Five New Year’s Resolutions for the Digital Photographer

Dave Johnson, PCWorld

Jan 5, 2010 2:02 am

Happy New Year! Given my geeky nature, it should come as no surprise that I’ve been anticipating the arrival of 2010 as The Year We Make Contact. While I don’t expect to meet any aliens this year, I did make a few resolutions to improve my photography in case I take some pictures of UFOs nonetheless. While I was at it, I came up with some resolutions for you to consider. Feel free to take a look at my resolutions from 2008 and resolutions from 2007 as well.

Get Organized

Many times, I’ve implored you to get your photos organized. Just putting them in folders on your computer doesn’t count; they’re just too hard to find that way. The New Year is a great opportunity to get photo organizer software and use it to tag your pictures using logical keywords, so you can quickly and efficiently zoom in on the photos you need long after you’ve forgotten what folder they’re stored in or what file names you used.

I highly recommend Windows Live Photo Gallery, but there are several other alternatives, like Picasa (which, like Photo Gallery, is free) and the decidedly not-free Adobe Lightroom ($299).

Get Backed Up

The months ahead might be full of hope and promise, but your computer’s hard drive has the potential to fail at any moment. And if it does, do you have a second copy–a backup–of your digital photos and other valuable files?

There are a lot of ways to back up your files. You could buy a Windows Home Server like the HP MediaSmart, which automatically backs up all the files on all the computers in your home every night. A more modest solution is to install a second hard drive–either internally in your PC or externally via USB–and use backup software to archive your stuff on a regular basis.

Whichever way you choose to go, do it soon, before the New Year spirit wears off and you get distracted by the daily grind. Trust me: You don’t want to lose all your photos due to a hardware failure.

Upgrade to a Better Photo Editor

What do you use to edit your digital photos? Perhaps you’re already using a fairly recent version of a full-featured photo editor, and you’re happy with it. If so, that’s fine. But if you’re still using version 3 of a program that’s now up to version 14, a trial version of something that came with a digital camera you bought in 2001, or Microsoft Paint, then perhaps it’s time to step up.

Half the fun of digital photography is the ability to edit and enhance your photos after they make the short trip from your camera to your computer. You should be able to easily crop, color correct, adjust exposure, and combine photos with other photos. If you can’t, you’re missing out. Try the latest version of Adobe Photoshop Elements, Corel Paint Shop Pro, or Adobe Lightroom. Or, if you prefer free, GIMP is an excellent open-source alternative.

Learn Something New

You read Digital Focus, right? How often do you try any of the techniques I describe? If you haven’t tried to apply any new digital photo tricks to your own images in a while, resolve right now to try your hand at a few new things this year.

I highly suggest trying to make a High Dynamic Range photo, which combines several images into one shot that captures a deeper range of colors than your camera is capable of doing on its own. Or generate a panorama from a series of photos. You can browse the Digital Focus archives in search of something that catches your eye.

Enter the Hot Pics Photo Contest

Finally, now that you’ve gotten organized, tried some fancy photo edits, and backed up all your photos for some peace of mind, why not enter the Digital Focus photo contest? Each week I pick two photos (a winner and a runner-up) submitted by the many readers of Digital Focus. They’re published here, collected in a monthly slide show, and posted to a Flickr gallery for everyone to enjoy. Share your favorite photos!

Hot Pic of the Week

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique.

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: “Crystal Clear,” by Dan Lavric, Romania

Dan says that he took this photo of a woman through a pane of beveled glass.

This Week’s Runner-Up: “Bouquet” by Marion Roman, Salem, Oregon

Marion says: “Using my Canon 50D, I had the bride and groom place their hands on the bouquet. I edited the photo as black and white and highlighted the flowers using Adobe Photoshop CS4.”

Took a short trip to Egypt, the Land of The Pharaohs recently and took a bunch of pictures. Egypt is truly a land for pictures taking. I took over a thousand pictures and over the next few weeks, I would like to share some of the shots. I would like to hear comments. For more tips on photography, please visit http://www.leisure808.com

How to Minimize the Flash Delays on Your Digital Camera

Your digital camera’s flash can cause delays because it needs to build up a full charge between shots.
These delays can make you miss the perfect photo opportunity. You can minimize these delays,
but you can’t prevent them.

1  Take close-up shots.

Close-up shots use less power. If you’re taking close-up photos, you can probably shoot more quickly and with fewer delays than if you’re using up your flash’s maximum power with every shot.

2  Reduce your flash’s power setting.

If you can, adjust your camera flash’s power setting. Obviously, using less power means the flash will need less time to recharge.

3  Use an external flash.

The flash built into your camera has been designed to use the minimum amount of power necessary to do the job, which can mean slower recycling. External flash usually have beefier batteries and recycle much more quickly.

