Digital cameras flash units come in many shapes and sizes. Low end digital cameras include low energy built in flash units. High end digital SLR cameras can support sophisticated external flash units which can provide superior lighting in difficult scenarios. Here are some basic facts about flash units both built in and external.
Flash units came a long way since their early days. Back then flash units were using powder that was lit by electrical current and literally “blew up” to produce the light energy. Using these flash units was a risky business. It was also difficult as the flash units were not automatically synchronized to the camera’s shutter. The photographer had to make sure that the flash goes off at the exact right time synchronized with the shooting of the photo.
Nowadays flash units are sophisticated technology devices. They use an electronic flash tube that is automatically synchronized to the camera. The photographer merely needs to do nothing. New digital cameras can decide on their own if the flash is needed, they can set its intensity and other parameters and they can fire the flash at the exact right time when the shutter is opened. All this is done automatically in the background. Digital camera also provide the user with the ability to manually control the flash, force it to either fire or not to fire, set its intensity and more.
Flash units are divided into two categories: Internal built-in flash units or external flash units. Internal flash units are built into the camera. Almost all digital cameras include such a unit and allow the user some control over it through the camera’s menus and buttons. External flash units are attached to the camera’s body through a dedicated slide-in slot or by using an electrical cable. Not all digital cameras support external flash units. Usually the lower end pocket cameras do not allow external flash units while all high end digital SLR cameras do allow such external flash units. External flash units can vary a lot. They can have different light energy levels that they can emit and different mechanical characteristics. Some external flash units also include smart sensors to measure ambient light, distance and other optical parameters in order to optimize the flash effect.
Digital cameras can use their flash units in automatic or in manual mode. In automatic mode the camera measures ambient light and fires the flash when not enough ambient light is available. Sometimes the camera will make the wrong decision as to using the flash and will either fire or not fire the flash when the opposite was needed. Setting the flash intensity is important too. If the flash unit fires too much light energy on objects that are too close to the camera the digital photo will be washed out. On the other hand if the flash unit fires a small amount of light energy on an object that is farther away from the digital camera the digital photo will be a too dark.
Flash units have limitations too. They can not light any scene and any object at any distance from the camera. It is important to know your flash unit limitations. For example check what the maximum light energy that it can emit is and what the farthest that an object can be effectively lit from. This is also known as the effective flash range. If the object is out of the effective flash range it is actually better to turn off the flash altogether and use a tripod with a longer exposure. Sometimes it is useful to use the flash even if there is enough ambient light. In such cases you can manually force the camera to fire the flash. This is also known as fill-in flash as it is usually used to fill-in shadowed areas on objects in the digital photo.
http://www.articlejoe.com/Article/Digital-camera-flash-units/35901
Monday, July 16, 2007
Using a digital camera panoramic photography mode
Panoramic digital photos cover a wide angle of view. In its extreme a panoramic photo can cover 360 degrees of view. Such panoramic photos are for example taken from a sky scraper to convey the view it provides. Most new digital cameras provide a panoramic mode that supports such photography.
There is no formal or definitive definition of what a panoramic photo is. It is common practice to define panoramic photos as such that cover a wide angle of view. How wide? A common definition is “wider than our eyes can see” – or in other worlds – provide an artificial view that otherwise we could not have gotten by just looking at the scene (without moving our head left and right or up and down of course). Panoramic digital photos can be taken in a single shot using special panoramic wide angle lenses. This technique is limited of course as for example a 360 degree panoramic photo can not be taken this way.
Another way in which panoramic photos are created is in segments – a few photos are taken in series and are later attached to each other to create one big panoramic photo. The process of attaching the photos together is fast and easy thanks to modern digital photo processing software (as long as you’re following some guidelines when taking the photos). Panoramic photos are not limited to capturing landscape or wide angle view. They can be very useful when capturing objects that are just too big to be captured from where you stand. For example if you are standing too close to a tall tower and can not retreat to a farther position – using panoramic photography will enable you to capture the complete tower (in 2 or more shots).
