use your camera's shutter priority mode (if it has one) and set the fastest shutter speed possible. For tips on using this setting, read " Making the Most of Shutter-Priority Mode," one of my August columns.
If your camera doesn't have a shutter priority mode, then dial in its Action or Sports setting. You might also be able to choose Program mode and then use the camera's adjustment dial to increase the shutter speed while the camera keeps the aperture setting in sync. Of course, a fast shutter speed means you'll have less depth of field in your photos, but depth of field doesn't contribute much to sharpness unless you're taking extreme close-ups (macro photos) of tiny objects. For more on this topic, read " Master Your Camera's Depth of Field," one of my May columns.
In lower light conditions, when the shutter speed is too low to generate sharp prints, you should increase the camera's ISO setting. As you increase the ISO from, say, 100 to 200 to 400, the best available shutter speed increases from 1/15 to 1/30 to 1/60 second, for example. Remember that higher ISO settings add digital noise to your photos, so return the setting to the lowest position when the lighting improves. For more on ISO settings, read " Use ISO to Take Low-Light Photos," one of my January columns.
Sharpen Your Photos Afterwards
Finally, don't forget that you can add sharpness on your PC afterwards. Most digital cameras capture a slightly "soft" photo anyway, and you can use a tool in your favorite image editing program, like Unsharp Mask, to increase contrast and enhance sharpness.
In Corel's Paint Shop Pro, for example, open your photo and choose Adjust, Sharpness, Unsharp Mask from the menu. The default settings are generally just fine; click OK to sharpen your photo.
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: " Tight-Lipped Fellow," by Brian D. Watters, London, Ontario
Brian writes: "With a Canon 20D EOS in hand (including an 18-to-55 mm lens and a Canon 420EX Speedlite with Luminance Bouncer attached), and lying on my stomach in the wet muddy leaves at the edge of a bog, I waited patiently for this little fellow to surface. Surface it did, but not in front of the lens. So I began to move my camera. When I thought everything was just right, the frog dove again. We played this game for about five minutes. Finally, I thought I figured out the pattern, and my little green playmate came up right in front of the lens. Without an active display on the back of the camera, I had no idea if the frog was in focus, but the camera's beep told me something was. This is the end result of my time in the mud."
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126978
Demystifying Lenses
Focal length, zoom, f-stops--if you've wondered about it, we discuss it.
When a good friend of mine recently purchased an inexpensive digital SLR, I knew that something fundamental in the fabric of space and time had changed: This is the guy who always used a point-and-shoot camera and never would have considered a film SLR.
So what has changed? To be honest, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's that digital SLRs are a lot easier to use and often require less effort to take better pictures than their film cousins. Whatever the explanation, a lot of people are making the switch to digital SLRs these days.
But no matter how easy-to-use digital SLRs become, some things won't change much. Take lenses, for example: I get tons of questions about how to purchase and use the myriad lenses available for today's digital SLRs. So this week I thought I'd answer the top questions I get about interchangeable lenses.
What Does "Focal Length" Measure?
The technical answer is that the focal length is the distance from the lens to the point at which light passing through the lens is focused, measured in millimeters. In more practical (and understandable) terms, the focal length tells you the magnifying power of the lens. A small focal length of up to about 35mm is considered wide angle; focal lengths between 35mm and 70mm are considered normal, because this range approximates what the human eye sees; and anything beyond 80mm gets into telephoto territory.
What Is the Difference Between a Prime and a Zoom Lens?
You might hear the term prime bandied about when discussing camera lenses. A prime lens is simply any lens that only has a single focal length, whereas a zoom lens has range of focal lengths, such as 12-24mm, 70-300mm, or 18-200mm.
Zoom lenses are obviously more convenient to use, but there are engineering trade-offs involved in a lens that can move through a wide range of focal lengths. Prime lenses perform better--and they are less expensive.
Serious photographers tend to carry a few prime lenses in common focal ranges, but the rest of us get by with one or two zoom lenses that cover the whole gamut.
What's the Relevance of f-Numbers on Zoom Lenses?
All camera lenses have a maximum aperture setting--in other words, how big an opening the lens can make to admit light during exposure. The smaller the number, the larger the opening will be.
Engineering compromises mean that many zoom lenses can't open as wide as you might like. My nifty 18-200mm zoom, for example, offers enough wide- and telephoto oomph to cover 90 percent of the photographic situations I usually encounter. But set to wide angle, it has an f-number of f/3.5. When I zoom all the way to 200mm, it degrades to f/5.6. Compare that to some 200mm prime lenses that can open up to f/20, and you can see that there's a lot less light available to shoot pictures with my zoom. That means fast-moving subjects will blur unless I increase the ISO or shoot in the middle of the day when there's plenty of sunlight available.
All things being equal, the lens that offers a bigger aperture (the smallest f-number) is always the better choice--and it will always be more expensive.
Is the Diameter of the Lens Important?
Not especially.
Some people are surprised to find that there isn't a standard diameter among interchangeable camera lenses. My 18-200mm lens has a diameter of 72mm, for instance, while my 80-400mm lens has a 77mm diameter. Generally, telephoto lenses need more glass to be able to collect more light. The size of any given lens is the result of many design decisions, however, and not something to consider in your buying criteria.
Of course, that means you generally can't share the same set of screw-on filters among several lenses. You might want to see if there's a step-up or step-down adapter available for your lens that will let you attach a different-sized filter. Beware of step-down adapters, though, since they can cause vignetting--if the filter is smaller than the lens you're attaching it to, it can produce shadows in the corners of the picture that you'll have to crop away.
What Is Image Stabilization?
Some premium lenses come with built in stabilization that allows you to freeze the action as if you were shooting with a faster shutter speed than you really are. This feature is great for telephoto lenses with mediocre f-numbers in low light, for example, or for shooting pictures without a tripod.
Image-stabilized lenses used to cost a fortune, but these days they're appearing at a relative bargain. But keep in mind that image stabilization isn't the cure for all your blurriness issues. An image-stabilized lens won't be able to freeze the action if the subject itself is moving, for instance. But I am a big believer, and all of my lenses are now image-stabilized.
As an aside, I've noticed that a few new digital SLRs are hawking image-stabilization in the body, claiming that this makes the lenses cheaper since you only have to buy the stabilization technology once and it's automatically available to all your lenses. The jury is still out on this approach; the longer a lens is, the more powerful the image stabilization motor will need to be, and the stabilization built into these new cameras might not be able to keep up.
Hot Pic of the Week
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: " Fire of the Night," by Michael Genovese, Lutz, Florida
Michael writes: "I took this picture in a Piazza in Rome. I was playing with various shutter speeds, trying to get the picture to focus sharply in the low light. I accidentally set the wrong shutter speed and this was the result. Even though the picture was a mistake, I loved the result."
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/128098
When a good friend of mine recently purchased an inexpensive digital SLR, I knew that something fundamental in the fabric of space and time had changed: This is the guy who always used a point-and-shoot camera and never would have considered a film SLR.
So what has changed? To be honest, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's that digital SLRs are a lot easier to use and often require less effort to take better pictures than their film cousins. Whatever the explanation, a lot of people are making the switch to digital SLRs these days.
But no matter how easy-to-use digital SLRs become, some things won't change much. Take lenses, for example: I get tons of questions about how to purchase and use the myriad lenses available for today's digital SLRs. So this week I thought I'd answer the top questions I get about interchangeable lenses.
What Does "Focal Length" Measure?
The technical answer is that the focal length is the distance from the lens to the point at which light passing through the lens is focused, measured in millimeters. In more practical (and understandable) terms, the focal length tells you the magnifying power of the lens. A small focal length of up to about 35mm is considered wide angle; focal lengths between 35mm and 70mm are considered normal, because this range approximates what the human eye sees; and anything beyond 80mm gets into telephoto territory.
What Is the Difference Between a Prime and a Zoom Lens?
You might hear the term prime bandied about when discussing camera lenses. A prime lens is simply any lens that only has a single focal length, whereas a zoom lens has range of focal lengths, such as 12-24mm, 70-300mm, or 18-200mm.
Zoom lenses are obviously more convenient to use, but there are engineering trade-offs involved in a lens that can move through a wide range of focal lengths. Prime lenses perform better--and they are less expensive.
Serious photographers tend to carry a few prime lenses in common focal ranges, but the rest of us get by with one or two zoom lenses that cover the whole gamut.
What's the Relevance of f-Numbers on Zoom Lenses?
All camera lenses have a maximum aperture setting--in other words, how big an opening the lens can make to admit light during exposure. The smaller the number, the larger the opening will be.
Engineering compromises mean that many zoom lenses can't open as wide as you might like. My nifty 18-200mm zoom, for example, offers enough wide- and telephoto oomph to cover 90 percent of the photographic situations I usually encounter. But set to wide angle, it has an f-number of f/3.5. When I zoom all the way to 200mm, it degrades to f/5.6. Compare that to some 200mm prime lenses that can open up to f/20, and you can see that there's a lot less light available to shoot pictures with my zoom. That means fast-moving subjects will blur unless I increase the ISO or shoot in the middle of the day when there's plenty of sunlight available.
All things being equal, the lens that offers a bigger aperture (the smallest f-number) is always the better choice--and it will always be more expensive.
Is the Diameter of the Lens Important?
Not especially.
Some people are surprised to find that there isn't a standard diameter among interchangeable camera lenses. My 18-200mm lens has a diameter of 72mm, for instance, while my 80-400mm lens has a 77mm diameter. Generally, telephoto lenses need more glass to be able to collect more light. The size of any given lens is the result of many design decisions, however, and not something to consider in your buying criteria.
Of course, that means you generally can't share the same set of screw-on filters among several lenses. You might want to see if there's a step-up or step-down adapter available for your lens that will let you attach a different-sized filter. Beware of step-down adapters, though, since they can cause vignetting--if the filter is smaller than the lens you're attaching it to, it can produce shadows in the corners of the picture that you'll have to crop away.
What Is Image Stabilization?
Some premium lenses come with built in stabilization that allows you to freeze the action as if you were shooting with a faster shutter speed than you really are. This feature is great for telephoto lenses with mediocre f-numbers in low light, for example, or for shooting pictures without a tripod.
Image-stabilized lenses used to cost a fortune, but these days they're appearing at a relative bargain. But keep in mind that image stabilization isn't the cure for all your blurriness issues. An image-stabilized lens won't be able to freeze the action if the subject itself is moving, for instance. But I am a big believer, and all of my lenses are now image-stabilized.
As an aside, I've noticed that a few new digital SLRs are hawking image-stabilization in the body, claiming that this makes the lenses cheaper since you only have to buy the stabilization technology once and it's automatically available to all your lenses. The jury is still out on this approach; the longer a lens is, the more powerful the image stabilization motor will need to be, and the stabilization built into these new cameras might not be able to keep up.
Hot Pic of the Week
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: " Fire of the Night," by Michael Genovese, Lutz, Florida
Michael writes: "I took this picture in a Piazza in Rome. I was playing with various shutter speeds, trying to get the picture to focus sharply in the low light. I accidentally set the wrong shutter speed and this was the result. Even though the picture was a mistake, I loved the result."
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/128098
Finding the right battery for your digital camera is vital because of the power that digital cameras draw
Highlight:
Digital cameras' power demands can quickly drain batteries, which means that you need to find batteries that will stand up to the rigors of these hungry devices. Alkaline batteries can quickly be run down in a digital camera and need to be thrown out once they are spent. Thus rechargeable Li-ion, NiMH, or NiCad batteries are a much better choice for digital cameras.
Original source:
http://www.bytecamera.com/content/view/210/2/
Summary:
* Being such a crucial task as if searching for a good heart for a human being, perhaps the most tedious thing about digital cameras is the quest for their battery consumption and thereby finding a suitable one for any particular one.
* Leaving aside the ever power thirsty LCD screens and flashes, the digital cameras themselves exhaust batteries much faster than film cameras, due to their state of the art electronic designs and intricate circuitry.
* Many digital cameras run from AA cells, around 4, and can even drain a set of alkaline cells in less than 1 hour of working!
* For example, the Kodak DC120 draws about 210mA during start or switch ON, but progresses to around 1.3A with the association of the LCD fully working and can go ahead to about 2.1A while picture taking and after it too.
* It is light in weight and currently available for many commercial uses and thus being so the Li-ion (Lithium Ion) battery type is becoming quite popular.
* This has an added advantage of being able to endow with more power than any of the other main cell types available.
* It is also free from the problems of memory effect, hat some battery types do have, and maintenance is least in this type of battery.
* These batteries or cells have an aptitude for handling high power loads, and therefore is more frequently found in handy power tools and devices that require more amounts power to work efficiently and perfectly.
* Yet again, these batteries too have the problems of memory effect, and much more maintenance and care is required while handling this kind of battery.
* Apart from the different batteries themselves, the selection should be based upon the charging techniques and the different charges available for all these digital camera batteries.
http://www.newstarget.com/001540.html
Digital cameras' power demands can quickly drain batteries, which means that you need to find batteries that will stand up to the rigors of these hungry devices. Alkaline batteries can quickly be run down in a digital camera and need to be thrown out once they are spent. Thus rechargeable Li-ion, NiMH, or NiCad batteries are a much better choice for digital cameras.
Original source:
http://www.bytecamera.com/content/view/210/2/
Summary:
* Being such a crucial task as if searching for a good heart for a human being, perhaps the most tedious thing about digital cameras is the quest for their battery consumption and thereby finding a suitable one for any particular one.
* Leaving aside the ever power thirsty LCD screens and flashes, the digital cameras themselves exhaust batteries much faster than film cameras, due to their state of the art electronic designs and intricate circuitry.
* Many digital cameras run from AA cells, around 4, and can even drain a set of alkaline cells in less than 1 hour of working!
* For example, the Kodak DC120 draws about 210mA during start or switch ON, but progresses to around 1.3A with the association of the LCD fully working and can go ahead to about 2.1A while picture taking and after it too.
* It is light in weight and currently available for many commercial uses and thus being so the Li-ion (Lithium Ion) battery type is becoming quite popular.
* This has an added advantage of being able to endow with more power than any of the other main cell types available.
* It is also free from the problems of memory effect, hat some battery types do have, and maintenance is least in this type of battery.
* These batteries or cells have an aptitude for handling high power loads, and therefore is more frequently found in handy power tools and devices that require more amounts power to work efficiently and perfectly.
* Yet again, these batteries too have the problems of memory effect, and much more maintenance and care is required while handling this kind of battery.
* Apart from the different batteries themselves, the selection should be based upon the charging techniques and the different charges available for all these digital camera batteries.
http://www.newstarget.com/001540.html
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Framed and Exposed: Better Image Automation Through Scripting
Managing your images can be a tedious time-consuming task. But learning how to harness the power of AppleScript and Image Events can make quick work of renaming, resizing, and rotating your images, along with other essential duties.
Windows users, please bear with me this week while I discuss a Mac-only technology.
