Author Archive
Clean me up, Scottie!
Its midnight and you and your family just arrived from your two-week long vacation. Memories are very fresh in your mind: strolls on the beach, immaculate white sand, sunset dinners and pictures you’ve taken with your camera. You grab your DSLR and start to tinker with it when you hear a sickening grinding sound when you turned your focusing ring. This, my friend, is your trust cam screaming to you ”Clean me!” loudly – and you should.
Keep it Steady – Some Tips on How to Minimize Camera Shake
Hand tremors can really spoil a picture, don’t you think? I mean, how many of you have pictures that could’ve turned out better if only you had held your hand steady? Not unless you have a physical construction and rigidity of a rock, holding you cam steady can sometimes be a difficult task.
Ever since I had my old trusty SLR, I’ve looked for ways on how to keep my hands (and body) steady to reduce the likelihood of a blurry picture cased by camera/hand shake – and I would like to share them with you.
Take Care of your Camera and Yourself while at the Beach
Boracay is probably beckoning to you by this time of the year. White sand beaches, great views and beautiful people everywhere. If you’re like all vacationers, you’d want to bring a camera along with you to take pictures of the sights, whatever these are for you.
I’ve been taking cameras to our beach-side vacations for quite sometime now and through the years, experience has taught me a lot of valuable lessons on how to take care of my camera and my eyesight during my photo shoots at the beach – and I like to share them with you.
Preparing for a Trip
Summer is almost here! So, I’m pretty sure that y’all wanna go out to some beach resort or somethin’ to give yer backsides a real good ‘n deserved tan, and I betcha that y’all wanna bring them cameras of yours to that you can take pictures of the white sandy beach there in them Boracay resorts, with all those lovely males and females frolickin’ ‘round with half their fannies exposed.
I’m pretty sure that you do some fancy preparation of sorts before you go out on vacation. You buy sun block, make sure that you have the most fashionable swimwear and all have your iPod charged and ready. However, since you want to take some pictures, are you prepared enough to do that and take are of your equipment at the same time? Bet you’re not.
Pentax Optio A10
Pentax recently unveiled its stylishly innovative Optio A10 digital camera. This lightweight, sleek and stylish camera boasts of an 8.22 megapixel CCD sensor that is coupled with Pentax’s Shake Reduction System technology. This proprietary system from Pentax utilizes two internal gyro sensors to detect camera shake while a dedicated CPU calculates the required correction to compensate for the level of camera shake while focusing. In turn, a proprietary mechanism adjusts the CCD to compensate for the camera shake and deliver sharp images.
Measuring only 3.5 x 2.1 x 0.9 inches and weighing in at a very light 4.4 ounces, this camera has a 3x optical zoom whereby the lenses are constructed from even elements in five groups, including three double-sided aspherical lenses. This new Pentax zoom lens produces clear, high-contrast images. This design corrects effectively for spherical and other aberrations and cuts out ghosting and flare. The new ASIC image processor from Pentax supplies more processing power to this camera compared to all cameras in its class. Because of their new ASIC processor, the A10 attains a higher level of tone reproduction and color correction based on enormous amounts of actual photo data.
Kameraderies First Ever Photo Contest is Now On!
Great news!
Our first ever photo contest is now officially on! The subject/category of our first contest is about a place that we’re pretty sure you have.
Want to know what is is? Check out the weekly contest forum now!
NOTE: This photo contest is only open to members of this community.
The Pentax *ist DSL
Pentax recently launched the lightest DSLR on the market today: the *ist DL. The Pentax *ist DL is an entry-level digital SLR camera that targets audiences who are just beginning to take up photography as a hobby or profession. While this 6 megapixel camera has simplicity in operations, it is versatile enough to please even seasoned/professional SLR users.
The camera has a number of great semi-automatic and manual features as well as overrides to give the user full control.
This $700 camera has a lightweight, ultra-compact body with a rugged finish. Compared to the Nikon D50, this DSLR is a featherweight. The camera even has a depth of field preview that is normally found only on higher-priced DSLRs.
Konica-Minolta withdrawing from Photo Business
In a totally sad but expected development, long-time photography equipment maker Konica Minolta announced recently that it’s company is withdrawing from the photo business come the end of March 2005 to concentrate more on “other profitable” business ventures.
Although the company is known for it’s excellent optics and electronics, the company, which was founded in the early 1900, does not develpop it’s own image sensors. This fact made it difficult for the company to compete in a market where all the leading market players have put in resources in the development of it’s own image sensors.
In 2005, Konica-Minolta and Sony went into a join-venture for the development of digital SLRs that would use Sony’s CCD and CMOS sensors and Konica-Minolta’s optics and Dynax lens mount systems. However, Konica-Minolta decided recenlty to withdraw from the agreement and transfer all of their assets relating to digital cameras to Sony. The multi-media giant is now in the midst of an accelerated development project to produce DSLRs based on Konica-Minolta’s Dynax lens mount system.
As for support, Sony would become provide customer service support for Konica-Minolta camera users, and for related products manufactured by Konica-Minolta.
Canon EOS 350D XT
Canon recently launched its latest entrant to the DSLR market: the Canon EOS Digital Rebel 350D. The 350D has an effective 8-megapixel CMOS sensor (C-sized APC). The DLSR supports JPEG and raw formats, with a raw picture formant being a 12-bit file. The 350D kit is priced at a competitive $1000 (lens included). Without the lens, the camera is quite light, weighing around 18 oz and fairly small at 5”x3.7”x2.5” (LxWxH) respectively.