Most digital cameras support a special panoramic mode. In this mode the camera optimizes its optical settings for panoramic wide angle photography. But more than just setting the optical parameters the camera also provides tools that allow you to more easily take the photos series and later on stitch them together. When put in panoramic mode the camera will first let you choose if you plan to take a horizontal panoramic photo (i.e. taking photos from left to right or right to left while keeping the vertical position fixed) or to take a vertical panoramic photo (i.e. taking the photos from bottom to top or top to bottom while keeping the horizontal position fixed). You can also choose a combination.
After you choose the panoramic mode – the camera will let you start taking the photos. On its LCD screen you would always see the previous photo you took and the new photo you are taking. This allows you to easily compose each photo in a way that it complements the previous one. You would also want to make sure the photo overlaps a bit with the previous photo – this allows for easier photo stitching later on. The camera also names the digital photos files in a special format that further helps stitching.
Photo stitching can be easily done on a computer at home. Many digital cameras come with a photo stitching software. If your digital camera did not come with one you can find either free or low priced commercial software that can stitch single photos. Basically what the photo stitching software does is: based on the photo file names it orders the photos in their right order. Then it identifies the overlapping areas in each pair of photos and places the photos in a way that these overlapping areas match (this is why having a bit of overlap is important). The final step is to attach all those pairs of files and create a single panoramic digital photo.
It is a good practice to use a tripod when taking panoramic photos. A tripod will help you maintaining either a fixed horizontal or a fixed vertical position. Also it is good practice to keep the optical settings fixed between shots and to make sure that the lighting stays the same. As always practice makes perfect – go and experiment with panoramic photography and master your digital camera panoramic mode
http://www.articlejoe.com/Article/Using-a-digital-camera-panoramic-photography-mode/35714
There is no formal or definitive definition of what a panoramic photo is. It is common practice to define panoramic photos as such that cover a wide angle of view. How wide? A common definition is “wider than our eyes can see” – or in other worlds – provide an artificial view that otherwise we could not have gotten by just looking at the scene (without moving our head left and right or up and down of course). Panoramic digital photos can be taken in a single shot using special panoramic wide angle lenses. This technique is limited of course as for example a 360 degree panoramic photo can not be taken this way.
Another way in which panoramic photos are created is in segments – a few photos are taken in series and are later attached to each other to create one big panoramic photo. The process of attaching the photos together is fast and easy thanks to modern digital photo processing software (as long as you’re following some guidelines when taking the photos). Panoramic photos are not limited to capturing landscape or wide angle view. They can be very useful when capturing objects that are just too big to be captured from where you stand. For example if you are standing too close to a tall tower and can not retreat to a farther position – using panoramic photography will enable you to capture the complete tower (in 2 or more shots).
Most digital cameras support a special panoramic mode. In this mode the camera optimizes its optical settings for panoramic wide angle photography. But more than just setting the optical parameters the camera also provides tools that allow you to more easily take the photos series and later on stitch them together. When put in panoramic mode the camera will first let you choose if you plan to take a horizontal panoramic photo (i.e. taking photos from left to right or right to left while keeping the vertical position fixed) or to take a vertical panoramic photo (i.e. taking the photos from bottom to top or top to bottom while keeping the horizontal position fixed). You can also choose a combination.
After you choose the panoramic mode – the camera will let you start taking the photos. On its LCD screen you would always see the previous photo you took and the new photo you are taking. This allows you to easily compose each photo in a way that it complements the previous one. You would also want to make sure the photo overlaps a bit with the previous photo – this allows for easier photo stitching later on. The camera also names the digital photos files in a special format that further helps stitching.
Photo stitching can be easily done on a computer at home. Many digital cameras come with a photo stitching software. If your digital camera did not come with one you can find either free or low priced commercial software that can stitch single photos. Basically what the photo stitching software does is: based on the photo file names it orders the photos in their right order. Then it identifies the overlapping areas in each pair of photos and places the photos in a way that these overlapping areas match (this is why having a bit of overlap is important). The final step is to attach all those pairs of files and create a single panoramic digital photo.
It is a good practice to use a tripod when taking panoramic photos. A tripod will help you maintaining either a fixed horizontal or a fixed vertical position. Also it is good practice to keep the optical settings fixed between shots and to make sure that the lighting stays the same. As always practice makes perfect – go and experiment with panoramic photography and master your digital camera panoramic mode
http://www.articlejoe.com/Article/Using-a-digital-camera-panoramic-photography-mode/35714
10 Tips In Better Photography
Taking a good photo isn’t as hard as you may think. You don’t need the most expensive camera or years of experience, just 10 simple tips.
