There are some landscapes where the photo taken from a regular camera is not large enough to take everything in.  Of course there are special cameras which can take a whole 360 degree panoramic view, but if you don’t have one of those then you’d have to be content in stitching the pictures.

 

Of course this could be done with a wide-angle lens.  And in fact some cameras which dub themselves as panoramic are just the same shots, only boxed in with black borders top and bottom.  Though there are problems with wide-angle lenses.  Too wide and the shots start to show barreling, where the straight lines at the sides of the picture are curved.  Fish-eye lenses are natural progression of the barreling effect.

 

The alternative is called stitching.  With manual cameras, stitching is done by taking multiple pictures of a landscape or building.  The pictures are of different parts of a larger picture.  For instance, when taking a picture of a building, you can take portrait oriented (tall) pictures, maybe about nine of pictures, three of the top thirds, another three of the middle third of the building and three more of the bottom thirds.  After developing the film, the nine photos are mounted overlapping each other as a single large picture.

 

Some photo exhibits or nature exhibits do away with stitched photos do away with a rectangular form, and instead mount the photos according to the general shape of the subject.  A stitched photo of a lake may be oval in shape.

 

With today’s digital cameras, there are some, like Canon, which come packaged with photo-stitching software. Alternatively, this could be done manually with Photoshop or most other photo manipulation/editing software.  There are also photo-stitching software which are free and available for download from the web.  

 

The first requirement when doing photo stitching is the set of pictures.  The pictures should overlap a bit when they were shot.  In doing this, it is best if you use markers on the big picture, and to have the neighboring shots include these markers.  For instance, if you were to shoot the other bank of a river, use specific trees or other landmarks as markers, and make sure that succeeding shots include these.  And to minimize any errors, it would help if the overlap were around 25% on each side.  

 

[Note:  The 25% overlap could be less, but not more.  If you used a 25% overlap on each side, each shot would effectively have only a 50% unique area.  All the rest are shared with the neighboring pictures.  If the planned picture were to use more than one plane, each of the shots would only have a unique area of about 25%]

 

The only variables which could not be controlled would be the lighting.  Cloudy weather, with gusts of wind means that the sunshine would vary for the shots.  For the most part, these gradations would have to be cleaned up manually, after the photo stitching.

 

Most photo stitching software I’ve used are fairly automatic.  You load up the pictures, in any order and the software would rearrange the photos (like solving a jigsaw puzzle with rectangular pieces) and stitch the photo with no user intervention.

 

Photo stitching is a fun exercise but it’s not for everyone as it takes a lot more post-production work than the actual photography.

My son took out the old Canon SLR camera during the weekend and started asking technical questions.  He’s been playing around with the Kodak ZR lately, and as part of his school curriculum, they’d be studying photography next year.

 

He’s a late bloomer, as his younger sister has been interested in photography since she was in grade school, and using the Canon.  I’ve retired the SLR a while back and was using a motley group of digital point-and-shoots from Sony, Pentax, Fuji and Canon.

 

To answer his questions I had to go back to the basics of photography:  light, and the capture of light.  After a short discussion where we also connected the Kodak to the TV in order to better see the metering and on-screen info, he started a more thorough study of the manual SLR.  It’s not really a full manual, but in order to explain the relationship of the camera elements, I had to use the manual features.

 

Even with the use of a point-and-shoot and digital cameras, it all boils down to the capture of light and the relationship of the focal length, the aperture, and the shutter speed.  (Admittedly, the ISO rating is slowly losing significance.)  And the best way to explain the inter-relationship of these elements is to use a manual setting.

 

I gave my son an assignment:  to use the old Canon SLR to take some shots and study how to use the controls.  We will, of course, have to buy film for that exercise.

 

I also pointed out the depth-of-field markers on the Canon’s 50mm lens.  It’s quite hard to explain the concept of depth of field if your digital camera has a very deep depth of field, where everything is in focus.  Though it has interesting effects for various shots.