Whether you run a complex Web or print production workflow, or you're a professional photographer who needs to manage 1,000-image shoots, or you're a hobbyist photographer drowning in media, workflow automation can be an essential concern for achieving your end goal -- whether it be a Web site, magazine, or simple high-quality print. Digital photography workflow and workflow automation will be a subject that we will return to repeatedly in this column, but this week we're looking at the digital photography applications of the AppleScript language that's built into the Mac OS and, specifically, the image processing routines that are built into OS X 10.3.
AppleScript was introduced with version 7 of the OS, way back in the early '90s, and Apple wisely migrated the technology to OS X. AppleScript is a scripting language with all of the elements and structures that you would expect of a modern programming language. There's nothing particularly special about AppleScript as a programming language -- in fact, there are a lot of things about AppleScript that are really annoying. What makes AppleScript so useful and powerful are Apple Events -- messages and commands that can be sent from application to application, and which you can control through the use of AppleScript.
An application must have Apple Events support built-in before you can control it with Applescript, but these days almost all major graphics and design applications are scriptable, as are the Macintosh OS and Finder.
AppleScript Basics
A quick summary for those of you who've never fiddled with AppleScript before: AppleScript is part of the standard OS installation and so is available on any Mac. In your Applications > AppleScript folder you'll find a copy of ScriptEditor, a simple application for writing and compiling scripts.
Along with the development of AppleScript, Apple created the Open Scripting Architecture (OSA), an open standard that allows other vendors to create languages that can control and respond to Apple Events. Script Editor lets you write and compile scripts for any OSA-compliant language. So, for example, if you'd rather create your automation scripts using JavaScript, you can install a special OSA version of JavaScript. We'll look more at AppleScript alternatives (which can be ideal for mixed Mac/Windows environments) in a future column.
In addition to saving simple scripts that can be run from a script editing application like ScriptEditor, AppleScript allows you to create standalone, double-clickable applications, droplet applications, or scripts that can be attached to folders or other applications.
The AppleScript language itself is somewhat similar to Apple's old HyperTalk language (the native language of HyperCard) and follows a similar English-like syntax. This is both a blessing and a hindrance. Its English-like feel is less intimidating to beginning scripters, but the vagaries of English grammar -- as well as the existence of so many synonymous terms -- means it can be difficult to remember the precise AppleScript syntax that you need for a particular command.
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/22342.html
Windows users, please bear with me this week while I discuss a Mac-only technology.
Whether you run a complex Web or print production workflow, or you're a professional photographer who needs to manage 1,000-image shoots, or you're a hobbyist photographer drowning in media, workflow automation can be an essential concern for achieving your end goal -- whether it be a Web site, magazine, or simple high-quality print. Digital photography workflow and workflow automation will be a subject that we will return to repeatedly in this column, but this week we're looking at the digital photography applications of the AppleScript language that's built into the Mac OS and, specifically, the image processing routines that are built into OS X 10.3.
AppleScript was introduced with version 7 of the OS, way back in the early '90s, and Apple wisely migrated the technology to OS X. AppleScript is a scripting language with all of the elements and structures that you would expect of a modern programming language. There's nothing particularly special about AppleScript as a programming language -- in fact, there are a lot of things about AppleScript that are really annoying. What makes AppleScript so useful and powerful are Apple Events -- messages and commands that can be sent from application to application, and which you can control through the use of AppleScript.
An application must have Apple Events support built-in before you can control it with Applescript, but these days almost all major graphics and design applications are scriptable, as are the Macintosh OS and Finder.
AppleScript Basics
A quick summary for those of you who've never fiddled with AppleScript before: AppleScript is part of the standard OS installation and so is available on any Mac. In your Applications > AppleScript folder you'll find a copy of ScriptEditor, a simple application for writing and compiling scripts.
Along with the development of AppleScript, Apple created the Open Scripting Architecture (OSA), an open standard that allows other vendors to create languages that can control and respond to Apple Events. Script Editor lets you write and compile scripts for any OSA-compliant language. So, for example, if you'd rather create your automation scripts using JavaScript, you can install a special OSA version of JavaScript. We'll look more at AppleScript alternatives (which can be ideal for mixed Mac/Windows environments) in a future column.
In addition to saving simple scripts that can be run from a script editing application like ScriptEditor, AppleScript allows you to create standalone, double-clickable applications, droplet applications, or scripts that can be attached to folders or other applications.
The AppleScript language itself is somewhat similar to Apple's old HyperTalk language (the native language of HyperCard) and follows a similar English-like syntax. This is both a blessing and a hindrance. Its English-like feel is less intimidating to beginning scripters, but the vagaries of English grammar -- as well as the existence of so many synonymous terms -- means it can be difficult to remember the precise AppleScript syntax that you need for a particular command.
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/22342.html
Monday, May 28, 2007
Canon Elura 2: Digital Video Done Right
With its excellent video quality and smaller-than-life form factor, Canon's Elura 2 digital video camera is a compelling solution for people who need impressive MiniDV video from a pocket-sized camera.
The size advantage of the MiniDV videotape format has more to do with the amazingly small video cameras it makes possible than with the convenience of the tiny cassettes themselves. The Canon Elura 2 is one such camera. A successor to Canon's previous Elura, the new model is smaller and lighter without compromising its predecessor's excellent image quality. For documentary filmmakers, people who like to travel light, globe-trotting super-spies, or anyone else who wants a pocket-sized camera, the Elura 2 offers a lot for its $1,599 list price, including a 10x zoom lens.
Design and Control
Measuring 1.9 by 4.1 by 3.4 inches and weighing only 14 ounces, the Elura 2 looks a bit different than its predecessor. Like the Elura, the new model is built around an upright, rectangular body. However, in redesigning the Elura, Canon has opted for a more rectangular look, and removed the curvy top and very rounded edges of the previous model. The result is a camera with a smaller, easier-to-hold shape that's tiny enough to fit in a pants pocket.
Like its predecessor, the Elura 2 features a 2.5-inch LCD flip-out screen that swivels out from the top left side of the camera's body. Bright and contrasty, the LCD screen is ideal for indoor shooting, but it tends to wash out in direct sunlight. Fortunately, the camera also provides an optical viewfinder, with an eyepiece that pulls out from the back of the camera.
Both viewfinders display the expected assortment of status displays including tape remaining, battery expectancy, and a record indicator. The camera's transport controls come in the form of simple plastic membrane buttons located opposite the flip-out screen.
The rest of the camera's controls are spare but well-designed. Tapes are inserted into a standard MiniDV transport mechanism that opens from the right side of the camera. A single rotating dial lets you select between playback mode, movie mode, and progressive scan movie mode. The camera's zoom control and record button are well-positioned and comfortable, as are the camera's menu navigation controls. The zoom control, as one would expect, is very small, so making very subtle changes in zooming speed can be difficult. If you're really interested in performing complex camera moves, you should go with a larger unit.
The Elura 2 boasts a newly designed 10x zoom lens and features Canon's excellent optical stabilization feature. Offering a 35mm equivalency of 43.9 to 439mm, the Elura 2's lens provides excellent sharpness with only minimal distortion at the extremes of its zoom.
In general, we only have two minor complaints about the Elura 2's design. First, its microphone is located on top of the camera -- not the ideal location for picking up high-quality audio. Then again, given the size of this camera, there was probably little place else to put it that would make sense.
Our other complaint. As with the original Elura, the Elura 2 does not include either a headphone jack or an external mic jack on the camera itself. To add these jacks, you must install a docking station that mounts on the bottom of the camera. In one considerable improvement over the Elura, the Elura 2 provides the docking station as standard equipment. Still, not having the jacks on the camera itself is a little frustrating, and it's hard to believe that the camera's size prohibits such additions, given that Sony and other vendors include such features on their tiny cameras.
Canon is also shipping the Elura 2mc, which provides all of the features of the Elura 2 but also includes a standard MultiMediaCard slot. This slot accepts MultiMediaCards for storing still images. The Elura 2mc carries a list price of $1,799.
Features
Most of the Elura 2's features are unchanged from its predecessor's. The camera provides two shooting modes -- a normal, interlaced mode and a progressive scan mode. With the progressive scan mode, the camera shoots 30 full frames per second, instead of the normal 29.97 interlaced frames of a regular video mode. Canon touts this feature as a "progressive scan digital motor drive," meaning you can use it to shoot 30 full-res still pictures every second. You can use this mode for regular video, but motion will appear rather broken, as if the camera were shooting with a very high shutter speed. The Elura 2's still quality is good, and shooting in progressive scan makes it better, but it's still a far cry from a true digital still camera.
The Elura 2's auto-exposure feature is very good and, for most shooting circumstances, should be all you'll need to use. However, for a consumer-oriented camera, Canon has also included a surprising number of manual features.
A simple exposure-lock button lets you compensate for difficult exposure situations, while a manual-exposure mode lets you dial in a custom exposure. Unfortunately, the Elura includes no over-exposure warnings, so you need to be careful when using manual exposure.
The Elura 2 also includes a manual shutter-speed control, which lets you select shutter speeds ranging from 1/60th to 1/2000th of a second. Unfortunately, the manual control is a little lacking at the low end. We'd like to see the ability to shoot down to around 1/30th of a second to create smoother blurs and motions.
Manual focus controls are also provided. You can change focus by simply spinning the selection wheel on the back of the camera. For times when the camera's autofocus has trouble locking or focuses on the wrong object, this feature can be a real life-saver. It can also help you create less-conventional compositions.
Finally, in addition to offering preset indoor and outdoor white balances, the Elura 2 lets you set white balance manually by pointing the camera at a white object.
Canon has done an excellent job with the manual features and the Elura 2 provides most of the controls we'd expect to see in a small consumer camera. In addition, a number of digital effects and wipes are provided, but you'll probably only use these if you plan to wire two cameras together to perform your editing. If you will be editing using your computer, then you'll most likely add wipes, dissolves, and special effects using your editing package.
As with all Canon DV cameras, Firewire support is very good. We had no trouble using the camera with a number of Final Cut Pro features that can stump cameras from other vendors.
Quality
Canon cameras tend to produce very good-looking output, and the Elura 2 is no exception. Though a single-chip camera, the unit performs very well, offering deep saturated colors with very pleasing tone.
As with any single-chip camera, the Elura 2 sometimes aliases high-contrast lines, so that they appear somewhat jaggy, and this phenomenon can be exaggerated by the camera's built-in sharpening algorithms. A manual sharpness adjustment would be a big improvement.
In our experience, Canon cameras tend to shoot very warm images. Whether you like warmer or cooler images -- images that tend toward warm tones such as yellow or brown or cool tones such as blue -- is a matter of personal preference. Your best bet is to take a look at the video of your top choices before you buy. Sony cameras such as the diminutive Sony DCR PC110 tend to produce video with cooler tones.
Packing Light
We really liked the original Elura. Its small size, excellent quality, and good feature set made it a winner. Our only complaint with it was that it was just a little too big. With the Elura 2, Canon has packed most of the same features into a camera that's small enough to carry just about anywhere.
Of course, a smaller camera is often a less durable camera and we did have trouble with our evaluation unit. After a month of regular use, the camera's viewfinder started to develop some very odd behavior in the form of smeared, illegible displays. Unfortunately, it's difficult to say whether this problem was the result of a defective unit or a camera that simply couldn't take being toted around Europe for a month.
Despite our problems with its viewfinder, the Elura 2 is an impressive MiniDV camera and a fine choice for buyers who need the extreme portability this camera offers. Particularly for those of us who like video with warm tones, this camera will make a charming and capable traveling companion.
http://www.creativepro.com/story/review/14079-1.html
The size advantage of the MiniDV videotape format has more to do with the amazingly small video cameras it makes possible than with the convenience of the tiny cassettes themselves. The Canon Elura 2 is one such camera. A successor to Canon's previous Elura, the new model is smaller and lighter without compromising its predecessor's excellent image quality. For documentary filmmakers, people who like to travel light, globe-trotting super-spies, or anyone else who wants a pocket-sized camera, the Elura 2 offers a lot for its $1,599 list price, including a 10x zoom lens.
Design and Control
Measuring 1.9 by 4.1 by 3.4 inches and weighing only 14 ounces, the Elura 2 looks a bit different than its predecessor. Like the Elura, the new model is built around an upright, rectangular body. However, in redesigning the Elura, Canon has opted for a more rectangular look, and removed the curvy top and very rounded edges of the previous model. The result is a camera with a smaller, easier-to-hold shape that's tiny enough to fit in a pants pocket.
Like its predecessor, the Elura 2 features a 2.5-inch LCD flip-out screen that swivels out from the top left side of the camera's body. Bright and contrasty, the LCD screen is ideal for indoor shooting, but it tends to wash out in direct sunlight. Fortunately, the camera also provides an optical viewfinder, with an eyepiece that pulls out from the back of the camera.
Both viewfinders display the expected assortment of status displays including tape remaining, battery expectancy, and a record indicator. The camera's transport controls come in the form of simple plastic membrane buttons located opposite the flip-out screen.
The rest of the camera's controls are spare but well-designed. Tapes are inserted into a standard MiniDV transport mechanism that opens from the right side of the camera. A single rotating dial lets you select between playback mode, movie mode, and progressive scan movie mode. The camera's zoom control and record button are well-positioned and comfortable, as are the camera's menu navigation controls. The zoom control, as one would expect, is very small, so making very subtle changes in zooming speed can be difficult. If you're really interested in performing complex camera moves, you should go with a larger unit.
The Elura 2 boasts a newly designed 10x zoom lens and features Canon's excellent optical stabilization feature. Offering a 35mm equivalency of 43.9 to 439mm, the Elura 2's lens provides excellent sharpness with only minimal distortion at the extremes of its zoom.
In general, we only have two minor complaints about the Elura 2's design. First, its microphone is located on top of the camera -- not the ideal location for picking up high-quality audio. Then again, given the size of this camera, there was probably little place else to put it that would make sense.
Our other complaint. As with the original Elura, the Elura 2 does not include either a headphone jack or an external mic jack on the camera itself. To add these jacks, you must install a docking station that mounts on the bottom of the camera. In one considerable improvement over the Elura, the Elura 2 provides the docking station as standard equipment. Still, not having the jacks on the camera itself is a little frustrating, and it's hard to believe that the camera's size prohibits such additions, given that Sony and other vendors include such features on their tiny cameras.
Canon is also shipping the Elura 2mc, which provides all of the features of the Elura 2 but also includes a standard MultiMediaCard slot. This slot accepts MultiMediaCards for storing still images. The Elura 2mc carries a list price of $1,799.
Features
Most of the Elura 2's features are unchanged from its predecessor's. The camera provides two shooting modes -- a normal, interlaced mode and a progressive scan mode. With the progressive scan mode, the camera shoots 30 full frames per second, instead of the normal 29.97 interlaced frames of a regular video mode. Canon touts this feature as a "progressive scan digital motor drive," meaning you can use it to shoot 30 full-res still pictures every second. You can use this mode for regular video, but motion will appear rather broken, as if the camera were shooting with a very high shutter speed. The Elura 2's still quality is good, and shooting in progressive scan makes it better, but it's still a far cry from a true digital still camera.
The Elura 2's auto-exposure feature is very good and, for most shooting circumstances, should be all you'll need to use. However, for a consumer-oriented camera, Canon has also included a surprising number of manual features.