Enjoy!
Tip 1 - Use All Your Available Space
Don't be afraid to use all the space in your photo. If you want to take a picture of something, it's ok for it to take up the whole shot with no or very little background showing. Keep distractions out of your shot
Tip 2 - Study Forms
This is a vital aspect to photography. Understanding forms in your photos. Don't see an object, she its shape and its form and find the best angle to photograph it from. Form is all around us and I highly suggest you read as many books on it as possible.
Tip 3 - Motion In Your Photos
Never have motion in your photos if you are photographing a still object. If there is something moving while you are trying to photograph a stationery object, your photo won't turn out anywhere near as well. Also never put a horizon line in the center of your frame.
Tip 4 - Learn To Use Contrasts Between Colors.
Some of the best photos have shades of white, gray and black. You can take great shots with just one color on your subject, but the contrasts between colors in a shot is what makes you a great photographer.
Tip 5 - Get Closer To Your Subject
This is one of the biggest mistakes most photographers make, not getting close enough to their subject. Get up and personal and close the distance gap. You can always reshape and resize a good shot but you can't continue to blowup a distant object.
Tip 6 - Shutter Lag
Shooting action shots with digital camera's can be tricky due to shutter lags. What this means is, when you press the button to take the photo, it can take up to a second for the shutter to take a photo, by that time what you were photographing would have moved or changed somehow. This means you have to compensate for shutter lag by predicting what your subject is going to do and taking the photo just before it takes the action you want. More expensive digital cameras don't have this problem.
Tip 7 - Pan
If you are taking an action shot and your shutter speed is slow, pan with the object. Follow through with the subject, from start to finish and one of those shots will be a winner. You have more chance of getting a good shot if you take more then one photo.
Tip 8 - Continuous Shots
To pan like I suggested above you will need a camera that does continuous shots and doesn’t need to stop and process after every shot.
Tip 9 - How To Take Fantastic Night Time Shots
Night time shots can be spectacular, almost magical.... if done right! If not they can look horrible. Really horrible. Without adequate lighting, even good camera's can turn out crappy photos if the photographer doesn't know what he or she is doing.
Tip 10 - Study Your Manual
If your digital camera has a special night time mode, read the manual and follow their instructions on how to use it properly.
http://www.articleinterchange.com/Article/10-Tips-In-Better-Photography/4617
Enjoy!
Tip 1 - Use All Your Available Space
Don't be afraid to use all the space in your photo. If you want to take a picture of something, it's ok for it to take up the whole shot with no or very little background showing. Keep distractions out of your shot
Tip 2 - Study Forms
This is a vital aspect to photography. Understanding forms in your photos. Don't see an object, she its shape and its form and find the best angle to photograph it from. Form is all around us and I highly suggest you read as many books on it as possible.
Tip 3 - Motion In Your Photos
Never have motion in your photos if you are photographing a still object. If there is something moving while you are trying to photograph a stationery object, your photo won't turn out anywhere near as well. Also never put a horizon line in the center of your frame.
Tip 4 - Learn To Use Contrasts Between Colors.
Some of the best photos have shades of white, gray and black. You can take great shots with just one color on your subject, but the contrasts between colors in a shot is what makes you a great photographer.
Tip 5 - Get Closer To Your Subject
This is one of the biggest mistakes most photographers make, not getting close enough to their subject. Get up and personal and close the distance gap. You can always reshape and resize a good shot but you can't continue to blowup a distant object.
Tip 6 - Shutter Lag
Shooting action shots with digital camera's can be tricky due to shutter lags. What this means is, when you press the button to take the photo, it can take up to a second for the shutter to take a photo, by that time what you were photographing would have moved or changed somehow. This means you have to compensate for shutter lag by predicting what your subject is going to do and taking the photo just before it takes the action you want. More expensive digital cameras don't have this problem.
Tip 7 - Pan
If you are taking an action shot and your shutter speed is slow, pan with the object. Follow through with the subject, from start to finish and one of those shots will be a winner. You have more chance of getting a good shot if you take more then one photo.
