Photography News & Blog

3D compact from Rollei

2011-02-01T17:37:00.000+01:00

Powerflex 3D

This month comes the German manufacturer Rollei with a compact 3D. With this Powerflex 3D you can shoot both photos and video in 3D.
To create 3D images with the Powerflex, the camera features two lenses and 5 megapixels CMOS image sensors. Recording can the compact in HD quality (720p) at 30 frames per second. Of course it is also possible to take normal, two-dimensional images (8x zoom) and HD video shots.
At the back of the camera Powerflex you find a 2.8-inch LCD screen where you can watch the images directly. Thanks to the special Parallax Barrier technology for reviewing the three-dimensional pictures and videos are no special 3D glasses needed. Using an HDMI connector you can see the images directly on a 3D television. To do this you special glasses.
The Rollei Powerflex 3D is available from January for a suggested retail price of $412,00

More information: www.rollei.com.

Camera Gadget: Super Secret Spy Lens

2011-01-31T20:17:00.002+01:00

secret spy lens

Always wanted shoot people ’in the wild’, but fear the reaction? With the Super-Secret Spy Lens you can get shoot almost unnoticed. Your objective is longer, but don’t let that spoil the fun.
A lens that does not look straight ahead, but to the side: this is the Spy Lens in a nutshell. And since few people pay attention to the camera, but to the direction were the lens points, you can sneak the most bizarre photos. And those are often the nicest.

The Spy Lens is actually a lens you mount on the front of your 'real' lens with the supplied adapter. Without the Spy Lens adapter fits on a lens with a filter size of 52 mm. For any other format is an optional adapter ring needed. The range starts at 49 mm ($ 5) runs through to 77 mm ($ 10). This ring you screw on your lens like you would do with a filter. Instead, then place the Spy lens on it and you can start.

Tilted mirror
On the side of the lens is a hole. If you look in it, you'll see a tilted mirror, which ensures that your camera is not looking straight forward, but in another direction. The whole you can turn left, right, top and bottom. So if you want to shoot someone in front of you, then you have to turn sideways to that person. The front of the Spy Lens features a translucent piece of glass, making it looks like a normal lens.

Vignetting

The lens fits using adapter and gradient ring on each camera and almost any lens.

Some drawbacks still deserves mention here. First you have to deal with vignetting. Only with a super zoom lens that’s minimal. The Spy Lens is only usable on tele (zoom) lenses, but not on a fish-eye or wide angle lens. In addition, you suddenly have a gigantic long lens, which is obviously less practical in use. Only a real photographer however, will see at a glance that it is not a normal lens.

Photojojo Store

Website: www.photojojo.com

Photographing in the snow

2011-01-25T02:38:00.000+01:00

Snow Picture

Tips exposure and white balance

Overexposed and adjust white balance is sometimes necessary for really white pictures.

Winter Landscape Photography

If everything looks as white and beautiful it’s sometimes hard to choose what to photograph. Go look at a nature reserve, a meadow or a forest. Perhaps there is an area nearby where wild horses or cows are. From steamy, large animals in a serene, white landscape you can make stunning photos. Find preferably an area that is known.

Composition

In addition to find a subject, the photographer have a greater task for making a good composition. Normally in a compilation of picture elements often make use of colors and surfaces. But virtually the only color in a snowy winter landscape is white and the smaller areas are covered with snow. Take particular something in the foreground for additional depth to the picture creation, a handrail, a set of skis, a twig, be creative. Diagonal lines also reinforce the feeling of depth. A fence, ridge or forest can be good for this to use. Consider also the 1/3-2/3 rule, the focus SLR camera as that one third of the image is blue sky, against two parts white snow. It brings the composition into balance.

Polarizer: Use a polarizing filter to intensify the blue sky.

Reverberation

However snow looks beautiful, it remains a difficult subject to photograph. When the sun shines on it, the white layer reflects much light. The camera do not always deal with it. It's sunny and there is some blue sky in the picture, then the probability the automatic setting gives a good result. With cloudy weather the reflected light destroys a good light measurement quickly. The light meter measures many 'false' light reflections from the snow and therefore stops to early exposing the snow so the snow is gray and the whole picture is too dark. Who understands the histogram of an image can also ascertain whether the photo is underexposed, by a photo with a large share of snow, a large peak to the far right side of the diagram can be seen. Is the peak is not exactly right, then the chance of a dark picture is great.

Exposure Compensation

In order to solve this exposure compensation can be used. This function usually has a square pictogram with a plus and a minus sign. When you choose now for a compensation of +2/3 or +1 you make the picture actually to light, but this just compensates the deviation of the camera. If possible, always make a few photos with different exposure compensation, a bracketing-ranging from 0 to +1.5. When the offset is too much, then the details in the lightest parts fall away.