4  Attach an add-on battery pack to your external flash.

The more batteries you have, the quicker your flash can charge.

For more Tips visit http://www.leisure808.com

A digital camera’s optical viewfinder is bright and clear, uses no power, and lets you compose your image quickly. But not all optical viewfinders are created equal. You need to evaluate a few optical-viewfinder features:

1. Decide what magnification you want.

Some cameras have no magnification, giving you a tiny image floating off in the distance. Other cameras provide a big view that makes it easy to frame and compose your photo.

2. Make sure your viewfinder can zoom with your lens.

Ideally, the image should match the view of your LCD and lens, but some cameras keep a fixed view and use indicator marks to show the picture area.

3. Find an optical viewfinder with an accurate viewpoint.

The optical viewfinder might not show everything you’re framing, with some image area clipped off the top, bottom, or sides.

4. Consider an extended eyepoint.

The eyepoint is the distance your eye can be from the viewfinder’s window and still see the entire view.

5. Decide what readouts (if any) you want.

Some cameras show nothing but the unadorned image. Others have framing or parallax correction lines or indicator lights, like in this figure

The above tips are from Dummies.com. For more of the same visit http://www.leisure808.com

Hi,

My apologise for not updating this blog for a while. I had been busy revamping my website http://www.leisure808.com

It’s now more dynamic, when you log in, you will get feeds from Google on the latest news from the world of photography and the art world. I hope you like it, please check it out and leave your comments.

http://www.leisure808.com

Mamiya DL28 Spawns Bigger Brother: Mamiya DL33

Mamiya DL33
DL33

Elmsford, NY – March 17, 2009 – The successful introduction of the Mamiya DL28, in addition to requests from professional photographers throughout the U.S., has prompted Mamiya America to announce the next level in high-end digital camera systems – the Mamiya DL33.

“In the world of medium format digital photography, many photographers have to choose between price and performance,” states Jeff Karp, Mamiya Product Marketing Manager. “The new Mamiya DL33 Digital Camera System offers the best of both worlds by providing medium format performance at a price that serious photographers can afford.”

The Mamiya DL33 Digital Camera System offers professional features and benefits that are not found in other camera systems. For example, even though the DL33’s resolution is an impressive 33 Megapixels, its large sensor allows a pixel size of 7.2 microns. At 36 x 48mm, the DL33’s sensor is twice the size of full frame DSLR cameras.

Larger pixels also produce images with unmatched richness and color accuracy, smooth, subtle transitions from tone to tone and striking highlight and shadow detail. In addition, the larger format produces images with a more three-dimensional look. The 3.5-inch touch screen, the largest in the industry, offers a bright, high-contrast display ideal for outdoor or indoor work.

The DL33 combines the professionally proven Mamiya 645AFD III camera system with the innovative 33 megapixel Aptus-II 7 Digital Back from Leaf. Together they work as an integral unit with an intuitive ease that virtually any photographer will appreciate. The 645AFD III body has a new coreless motor for faster, more accurate autofocusing and an enhanced interface system that provides total communication between the camera, lens and digital back.

With 16-bit capture, 12-stop dynamic range and an ISO range of 50-800, the Mamiya DL33 is a full-featured professional digital solution. The 33 MP back produces a huge 67Mb RAW file that can be converted into jpegs, 8-bit or 16-bit tiff files (a 16-bit tiff file is 190 Mb). Files of this quality deliver the information needed for striking enlargements of virtually any size. And for those times when you can’t get close enough to your subject, you’ll have the confidence to crop a small portion of the image without a noticeable loss in quality.

In addition to using the included Leaf Capture 11.2 software, you can also open Leaf RAW files with commonly used programs including Adobe Photoshop CS3/4 (with the latest version of ACR software), Lightroom 2 and Apple Aperture 2.

When utilizing the fastest compact flash media storage currently available, the Aptus II 7 back can capture images at approximately 1 frame per second. You can also use the included FireWire cable and Leaf Capture 11.2 software to shoot directly to your computer.

“Many digital photographers are realizing that they need the increased performance that only medium format can offer,” says Karp. “That’s why Mamiya is continuing to receive requests for higher resolution digital systems. With the new Mamiya DL33, we can satisfy their demands today.”

Special consumer introductory offer:

During the months of April and May, customers who purchase a Mamiya DL33 will receive a FREE AF 55mm f2.8 or AF 150mm f3.5 lens directly from Mamiya (an $1100 value).

For more product details and the downloadable “Free Lens” coupon, please visit www.Mamiya.com.

The Mamiya DL33 will be available April 2009. MAP price is $19,999.