Tip 8 - Continuous Shots
To pan like I suggested above you will need a camera that does continuous shots and doesn’t need to stop and process after every shot.
Tip 9 - How To Take Fantastic Night Time Shots
Night time shots can be spectacular, almost magical.... if done right! If not they can look horrible. Really horrible. Without adequate lighting, even good camera's can turn out crappy photos if the photographer doesn't know what he or she is doing.
Tip 10 - Study Your Manual
If your digital camera has a special night time mode, read the manual and follow their instructions on how to use it properly.
http://www.articleinterchange.com/Article/10-Tips-In-Better-Photography/4617
Digital Or Film Photography
The popularity of digital cameras may have enjoyed amazing increase but film has still an important part to play in photography and will continue to be important for some time, a few years at the least. Film has many advantages that photographers continue to recognize. Major players in the production of film like Kodak is still putting into it millions though experts all agree that digital film will reign supreme in the near future.
These are the reasons though why some photographers prefer film over digital:
1) Facilities and Investment
Ordinary people, not only photographers, have invested considerably in photographic equipments that use film. Cameras and lenses still have capabilities that digital photography cannot match. Compared with a high-end professional 35mm camera, a digital camera still lacks facilities that only the traditional camera can provide. A photographer who decides to switch to digital may find himself spending big especially if his lenses, flashes and other accessories are not compatible with a new digital system.
2) Wide Angle
The absence of extreme wide-angle lenses and a slow start-up time are two of the most disadvantages of even the best digital cameras. 35mm cameras modifies to digital bodies usually employ a CCD image sensor that is smaller, usually around 245mm x 16mm) as opposed to the 36mm x 24mm x 35mm film that results to a narrow angle. Photographers who are fans of wide angles may find the traditional 35mm more of their liking.
3) Action
Film cameras also offer an advantage during fast-changing and unpredictable photography scenarios. Unlike digital camera that uses batteries than can ran out in the most unexpected time, a 35mm camera can be easily switched on and ready for use whenever you need take a shot. Moreover, digital cameras usually take several seconds before you can use it which obviously is a disadvantage for photographers who wants to capture actions which can’t be repeated anymore.
4) Tough Conditions
Film cameras are also sturdier equipments than their digital counterparts and can withstand harsh conditions that photography may demand in the line of work. Count on film to be more reliable than digital especially when your are working in a not-so-good weather conditions.
5) Comparing Costs
When it comes to cost, film and digital advantages and disadvantages vary considerably depending on the usage. A photographer with a film budget amounting to thousands of dollars in one year may find digital camera more practical. But if you are not a busy photographer, your income may not defray the cost of going digital.
http://www.articleinterchange.com/Article/Digital-Or-Film-Photography/9468
These are the reasons though why some photographers prefer film over digital:
1) Facilities and Investment
Ordinary people, not only photographers, have invested considerably in photographic equipments that use film. Cameras and lenses still have capabilities that digital photography cannot match. Compared with a high-end professional 35mm camera, a digital camera still lacks facilities that only the traditional camera can provide. A photographer who decides to switch to digital may find himself spending big especially if his lenses, flashes and other accessories are not compatible with a new digital system.
2) Wide Angle
The absence of extreme wide-angle lenses and a slow start-up time are two of the most disadvantages of even the best digital cameras. 35mm cameras modifies to digital bodies usually employ a CCD image sensor that is smaller, usually around 245mm x 16mm) as opposed to the 36mm x 24mm x 35mm film that results to a narrow angle. Photographers who are fans of wide angles may find the traditional 35mm more of their liking.
3) Action
Film cameras also offer an advantage during fast-changing and unpredictable photography scenarios. Unlike digital camera that uses batteries than can ran out in the most unexpected time, a 35mm camera can be easily switched on and ready for use whenever you need take a shot. Moreover, digital cameras usually take several seconds before you can use it which obviously is a disadvantage for photographers who wants to capture actions which can’t be repeated anymore.
4) Tough Conditions
Film cameras are also sturdier equipments than their digital counterparts and can withstand harsh conditions that photography may demand in the line of work. Count on film to be more reliable than digital especially when your are working in a not-so-good weather conditions.
