Monday, July 24, 2006

Great exposure: Manual settings on digital cameras

Some digital cameras like the Canon A620 give you the option to manually adjust exposure settings: a great feature that will help you become a better photographer.

Exposure refers to the amount of light let into the camera while shooting pictures. It depends on two variables: shutter-speed and aperture. Shutter-speed determines the length of time that the camera shutter is open; the faster the speed the less the light. Aperture refers to the size of the opening allowing light onto the camera sensor. It’s measured in f-stops where a higher f-stop indicates a smaller-sized aperture which lets in less light. Manual exposure means directly choosing these two variables according to the subject and lighting conditions.

For example, freezing a fast-moving object requires a high shutter-speed. Alternatively if you want that little of blur to indicate movement you might pick a slightly slower speed. Adjusting the aperture changes the depth of field: for instance if you want both a close object and a distant one in focus you should choose higher f-stops. The trick is to pick shutter-speed and aperture according to the subject while simultaneously making sure there is sufficient light for a correctly exposed photo.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Prints are forever: Printers for your digital camera

While digital photos can be enjoyed on your computer or TV, there is no substitute for prints which you can hold in your hands and hang on your walls. Fortunately there is a great selection of reasonably priced photo printers available today.

Canon printers are famous for their picture quality and the Canon PIXMA iP4200 delivers with its proprietary FINE technology which uses tiny droplets to produce finely detailed photos with little grain. The iP4200 has a number of convenient features like two-sided printing and a dual paper tray so that you don’t have to keep switching between photo and regular paper.

The Epson Stylus R250 has some useful features as well like in-built memory card slots and a colour preview screen. It is optimized to save ink; you only need to replace a single depleted cartridge instead of the entire set and there is also a special mode for saving black ink.

Finally the HP Photosmart 7838 has four memory card slots including Compact Flash, Secure Digital and Memory Stick. What this means is that you will able to directly access the printer without any annoying wires. The printer also comes with a colour display for pre-viewing photos.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Good things in small packages: Nikon Coolpix S6

The first thing you notice about the 6-megapixel Coolpix S6 is its sleek design; the camera is just an inch thick and weighs less than 500 grams. But look closer and you will notice a great set of features as well.

Despite its small size, the S6 comes with a 3 inch LCD screen as well as speakers. It also comes with a slide-show feature called Pictmotion which combines your pictures and music to create a slide-show which can be viewed on the camera itself.

The S6 has a rich set of features to improve your pictures and these are easily accessed through the one-touch portrait button. Face Priority AF detects human faces automatically to produce sharply focussed pictures. D-lighting corrects for pictures which are poorly lit and there is also an in-camera red-eye fixing feature. In addition, there are 15 scene modes to take great pictures in a wide range of situations. You can also shoot movies with sound at 30 fps as well as time-lapse movies (like a flower blooming or clouds passing by). Finally the S6 is Wifi-capable and you can transfer pictures wirelessly both to your PC and compatible printers.

The S6 retails in India at around Rs 20,000.

Technorati Tags
Digicam | Digital SLR | Digital Camera | Nikon | Coolpix | Coolpix S6

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

The improved Rebel: Canon EOS 350D

The rise of the consumer-level digital SLR is one of the most exciting trends in digital cameras allowing amateur photographers access to tools that can take near-professional quality photos. SLR stands for Single Lens Reflex and probably the most significant feature of an SLR camera is the ability to remove and change the lens giving the photographer a much wider range of options: a zoom lens to shoot far-off subjects, a macro lens to shoot small objects and so on.

The Canon EOS 350D is an improved version of an earlier model: the Digital Rebel. It comes with an 8 megapixel sensor and also comes with Canon’s highly regarded Digic II processor which produces faster processing and more natural colours. It’s also a bit smaller and lighter than the Digital Rebel though, of course, a lot bigger than point-and-shoot digital cameras. The 350D comes with a huge number of shooting options ; more than any high-end point-and-shoots. In addition to full manual controls over the exposure, you get numerous options to adjust the light-metering, auto-focus and flash. The 350D also comes with a maximum ISO of 1600 which means better photos in low light.

Technorati Tags
Digicam | Digital SLR | Digital Camera | Canon

Blog Flux Directory Top Technology Blogs Listed in LS Blogs Blog Directory & Search engine Technorati Profile