Dobson Central Photography

Experts offer shopping advice and tips for taking your digital camera on vacation

Some advice/tips on the following: Shutter lag, preserving images on CD, storage cards, batteries and more.

As with almost everything digital, questions arise over the technology. So we talked to a number of experts about some of the frequently asked questions about digital photography to get a few tips and tricks to ease the transition, particularly as the summer vacation season gets under way.

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EOS Viewer Utility (EVU) downloads JPEG and RAW files from EOS digital SLRs, can convert RAW images and allows the modification of camera settings. EVU will NOT convert RAW images from PowerShot cameras.

Supported Cameras:
EOS D30
EOS D60
EOS 10D
EOS Digital Rebel
EOS-1D
EOS-1D Mark II
EOS-1Ds

Get it here

“Citing the security of 7 million daily riders, 48,000 employees and its transportation network, New York City Transit yesterday proposed a ban on unauthorized photography, filming and videotaping on city subways, buses and Staten Island Railway trains. The press and businesses or individuals with permits would be exempt.”

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I don’t want to get into a first amendment rights argument or anything, and I can certainly understand the need for added security. But I’m curious though. How in the world does NYC think they will ever prevent cameras and videotape recorders from being in the subways except for members of the press and individuals who have to write to some head transit honcho to get permission? Technology is getting smaller and smaller with every new device released on the market these days. There are a bunch of digicams already out on the market that easily fit into a coat pocket. All someone would have to do is slit a hole in a jacket pocket and film or take all the photos they want. Nobody would be the wiser.

I’ve never been to NYC, nor do I have any idea what the city must still be going through, so I guess I should keep my mouth shut. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try to secure an entire city from terrorists. The words “nearly impossible” come to mind. I wouldn’t mind hearing some thoughts on this from those living in New York City.

Oreilly has just released a book called Digital Photography hacks.

Here’s a little description:

“Going beyond the standard fare of most digital photography books, Digital Photography Hacks shares the knowledge that professional photographers have learned through thousands of shots’ worth of experience and years of experimentation. With exquisite, full-color photos throughout, the book presents 100 proven techniques in the areas of daytime and nighttime photo secrets, flash magic, digital camera attachments, fun photo projects, camera phone tricks, and more. This book is your passport to taking the kind of digital photos you’ve always aspired to.”

More about the book and some free sample hacks can be found here.

What else could be cooler you ask? Well, the same author (Derrick Story), has released 5 more photography hacks.

I’ve often had to look at photos more than once, twice, or even more with the ever growing talent of photoshop users. I love photoshop, don’t get me wrong, but how many times have you looked at a photo and immediately think to yourself “That can’t be real”? Well below is an opinionated article where David Hockney explains that “In five years time I don’t think you will need to believe any kind of photograph from any source.”.

“Photographs have been much in the news. The most powerful government in the world has been badly shaken by one portfolio of shots of American soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners. Meanwhile, one of the most prominent figures on Fleet Street has been blown right out of his editorial chair by another set of British soldiers in Iraq, because they turned out to be a hoax.”

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For those of you dreaming of making a lot of $$$ and making it famous on the internet with your photographs, artwork, articles or whatever, you might like to read from someone who’s been there, tried that. It’s a nice article on the personal history of Philip Greenspun.

“My career turned around one brisk fall day in 1993 when I typed “mosaic” on a UNIX workstation at MIT. A document appeared with text and color pictures mixed together, just like a magazine page. I clicked the mouse on a word and a page appeared from a computer in Australia. Another click brought up a video clip from France. Clicking on a small picture made it grow into a large picture. Without knowing how to do more than click a mouse, I could grab and view about 30 different kinds of documents from over a million servers around the world. I had discovered the World Wide Web and, although it contained almost no new technology, it was the most exciting thing I’d seen in computer science for 15 years”

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Apparently this is quite old news, as it was posted back in January on The Register. I just read this today. (Boy am I behind the times).

“If you want evidence that digital photography is on the verge of supplanting film, look no further than Kodak. The world’s largest photography specialist will this year phase out the sale of its 35mm film cameras in North America and Western Europe.”

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Ken Rockwell has written an informative article that compares the two classes of digital cameras - point and shoot and SLR. I’d have to agree with his findings, but then again, I want to have the ability to take professional quality photos and not snapshots. If you are in the market to buy a digicam, I’d at least read his article first, as well as any other reviews on the cameras you are thinking about buying. A little knowledge never hurt anyone.

Last week I came across an interesting site where a guy (Dean Baldwin) hooked up his digicam to his snooze alarm and has taken photos of himself every morning for three years. While that is definitely something that is unique, what I really liked about this site was the site design. I wish I had the flash talent to do something of this caliber. Click the photo below to visit the web site and when it loads, click on Snooze Button. If you have a popup blocker, you’ll want to allow the only popup from this page, as it will launch the flash interface.

“Wake up. Live your life. Go to bed. Repeat.”

For anyone interested in submitting their work for a photo contest, there is a competition for 2004 going on now over at the National Photo Awards