5) Comparing Costs
When it comes to cost, film and digital advantages and disadvantages vary considerably depending on the usage. A photographer with a film budget amounting to thousands of dollars in one year may find digital camera more practical. But if you are not a busy photographer, your income may not defray the cost of going digital.
http://www.articleinterchange.com/Article/Digital-Or-Film-Photography/9468
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Make a Digital Pinhole Camera
Go retro with a super-low-tech digital camera trick.
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.
David says: "I took this photograph near a popular Austin restaurant with my Konica Hexar RF rangefinder camera. I was struck by the row of multicolor light bulbs, the water, and the setting sun in the distance.
"I scanned the transparency using a Nikon 5000 scanner and then edited it in Photoshop CS2. I converted a layer to monochrome and tinted it slightly using a warming filter. Then I used the history brush to recover the colored light bulbs.
"The whole idea of this particular image unfolded as I worked with it. The original full color image was pretty, but the idea of something more vintage while retaining the color of the bulbs came to me gradually as I worked on it."
Starting with the May Hot Pic of the Month, I've decided to let you pick the winner--after all, why should I have all the fun?
The poll is now open. From now till Sunday, June 3, you can view a slide show of our five Hot Pic winners for May. After you check out the contestants, click the "Vote for This Entry" link on any of the pages to cast your vote. I'll announce the winner in my June 5 newsletter.
At the risk of dating myself, I feel compelled to say that when I was a kid, I did all the things budding geeks were supposed to do. For example, I made a crystal radio (a simple radio that doesn't need a battery) and a pinhole camera. A pinhole camera is perhaps the simplest kind of photographic device, because it uses no lens. A tiny pinhole in a well-sealed cardboard box is all you need to capture an image on film.
You can experience some of this excitement by making your own lens-free digital camera. For the best results, you need a digital SLR (so you can remove the lens), a body cap (the cover that screws onto the camera body when there's no lens attached), some heavy foil, and electrical tape. Ready to play along?
To begin with, you'll need to make a hole in the camera's body cap. I don't suggest poking a hole in your only cap, so stop into your local camera shop and get a spare or two. They cost about $3 each, and it's always handy to have an extra in case you need to remove the lens for more than few moments.
The size of the hole isn't especially important. I drilled a 5/32-inch hole in the center of the cap using an ordinary household drill--after removing the body cap from the camera first, of course.
Next, you need to make a smaller hole in some heavy foil--this is the real pinhole. A foil pie tin works great for this. Cut a small circle out of the tin that will fit inside the back of the body cap and then use a thin, sharp pin to make a tiny hole in the metal.
When you're done, use some electrical tape to position the pie tin on the body cap so the two holes line up, with the small hole in the center of the circle.
Now remove the lens from your camera and screw on the body cap. You've just made a pinhole camera: Instead of expensive, multi-element, precision optics, your camera now works on the low-tech principle that an extremely small hole will cause a relatively sharp image to resolve on the sensor.
Why do this? Well, it's fun, and it's a completely unexpected way to use your digital camera.
In addition, your pinhole camera is a good prop to use for teaching kids about the basic physics of photography. Try making several foil body cap inserts with different-sized holes. You can demonstrate how the smaller the hole, the sharper the image--but also the darker the preview, and the longer the necessary exposure. An infinitely small hole would give you perfectly focused results, but the exposure time would be lengthy, since only one photon of light could get through to the sensor at a time.
If you have a point-and-shoot camera with a removable lens cap, you can still try this experiment. The results won't be as authentic because you can't remove your lens, and the resulting photos will always be somewhat blurry. You'll need to drill the hole in a spare lens cap. When you take the pictures, set your lens to the longest telephoto setting available, then use your camera's manual focus mode to focus on infinity for the most authentic pinhole effect.
Frequently Asked Photo Questions for July
Getting colors into balance, finding an HDR app, taking concert photos, and more.
My parents live a few thousand miles from me, so I typically check in with them each week on the phone. Last week, my dad asked me a digital photo question, and I had to defer. "Send your question to question@davejoh.com," I told my father, "and if your question is selected, I'll answer it in the Digital Focus newsletter."