A simple exposure-lock button lets you compensate for difficult exposure situations, while a manual-exposure mode lets you dial in a custom exposure. Unfortunately, the Elura includes no over-exposure warnings, so you need to be careful when using manual exposure.
The Elura 2 also includes a manual shutter-speed control, which lets you select shutter speeds ranging from 1/60th to 1/2000th of a second. Unfortunately, the manual control is a little lacking at the low end. We'd like to see the ability to shoot down to around 1/30th of a second to create smoother blurs and motions.
Manual focus controls are also provided. You can change focus by simply spinning the selection wheel on the back of the camera. For times when the camera's autofocus has trouble locking or focuses on the wrong object, this feature can be a real life-saver. It can also help you create less-conventional compositions.
Finally, in addition to offering preset indoor and outdoor white balances, the Elura 2 lets you set white balance manually by pointing the camera at a white object.
Canon has done an excellent job with the manual features and the Elura 2 provides most of the controls we'd expect to see in a small consumer camera. In addition, a number of digital effects and wipes are provided, but you'll probably only use these if you plan to wire two cameras together to perform your editing. If you will be editing using your computer, then you'll most likely add wipes, dissolves, and special effects using your editing package.
As with all Canon DV cameras, Firewire support is very good. We had no trouble using the camera with a number of Final Cut Pro features that can stump cameras from other vendors.
Quality
Canon cameras tend to produce very good-looking output, and the Elura 2 is no exception. Though a single-chip camera, the unit performs very well, offering deep saturated colors with very pleasing tone.
As with any single-chip camera, the Elura 2 sometimes aliases high-contrast lines, so that they appear somewhat jaggy, and this phenomenon can be exaggerated by the camera's built-in sharpening algorithms. A manual sharpness adjustment would be a big improvement.
In our experience, Canon cameras tend to shoot very warm images. Whether you like warmer or cooler images -- images that tend toward warm tones such as yellow or brown or cool tones such as blue -- is a matter of personal preference. Your best bet is to take a look at the video of your top choices before you buy. Sony cameras such as the diminutive Sony DCR PC110 tend to produce video with cooler tones.
Packing Light
We really liked the original Elura. Its small size, excellent quality, and good feature set made it a winner. Our only complaint with it was that it was just a little too big. With the Elura 2, Canon has packed most of the same features into a camera that's small enough to carry just about anywhere.
Of course, a smaller camera is often a less durable camera and we did have trouble with our evaluation unit. After a month of regular use, the camera's viewfinder started to develop some very odd behavior in the form of smeared, illegible displays. Unfortunately, it's difficult to say whether this problem was the result of a defective unit or a camera that simply couldn't take being toted around Europe for a month.
Despite our problems with its viewfinder, the Elura 2 is an impressive MiniDV camera and a fine choice for buyers who need the extreme portability this camera offers. Particularly for those of us who like video with warm tones, this camera will make a charming and capable traveling companion.
http://www.creativepro.com/story/review/14079-1.html
Canon EOS Digital Rebel: Pro Photo Features at Consumer Price
Forget the tired Andre Agassi commercials. Canon's EOS Digital Rebel is a new breed of digital camera -- an SLR with pro-quality features for less than $1,000. Ben Long takes it for a spin.
In the realm of digital cameras, there's a very simple dividing line between "consumer" and "professional" models: the SLR. Single-Lens Reflex cameras with removable lenses fall heartily on the "professional" side of the digital camera market, thanks to their flexibility, thorough feature sets, and superior image quality.
Canon has been steadily moving that dividing line between consumer and professional cameras ever since it released the $3,000 EOS D30 three years ago. Though lacking high-end professional features such as weatherproofing and high burst-rates, the D30 still put pro image quality into consumer's hands for $2,000 less than its main competitor. Now, with a single product, the EOS Digital Rebel, Canon has thoroughly re-shaped the entire digital camera market by producing an exceptional digital-SLR package for less than $1,000. For most users, the question of whether or not the Digital Rebel is right for them will not be based on the camera's merits, but simply on whether they need an SLR or not. If they do, the Digital Rebel is an excellent choice.
One Lens or Two?
SLRs have a number of advantages over the range-finder designs that most digital cameras use. With an SLR, you look through the same lens that the camera uses to expose its sensor, as opposed to a rangefinder camera, where one lens is used for exposure and a second lens is used for framing the shot. With an SLR, you know that the framing in your viewfinder is accurate, and that you're seeing the effects of any filters you might have installed.
What's more, with an SLR with removable lenses, you have a choice of a huge variety of lenses that range in focal length and quality. Finally, most digital SLRs offer performance, features, and image quality that far surpass what is currently offered by sub-$1,000, all-on-one cameras.
So, if you're looking to spend less than $1,000, your real choice is whether you want the extra complexity of an SLR. The $899.99 Digital Rebel is larger and heavier than the typical all-in-one camera. On top of that, you have to choose a lens then shell out at least another $100 for it. Right off the bat, if you elect to go with the Rebel, you'll be confronted with an extra level of complexity.
Whether an SLR is right for you depends on the type of shooting you do. But, if you decide you want the superior image quality and greater flexibility, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better camera value than the Canon Digital Rebel.
Granted, It's Silver...
As one would expect from the name, the Digital Rebel is based on Canon's popular film Rebel body, though the digital version is a little larger and substantially heavier. The good news is that the Digital Rebel has a much sturdier feel than the film model. Though its body is plastic, the Digital Rebel feels very solid and squeak-free, and has a nice heft. It lacks the black finish of a "professional" camera, but its silver matte-finish is very attractive.
The camera is very comfortable to hold thanks to its well-designed body and intuitive control layout. In one way, the Rebel marks Canon's fourth-generation consumer D-SLR, and that experience with digital interfaces serves it well. All of the controls you need are located on the camera's body, meaning you rarely have to dig into a menu to change a setting.
Like its more expensive sibling, the EOS 10D, the Rebel provides a control wheel on top of the camera, near the shutter button. However, it lacks the 10D's second control wheel on the back of the camera. We found this lack of a second wheel to be somewhat annoying, as it complicated the interface to the camera's exposure compensation controls, one of the most commonly used adjustments.
Otherwise we were impressed with Canon's simple, efficient approach to control design. Buttons and controls are well placed and economical in their use. The camera is not overloaded with buttons or switches, making for a very un-intimidating interface.
As with Canon's other D-SLRs, the Rebel uses CompactFlash Type I or II cards (it's MicroDrive-compatible) and the same excellent, long-lived LiION battery as the 10D.
You May Fire When Ready
Canon has appropriated a lot of technology from the EOS 10D including the same image sensor and image-processing chip. What's more, they've loaded the Rebel with a good-sized RAM buffer. If you've never used a higher-end digital camera before, you might be very surprised by the responsiveness of the Rebel. In all of its functions, it's much speedier than the typical all-in-one digital. Booting up, menu access, viewing images, deleting images, scrolling through a large card of images -- all of these functions are extremely zippy, resulting in a camera that can better keep up with your needs.
What's more, the Digital Rebel's buffer and efficient caching scheme mean that the camera can shoot bursts of four or five images without having to pause to store images. Because of its responsiveness and clever buffering schemes, you'll rarely find yourself waiting on this camera for anything. When you're ready to shoot, it probably will be, too.
http://www.creativepro.com/story/review/20737-1.html
In the realm of digital cameras, there's a very simple dividing line between "consumer" and "professional" models: the SLR. Single-Lens Reflex cameras with removable lenses fall heartily on the "professional" side of the digital camera market, thanks to their flexibility, thorough feature sets, and superior image quality.
Canon has been steadily moving that dividing line between consumer and professional cameras ever since it released the $3,000 EOS D30 three years ago. Though lacking high-end professional features such as weatherproofing and high burst-rates, the D30 still put pro image quality into consumer's hands for $2,000 less than its main competitor. Now, with a single product, the EOS Digital Rebel, Canon has thoroughly re-shaped the entire digital camera market by producing an exceptional digital-SLR package for less than $1,000. For most users, the question of whether or not the Digital Rebel is right for them will not be based on the camera's merits, but simply on whether they need an SLR or not. If they do, the Digital Rebel is an excellent choice.
One Lens or Two?
SLRs have a number of advantages over the range-finder designs that most digital cameras use. With an SLR, you look through the same lens that the camera uses to expose its sensor, as opposed to a rangefinder camera, where one lens is used for exposure and a second lens is used for framing the shot. With an SLR, you know that the framing in your viewfinder is accurate, and that you're seeing the effects of any filters you might have installed.
What's more, with an SLR with removable lenses, you have a choice of a huge variety of lenses that range in focal length and quality. Finally, most digital SLRs offer performance, features, and image quality that far surpass what is currently offered by sub-$1,000, all-on-one cameras.
So, if you're looking to spend less than $1,000, your real choice is whether you want the extra complexity of an SLR. The $899.99 Digital Rebel is larger and heavier than the typical all-in-one camera. On top of that, you have to choose a lens then shell out at least another $100 for it. Right off the bat, if you elect to go with the Rebel, you'll be confronted with an extra level of complexity.
Whether an SLR is right for you depends on the type of shooting you do. But, if you decide you want the superior image quality and greater flexibility, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better camera value than the Canon Digital Rebel.
Granted, It's Silver...
As one would expect from the name, the Digital Rebel is based on Canon's popular film Rebel body, though the digital version is a little larger and substantially heavier. The good news is that the Digital Rebel has a much sturdier feel than the film model. Though its body is plastic, the Digital Rebel feels very solid and squeak-free, and has a nice heft. It lacks the black finish of a "professional" camera, but its silver matte-finish is very attractive.
The camera is very comfortable to hold thanks to its well-designed body and intuitive control layout. In one way, the Rebel marks Canon's fourth-generation consumer D-SLR, and that experience with digital interfaces serves it well. All of the controls you need are located on the camera's body, meaning you rarely have to dig into a menu to change a setting.
Like its more expensive sibling, the EOS 10D, the Rebel provides a control wheel on top of the camera, near the shutter button. However, it lacks the 10D's second control wheel on the back of the camera. We found this lack of a second wheel to be somewhat annoying, as it complicated the interface to the camera's exposure compensation controls, one of the most commonly used adjustments.
Otherwise we were impressed with Canon's simple, efficient approach to control design. Buttons and controls are well placed and economical in their use. The camera is not overloaded with buttons or switches, making for a very un-intimidating interface.
As with Canon's other D-SLRs, the Rebel uses CompactFlash Type I or II cards (it's MicroDrive-compatible) and the same excellent, long-lived LiION battery as the 10D.
You May Fire When Ready
Canon has appropriated a lot of technology from the EOS 10D including the same image sensor and image-processing chip. What's more, they've loaded the Rebel with a good-sized RAM buffer. If you've never used a higher-end digital camera before, you might be very surprised by the responsiveness of the Rebel. In all of its functions, it's much speedier than the typical all-in-one digital. Booting up, menu access, viewing images, deleting images, scrolling through a large card of images -- all of these functions are extremely zippy, resulting in a camera that can better keep up with your needs.
What's more, the Digital Rebel's buffer and efficient caching scheme mean that the camera can shoot bursts of four or five images without having to pause to store images. Because of its responsiveness and clever buffering schemes, you'll rarely find yourself waiting on this camera for anything. When you're ready to shoot, it probably will be, too.
http://www.creativepro.com/story/review/20737-1.html
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Selling Your Digital Photos
How to turn snapshots into cold, hard cash.
It seems that there's something glamorous about being a professional photographer. For me, National Geographic's wildlife photographers were like rock stars; I was a camera groupie even before I was a teenager.
If you, too, have been seduced by the idea of getting paid for your photos, I have some good news for you: Thanks to the Internet, it has never been easier to sell your work. In the old days, photographers had to negotiate with stock photo agencies and send negatives through the mail. These days, you can just upload your digital files to online agencies, many of which are friendly to casual photographers who aren't experts at the stock photo sales game. You don't have to be a pro to sell your photos online.
What Is Stock Photography?
That's a good question. Stock photography includes images of landscapes, buildings, landmarks, people, animals, and events that can be sold to and used by a wide variety of media outlets. It's the meat and potatoes of many working photographers.
Stock photos are routinely used in Web sites, magazines, newspapers, corporate publications, and more. The same image can be sold over and over again, because the organizations that buy stock photos don't get exclusive rights. So if you have a great photo of a windsurfer, it could theoretically be sold to a sports magazine, an inspirational poster company, and a Web site--and the stock photo agency does all the work.
Online Stock Photo Agencies
Ready to try your hand at the world of online photo sales? Why not? After all, all it takes is one or two sales and you can call yourself a professional photographer--and it doesn't take a lot of effort, either. Just sign up for an account at an online stock photo agency, upload some photos, and wait.
Two of the best stock photo agencies that I've found are iStockphoto and Shutterstock. Shutterstock has a superb FAQ page. And istockphoto.com has a similar page .
Both iStockphoto and Shutterstock pay photographers for their sales, but the two sites have very different pay structures.
iStockphoto for example, offers royalty rates of 20 percent for most photos--on sales that range from $1 to $40, depending upon print size.
Shutterstock, in contrast, pays 25 cents per sale. That doesn't sound like much--and let's be honest, it's not--but Shutterstock boasts that at 2000 downloads per month, you can rack up $500 per month. In real life, you'll probably see a fraction of that, unless you have a lot of really great photos and can consistently upload new stuff to freshen up your portfolio. A friend of mine claims to have made $300 with Shutterstock in the last three months. That's not bad, especially since he doesn't think of himself as a professional photographer.
What Is a Photo Really Worth?
You might be curious about the going rate for a photo. Should you get $5, $50, or $500 for your work? Are you being ripped off with each quarter that rolls in? Well, the truth is that you're not going to get rich from selling your work online, although print publications often pay a bit better.
If you ever get a note from a magazine or a corporate publication asking to use one of your photos, what's a reasonable amount of money to agree on?
Believe it or not, my 14-year-old daughter was recently contacted by the editors of a small, regional trade magazine in the energy industry. They wanted to use a photo she had taken of a lake and posted, of all places, on imeem.
Off we went to the Stock Photo Price Calculator. Here you can get ballpark numbers for various kinds of publications and photo sizes. If a local magazine offered you $100 to publish one of your photos, for example, I'd take it.
The Old-Fashioned Way
Also, keep in mind that you can still sell your work the old-fashioned way.
I know plenty of folks that print, matte, and frame a slew of their best photos and offer them for sale at local craft fairs and art shows. If you're sufficiently motivated, this can be a really fun way to sell your work. You get to meet real people, chat with them about your photos, and get the satisfaction of physically handing them your work and knowing that it'll probably be displayed in their homes. Also, you're likely to make more on each sale than you would by selling through a Web-based stock photo service. And it gets you outside in the fresh air. What could be better than that?
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: " Flowers in the Sun," by Ashlyn Smith, Redford, Michigan
Ashlyn is 10 years old, and her dad submitted this photo. And we're happy that he did--this scene looks like it could have been captured by an old hand at impressionist photography. She took this shot at the Detroit Zoo with her Canon PowerShot SD200. That's her mom in the background.