The road acts as a sight line that our eyes automatically follow. It provides depth in the photo of snowy trees.

White Snow

Is the place of the subject in the shade, there is a significant chance of a blue image. Experiment with the white balance mode cloudy or shadow, whether it adequately addresses, otherwise, the white balance manually will help. Select manual white balance, focus on beautiful, white snow and shoot. The device now knows what is really white and takes the test as a benchmark measurement.

Camera and cold

People are usually well dressed against the cold. The camera gets no extra coat, although the technique is more difficult in the cold. Battery life seems shorter, so every day have at least a fully charged battery or a spare set of batteries. In extreme cold weather, the camera even can quit. Carry the camera under your coat can help. Otherwise care for a sturdy, insulated camera bag.

Sony looks to change the world of DSLRs

2011-01-21T02:35:00.000+01:00

Sony A700

We really can change the world' says Masashi 'Tiger' Imamura, President of Personal Imaging & Sound Business Group in an exclusive interview with dpreview.com. The company will try to bring together all its technologies to produce a worthy successor to the A700, he told us in a talk that also touched on the future expansion of the NEX system and the company's position on 'full frame' models.

'After the merger [with Konica Minolta] our system was very similar to a traditional DSLR - very similar to Canon and Nikon. They have more heritage than us: traditional DSLRs are a mixture of optics, mechanics as well as electronics. We're coming from the AV industry so we have a lot of unique technologies we can put into our cameras. Now we have merged our resources into one place (Tokyo), we can bring our knowledge from Alpha, NEX, Cyber-Shot and camcorders.'

'There has been a lot of discussion about what an Alpha DSLR should be. We've been focusing for some time on utilizing our unique technologies. The translucent mirror is one and it performs very well. We want the A700 replacement to be in line with that kind of step forward, we want it to be superior to its competitors, that's why we couldn't make it sooner,' he said. But, he assured us, the results will be worth waiting for: 'With the A33 and 55 we tried to look at the problem and get rid of some of the old hassles - the A700 successor should be like that.'

Meanwhile, the NEX concept will expand in several directions, he said: 'The concept of the NEX 3 and 5 were for people who already have a compact stills camera and want to take a step up, but see a traditional DSLR as big, heavy and hard to use. We think these models are a very good fit to those customers. But also there are customers using NEX in addition to their DSLR, so we're planning to expand NEX in a more easy way, a lighter way, but we'll also expand to make models that have more manual control and more DSLR-like capability.'

Imamura repeated the enthusiasm he expressed at Photokina for the use of legacy lenses on the NEX system: 'with lens adapters, people can combine their valued, heritage lenses with a very advanced digital body. We didn't expect that kind of usage. There are lots of interesting things we can do for those types of customer.' The wait for these models may not be too long - at a formal dinner after our interview he told the assembled journalists that: 'the successors to the NEX-3 and NEX-5 are on the horizon.'

But the company's ambition doesn't end there, he said: 'As well as the easy-to-use and DSLR capabilities, we're also thinking about the camcorder style shooters and technologies. The NEX VG10 is one example of that. The barriers between compacts, DSLRs and camcorders will merge - not necessarily in a single device but with technologies and capabilities being shared between them. Our mission is to create new markets - we don't want to make the same products as everyone else and just cannibalise each other in the existing market.'

When asked about full-frame, he said Sony was still committed: 'When we started in DSLR we said that if we have DSLRs, a full-frame camera must be there. But we are working on a lot of products and there is a limit to our engineering capacity. The time will come when I can give more detail. When we announce a full-frame camera we want it to be a big step forward - another technological development might be needed so I say to people: Please stay tuned.'

source: Dpreview.com

Photography Business on a Budget

2011-01-19T15:31:00.000+01:00

Photography

Building a photography business on a budget is challenging but achievable. If you are just starting out, you have to realize that photography is just like any other business, it takes dedication, focus and at least a small amount of capital. Let's take a look at some of the options available. There are of course branches of photography like medicine, forensics and other specialist areas where you don't need a website per say, but you may still like a photo blog for social reasons.

Let's assume that you are a competent photographer and you have enough of a portfolio to at least set up a basic website suitable for your chosen niche. Portraiture, fashion, advertising, public relations, photo-art; the list is long, but no matter which discipline you've chosen you must have a web presence. A free option is to use WordPress.org. The dot com version will be fine at a very basic level but does not support the plugins you'll need if you're serious about your work. This is a practical solution that will allow you to showcase your work and there's great support from within the WordPress community to help you get started.