 

During further discussion, I explained that there are some shots where the only option is to use the camera’s manual settings.  And, in fact, there are some circumstances where it would be faster to shot multiple subjects or take multiple shots with the manual settings.  This is due to the auto-focus taking up to two seconds (depending on the camera) to properly read the subject.  I’ve ruined shots because of the auto-focus feature.

 

And I am still not too trusting of a digital camera’s white-balance.

 

On a whim, I took out some old copies of photo magazines and showed him a photo of the regular gear carried by an Italian photojournalist, Ferdinando Scianna.  When on assignment, Scianna carried six SLRs.  He uses  four Nikons with prime lenses,  two of which are full manual camera FM2s.  He uses the FM2s for their mechanical reliability, and besides, these don’t have any batteries.  His other Nikons are a N6006 and a N8008.  The prime lenses on the Nikons were 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 180mm. He also carried a Canon EOS 10S with 20-35mm zoom and a titanium-bodied Olympus OM-4T with a 70-210mm zoom.  That was in 1992.

 

Nowadays, I doubt if there is any reason why a professional photographer would use a manual camera.  Except for the concern of running out of battery power for a photo journalist.

Source:  Imaging Resource

Sanho Corporation recently released a 500GB photo backup with a fast 2GB/s write speed.  The Sanho HyperDrive COLORSPACE UDMA, among other things, features fast backup speeds due to its use of UDMA, a picture viewer, RAW file reader, and can read any of 14 different types of memory cards.

If you have a camera with upwards of 8MP, the file size of the pictures becomes a concern.  Common sense would dictate the use of multiple memory cards.  Or a laptop for easy storage and ready access.  The HyperDrive can serve as a primary picture storage backup, an interim storage till you get to access a computer or as a secondary picture storage.  The 500GB hard disk is not a laughing matter, considering it is coupled with UDMA speeds of 40MB/s for retrieval and storage of pictures.

It has also made sure that the photographer would have no reason not to use it with the memory card reader.  It can read practically all types of flash memory cards available on the market today.

The viewing software can also read all current RAW files from different camera manufacturers for viewing on the 3.2-inch screen.  As an added bonus, the camera orients the picture to portrait (tall) or landscape (wide) depending on how it’s held.

I’m still stuck at its 500GB hard disk.  This is the largest hard disk capacity on any photo storage device.  Other HyperDrive models have mp3 players, this one does away with that.  The files it is designed to store are more than 10-times larger compared to regular mp3 song files.

With a much improved lithium ion battery pack the unit is capable of storing 250GB between recharging.

It allows incremental backup from the memory card, copying only those files which have not yet been saved to the HyperDrive.  It also has a CRC checking which verifies on file copy.  The hard-disk is S.M.A.R.T enabled, which detects possible errors on the disk prior to disk failure, and informs the user to backup immediately.  Built-in data recovery tools allow the recovery of pictures due to formatting or deletion, as well as recovery for lost or corrupted files from the memory card.

The inclusion of data recovery tools for memory cards is significant and would help a lot of photographers.  It’s not everyday that you don’t have to worry about not having the right tool for undeleting or unformatting a memory card.  In some ways the security features alone are well worth the price of the unit.

Suggested retail price starts at $339 for the 80GB model up to $599 for 500GB.

Source: GSMArena.com

For a while, there I thought that camera manufacturers were the only ones interested in higher megapixel ratings.  Now, it seems that even cell phone cameras are in on the race for higher megapixel capabilities.

The newly released Samsung M8800 cell phone has an 8-megapixel camera built-in among other features.  With the range of features that it has, the list looks more like an enumeration for a camera more than for a phone.  As expected, it is auto-focus with two LED flash and with two video settings:  WVGA (720×480) and VGA (640×480) @30fps video recording.  Additionally, it has a face recognition software with smile and blink detection.  It also has a shake reduction software.  It can shot at an ISO 1600 rating.  For video playback it also has DiVx video.