Hot Pic of the Month: Each month we choose one of our weekly winners to be the Hot Pic of the Month. For August, we chose " Window Kids," by Alex Boyd, from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Congratulations to Alex and to everyone else who won a Hot Pic of the Week last month. Keep those entries coming!
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126972
It seems that there's something glamorous about being a professional photographer. For me, National Geographic's wildlife photographers were like rock stars; I was a camera groupie even before I was a teenager.
If you, too, have been seduced by the idea of getting paid for your photos, I have some good news for you: Thanks to the Internet, it has never been easier to sell your work. In the old days, photographers had to negotiate with stock photo agencies and send negatives through the mail. These days, you can just upload your digital files to online agencies, many of which are friendly to casual photographers who aren't experts at the stock photo sales game. You don't have to be a pro to sell your photos online.
What Is Stock Photography?
That's a good question. Stock photography includes images of landscapes, buildings, landmarks, people, animals, and events that can be sold to and used by a wide variety of media outlets. It's the meat and potatoes of many working photographers.
Stock photos are routinely used in Web sites, magazines, newspapers, corporate publications, and more. The same image can be sold over and over again, because the organizations that buy stock photos don't get exclusive rights. So if you have a great photo of a windsurfer, it could theoretically be sold to a sports magazine, an inspirational poster company, and a Web site--and the stock photo agency does all the work.
Online Stock Photo Agencies
Ready to try your hand at the world of online photo sales? Why not? After all, all it takes is one or two sales and you can call yourself a professional photographer--and it doesn't take a lot of effort, either. Just sign up for an account at an online stock photo agency, upload some photos, and wait.
Two of the best stock photo agencies that I've found are iStockphoto and Shutterstock. Shutterstock has a superb FAQ page. And istockphoto.com has a similar page .
Both iStockphoto and Shutterstock pay photographers for their sales, but the two sites have very different pay structures.
iStockphoto for example, offers royalty rates of 20 percent for most photos--on sales that range from $1 to $40, depending upon print size.
Shutterstock, in contrast, pays 25 cents per sale. That doesn't sound like much--and let's be honest, it's not--but Shutterstock boasts that at 2000 downloads per month, you can rack up $500 per month. In real life, you'll probably see a fraction of that, unless you have a lot of really great photos and can consistently upload new stuff to freshen up your portfolio. A friend of mine claims to have made $300 with Shutterstock in the last three months. That's not bad, especially since he doesn't think of himself as a professional photographer.
What Is a Photo Really Worth?
You might be curious about the going rate for a photo. Should you get $5, $50, or $500 for your work? Are you being ripped off with each quarter that rolls in? Well, the truth is that you're not going to get rich from selling your work online, although print publications often pay a bit better.
If you ever get a note from a magazine or a corporate publication asking to use one of your photos, what's a reasonable amount of money to agree on?
Believe it or not, my 14-year-old daughter was recently contacted by the editors of a small, regional trade magazine in the energy industry. They wanted to use a photo she had taken of a lake and posted, of all places, on imeem.
Off we went to the Stock Photo Price Calculator. Here you can get ballpark numbers for various kinds of publications and photo sizes. If a local magazine offered you $100 to publish one of your photos, for example, I'd take it.
The Old-Fashioned Way
Also, keep in mind that you can still sell your work the old-fashioned way.
I know plenty of folks that print, matte, and frame a slew of their best photos and offer them for sale at local craft fairs and art shows. If you're sufficiently motivated, this can be a really fun way to sell your work. You get to meet real people, chat with them about your photos, and get the satisfaction of physically handing them your work and knowing that it'll probably be displayed in their homes. Also, you're likely to make more on each sale than you would by selling through a Web-based stock photo service. And it gets you outside in the fresh air. What could be better than that?
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: " Flowers in the Sun," by Ashlyn Smith, Redford, Michigan
Ashlyn is 10 years old, and her dad submitted this photo. And we're happy that he did--this scene looks like it could have been captured by an old hand at impressionist photography. She took this shot at the Detroit Zoo with her Canon PowerShot SD200. That's her mom in the background.
Hot Pic of the Month: Each month we choose one of our weekly winners to be the Hot Pic of the Month. For August, we chose " Window Kids," by Alex Boyd, from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Congratulations to Alex and to everyone else who won a Hot Pic of the Week last month. Keep those entries coming!
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126972
Take Sharper Pictures
How to steady your hands, adjust camera settings, and more.
Based on questions I get from friends, readers, and my wife, it appears that the most vexing problem affecting photographers today doesn't have anything to do with photo editing, flash media cards, or image sensors. Nope, the question I get all the time is, "How do I take sharper photos with my digital camera?"
When my wife asks, I often give her the same answer I'd give to a musician asking how to get to Carnegie Hall: "practice, practice, practice." She's getting tired of my snarkiness, so this week let's look at all the ways to shoot sharper photos.
Steady Hands
The single most important thing you can do to improve your pictures--especially if you're new to photography--is to keep a steadier hand. Specifically, press the shutter release more gently. It takes only a tiny amount of pressure to activate thecamera 's shutter. Try this: Look in a mirror while you take a picture and watch what happens when you press the shutter release. If you see thecamera wobble or jiggle, you're pressing it too hard. The camera should not move at the moment of exposure. Practice in the mirror until you can shoot pictures with minimal camera shake.
Something to Lean On
As I'm sure you know by now, I am a huge fan of tripods; I recommend using them whenever possible. And here's a little secret you might not know: the more megapixels yourcamera is capable of, the more important it is to use a tripod to get sharp photos. New 10-megapixel cameras have problems with camera shake a lot more often than 4- or 5-megapixel models, because they record much finer detail. If carrying around a tripod is too much trouble, consider a monopod--my wife has a combination monopod/walking stick for hiking, and she loves it--or a bean-bag support like The Pod.
If all else fails, just brace yourself against something, like a door frame. Use common sense, of course, and make sure that what you're bracing against is stable. Trying to stabilize yourcamera against a sapling on a windy day could introduce unwanted movement. The ground is dependably stable--unless you happen to get caught in an earthquake, of course.
Last week, I wandered through a Japanese garden and snapped some shots of a waterfall at a fairly slow half-second exposure. I didn't have a tripod, so I got down on the ground and positioned mycamera on a rock. Despite the agonizingly slow shutter speed, I managed to get some sharp photos, like this one.
Tweak Your Camera Settings
Don't forget that your camera is an ally in your quest for sharp photos. Take advantage of your camera's exposure settings. In general, the faster your shutter speed the better, so use your camera's shutter priority mode (if it has one) and set the fastest shutter speed possible. For tips on using this setting, read " Making the Most of Shutter-Priority Mode," one of my August columns.
If your camera doesn't have a shutter priority mode, then dial in its Action or Sports setting. You might also be able to choose Program mode and then use the camera's adjustment dial to increase the shutter speed while the camera keeps the aperture setting in sync. Of course, a fast shutter speed means you'll have less depth of field in your photos, but depth of field doesn't contribute much to sharpness unless you're taking extreme close-ups (macro photos) of tiny objects. For more on this topic, read " Master Your Camera's Depth of Field," one of my May columns.
In lower light conditions, when the shutter speed is too low to generate sharp prints, you should increase the camera's ISO setting. As you increase the ISO from, say, 100 to 200 to 400, the best available shutter speed increases from 1/15 to 1/30 to 1/60 second, for example. Remember that higher ISO settings add digital noise to your photos, so return the setting to the lowest position when the lighting improves. For more on ISO settings, read " Use ISO to Take Low-Light Photos," one of my January columns.
Sharpen Your Photos Afterwards
Finally, don't forget that you can add sharpness on your PC afterwards. Most digital cameras capture a slightly "soft" photo anyway, and you can use a tool in your favorite image editing program, like Unsharp Mask, to increase contrast and enhance sharpness.
In Corel's Paint Shop Pro, for example, open your photo and choose Adjust, Sharpness, Unsharp Mask from the menu. The default settings are generally just fine; click OK to sharpen your photo.
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: " Tight-Lipped Fellow," by Brian D. Watters, London, Ontario
Brian writes: "With a Canon 20D EOS in hand (including an 18-to-55 mm lens and a Canon 420EX Speedlite with Luminance Bouncer attached), and lying on my stomach in the wet muddy leaves at the edge of a bog, I waited patiently for this little fellow to surface. Surface it did, but not in front of the lens. So I began to move mycamera . When I thought everything was just right, the frog dove again. We played this game for about five minutes. Finally, I thought I figured out the pattern, and my little green playmate came up right in front of the lens. Without an active display on the back of thecamera, I had no idea if the frog was in focus, but the camera's beep told me something was. This is the end result of my time in the mud."
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126978
Based on questions I get from friends, readers, and my wife, it appears that the most vexing problem affecting photographers today doesn't have anything to do with photo editing, flash media cards, or image sensors. Nope, the question I get all the time is, "How do I take sharper photos with my digital camera?"
When my wife asks, I often give her the same answer I'd give to a musician asking how to get to Carnegie Hall: "practice, practice, practice." She's getting tired of my snarkiness, so this week let's look at all the ways to shoot sharper photos.
Steady Hands
The single most important thing you can do to improve your pictures--especially if you're new to photography--is to keep a steadier hand. Specifically, press the shutter release more gently. It takes only a tiny amount of pressure to activate thecamera 's shutter. Try this: Look in a mirror while you take a picture and watch what happens when you press the shutter release. If you see thecamera wobble or jiggle, you're pressing it too hard. The camera should not move at the moment of exposure. Practice in the mirror until you can shoot pictures with minimal camera shake.
Something to Lean On
As I'm sure you know by now, I am a huge fan of tripods; I recommend using them whenever possible. And here's a little secret you might not know: the more megapixels yourcamera is capable of, the more important it is to use a tripod to get sharp photos. New 10-megapixel cameras have problems with camera shake a lot more often than 4- or 5-megapixel models, because they record much finer detail. If carrying around a tripod is too much trouble, consider a monopod--my wife has a combination monopod/walking stick for hiking, and she loves it--or a bean-bag support like The Pod.
If all else fails, just brace yourself against something, like a door frame. Use common sense, of course, and make sure that what you're bracing against is stable. Trying to stabilize yourcamera against a sapling on a windy day could introduce unwanted movement. The ground is dependably stable--unless you happen to get caught in an earthquake, of course.
Last week, I wandered through a Japanese garden and snapped some shots of a waterfall at a fairly slow half-second exposure. I didn't have a tripod, so I got down on the ground and positioned mycamera on a rock. Despite the agonizingly slow shutter speed, I managed to get some sharp photos, like this one.
Tweak Your Camera Settings
Don't forget that your camera is an ally in your quest for sharp photos. Take advantage of your camera's exposure settings. In general, the faster your shutter speed the better, so use your camera's shutter priority mode (if it has one) and set the fastest shutter speed possible. For tips on using this setting, read " Making the Most of Shutter-Priority Mode," one of my August columns.
If your camera doesn't have a shutter priority mode, then dial in its Action or Sports setting. You might also be able to choose Program mode and then use the camera's adjustment dial to increase the shutter speed while the camera keeps the aperture setting in sync. Of course, a fast shutter speed means you'll have less depth of field in your photos, but depth of field doesn't contribute much to sharpness unless you're taking extreme close-ups (macro photos) of tiny objects. For more on this topic, read " Master Your Camera's Depth of Field," one of my May columns.
In lower light conditions, when the shutter speed is too low to generate sharp prints, you should increase the camera's ISO setting. As you increase the ISO from, say, 100 to 200 to 400, the best available shutter speed increases from 1/15 to 1/30 to 1/60 second, for example. Remember that higher ISO settings add digital noise to your photos, so return the setting to the lowest position when the lighting improves. For more on ISO settings, read " Use ISO to Take Low-Light Photos," one of my January columns.
Sharpen Your Photos Afterwards
Finally, don't forget that you can add sharpness on your PC afterwards. Most digital cameras capture a slightly "soft" photo anyway, and you can use a tool in your favorite image editing program, like Unsharp Mask, to increase contrast and enhance sharpness.
In Corel's Paint Shop Pro, for example, open your photo and choose Adjust, Sharpness, Unsharp Mask from the menu. The default settings are generally just fine; click OK to sharpen your photo.
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This Week's Hot Pic: " Tight-Lipped Fellow," by Brian D. Watters, London, Ontario
Brian writes: "With a Canon 20D EOS in hand (including an 18-to-55 mm lens and a Canon 420EX Speedlite with Luminance Bouncer attached), and lying on my stomach in the wet muddy leaves at the edge of a bog, I waited patiently for this little fellow to surface. Surface it did, but not in front of the lens. So I began to move mycamera . When I thought everything was just right, the frog dove again. We played this game for about five minutes. Finally, I thought I figured out the pattern, and my little green playmate came up right in front of the lens. Without an active display on the back of thecamera, I had no idea if the frog was in focus, but the camera's beep told me something was. This is the end result of my time in the mud."
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126978
Friday, May 25, 2007
Printer Maintenance
Cleaning the print heads removes any blockages in the print head nozzles. Clean the print heads if printing is faint or a specific color fails to print.
Aligning the print heads corrects the installation positions of the print heads, lessening deviated colors and lines.
By printing a nozzle check pattern, you can check whether the print heads are working properly. Print the pattern if printing becomes faint or a specific color fails to print.
To prevent smudges on the back side of the paper, executed Bottom Plate Cleaning before you execute duplex printing.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/printer-maintenance.html
Aligning the print heads corrects the installation positions of the print heads, lessening deviated colors and lines.
By printing a nozzle check pattern, you can check whether the print heads are working properly. Print the pattern if printing becomes faint or a specific color fails to print.
To prevent smudges on the back side of the paper, executed Bottom Plate Cleaning before you execute duplex printing.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/printer-maintenance.html
Photo software and image manipulation software
Once you have taken a photo you may decide to make some changes to it, like resizing or cropping the photo. You may get a little more creative and want to change the colour or remove something from the image - like a lamp post in an out side shot! There are many different bits of software on the market that you can buy or use for free, they can range from £20 up to £500 or £600 professional packages such as PhotoShop CS.
IrfanView
Irfanview is a very popular free to download image viewer and audio player. Its not designed to be a full blown image editing peice of software like PhotoShop for example, instead its main features are image resizing, cropping and taking screen shots - and these features can not be faulted, it rivals many of the exspensive bits of professional kit. These are only a few of its many features, its free and a small file size so why not download it from the official website: http://www.irfanview.com/. Irfanview Photoshop
Photoshop
Photoshop has long been the photography industry standard for professionals. There have been 17 upgrades to the software over since febuary 1990 and the most current version is Photoshop CS (version 8). The features that this offers are vast, for digital photos it can offer all you will ever need and more, from colour management, cropping, resizing, cloning with advanced colour spaces and advanced printing. It also provides everything a desktop publisher could wish for and the images that can be created from scratch are only limited to your imagination. For full spec visit the Adobe Photoshop website.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/photo-software.html
IrfanView
Irfanview is a very popular free to download image viewer and audio player. Its not designed to be a full blown image editing peice of software like PhotoShop for example, instead its main features are image resizing, cropping and taking screen shots - and these features can not be faulted, it rivals many of the exspensive bits of professional kit. These are only a few of its many features, its free and a small file size so why not download it from the official website: http://www.irfanview.com/. Irfanview Photoshop
Photoshop
Photoshop has long been the photography industry standard for professionals. There have been 17 upgrades to the software over since febuary 1990 and the most current version is Photoshop CS (version 8). The features that this offers are vast, for digital photos it can offer all you will ever need and more, from colour management, cropping, resizing, cloning with advanced colour spaces and advanced printing. It also provides everything a desktop publisher could wish for and the images that can be created from scratch are only limited to your imagination. For full spec visit the Adobe Photoshop website.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/photo-software.html
Kodak's New Inkjet Printer -- and Bold Claims -- Put To The Test
Eastman Kodak's recent entry into the inkjet printer market came with much fanfare and bold claims. Among them: 4x6-inch color prints for as little as 10 cents each. That's up to 50% less than their competitors.