Don't be intimidated by the prospect of building your own site. There is a learning curve, but your efforts will be well rewarded by making you independent of a webmaster and in total control of the site. An early word of advice is to avoid 'Flash' at all costs. There are several of these styles available to WordPress users but you'll find that flash will do you no favours when it comes to optimising your site for search engines. Register with WordPress forums and you'll find a wealth of information that will help you decide if this is the way to go. The WordPress community is full of wonderful people, but you must remember that this is not a business; it's run by people dedicated to keeping everything 'Open Source'. All the support you receive comes from volunteers, so be polite and patient. It won't be long before you get the hang of things and enjoying a sense of being part of a large family.

A major concern can obviously be about getting things up and running, but never fear, these days its a fairly simple task. There are good solid web hosting companies out there like 'Bluehost', who can show you how to perform a simple install with a few clicks of your mouse through what is called CPanel. You'll find they offer unlimited space, transfer and domains, and most importantly, first class support around the clock, all for less than seven dollars a month. This means that should you decide you need another website for whatever reason you'll be able to host it yourself for no extra charge. Something to remember is that in order for you to build your photography business successfully you're going to be interacting with social media like Facebook and Twitter, and having the capacity to be adding regular posts is a huge asset. You've got that with WordPress and it's much more important than an all singing all dancing website that you've little control over or having to rely on others to upload for you.

There are various options within WordPress to set up photo galleries which some people may find a little intimidating especially if you don't feel comfortable about setting up an e-store. Don't let that be an obstacle. Firstly try the forums and listen to the experiences of others, but if you're still not happy, there are exterior alternatives that are easy and affordable. One UK based company that has an excellent system, including a two week free trial, is Clikpic.com. They offer beautiful classy websites with built in E commerce for only £35 per year, and a US company well worth taking a look at is PhotoReflect.com. You can now have the best of both worlds by linking your personal photo blog to your commercial site which is already set up for business. So let's do a quick recap. You have unlimited web hosting, a photography blog, as many WordPress sites as you wish, and a commercial photography outlet for your work, all for about £10 a month.

I have been a professional photographer for more than thirty years. I enjoy success in photojournalism and photo-art and I've worked for top society magazines in Spain. Keep you photography at the cutting edge, enjoy free trials, discount and great tips in using video with stills. http://www.mybestphototips.com and drop by my photo blog http://jlynn2.com.

By John A Lynn

Quickly Undelete Lost Data on SD Card

2011-01-19T15:20:00.000+01:00

SD card

Have you ever deleted some important data on your SD card mistakenly, or suffered data loss due to accidental formatting or virus attack? And still panic or frustrated about your fault? Well, you don't have to be that worried about it as your entire lost data can and will be undeleted. The most effective and simplest way to get the whole things done is just by relying on a SD card data undelete utility.

Various situations you may need to undelete lost data on SD card?

• Undelete lost precious photos on my digital camera
• Undelete data on my mobile phone
• Undelete corrupted data on the crashed
• Undelete lost game files on my video game console

What you have to be aware of before your lost data are undeleted?

• Do put your card in safe place. Make sure the card won't meet any physical damage as physical damage will make your lost data extremely hard to be recovered with data recovery programs, unless you send it for special data recovery services. But it'll charge you a lot and can't guarantee all your data can be undeleted.

• Don't put more data to your card. If you are using digital camera, stop taking more photos. If you are using mobile phone, game console or similar devices, don't save more new files to the card. Once your original lost data are written over, they are gone for good.

• Don't use any defragmentation tools to defrag your card as defragmentation will erase all the lost data information.

Best data undelete tool to undelete data on SD card?

Whether a data undelete program is good or bad should depend on some factors. Generally speaking, there is no best of best as different undelete programs have their own merits to undelete lost data. So we can only say which one is the most suitable for one particular circumstance. As to judging the best tool to undelete lost data on SD card, I think the following factors shall be considered.

• Excellent undelete capabilities.
• No any further damage or overwriting to original data.
• Be able to deal with different data loss situations from SD card.
• Easy to operate.
• Less time intensive in the process of scanning.

Wondershare Data Recovery is such kind of software that best qualified to undelete lost data on SD card. With four critical functions listed on the program interface, even amateurs can perform undelete steps without technical skills. The three steps are: select, scan, save. It's just so simple. And four different functions will meet different data loss demands. For example, if you delete some precious files from your SD card simply try the function "Delete Recovery" then your lost items will be back in a few minutes as this function supports folder scanning which is time cost effective. And Format Recovery can recover data from formatted devices. I can't see any reason why this data recovery software can't be the best to undelete lost data on your SD card.

This author is a student in Winston Collage who has great interests in System Security and regularly writes for Wondershare Data Recovery and Wondershare Photo Recovery.

By Judith MJ