Yes, it’s being marketed as a phone first, camera second.  However, note that it has a geo-tagging capability for the pictures.  That means that the picture file will contain information of where in the world it was taken.  This is due to the built-in software and the GPS receiver.  At the moment, most camera makers are still in the planning stage of implementing geo-tagging in their cameras.

The camera has no WiFi capability, but it uses a micro-SD for data storage.

It would do well to remember that Samsung also markets a whole line of electronic products which include electronic cameras.

The mega-pixel race for cell phone cameras is escalating fast as there are 10-megapixel cameras coming out soon.

As an aside, breaking news will most probably be increasingly through first-hand eyewitness video from camera phones, as the London tube bombing several years ago has shown.  The videos from the tube were by regular commuters waiting for their train, and capturing the videos using camera phones.

The Samsung M8800 is set to be sold in France by mid-October, 2008 and starting at 550 euros (about US$800).

A more common fast shot is that of a moving vehicle.  This, at least needs some preparation:  mainly where to stand.  The rest is a matter of technique or of trust in the camera.

With the recent release of the 21.1MP Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon also released on its website some  pictures taken with the camera.  One of the sample pictures was of a rally car, flying in the air during competition.  This was shot head on (or at least at an angle) as the car was approaching the photographer.  The picture was taken at 1/8000 sec., ISO rating of 1600, f/8.0 aperture value, with a long 600mm lens.

With fast exposure times, high ISO rating, the picture could have been taken as the camera was handheld.  Unfortunately, because of the long lens, the camera had to be mounted on a tripod and the photographer had to wait for that point when the car leaps into the air.  The preparation is in knowing that the car will be at a certain point and you can focus the camera for that shot.  At these speeds, you do not rely on the autofocus.  The aperture value ensured a good depth of field, which is the photographer’s margin of error for this kind of photo.

With the object rushing towards you, the camera has to be steady.  It doesn’t need to be moving.

However, there’s another kind of photo shot where the vehicle is moving in front of you, zipping from left to right (or right to left).  With this, the preparation above would work fine as well, though I usually follow a more technique which gives a more dynamic picture.

Again, taking this shot takes some preparation.  After choosing the spot, composing the shot based on the background and envisioning the car (or bicycle or motorcycle or runner) in the foreground, you can focus for the expected distance from the object when it passes by.  From the moment the object comes into view until it has passed by, follow it with the camera.  When it gets to the point you’ve already prepared for, take the shot.

Again, this needs a high ISO rating and a quick shutter speed.  But the aperture could be medium, an f/8 so that there’s more allowance for the object to be in focus and not blurred.

To explain, what’s going to happen is that the object will be in sharp focus even as the background is a blur because you were moving the camera.  The object will look as if it was at standstill because you were following it with the camera when the picture was taken.  And to ensure that, with a digital camera, you have to use the manual settings for the focus.

Sounds almost too easy.  But it still needs practice.

I just saw a photo done on a website with a photo submissions page for amateur models (and I presume that the photographers are also amateurs) and only now have I realized that current digital cameras really are fast.

The beach scene picture was of a model wading in the water and throwing her head back, with the wet hair trailing water.  The picture itself was only 600×900 (portrait) and was a full body shot, however, the water trail was from the knees to about another three feet above her head, with the hair extending upwards as well.  What’s important to note is the detail of the water droplets in varying sizes, from knee high water to the arc above her.

Technically, there are several requirements for the scene to be captured.  The light has to be quite strong.  Since the picture was on a beach in the Maldives, that was taken care of –  the subject’s face was quite sun-burned.  The aperture has to be wide, to capture the most light.  And from the picture it sure looked like it, as the background showed a blurred shape up to his waist in water.  And if you looked closely, even the waves a few feet from the subject was already blurred and out of focus.  These two perquisites are to ensure the third one, a short exposure of maybe 1/1000th of a second, at most.