In an exclusive analysis in the Pop Photo Lab, we put Kodak's boasts to the test.
According to Executive Technology Editor Michael J. McNamara, the Kodak EasyShare 5300 All-In-One printer ($199, street) turned out only 165 borderless color photos from an $18 package of paper and ink that is billed as producing 180 photos.
"That's about 11.5 cents per print," said McNamara. "But more importantly, the quality of the prints was so low in color saturation that they could be deemed no better than ‘draft' quality by professional or lab-print standards."
To get what photo enthusiasts would judge "lab-quality" prints, says McNamara, requires more expensive Kodak paper, which boosts the cost to more than 35 cents each.
Hundreds of prints showing a range of colors and subjects were produced on the Kodak unit, and the results were analyzed in the magazine's $1-million-plus testing facility.
To see how the Kodak stacked up against other all-in-ones in a range of prices, McNamara pitted it against units from Epson, Canon, and HP (ranging in price from $150 to $379). The AIOs were tested on various criteria, including printing and scanning quality and speed.
"For the price, the $150 Epson Stylus Photo RX580 features the highest print image quality and extremely fast print speeds," said McNamara. "While the more expensive Canon and HP machines offer high print quality and more features."
"For it's price the Kodak is not the ideal choice for photo enthusiasts," he said.
http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/4012/kodaks-new-inkjet-printer-and-bold-claims-put-to-the-test.html
In an exclusive analysis in the Pop Photo Lab, we put Kodak's boasts to the test.
According to Executive Technology Editor Michael J. McNamara, the Kodak EasyShare 5300 All-In-One printer ($199, street) turned out only 165 borderless color photos from an $18 package of paper and ink that is billed as producing 180 photos.
"That's about 11.5 cents per print," said McNamara. "But more importantly, the quality of the prints was so low in color saturation that they could be deemed no better than ‘draft' quality by professional or lab-print standards."
To get what photo enthusiasts would judge "lab-quality" prints, says McNamara, requires more expensive Kodak paper, which boosts the cost to more than 35 cents each.
Hundreds of prints showing a range of colors and subjects were produced on the Kodak unit, and the results were analyzed in the magazine's $1-million-plus testing facility.
To see how the Kodak stacked up against other all-in-ones in a range of prices, McNamara pitted it against units from Epson, Canon, and HP (ranging in price from $150 to $379). The AIOs were tested on various criteria, including printing and scanning quality and speed.
"For the price, the $150 Epson Stylus Photo RX580 features the highest print image quality and extremely fast print speeds," said McNamara. "While the more expensive Canon and HP machines offer high print quality and more features."
"For it's price the Kodak is not the ideal choice for photo enthusiasts," he said.
http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/4012/kodaks-new-inkjet-printer-and-bold-claims-put-to-the-test.html
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Will Amazon click with photography reviews?
Digital photographers on Monday were debating whether a retailer can also offer professional camera reviews without creating the perception that the opinions are biased.
The discussion was prompted by Amazon.com's announcement that it had acquired Digital Photography Review, a London-based Web site that specializes in reviews and news for shutterbugs on both sides of the Atlantic.
Amazon, of course, has for a long time posted user reviews to its site. But with its purchase of Dpreview.com, the e-tailer picks up a company that features professional reviewers who have amassed considerable credibility with a growing community of photography buffs.
Does the difference between reviews written by amateurs and those written by professionals matter? Amazon has never been seriously accused of gaming user-generated reviews and, though it hasn't disclosed the price of the acquisition, it would be hard to imagine the e-tailer would do anything to make Dpreview's 7 million monthly unique visitors question its integrity.
"One of the things we like about Dpreview is the fact it provides readers with unbiased, in-depth reviews," Patty Smith, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. "We don't want to change the features that Dpreview customers enjoy."
On the site's message board, shortly after announcing the sale, Dpreview's founder, Phil Askey, posted a note telling users that reviews won't be compromised by the new corporate ownership. "I'd like to reassure you that this is a good day for everyone," Askey wrote on the board. "Amazon will have no affect on the reviews we write or the products we choose to review."
Still, some in his audience remained skeptical. One person who posted a reply to Askey wrote: "The minute they decide they can make more/faster bucks by starting to tailor reviews, mix marketing/editorial content and edit out negative user feedback it will happen. It's up to Amazon to decide."
What is Amazon's focus?
Skeptics also note that digital photography is white hot, generating about $18 billion in still-camera sales alone last year, and amateurs and professional photographers are plunking down thousands for digital cameras and equipment. With that kind of money involved, some Dreview fans fear the reviews will lose their independence.
Scores of companies enable users to post reviews or offer professionally written critiques on their sites, including Yahoo, AOL and CNET Networks, parent company of News.com. Most if not all of these companies have had to defend the integrity of their reviews at one time or another. Whether the item being reviewed is a movie, music or gadget, people often question whether a reviewer has a hidden agenda.
That leads to the Amazon question: why would an online retailer want to employ independent reviewers? That question was being asked even among the congratulatory e-mails posted to Dpreview.
Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester Research analyst, offered one explanation: Amazon can post some of Dpreview's content on the site and then crosslink to help sell cameras. In other words, Amazon doesn't have to do anything nefarious to make money with Dpreview, she said.
"There are many things that Amazon does that seem unintuitive to me," Mulpuru said. "This seems intuitive. Amazon is all about reviews, and getting cheap, quick content vetted by somebody else. I don't think Amazon has any interest in doing anything but putting links on the site that can help readers purchase cameras."
That's what Amazon did in the case of the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). In 1998, the retailer bought IMDB, the company famous for supplying movie information. Since then, IMDB has remained largely independent and it indeed is hard to find much Amazon presence on the site other than links users can click on to purchase DVDs.
Amazon also has a record of trying to protect the integrity of reviews.
Three years ago, Amazon stopped accepting anonymous customer reviews, replacing them with a program called Real Names. A badge was posted to reviews of customers who wrote under their real names. Amazon notified customers that "a community in which people use their Real Names will ultimately have higher-quality content." Customers used their credit cards to prove their identities.
Michael Reichmann, a professional photographer for more than 25 years and operator of the site The Luminous Landscape, said it's a compliment to Dpreview's Askey that the site's users are worried about its future.
"They are smart to ask questions. Who has the purity of Consumer Reports?" Reichmann asked. "That said, if you are into photography, his reviews are very good and he's a very trusted voice. I don't see any harm to anyone as long as the reader continues to believe that he's editorially independent from his new parent company."
http://news.com.com/Will+Amazon+click+with+photography+reviews/2100-1038_3-6183705.html
The discussion was prompted by Amazon.com's announcement that it had acquired Digital Photography Review, a London-based Web site that specializes in reviews and news for shutterbugs on both sides of the Atlantic.
Amazon, of course, has for a long time posted user reviews to its site. But with its purchase of Dpreview.com, the e-tailer picks up a company that features professional reviewers who have amassed considerable credibility with a growing community of photography buffs.
Does the difference between reviews written by amateurs and those written by professionals matter? Amazon has never been seriously accused of gaming user-generated reviews and, though it hasn't disclosed the price of the acquisition, it would be hard to imagine the e-tailer would do anything to make Dpreview's 7 million monthly unique visitors question its integrity.
"One of the things we like about Dpreview is the fact it provides readers with unbiased, in-depth reviews," Patty Smith, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. "We don't want to change the features that Dpreview customers enjoy."
On the site's message board, shortly after announcing the sale, Dpreview's founder, Phil Askey, posted a note telling users that reviews won't be compromised by the new corporate ownership. "I'd like to reassure you that this is a good day for everyone," Askey wrote on the board. "Amazon will have no affect on the reviews we write or the products we choose to review."
Still, some in his audience remained skeptical. One person who posted a reply to Askey wrote: "The minute they decide they can make more/faster bucks by starting to tailor reviews, mix marketing/editorial content and edit out negative user feedback it will happen. It's up to Amazon to decide."
What is Amazon's focus?
Skeptics also note that digital photography is white hot, generating about $18 billion in still-camera sales alone last year, and amateurs and professional photographers are plunking down thousands for digital cameras and equipment. With that kind of money involved, some Dreview fans fear the reviews will lose their independence.
Scores of companies enable users to post reviews or offer professionally written critiques on their sites, including Yahoo, AOL and CNET Networks, parent company of News.com. Most if not all of these companies have had to defend the integrity of their reviews at one time or another. Whether the item being reviewed is a movie, music or gadget, people often question whether a reviewer has a hidden agenda.
That leads to the Amazon question: why would an online retailer want to employ independent reviewers? That question was being asked even among the congratulatory e-mails posted to Dpreview.
Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester Research analyst, offered one explanation: Amazon can post some of Dpreview's content on the site and then crosslink to help sell cameras. In other words, Amazon doesn't have to do anything nefarious to make money with Dpreview, she said.
"There are many things that Amazon does that seem unintuitive to me," Mulpuru said. "This seems intuitive. Amazon is all about reviews, and getting cheap, quick content vetted by somebody else. I don't think Amazon has any interest in doing anything but putting links on the site that can help readers purchase cameras."
That's what Amazon did in the case of the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). In 1998, the retailer bought IMDB, the company famous for supplying movie information. Since then, IMDB has remained largely independent and it indeed is hard to find much Amazon presence on the site other than links users can click on to purchase DVDs.
Amazon also has a record of trying to protect the integrity of reviews.
Three years ago, Amazon stopped accepting anonymous customer reviews, replacing them with a program called Real Names. A badge was posted to reviews of customers who wrote under their real names. Amazon notified customers that "a community in which people use their Real Names will ultimately have higher-quality content." Customers used their credit cards to prove their identities.
Michael Reichmann, a professional photographer for more than 25 years and operator of the site The Luminous Landscape, said it's a compliment to Dpreview's Askey that the site's users are worried about its future.
"They are smart to ask questions. Who has the purity of Consumer Reports?" Reichmann asked. "That said, if you are into photography, his reviews are very good and he's a very trusted voice. I don't see any harm to anyone as long as the reader continues to believe that he's editorially independent from his new parent company."
http://news.com.com/Will+Amazon+click+with+photography+reviews/2100-1038_3-6183705.html
AG Neovo FotoVivo V10 7in Digital Photo Frame
A fair few among us here at TrustedReviews are big fans of Channel 4 show Grand Designs, regularly tuning in to look on incredulously as people spend hundreds of thousands of pounds in pursuit of their dream homes. We also like to shout – or rather I like to shout – at the TV disclaiming I’d do better if only I could afford to buy a house. In which case, I’ll find out in about thirty years time.
If I were to have my own Grand Design I can say now that, among the other gadgetry paraphernalia that would inevitably ensue, the FotoVivo V10 Digital Photo Frame would fit in very nicely. It’s an award winning design, and once unwrapped one can easily see why.
From a design point of view it’s effortlessly stylish while remaining perfectly functional in the same breath. The jet black fascia coupled with a pure white back is a classic combination, while a simple sloped design creates a stand enabling the photo frame to sit comfortably in landscape or portrait positions. The final touch is a set of backlit touch sensitive controls on the front on the frame, which are both attractive and very easy to use.
All in all, it makes the Parrot Bluetooth Photo Viewer look exceedingly perfunctory and even the well designed Philips Digital Photo Frame pales in insignificance to AG Neovo’s design. It really is that good, and instantly puts the FotoVivo V10 on solid footing.
Feature wise AG Neovo has stuck to copying Philips’ lead almost to the letter, though there are some minor differences. Though it still lacks any kind of wireless connectivity - a desirable feature in my opinion - there's no shortage of memory card slots with support for SD/MMC/MS cards from one and Compact Flash and Micro Drive from another.
One area where the V10 certainly trumps Philips’ efforts however is in internal memory, with a healthy 128MB to supplement the inherent scalability of having a good selection of memory card slots. This, in contrast to the Philips’ measly 18MB is a veritable feast of capacity, only adding to the appeal.
Getting images onto the device is perfectly simple, with a mini-USB port tucked away behind the flap on the top where the memory card slots and power button are also located. This, using the provided cable, enables you to connect to a PC. The V10 uses drag-and-drop, thus bypassing any potential software pitfalls.
So it’s more or less clear that this is both a stunningly designed and well featured photo frame, but what about the display? Unlike the Philips photo frames the quoted 7in is actually the size of the screen rather than the whole frame. So the display is exactly 7 inches diagonally, with a resolution of 800 x 480. It also sports a contrast ratio of 400:1 and a 220 cd/m2 brightness rating.
Generally I found the screen to be more or less on a par with the Philips I saw earlier this year. For the size of screen the brightness is pretty good, and images were crisp and clear. Viewing angles were okay, being good enough but nothing exceptional. If anything the V10 lacked a little in vibrancy, with more colourful images lacking a little impact. But, by current standards, it’s a good display and matches the bar set by others.
Where the V10 stands out, however, is in the general usability of the device. As already mentioned the touch sensitive buttons on the front of the frame are a great navigation tool. Menus are simple and logically laid out, though a few more options for file management wouldn’t have been a bad idea. In any case it’s certainly preferable to reaching behind the device to navigate ala the Philips and Parrot photo frames.
The touch sensitive buttons are arranged along the bottom and right of the frame, and when touched are backlit white for identification. Along the bottom are the Menu, Left, Right and Slideshow buttons, while on the right are the Enter, Down and Up buttons with a Rotation button in the top right corner.
This signifies one of the few areas where the V10 disappoints. Unlike other photo frames I’ve looked at the V10 doesn’t feature any kind of internal motion sensor to detect what position it is in, relying on the rotation button to flip pictures around. In and of itself this isn’t the end of the world, but having played around with the device for a good deal of time now I’ve found that the V10 simply refuses to remember what mode to use between photos.
As a result while you can set an individual photo to be viewed in portrait mode, if you switch to another photo it will revert to landscape mode regardless of what position the frame is actually in. Consequently you can only effectively use slideshow in the landscape position, thus negating the possibility of, for example, having family portraits rotating on the display.
As with other digital photo frames there are plenty of slideshow options at your disposal, with a variety of interval timings, ordering and transition effects. Where the V10 did impress again was with the speed of the transition effects, which seemed far quicker and smoother than on other models.