So here's the latest edition of reader mail--and sorry, Dad, it doesn't look like your question made it this time. If anyone else has a question, though, you can do what my dad does: Send me an e-mail.
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.
Vanessa says: "I took this in Hong Kong. Because we were still jetlagged, we went out very early in the morning to walk around the city and chanced upon the beautiful morning sun shining through these slanted columns, creating an infinity of triangles."
Russ writes: "I took this shot of four egrets outside my office; they were marching through the grass trying to scare up bugs for dinner. I took it with my Pentax K100D and Sigma 50-500 lens."
Congratulations to Johanna and to everyone else who won a Hot Pic of the Week last month. Keep those entries coming!
See all the Hot Pic of the Week photos online.
I recently attended a wedding. The church was predominately yellow; there were yellowish brown pews with light yellow walls, there were stained glass windows, and both fluorescent and incandescent lighting, recessed in the ceiling. A lot of my pictures turned out very yellow! What can I do?
--Patty Hardy, Monterey, California
It sounds like setting the camera's white balance might have rescued some of your photos, Patty. When you're in a tricky lighting situation--such as when there's mixed florescent, incandescent, and natural lighting, for example, it's a good idea to set the white balance manually using a white or gray card. (Check your camera manual for instructions on how to do that.)
But even now, all is not lost. You can open your yellowish photos in a photo editing program like Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop Elements and use the white-balance adjustment to tweak the images until the color looks more natural. Another option: Try the automatic fix feature in your photo editor, like Photoshop Elements's Auto Adjust or Paint Shop Pro's One Step Photo Fix.
Dave, you really got my attention with the High Dynamic Range photography lesson in your recent newsletters. My favorite subjects are landscapes, and I'd like to try my hand at HDR photography too. I have been looking into upgrading to Paint Shop Pro 11, but it appears that the program doesn't include HDR. Is that true? I'd hate to have to learn a new program.
--John Klock, Charlotte, North Carolina
I'm afraid it is true, John. Corel Paint Shop Pro 11 doesn't include an HDR feature. There are a limited number of programs that have HDR capabilities. The ones I know about are Ulead PhotoImpact, Adobe Photoshop CS3, and HDRSoft Photomatix Pro, the program I used for my newsletters on the subject: "Stunning Photos With High Dynamic Range, Part 1" and "Stunning Photos With High Dynamic Range, Part 2."
I am very new to photography and am trying to take a tricky photo without much luck. I have a photograph that was printed on glossy paper. I am trying to take a picture of this picture, using my digital camera. No matter what I do, I can't get a good picture. I get the glare from the flash. I have tried to change the lighting in the room, I have covered the flash part of my camera with a stocking diffuser, my finger, paper and other things yet I just can't get a good, clear picture. This picture is going to be used on the cover of a book. Any suggestions?
--Tiva Wallon, Boston
Sure, Tiva. To be honest, what you're trying to do is extremely difficult, and even if you do it well, the results will be only mediocre--certainly it'll never be of sufficient quality for publication on a book cover. It sounds like what you really want to do is scan the photo using a flatbed scanner. Even a $99 scanner would do a much better job than any camera. Worst case, you could simply take the photo to a copy shop and have it scanned there.
Could you share some tips for taking pictures at an indoor concert? Mine typically come out too dark or too blurry.
--Bill Fournier, Cascade, Colorado
Indoor concerts are tricky, Bill, because there's so little light available. Your camera struggles to properly expose the photo, and ends up using a long shutter speed--which results in blur. If you tell the camera to use a faster shutter speed, the photos will probably come out too dark. The fix is to increase the camera's ISO, which is the setting that controls its sensitivity to light. Maximize the ISO at a concert and you'll get grainy, "noisy" photos, but they should be sharper and better exposed.
I have been an amateur photographer for about 50 years. I retired my 35mm and have been shooting lots of digital photos recently. My problem surfaced when I moved from my old monitor to a new flat, wide-screen display. Both monitors run at 1024 by 768, but the people in the photos look fatter or stretched on the new monitor. I tried several different programs to view the pictures, but they all look the same. Any suggestions? I am thinking about hooking my old monitor just for viewing pictures.