A few years back I would have added a fast film, at least an ASA/ISO 400.  (But who brings ISO 400 film to the beach?)  But nowadays, a good quality DSLR with manual settings could take the shot.

With good weather, this beach money shot could be taken around 8:00am to 10:00am in summer.  It could actually be taken as early as 7:00pm, but you run the risk of not having enough light.  Later than 10:am and the sun would be too high.  In the afternoon, after 4:00pm and you run the risk of a reddish tint to the picture.  And do make sure that the photographer (and camera) has his back to the sun.

Beach pictures are usually problematic.  The sand reflects light and the shot might be over-exposed.  White balance settings have to be set properly.  It would be best to attach a polarizer to the lens to catch bluer skies and clearer waters.

This kind of picture is not usually taken during trips to the beach.  It takes some time to set up and compose.  Again, the good news is that if your digital camera has a manual setting, it’s worth the time to set it up.

I’ve been discussing filters for a while now, and I guess I need to go back one step and explain what a filter is and what it can do.  In photography, a filter is a camera accessory consisting of an optical element that can be inserted in the optical or light path. The filter can be a square or rectangle shape mounted in a holder accessory, or, more commonly, a glass or plastic disk with a metal or plastic ring frame, which can be screwed in front of the  lens.

Filters allow added control for the photographer of the images being produced. Sometimes they are used to make only subtle changes to images; other times the image would simply not be possible without them. The selection of the proper filter is actually far more important than any choice of lens or camera. The filter has a large and real effect on your image. Lens brand and sharpness does not.

The negative aspects of using filters, though often negligible, include the possibility of loss of image definition if using dirty or scratched filters, and increased exposure required by the reduction in light transmitted. The former is best avoided by careful use and maintenance of filters, while the latter is a matter of technique; it usually will not be a problem if planned out properly, but in some situations does make filter use impractical.  Worst case is that the light degradation is inevitable and is something I have to live with when using some filters.

Photographers classify filters according to their use. If you are aiming for cleaner, sharper pictures with less haze, photographers would pick up UV Filters which absorbs ultraviolet rays.  In fact, most photographers leave a UV filter on their camera lens at all times to protect the lens from dust, moisture, scratches, and breakage.

There is what are called Sky Filters – which reduce blush tones in outdoor shots.  We do not have to worry because this keeps skin tones natural and free of reflection from nearby objects.  It can also serve as a permanent lens protector.

Protector Filters are filters which protect your lenses from expensive front element damage which could be caused by dirt, knocks or scratches.

And you can choose also polarizer filters.     The circular polarizer and moose filters  are essential for outdoor photography; deepens intensity of blue skies; reduces or eliminates glare.  Circular Polarizing filters are used on auto focus cameras.  When using non-auto focus camera, use linear polarizer filters and linear focus.

The Neutral Density Filters are devised to reduce the amount of light without affecting the color.  This also eliminates overly bright, washed out images. This is also great for video.

One special kind of filter is the HOYA HMC Ultra Thin Filter.  This is a series or set of high end filters designed to avoid vignetting problems which occur with wide angle lenses.

Filters are commonly used in black and white photography to manipulate contrast. For example a yellow filter will enhance the contrast between clouds and sky by darkening the latter. Orange and red filters will have a stronger effect. A deep green filter will darken the sky too but will lighten green foliage and will make it stand out against the sky. Also see diffusion filters, which are used to reduce contrast.

Yes, filters are needed even if you use a digital camera and edit with Photoshop. Polarizers and grad filters need to be used before the lens and are not well, if at all, simulated electronically. Digital cameras are excused from most of the color conversion filters, since you dial these in as white balance settings. I still use a mild warming filter (81A) on all my digital cameras since I prefer the look I get, even with the WB adjusted warm.

Every time Leica releases a new model it becomes an instant classic.  This time it released a new model which was so unexpected that it created a class of its own.