Much like Philips’ competing range, the V10 also features an internal battery making it possible to sit down on the sofa with a relative and flick through photos at your leisure. The design of the V10 certainly helps in this regard, with no protruding stand to get in the way.
With the screen brightness at 100 per cent the battery was good for around an hour’s use, which is perfectly serviceable and could be extended by reducing the brightness of the screen. Other features include automated power on/off settings, which is something of an essential for a device of this type and naturally necessitates a clock and calendar functionally as well.
Verdict
In general then it’s fair to say that AG Neovo’s 7in Digital Photo Frame is a great example of how this market should be handled. It has all – well most – of the requisite features one requires while looking far too stylish to be left lying around the TR office.
Still, it isn’t perfect, with the aforementioned problem with portrait viewing being a real concern. Were it not for that then it would probably be walking away with a Recommended Award, and possibly more. But it’s a significant problem, and makes the 7in Philips Digital Photo Frame an ever so slightly more complete solution despite the V10s clear advantage in design. In truth though there’s very little to choose between them, and both represent a great purchase if you’re in the market for a digital photo frame.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/digital-cameras/review/2007/05/14/AG-Neovo-FotoVivo-V10-7in-Digital-Photo-Frame/p3
If I were to have my own Grand Design I can say now that, among the other gadgetry paraphernalia that would inevitably ensue, the FotoVivo V10 Digital Photo Frame would fit in very nicely. It’s an award winning design, and once unwrapped one can easily see why.
From a design point of view it’s effortlessly stylish while remaining perfectly functional in the same breath. The jet black fascia coupled with a pure white back is a classic combination, while a simple sloped design creates a stand enabling the photo frame to sit comfortably in landscape or portrait positions. The final touch is a set of backlit touch sensitive controls on the front on the frame, which are both attractive and very easy to use.
All in all, it makes the Parrot Bluetooth Photo Viewer look exceedingly perfunctory and even the well designed Philips Digital Photo Frame pales in insignificance to AG Neovo’s design. It really is that good, and instantly puts the FotoVivo V10 on solid footing.
Feature wise AG Neovo has stuck to copying Philips’ lead almost to the letter, though there are some minor differences. Though it still lacks any kind of wireless connectivity - a desirable feature in my opinion - there's no shortage of memory card slots with support for SD/MMC/MS cards from one and Compact Flash and Micro Drive from another.
One area where the V10 certainly trumps Philips’ efforts however is in internal memory, with a healthy 128MB to supplement the inherent scalability of having a good selection of memory card slots. This, in contrast to the Philips’ measly 18MB is a veritable feast of capacity, only adding to the appeal.
Getting images onto the device is perfectly simple, with a mini-USB port tucked away behind the flap on the top where the memory card slots and power button are also located. This, using the provided cable, enables you to connect to a PC. The V10 uses drag-and-drop, thus bypassing any potential software pitfalls.
So it’s more or less clear that this is both a stunningly designed and well featured photo frame, but what about the display? Unlike the Philips photo frames the quoted 7in is actually the size of the screen rather than the whole frame. So the display is exactly 7 inches diagonally, with a resolution of 800 x 480. It also sports a contrast ratio of 400:1 and a 220 cd/m2 brightness rating.
Generally I found the screen to be more or less on a par with the Philips I saw earlier this year. For the size of screen the brightness is pretty good, and images were crisp and clear. Viewing angles were okay, being good enough but nothing exceptional. If anything the V10 lacked a little in vibrancy, with more colourful images lacking a little impact. But, by current standards, it’s a good display and matches the bar set by others.
Where the V10 stands out, however, is in the general usability of the device. As already mentioned the touch sensitive buttons on the front of the frame are a great navigation tool. Menus are simple and logically laid out, though a few more options for file management wouldn’t have been a bad idea. In any case it’s certainly preferable to reaching behind the device to navigate ala the Philips and Parrot photo frames.
The touch sensitive buttons are arranged along the bottom and right of the frame, and when touched are backlit white for identification. Along the bottom are the Menu, Left, Right and Slideshow buttons, while on the right are the Enter, Down and Up buttons with a Rotation button in the top right corner.
This signifies one of the few areas where the V10 disappoints. Unlike other photo frames I’ve looked at the V10 doesn’t feature any kind of internal motion sensor to detect what position it is in, relying on the rotation button to flip pictures around. In and of itself this isn’t the end of the world, but having played around with the device for a good deal of time now I’ve found that the V10 simply refuses to remember what mode to use between photos.
As a result while you can set an individual photo to be viewed in portrait mode, if you switch to another photo it will revert to landscape mode regardless of what position the frame is actually in. Consequently you can only effectively use slideshow in the landscape position, thus negating the possibility of, for example, having family portraits rotating on the display.
As with other digital photo frames there are plenty of slideshow options at your disposal, with a variety of interval timings, ordering and transition effects. Where the V10 did impress again was with the speed of the transition effects, which seemed far quicker and smoother than on other models.
Much like Philips’ competing range, the V10 also features an internal battery making it possible to sit down on the sofa with a relative and flick through photos at your leisure. The design of the V10 certainly helps in this regard, with no protruding stand to get in the way.
With the screen brightness at 100 per cent the battery was good for around an hour’s use, which is perfectly serviceable and could be extended by reducing the brightness of the screen. Other features include automated power on/off settings, which is something of an essential for a device of this type and naturally necessitates a clock and calendar functionally as well.
Verdict
In general then it’s fair to say that AG Neovo’s 7in Digital Photo Frame is a great example of how this market should be handled. It has all – well most – of the requisite features one requires while looking far too stylish to be left lying around the TR office.
Still, it isn’t perfect, with the aforementioned problem with portrait viewing being a real concern. Were it not for that then it would probably be walking away with a Recommended Award, and possibly more. But it’s a significant problem, and makes the 7in Philips Digital Photo Frame an ever so slightly more complete solution despite the V10s clear advantage in design. In truth though there’s very little to choose between them, and both represent a great purchase if you’re in the market for a digital photo frame.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/digital-cameras/review/2007/05/14/AG-Neovo-FotoVivo-V10-7in-Digital-Photo-Frame/p3
Compact Camera High ISO modes:
Introduction
Until a couple of years ago compact digital camera manufacturers were happy to admit that small, high resolution sensors lacked the sensitivity to offer high ISO modes - anything over ISO 400 was very rare indeed. This is unfortunate because there are many times when the ability to shoot in low light without flash is either essential or at the very least highly desirable. From low-light landscapes to atmospheric portraits to high speed sports there are endless situations where a higher sensitivity setting offers huge benefits (something SLR users take for granted).
The issue of high ISO performance on compacts first raised its head with the launch in 2005 of the Fujifilm FinePix F10, which was the first camera to offer anything close to usable ISO 800 and ISO 1600 performance (later refined in the FinePix F30 and FinePix F31fd) - a unique selling point in a market full of barely discernible models from a wide range of manufacturers. Within 18 months every compact camera worth its salt was offering ISO 800, ISO 1000, ISO 1600 or even higher - and special 'high sensitivity' or 'low light' subject modes. Perhaps unsurprisingly there's a lot more to high ISO performance than mere numbers, and - particularly with the latest 6-10MP compacts - we believe consumers are being misled by the manufacturers when it comes to the actual performance of most cameras at higher ISO settings and in low light. So we decided to put together a short article on the truth behind those headline high ISO modes.
We've started with some technical background information - if you just want to see how the various high ISO options actually compare then feel free to skip to page 3.
Some background information
Sensor sizes
The CCD sensor used in most compact digital cameras is small; very small indeed. Typically they measure from around 9mm to 14mm diagonally - compared to 30mm on most digital SLRs (and 43mm on 'full frame' SLR models). And yet - with only one or two exceptions - there is little difference between the pixel counts offered by compact cameras and SLRs - at the time of writing both types of camera max out at about 10 million pixels (although some 12 million pixel compact cameras are starting to appear).
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that if you've got two sensors with 10 million pixels on them and one is over 10x smaller than the other, the pixels themselves will also have to be a lot, lot smaller to squeeze them all in. And so they are. The trouble with very small pixels is that they are a lot less effective at gathering light. This low sensitivity to light means the camera's processor has to work with a very weak signal and that brings a whole new set of problems.
The rectangles above show the relative sizes of three typical sensors). In order to fit the same number of pixels onto each sensor the pixels themselves obviously have to be made much smaller. The first two are used in digital SLR cameras, the smaller two are only used in compact models
The problem of low sensitivity
Low sensitivity means you need a lot of light to produce a signal from the sensor strong enough to record an image. In bright sunlight this isn't really an issue, but we don't always shoot in bright light. We also want to be able to take pictures in low light, or to be able to use very short exposures for freezing motion.
ISO settings
In the days of film we would buy a higher sensitivity film (with a higher ISO or ASA rating) for use in low light or for shooting fast action. In the digital era you can change the ISO setting in-camera - from around ISO 50 (low) to ISO 1600 or even higher.
It's important to remember, however, that what you are really doing is amplifying the signal from the CCD - you can't actually increase the sensitivity of the sensor itself. Of course you rarely get something for nothing in this world, and there are some serious trade-offs associated with increasing the ISO setting too far.
Noise
Like all electrical circuits, CCD sensors are not perfect, and produce some noise - unwanted random errors in the signal (think of it as being analogous to the interference you get with poor TV or radio reception). Noise in digital images appears as 'graininess' or specks of false color.
Although it increases with longer exposures and at higher temperatures, broadly speaking for normal photography the amount of noise produced in a sensor is fairly consistent. At low ISO settings the amount of noise relative to the signal produced by the CCD is very low, so it doesn't have a huge impact on the picture quality. At higher ISO settings the camera's processor is having to amplify a much weaker signal, and as it doesn't know what's noise and what isn't, the noise gets amplified too and you end up with an image where the noise is much more visible. This relationship - between the relative strength of the signal (containing real image information) and the noise (containing unwanted false information) - is known as the Signal to Noise Ratio; the higher the S/N Ratio the less noisy your pictures will look.
Most digital SLRs produce essentially noise-free images at their lowest ISO settings (usually ISO 100-200), and - thanks to their relatively sensitive CCD or CMOS sensors - don't suffer too badly from noise at higher (ISO 400-800) settings either. A few models can produce perfectly usable results at ISO 1600 or even ISO 3200.
Small sensor compacts, by comparison, tend only to be able to produce low noise images at their very lowest ISO setting (usually ISO 50-100). At any higher setting noise becomes very intrusive and once you get to ISO 400 or higher the results are so noisy that they are only suitable for very small prints.
Viewing the output from a typical small sensor 8MP compact at 100% / actual pixels (in this case the Ricoh GR-D) reveals how much noise has an impact on the overall quality of the photograph. It is always best to use the lowest ISO setting possible.
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/compactcamerahighiso/
Until a couple of years ago compact digital camera manufacturers were happy to admit that small, high resolution sensors lacked the sensitivity to offer high ISO modes - anything over ISO 400 was very rare indeed. This is unfortunate because there are many times when the ability to shoot in low light without flash is either essential or at the very least highly desirable. From low-light landscapes to atmospheric portraits to high speed sports there are endless situations where a higher sensitivity setting offers huge benefits (something SLR users take for granted).
The issue of high ISO performance on compacts first raised its head with the launch in 2005 of the Fujifilm FinePix F10, which was the first camera to offer anything close to usable ISO 800 and ISO 1600 performance (later refined in the FinePix F30 and FinePix F31fd) - a unique selling point in a market full of barely discernible models from a wide range of manufacturers. Within 18 months every compact camera worth its salt was offering ISO 800, ISO 1000, ISO 1600 or even higher - and special 'high sensitivity' or 'low light' subject modes. Perhaps unsurprisingly there's a lot more to high ISO performance than mere numbers, and - particularly with the latest 6-10MP compacts - we believe consumers are being misled by the manufacturers when it comes to the actual performance of most cameras at higher ISO settings and in low light. So we decided to put together a short article on the truth behind those headline high ISO modes.
We've started with some technical background information - if you just want to see how the various high ISO options actually compare then feel free to skip to page 3.
Some background information
Sensor sizes
The CCD sensor used in most compact digital cameras is small; very small indeed. Typically they measure from around 9mm to 14mm diagonally - compared to 30mm on most digital SLRs (and 43mm on 'full frame' SLR models). And yet - with only one or two exceptions - there is little difference between the pixel counts offered by compact cameras and SLRs - at the time of writing both types of camera max out at about 10 million pixels (although some 12 million pixel compact cameras are starting to appear).
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that if you've got two sensors with 10 million pixels on them and one is over 10x smaller than the other, the pixels themselves will also have to be a lot, lot smaller to squeeze them all in. And so they are. The trouble with very small pixels is that they are a lot less effective at gathering light. This low sensitivity to light means the camera's processor has to work with a very weak signal and that brings a whole new set of problems.
The rectangles above show the relative sizes of three typical sensors). In order to fit the same number of pixels onto each sensor the pixels themselves obviously have to be made much smaller. The first two are used in digital SLR cameras, the smaller two are only used in compact models
The problem of low sensitivity
Low sensitivity means you need a lot of light to produce a signal from the sensor strong enough to record an image. In bright sunlight this isn't really an issue, but we don't always shoot in bright light. We also want to be able to take pictures in low light, or to be able to use very short exposures for freezing motion.
ISO settings
In the days of film we would buy a higher sensitivity film (with a higher ISO or ASA rating) for use in low light or for shooting fast action. In the digital era you can change the ISO setting in-camera - from around ISO 50 (low) to ISO 1600 or even higher.
It's important to remember, however, that what you are really doing is amplifying the signal from the CCD - you can't actually increase the sensitivity of the sensor itself. Of course you rarely get something for nothing in this world, and there are some serious trade-offs associated with increasing the ISO setting too far.
Noise
Like all electrical circuits, CCD sensors are not perfect, and produce some noise - unwanted random errors in the signal (think of it as being analogous to the interference you get with poor TV or radio reception). Noise in digital images appears as 'graininess' or specks of false color.
Although it increases with longer exposures and at higher temperatures, broadly speaking for normal photography the amount of noise produced in a sensor is fairly consistent. At low ISO settings the amount of noise relative to the signal produced by the CCD is very low, so it doesn't have a huge impact on the picture quality. At higher ISO settings the camera's processor is having to amplify a much weaker signal, and as it doesn't know what's noise and what isn't, the noise gets amplified too and you end up with an image where the noise is much more visible. This relationship - between the relative strength of the signal (containing real image information) and the noise (containing unwanted false information) - is known as the Signal to Noise Ratio; the higher the S/N Ratio the less noisy your pictures will look.
Most digital SLRs produce essentially noise-free images at their lowest ISO settings (usually ISO 100-200), and - thanks to their relatively sensitive CCD or CMOS sensors - don't suffer too badly from noise at higher (ISO 400-800) settings either. A few models can produce perfectly usable results at ISO 1600 or even ISO 3200.
Small sensor compacts, by comparison, tend only to be able to produce low noise images at their very lowest ISO setting (usually ISO 50-100). At any higher setting noise becomes very intrusive and once you get to ISO 400 or higher the results are so noisy that they are only suitable for very small prints.