--Tim Berbaum, Cananea Sonora, Mexico
Actually, Tim, the problem is the fact that you have the new wide-screen monitor configured to run at the same old resolution (1024 by 768) as the old monitor. That's roughly square (actually a 4:3 aspect ratio) but your new wide-screen monitor needs a resolution that matches its aspect ratio, which is 16:9. Check your monitor's manual; I think you'll find it should be running at a resolution closer to 1900 by 1200. After you fix that, everything will look much better on your new display.
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/132762
Record Your Vacation From on High
Take breathtaking photos from an aircraft window by minimizing camera shake, tweaking the focus and shutter speed, and more.
It seems that no matter where you go on vacation, there's some sort of airplane or helicopter tour available to let you get a better view. In fact, as you read these words, I plan to be on vacation, booking a sightseeing charter on a small plane somewhere. (I'll try to send you a postcard.)Even on an ordinary airplane, there are some cool sights to be seen from that tiny little window. The next time you find yourself on a plane, snap a few shots.
If you're getting ready for your summer vacation, remember to pack your digital camera--and remember these tips for getting some great shots from the passenger window.
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 photo doesn't seem very remarkable--after all, it's just a picture of a car--until you learn that this is a die-cast model just a few inches long. The realism of the photo blows you away.
About this photo, Justin wrote: "I used my Kodak P850. In addition to photography, my hobbies include die cast collecting. The cars and trucks that I collect are 1:18 scale and are around 9 or 10 inches long. Since buying my first digital camera, I have been trying to photograph my die casts in a way that is realistic. The P850 allows me to get shots like this one. The model is a 2003 Dodge Viper SRT-10, made by a company called AUTOart, and I took it near an old feed mill. The key to making these miniature cars look real is to get a wide depth of field. I always use the F8 setting for the aperture, with no flash."
Jennean writes, "I took this picture in my backyard, on a piece of wood that surrounds my garden. I used a Kodak Easyshare C875, set on close-up mode."
See all the Hot Pic of the Week photos online.Plan Ahead If you're headed off for a sightseeing trip, let the flight crew know you have a camera and would like a seat that is close to one of the large windows. That's not always possible--in a helicopter, for example, they arrange passengers by weight--but it doesn't hurt to ask.
In addition, if you're on a sightseeing flight, ask the pilot before you take off if you can open any of the windows. Regulations sometimes prohibit open windows, but getting glass out of the way can dramatically improve your shots. And at the risk of being really annoying, if you're stuck shooting through glass, ask if you can clean the windows beforehand. I once was positioned next to a horribly dirty window, but I asked if it could be cleaned--and the ground crew wiped it down for me before we took off. I got some nice photos as a result.
So, there you are: 10,000 feet in the air and circling the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, a Hawaiian waterfall, or the Statue of Liberty.
It might seem like a good idea to steady the camera by leaning it against the aircraft itself or the window. However, the vibration from the engine will ruin your photos. Suspend the camera in front of you, and be careful to keep from transmitting vibrations from the wall and window to your camera.
Likewise, shoot at the highest shutter speed possible to counteract the natural motion of the aircraft. If your camera has a shutter priority or action photography mode, you can use that.
The more you zoom, the higher your shutter speed should be. For example, if you're taking a wide-angle, panoramic-style shot of the earth below you, a leisurely 1/30 or 1/60 second might be enough. But if you take advantage of your camera's 10X optical zoom to pick a squirrel out of a tree from a helicopter that's 5,000 feet in the air, you should be shooting at the fastest speed your camera can muster. To help your camera find a faster speed, try increasing the ISO a little.
At the distances you'll be shooting, there's no need to focus your camera; everything will be at "infinity." If your camera has a manual focus mode, use that mode and then set the focus on infinity.
The advantages? You don't have to wait while the camera fruitlessly searches for the right focus, and you don't risk the camera accidentally focusing on dirt on the aircraft window and ruining your shot.
If your camera doesn't have a manual focus control, then it almost certainly has a Landscape exposure mode (often one of the scene settings). One of the things that Landscape does is set your camera to focus at infinity, so that's a good substitute.
And by the way, before you head off on vacation, take a look at some of my other vacation photo tips from the past: "Take Better Travel Photos" and "More Travel Photo Tips."
http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/133648
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