The Leica S2 is a 37-megapixel camera in a body the size of a 35mm DSLR.  It has a 30x45mm CCD sensor, which is about 56% larger than a full-frame DSLR sensor.  It’s a weather-sealed body, with dual-shutter capability and saves to raw, JPEG and DNG.  It has a 3-inch LCD  at the back with a control display at the top of the camera.

And what’s more is that there are nine lenses designed specifically for the S2 which were also announced at the same time.  This indicates that Leica is intent to make this camera the start of a whole new series.

However, contrary to what this looks like, the S2 is not a regular DSLR, but what Leica calls a “middle-format” which is a new platform.  Leica noted that photographers who use medium format cameras also have a second camera, usually a Nikon or a Canon SLR for field work.  And the S2 was designed for that market of professional photographers (with the expected price tag to boot).  It has a sensor the size of medium-format film, in the body of an SLR.  A relatively medium-sized SLR.

Traditionally, large printing was done with transparencies shot with medium-format cameras.  The film size is larger than those for a 35mm SLR.  You can blow up both films, but the optimum blow up size for a 35mm film is considerably smaller than those for a medium-format camera. With the migration to digital format, the analogy is that of more megapixels for larger prints.  If you have a 3-megapixel picture, it’s optimum size would be that of half-A4 size.  When printing a 3MP picture to the size of an A4 page, the resulting print would be showing artifacts and blurs.  You would have been better off with a 5MP or an 8MP file for A4 size printing.

(Another way of looking at it is if you used an 800×600 jpeg file as a desktop background on your 1280×960 screen. Same thing happens, you’ll be getting blurs and artifacts.)

In terms of printing area, a 37MP would be more than enough for printing on a big poster, showing details even when you have your nose up close to it.

My take on it is that the S2′s only compromise is the use of CCD instead of CMOS.  Then again, it would have taken them a little bit more research and development, and a larger budget if they had used CMOS sensors.  On the other hand, the use of CCD means that the this is still slightly slower than DSLRs with CMOS sensors.  Come to think of it, at 37MP, it doesn’t make sense to have CMOS sensors because of the sheer size of the resulting file.  The bottle-neck would just move from the sensor translation to the file saving part of the software.

At a rumored price close to $30,000, the Leica S2 will be available Summer of 2009.

Official website:  Leica.com

Source:  Digital Photo Gadgets Blog

As photo frames go, I have a lots of photo frames for my still pictures.  They are all around the house, in varying sizes and shapes, with single pictures and some holding multiple prints.  I guess that is very much dated now. What with the developments on technology (and Harry Potter novels with the moving images inside the pictures) I guess it would have been a matter of time for a moving image in a photo frame.

My latest photo frame is an 8-inch LCD digital photo frame.  Yup, I thought it was time for a change.  Though I didn’t think that anything smaller than an 8-inch would be worth it.  But it should be noted that there is a significant price difference between a 7-inch digital photo frame and an 8-inch one.  Among other things, my digital photo frame is not battery powered and doesn’t have internal memory.  It comes with a USB port, and slots for SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro/xD type memory cards.  It can run videos but it doesn’t have a sound output jack or built-in speakers.

But, still, the main problem with that model is that it doesn’t run on batteries.  The portability of a photo frame makes it a notch above that of a regular photo frame.  A battery-powered photo frame, can be technically considered a photo viewer.  The first portable photo viewers were only about 3-inch LCD screens and looked like cameras without lenses.  Nowadays, a lot of photo viewers are larger (up to 7-inches) and capable of video and sound.

And recently, Kodak just released the specs for their new digital photo frame.  And it has a 7-inch OLED screen.

The use of the organic light emitting diode (OLED) means that this device would be thinner and use less power.  It also means that for now it would still be a bit more expensive to manufacture.

This will be up for sale November 2008 for $999 from the Kodak.com

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