Viewing the output from a typical small sensor 8MP compact at 100% / actual pixels (in this case the Ricoh GR-D) reveals how much noise has an impact on the overall quality of the photograph. It is always best to use the lowest ISO setting possible.
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/compactcamerahighiso/
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX100: 12 megapixel, HD video and wide-angle
If you’re really into your digital cameras and want a top end camera then look no further than the new Panasonic Lumix FX DMC-FX100 which packs some fantastic features.
With so many features to talk about we will leave you to read them in full on lets go digital with their dedicated hundreds of words review (give yourself sometime before reading).
Two main features that we feel sell the Lumix DMC-FX100 are:
First: The ability to create and capture stunningly true-to-life high-resolution images with the extraordinary 12.2 megapixel CCD which gives detail and clarity not seen on many digital cameras.
Second: Panasonic have managed to pack into this camera an advanced 28mm wide-angle lens into such a sleek and slim body.
Other features include:
* Recording for WVGA (848 x 480) video at 30fps or 1280 x 720 at 15fps direct to SDHC/SD cards
* Shutter release is measured at 0.009 seconds while bursting 8 shots per second at full resolution
* VE III processing along with Panny’s Mega Optical Image Stabilizer and Intelligent ISO control (up to a 6400 sensitivity) to reduce blurring
* 12.2 megapixel CCD, 3.6x optical zoom, 28mm wide-angle Leica DC lens
http://www.product-reviews.net/2007/05/21/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fx100-12-megapixel-hd-video-and-wide-angle/#more-1275
With so many features to talk about we will leave you to read them in full on lets go digital with their dedicated hundreds of words review (give yourself sometime before reading).
Two main features that we feel sell the Lumix DMC-FX100 are:
First: The ability to create and capture stunningly true-to-life high-resolution images with the extraordinary 12.2 megapixel CCD which gives detail and clarity not seen on many digital cameras.
Second: Panasonic have managed to pack into this camera an advanced 28mm wide-angle lens into such a sleek and slim body.
Other features include:
* Recording for WVGA (848 x 480) video at 30fps or 1280 x 720 at 15fps direct to SDHC/SD cards
* Shutter release is measured at 0.009 seconds while bursting 8 shots per second at full resolution
* VE III processing along with Panny’s Mega Optical Image Stabilizer and Intelligent ISO control (up to a 6400 sensitivity) to reduce blurring
* 12.2 megapixel CCD, 3.6x optical zoom, 28mm wide-angle Leica DC lens
http://www.product-reviews.net/2007/05/21/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fx100-12-megapixel-hd-video-and-wide-angle/#more-1275
A Birding Digital Camera for Digiscoping
One priority to select a camera for digiscoping is aperture priority and the lowest possible f-stop. The diameter of the lens opening (or aperture) is referred to as the f-stop. Most compact-level or point-and-shoot compact digital cameras have f-stops ranging between f/2.0 and f/11.0.
Aperture priority mode is a setting on your digital camera that, when activated, forces your digital camera to automatically set the shutter speed based upon the aperture setting that you have provided to your camera beforehand. You have to first select an appropriate aperture setting; otherwise you might lose some nice shots!
It’s better to stay close to f4.5, which allows much faster shutter speeds of up to 1/1000 but most often around 1/60 to 1/250. You need this faster shutter speed in order to catch those fast moving and rapid movements of small birds and also on-the-fly shots. You usually don’t need the flash because it is more related to your scope’s objective diameter than your camera due to long distance.
You also need to apply multi shot setting because you will benefit the most by taking a couple of shots from each scene. You should find it under the drive mode setting of your camera. This way you can shoot 10 to 15 pictures quickly, one after another, focusing over and over again.
For better control on the quality of your pictures, it is better to have a release cord to use when you want to keep your digiscoping set as still as possible. You should be able to manage the focus of your camera, which means being able to turn the focus options on, to allow selection of focus area and location of light readings. Some simple focus settings that you can usually find under most compact digital cameras are Evaluative, Center, Weighted, Average and Spot, which is our point of view.
Due to quality loss of the original image, while using digital zoom it’s much better to start the camera zoomed up just under the full zoom before attaching it to the adapter or the eyepiece. But this can lead to dark images and you’ll lose much light this way. So incase you are not under good light condition you can zoom back to find the proper lighting for the best capture of the scene. This really depends on the condition and there are a couple of ways to get around this issue.
You can change ISO setting (which was known as ASA film speed) of your camera to make it more sensitive to light in low light conditions. The higher the ISO rating, the more sensitive the image sensor is to light. But since higher ISO results in more digital noise, you should also have f-stop and shutter speed settings under control and matched with your new ISO setting. You have to keep in mind that there are only three ways that you can control the light flow in your camera.
• ISO settings
• Shutter Speed
• Aperture value or f-stop
So if you want to eliminate digital noise then you should work around the other two settings and conjure up the right image clarity.
This means that your digital camera’s manual settings should give you the options to change ISO, shutter speed and f-stop values at the very minimum. Nikon’s CoolPix 950 is known to be one of the best digital cameras for digiscoping.
Vignetting is another problem source that affects your digital images while digiscoping, and it occurs while trying different zoom options. You can use your image editing software to cut or crop the dark glow off your image while post processing your images. You can use fixed eyepieces to reduce vignetting, but with variable eyepieces you have a better chance of getting a closer feel of your target. Don’t forget that the more zoom you do, the darker your image will become. You can fix some of it in the postproduction stage using PhotoShop or fireworks.
http://www.opendigitalphotography.com/Digiscoping/Digiscoping-Buying-Guide/Birding-Digital-Camera-Digiscoping.html
Aperture priority mode is a setting on your digital camera that, when activated, forces your digital camera to automatically set the shutter speed based upon the aperture setting that you have provided to your camera beforehand. You have to first select an appropriate aperture setting; otherwise you might lose some nice shots!
It’s better to stay close to f4.5, which allows much faster shutter speeds of up to 1/1000 but most often around 1/60 to 1/250. You need this faster shutter speed in order to catch those fast moving and rapid movements of small birds and also on-the-fly shots. You usually don’t need the flash because it is more related to your scope’s objective diameter than your camera due to long distance.
You also need to apply multi shot setting because you will benefit the most by taking a couple of shots from each scene. You should find it under the drive mode setting of your camera. This way you can shoot 10 to 15 pictures quickly, one after another, focusing over and over again.
For better control on the quality of your pictures, it is better to have a release cord to use when you want to keep your digiscoping set as still as possible. You should be able to manage the focus of your camera, which means being able to turn the focus options on, to allow selection of focus area and location of light readings. Some simple focus settings that you can usually find under most compact digital cameras are Evaluative, Center, Weighted, Average and Spot, which is our point of view.
Due to quality loss of the original image, while using digital zoom it’s much better to start the camera zoomed up just under the full zoom before attaching it to the adapter or the eyepiece. But this can lead to dark images and you’ll lose much light this way. So incase you are not under good light condition you can zoom back to find the proper lighting for the best capture of the scene. This really depends on the condition and there are a couple of ways to get around this issue.
You can change ISO setting (which was known as ASA film speed) of your camera to make it more sensitive to light in low light conditions. The higher the ISO rating, the more sensitive the image sensor is to light. But since higher ISO results in more digital noise, you should also have f-stop and shutter speed settings under control and matched with your new ISO setting. You have to keep in mind that there are only three ways that you can control the light flow in your camera.
• ISO settings
• Shutter Speed
• Aperture value or f-stop
So if you want to eliminate digital noise then you should work around the other two settings and conjure up the right image clarity.
This means that your digital camera’s manual settings should give you the options to change ISO, shutter speed and f-stop values at the very minimum. Nikon’s CoolPix 950 is known to be one of the best digital cameras for digiscoping.
Vignetting is another problem source that affects your digital images while digiscoping, and it occurs while trying different zoom options. You can use your image editing software to cut or crop the dark glow off your image while post processing your images. You can use fixed eyepieces to reduce vignetting, but with variable eyepieces you have a better chance of getting a closer feel of your target. Don’t forget that the more zoom you do, the darker your image will become. You can fix some of it in the postproduction stage using PhotoShop or fireworks.
http://www.opendigitalphotography.com/Digiscoping/Digiscoping-Buying-Guide/Birding-Digital-Camera-Digiscoping.html
Raw file format
A RAW file is referred to as being a true digital negative. The ability to shoot RAW is found on advanced and professional digital cameras. With a RAW image file, nothing is done by the camera such as sharpening or white balance. This means that the photogrpaher has full control over the image when being edited in Photoshop for example.
RAW is not used widely and can only be opened by certain image editors. Because there is no work done by the digital camera, these files are often very large in size and there for take longer to open on most computers. Having said that a RAW image will have a smaller file size than TIFF images. They would have a .raw extension if this format was used.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/raw-file-format.html
RAW is not used widely and can only be opened by certain image editors. Because there is no work done by the digital camera, these files are often very large in size and there for take longer to open on most computers. Having said that a RAW image will have a smaller file size than TIFF images. They would have a .raw extension if this format was used.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/raw-file-format.html
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Caring for your Digital Camera
Camera cleaning is an essential part of digital photography, there are sensors and highly sensitive optics at play when you take a picture, so a few simple cleaning tips is all you need to keep it clean. If you feel that there is actual dust inside of the camera, it is best o take to a special shop where they can clean this area for you.
Camera Cleaning
* Keep the lense clean with a soft cloth, never touch the lense as this can leave finger prints and may cause images to look blurry. If it requires a good clean then use lens cleaning fluid and use a photographic blower brush like the one in the picture above.
* Dont put the camera in any situations where smoke, steam, magnetic fields, sand or chemicals can get in contact with it.
* Dont store it in dirty or dusty places. Avoid any humid places. It is best to buy a camera pouch to store it.
* Dont leave the camera in direct sun light or anywhere where it can get hot.
* Avoid scratching any part of the camera, if the lense gets scratched then it could ruin all future images.
* Always keep dust cap on lenses if they are not being used.
* Never use Paper towels, paper napkins as this can scratch the camera. Facial tissue should not be used to clean the lens of a camera as the fluid and chemicals on the tissue can cause problems with smearing.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/caring-for-your-digital-camera.html
Camera Cleaning
* Keep the lense clean with a soft cloth, never touch the lense as this can leave finger prints and may cause images to look blurry. If it requires a good clean then use lens cleaning fluid and use a photographic blower brush like the one in the picture above.
* Dont put the camera in any situations where smoke, steam, magnetic fields, sand or chemicals can get in contact with it.
* Dont store it in dirty or dusty places. Avoid any humid places. It is best to buy a camera pouch to store it.
* Dont leave the camera in direct sun light or anywhere where it can get hot.
* Avoid scratching any part of the camera, if the lense gets scratched then it could ruin all future images.
* Always keep dust cap on lenses if they are not being used.
* Never use Paper towels, paper napkins as this can scratch the camera. Facial tissue should not be used to clean the lens of a camera as the fluid and chemicals on the tissue can cause problems with smearing.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/caring-for-your-digital-camera.html
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Digital camera lenses
There are three main types of lenses and zooms, there are fixed focal length lense, optical zoom lense and digital zoom lense.
With a fixed focal length lense the lense does not move at all (i.e no zooming), with these types of cameras the only way you can get close up picture is to move in closer, or if you are wanting to get a wide angle shot you will have to move back from the shot - but be careful to remember how the over all picture will look.
When a camera talks about its true zoom it is talking about its optical zoom lense, this is when the focal length actually extends and retracts. The image is magnified by the lense itself, using the optical zoom will always give the best picture over the digital zoom lense.
The third is digital zoom, this is when the camera does all the work instead of the lense. It enhances the central portion of the image in such a way that it actually degrades the over all picture. Unlike an optical zoom the actual length of the lens does not change at all.
This article does not cover dslr type lenses like wide angle lenses or telephoto lenses.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/digital-camera-lenses.html
With a fixed focal length lense the lense does not move at all (i.e no zooming), with these types of cameras the only way you can get close up picture is to move in closer, or if you are wanting to get a wide angle shot you will have to move back from the shot - but be careful to remember how the over all picture will look.
When a camera talks about its true zoom it is talking about its optical zoom lense, this is when the focal length actually extends and retracts. The image is magnified by the lense itself, using the optical zoom will always give the best picture over the digital zoom lense.
The third is digital zoom, this is when the camera does all the work instead of the lense. It enhances the central portion of the image in such a way that it actually degrades the over all picture. Unlike an optical zoom the actual length of the lens does not change at all.
This article does not cover dslr type lenses like wide angle lenses or telephoto lenses.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/digital-camera-lenses.html
The perfect digital image
You maybe standing in front of one of natures true outstanding places or in a special place at the right time... on a cruise ship while taking in a holiday in the Arctic watching Polar bears on the ice, you pick up your camera and take two or three images, or maybe your childs first birthday you take a few pictures of the special day. Once you get them to your PC and load them up on to the monitor only to find they are blurry or some child had his head just at the bottom of the image, the moment will probably never come again and you have missed the chance.
When facing these types of situations take as many pictures as you can, many photographers take hundreds of photos a week and only a handful will come in a good way. Filling the memory card with as many as you can of those special occasions is the only way that you will avoid dissapointment.
Practise makes perfect! Well not always but if you hardly ever take a picture with your camera except for those special occasions then dont expect to be able to pick it up and take breath taking pictures. Walk around the house and take photos of all your children, the pets, fresh flowers in the garden. Play around with the zoom as well, become familiar with the layout of the dials and the settings, so when that special moment does arise you are not caught messing around with the zoom and getting the dial into the right position, it should be natural.
If you are going to a special place to take photos then a little research on the location is essential. Where does the sun rise and set, is it a open space with lots of green fields or will you be in the middle of a concrete jungle. Is it a typical sunny spot or is known for its grey and cloudy days. These points may seem trivial at the moment, but if you turn up to a location to find you are in the middle of a field with rain and a strong wind with it getting dark very quickly you will be upset that you didnt research the area first.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/perfect-digital-image.html
When facing these types of situations take as many pictures as you can, many photographers take hundreds of photos a week and only a handful will come in a good way. Filling the memory card with as many as you can of those special occasions is the only way that you will avoid dissapointment.
Practise makes perfect! Well not always but if you hardly ever take a picture with your camera except for those special occasions then dont expect to be able to pick it up and take breath taking pictures. Walk around the house and take photos of all your children, the pets, fresh flowers in the garden. Play around with the zoom as well, become familiar with the layout of the dials and the settings, so when that special moment does arise you are not caught messing around with the zoom and getting the dial into the right position, it should be natural.
If you are going to a special place to take photos then a little research on the location is essential. Where does the sun rise and set, is it a open space with lots of green fields or will you be in the middle of a concrete jungle. Is it a typical sunny spot or is known for its grey and cloudy days. These points may seem trivial at the moment, but if you turn up to a location to find you are in the middle of a field with rain and a strong wind with it getting dark very quickly you will be upset that you didnt research the area first.
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/perfect-digital-image.html
Monday, May 21, 2007
Summer Photography & Direct Sunlight Photography
The sun is out and you have bright blue skies over head, the perfect weather to take some photos of the kids? Not necessarily! Cameras (film & digital) can have great difficulties in bright light conditions. A roll of film and a digital sensor both interpret the light that they recieve and tend to show extreme bright light as white light and completely void of detail, in strong sunlight this normally results in heavily overexposed images and will normally ruin a photo completely! This can be depressing as you may have missed the 'perfect' image.
If you are in bright sunlight and decide to take some photos there are some very simple rules to follow to ensur you have a few 'keepers';
* Try to take photos before or after mid-day - when the sun is directly overhead it is also at its brightest
* Morning or late afternoon photography is best also as it creates interesting colours and shadows
* When taking a photo try to place the sun behind you, this will greatly reduce the chances of having the photo overexposed. This should also light the subject perfectly
* Unless you are comfortable with the manual settings on a digital camera (compact or dSLR) use one of the automatic settings, the camera will then expose the image as best it can. If you are taking a landscape shot, then use the 'Landscape' setting, if you are taking a macro shot then use the 'Macro setting etc...
* Use the sun in your image, the first image to the left was taken on Chapmans Peak in Cape Town, South Africa and was taken looking directly at the sun. The settings were input manually with a very small apeture (f/16) and an exposure time of 1/800 of a second with the ISO set to 100. The colours where then slightly tweaked in Photoshop to bring the blue out a little more and the clouds.
Please remember that it is dangerous to look directly at the sun and extreme caution should be used if a shot like this is attempted
* Experiment as much as possible! If you have a digital camera you should be able to see the photos on the LCD screen and make a decision if the image will work or not with the lighting
* The second image on this page while technically overexposed came out well and when printed looked even better
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/summer-photography.html
If you are in bright sunlight and decide to take some photos there are some very simple rules to follow to ensur you have a few 'keepers';
* Try to take photos before or after mid-day - when the sun is directly overhead it is also at its brightest
* Morning or late afternoon photography is best also as it creates interesting colours and shadows
* When taking a photo try to place the sun behind you, this will greatly reduce the chances of having the photo overexposed. This should also light the subject perfectly
* Unless you are comfortable with the manual settings on a digital camera (compact or dSLR) use one of the automatic settings, the camera will then expose the image as best it can. If you are taking a landscape shot, then use the 'Landscape' setting, if you are taking a macro shot then use the 'Macro setting etc...
* Use the sun in your image, the first image to the left was taken on Chapmans Peak in Cape Town, South Africa and was taken looking directly at the sun. The settings were input manually with a very small apeture (f/16) and an exposure time of 1/800 of a second with the ISO set to 100. The colours where then slightly tweaked in Photoshop to bring the blue out a little more and the clouds.
Please remember that it is dangerous to look directly at the sun and extreme caution should be used if a shot like this is attempted
* Experiment as much as possible! If you have a digital camera you should be able to see the photos on the LCD screen and make a decision if the image will work or not with the lighting
* The second image on this page while technically overexposed came out well and when printed looked even better
http://www.print-digital.info/articles/summer-photography.html
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Samsung launches new line of digital cameras with unique features
(NewsTarget) Samsung recently launched three New Vision (NV) digital cameras that feature 2.5-inch LCD screens, thin metal bodies, and text recognition that allows users to shoot text and then process it using Samsung's Digimax Reader software.
The first of the cameras -- the NV3 -- offers consumers a resolution of 7.3 megapixels, and a thin aluminum body. The NV3 also features Advanced Shake Reduction (ASR), 5x digital zoom and an SD slot to expand the 15MB internal storage, and can play back MP3 files and MPEG-4 content. It has an MSRP of $349.
Next, Samsung offers the NV7, a slimlined 7.2 megapixel camera with a large 7x zoom lens. The NV7 features ASR as well as mechanical Optical Picture Stabilization to control camera shake and shoot clear images. It also comes with 30 FPS VGA movie mode and an SD slot to expand its 19 MB of internal memory. The NV7 has an MSRP of $449.
The last of the NV cameras is the 10MP NV10, which has a brushed aluminum body. The NV10 features ASR, 30 FPS VGA movie mode, a Schneider 3x zoom lens and an SD slot to add to its 19 MB of internal storage. The NV10 has an MSRP of $399. All three cameras should be available this fall.
http://www.newstarget.com/019585.html
The first of the cameras -- the NV3 -- offers consumers a resolution of 7.3 megapixels, and a thin aluminum body. The NV3 also features Advanced Shake Reduction (ASR), 5x digital zoom and an SD slot to expand the 15MB internal storage, and can play back MP3 files and MPEG-4 content. It has an MSRP of $349.
Next, Samsung offers the NV7, a slimlined 7.2 megapixel camera with a large 7x zoom lens. The NV7 features ASR as well as mechanical Optical Picture Stabilization to control camera shake and shoot clear images. It also comes with 30 FPS VGA movie mode and an SD slot to expand its 19 MB of internal memory. The NV7 has an MSRP of $449.
The last of the NV cameras is the 10MP NV10, which has a brushed aluminum body. The NV10 features ASR, 30 FPS VGA movie mode, a Schneider 3x zoom lens and an SD slot to add to its 19 MB of internal storage. The NV10 has an MSRP of $399. All three cameras should be available this fall.
http://www.newstarget.com/019585.html
Consumer Alert: Prestige Camera generates customer complaints from questionable business practices
NewsTarget) Complaints against Prestige Camera are cropping up all over the internet at sites such as the Better Business Bureau, Digital Photography Review, and RipOff.com. Customers allege shady practices such as trying to up-sell substandard warranties, chargers and camera cases for more than their standard market price. A UV filter, for example, was offered to one customer for $29 when it is available at BHPhotoVideo.com for just $8.95. The company has also allegedly removed included parts from cameras and tried to sell them to customers. Consumer advocate Mike Adams placed an order with Prestige Camera, and said that when he tried to cancel the order, the staff hung up on him.
According to one review by Matt Knowles, a Prestige Camera customer reporting at Aesthetic Design and Photography, the company has a host of techniques they use to squeeze money out of consumers. Knowles himself came across Prestige Camera while looking for a Pentax Optio W10 digital camera. He ordered the model from a seemingly unattached site called DigitalSaver.com, and soon received an email asking him to call them and verify his address.
When Knowles called the number, he quickly realized that it was just a technique for the company to up-sell when the man on the other end of the line offered him an extra battery. The man claimed it was a Pentex brand battery with twice the life of the battery that came standard with the camera, at a seemingly bargain price.
The camera arrived with a non-Pentex battery that was rated with less life than the battery included with his camera, and cost more than three times for what it should have retailed. Knowles contacted Prestige Camera and discovered he could only return the battery for a fee that totaled slightly less than what he had paid for the battery in the first place.
For all the complaints against Prestige Camera, their ratings at consumer sites such as ePinions, Shopper.com and DigitalSaver.com are stellar. Their entry at Reseller Ratings, however, suggests that the company is padding their reputation through false positive reviews. A note on the site says that reviews for Prestige Camera have been disabled because more than 50 false positive reviews from the company had been detected and repeatedly submitted.
Knowles noted that DigitalSaver.com gave the company a five star rating, but further research revealed no way to actually participate in the rating system, nor any explanation as to how they were compiled. Additionally, all the listed businesses were owned by the same company, suggesting the web site is not an independent reseller.
Adams and Knowles agree that it pays to be skeptical of a company's ratings and search the internet for real-world experiences with a company before purchasing consumer electronics. If you feel you have been the victim of fraudulent practices of Prestige Camera or any other business, contact the FTC and the Better Business Bureau to register a complaint.
Be aware that Prestige Camera may also does business under the following names:
A&M Photo World
Broadway Photo
Cameratopia
Digital Liquidators LLC
Ghu, LLC
Preferred Photo
Regal Camera
Tronicity
Adams recommends consumers consider J & R electronics at www.JandR.com and www.BHPhotoVideo.com as reputable and safe sources for consumer electronics. NewsTarget) Complaints against Prestige Camera are cropping up all over the internet at sites such as the Better Business Bureau, Digital Photography Review, and RipOff.com. Customers allege shady practices such as trying to up-sell substandard warranties, chargers and camera cases for more than their standard market price. A UV filter, for example, was offered to one customer for $29 when it is available at BHPhotoVideo.com for just $8.95. The company has also allegedly removed included parts from cameras and tried to sell them to customers. Consumer advocate Mike Adams placed an order with Prestige Camera, and said that when he tried to cancel the order, the staff hung up on him.
According to one review by Matt Knowles, a Prestige Camera customer reporting at Aesthetic Design and Photography, the company has a host of techniques they use to squeeze money out of consumers. Knowles himself came across Prestige Camera while looking for a Pentax Optio W10 digital camera. He ordered the model from a seemingly unattached site called DigitalSaver.com, and soon received an email asking him to call them and verify his address.
When Knowles called the number, he quickly realized that it was just a technique for the company to up-sell when the man on the other end of the line offered him an extra battery. The man claimed it was a Pentex brand battery with twice the life of the battery that came standard with the camera, at a seemingly bargain price.
The camera arrived with a non-Pentex battery that was rated with less life than the battery included with his camera, and cost more than three times for what it should have retailed. Knowles contacted Prestige Camera and discovered he could only return the battery for a fee that totaled slightly less than what he had paid for the battery in the first place.
For all the complaints against Prestige Camera, their ratings at consumer sites such as ePinions, Shopper.com and DigitalSaver.com are stellar. Their entry at Reseller Ratings, however, suggests that the company is padding their reputation through false positive reviews. A note on the site says that reviews for Prestige Camera have been disabled because more than 50 false positive reviews from the company had been detected and repeatedly submitted.
Knowles noted that DigitalSaver.com gave the company a five star rating, but further research revealed no way to actually participate in the rating system, nor any explanation as to how they were compiled. Additionally, all the listed businesses were owned by the same company, suggesting the web site is not an independent reseller.
Adams and Knowles agree that it pays to be skeptical of a company's ratings and search the internet for real-world experiences with a company before purchasing consumer electronics. If you feel you have been the victim of fraudulent practices of Prestige Camera or any other business, contact the FTC and the Better Business Bureau to register a complaint.
Be aware that Prestige Camera may also does business under the following names:
A&M Photo World
Broadway Photo
Cameratopia
Digital Liquidators LLC
Ghu, LLC
Preferred Photo
Regal Camera
Tronicity
Adams recommends consumers consider J & R electronics at www.JandR.com and www.BHPhotoVideo.com as reputable and safe sources for consumer electronics.
http://www.newstarget.com/020780.html
According to one review by Matt Knowles, a Prestige Camera customer reporting at Aesthetic Design and Photography, the company has a host of techniques they use to squeeze money out of consumers. Knowles himself came across Prestige Camera while looking for a Pentax Optio W10 digital camera. He ordered the model from a seemingly unattached site called DigitalSaver.com, and soon received an email asking him to call them and verify his address.
When Knowles called the number, he quickly realized that it was just a technique for the company to up-sell when the man on the other end of the line offered him an extra battery. The man claimed it was a Pentex brand battery with twice the life of the battery that came standard with the camera, at a seemingly bargain price.
The camera arrived with a non-Pentex battery that was rated with less life than the battery included with his camera, and cost more than three times for what it should have retailed. Knowles contacted Prestige Camera and discovered he could only return the battery for a fee that totaled slightly less than what he had paid for the battery in the first place.
For all the complaints against Prestige Camera, their ratings at consumer sites such as ePinions, Shopper.com and DigitalSaver.com are stellar. Their entry at Reseller Ratings, however, suggests that the company is padding their reputation through false positive reviews. A note on the site says that reviews for Prestige Camera have been disabled because more than 50 false positive reviews from the company had been detected and repeatedly submitted.
Knowles noted that DigitalSaver.com gave the company a five star rating, but further research revealed no way to actually participate in the rating system, nor any explanation as to how they were compiled. Additionally, all the listed businesses were owned by the same company, suggesting the web site is not an independent reseller.
Adams and Knowles agree that it pays to be skeptical of a company's ratings and search the internet for real-world experiences with a company before purchasing consumer electronics. If you feel you have been the victim of fraudulent practices of Prestige Camera or any other business, contact the FTC and the Better Business Bureau to register a complaint.
Be aware that Prestige Camera may also does business under the following names:
A&M Photo World
Broadway Photo
Cameratopia
Digital Liquidators LLC
Ghu, LLC
Preferred Photo
Regal Camera
Tronicity
Adams recommends consumers consider J & R electronics at www.JandR.com and www.BHPhotoVideo.com as reputable and safe sources for consumer electronics. NewsTarget) Complaints against Prestige Camera are cropping up all over the internet at sites such as the Better Business Bureau, Digital Photography Review, and RipOff.com. Customers allege shady practices such as trying to up-sell substandard warranties, chargers and camera cases for more than their standard market price. A UV filter, for example, was offered to one customer for $29 when it is available at BHPhotoVideo.com for just $8.95. The company has also allegedly removed included parts from cameras and tried to sell them to customers. Consumer advocate Mike Adams placed an order with Prestige Camera, and said that when he tried to cancel the order, the staff hung up on him.
According to one review by Matt Knowles, a Prestige Camera customer reporting at Aesthetic Design and Photography, the company has a host of techniques they use to squeeze money out of consumers. Knowles himself came across Prestige Camera while looking for a Pentax Optio W10 digital camera. He ordered the model from a seemingly unattached site called DigitalSaver.com, and soon received an email asking him to call them and verify his address.
When Knowles called the number, he quickly realized that it was just a technique for the company to up-sell when the man on the other end of the line offered him an extra battery. The man claimed it was a Pentex brand battery with twice the life of the battery that came standard with the camera, at a seemingly bargain price.
The camera arrived with a non-Pentex battery that was rated with less life than the battery included with his camera, and cost more than three times for what it should have retailed. Knowles contacted Prestige Camera and discovered he could only return the battery for a fee that totaled slightly less than what he had paid for the battery in the first place.
For all the complaints against Prestige Camera, their ratings at consumer sites such as ePinions, Shopper.com and DigitalSaver.com are stellar. Their entry at Reseller Ratings, however, suggests that the company is padding their reputation through false positive reviews. A note on the site says that reviews for Prestige Camera have been disabled because more than 50 false positive reviews from the company had been detected and repeatedly submitted.
Knowles noted that DigitalSaver.com gave the company a five star rating, but further research revealed no way to actually participate in the rating system, nor any explanation as to how they were compiled. Additionally, all the listed businesses were owned by the same company, suggesting the web site is not an independent reseller.
Adams and Knowles agree that it pays to be skeptical of a company's ratings and search the internet for real-world experiences with a company before purchasing consumer electronics. If you feel you have been the victim of fraudulent practices of Prestige Camera or any other business, contact the FTC and the Better Business Bureau to register a complaint.
Be aware that Prestige Camera may also does business under the following names:
A&M Photo World
Broadway Photo
Cameratopia
Digital Liquidators LLC
Ghu, LLC
Preferred Photo
Regal Camera
Tronicity
Adams recommends consumers consider J & R electronics at www.JandR.com and www.BHPhotoVideo.com as reputable and safe sources for consumer electronics.
http://www.newstarget.com/020780.html
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