Archive for October, 2007
Digital Art for Beginners
PC Magazine
Do you aspire to use your computer to create more than spreadsheets and e-mails? We’ll give you the scoop on affordable software and hardware that’ll let you indulge your creative side without breaking the bank.
by Errol A. Pierre-Louis
Looking to indulge your creative side with your computer? You could spend a pile on hardware and software—but you don’t have to. Unless you know that it’s worth cashing out your 401K to get set up with Adobe CS3 and a high-end D-SLR, you’re better off starting small and then upgrading if your work merits it.
With the right software and hardware, you can still make art that looks like a million bucks.
By far the most common way of making digital art is to take (and manipulate) pictures. And that means picking the right camera. The work-horse for beginning shooters is a quality point-and-shoot digital camera. You’ll want a camera slim enough to tote around, but powerful enough to produce high-quality pictures without too much tinkering. The Canon PowerShot SD1000 provides the portability and power you’ll need in a sleek 7.1-megapixel camera for under $200. If you’ve got the money to spend, you might instead opt for a superzoom (a camera with a 10X or greater optical zoom). For less than $300 you can purchase the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3, a superzoom with the style of a compact camera you can slip into your pocket.
Not every photo you take will be perfect. You don’t always have the time or skill to properly compose your photos, so you’ll need some software to touch up your pics. Photoshop Elements 6 is a great option for casual photographers. Adobe took the powerful features that make Photoshop CS3 a photo-editing powerhouse and boiled them down into this comprehensive but accessible app for amateurs. Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 is another good choice for making speedy corrections to your images, and it’s great at helping you manage your photo collection—you’ll find this increasingly important as you quickly accumulate thousands of pics.
If you feel like dabbling in digital painting, Corel Painter Essentials 4 is a great place to start. This entry-level app can transform digital photos into paintings or produce realistic paintings (or drawings) from scratch on your computer. The Wacom Bamboo Fun is a perfect compliment for the Painter Essentials 4. For about $100, you can buy this sleek pen-tablet that lets you paint and draw on your computer as you would on a canvas.
Once you’ve polished your digital photos you’ve got two ways to display them. If you want to go the print route, invest in a quality photo printer like our recent Editors’ Choice, the HP Photosmart A626 Compact. This printer features kiosk-style touch-screen controls and prints 5-by-7s, 4-by-6s, and up to 4-by-12-inch panoramas.
If you prefer to share your work online, Sharpcast Photos Beta 2 is an image-hosting service that allows you to save your original images for free in a 1,600-by-1,200-pixel format ideal for 5-by-7-inch prints. It’d be a shame to have an entire digital art collection wiped out by a crashed hard drive, so it’s also a good idea to back up all your photos. Corel MediaOne Plus gives you lifetime online backup through Sharpcast and easy burning to CDs and DVDs. While these two apps don’t offer particularly advanced features, they make organizing, sharing, and backing up your photos and paintings incredibly easy.
The products presented in this roundup should have you producing and sharing gorgeous pictures with little time and effort. Be sure to read the descriptions below and, as always, click the links for a more in-depth look at these beginner tools.
Canon PowerShot SD1000
With all the competition among point-and-shoot digital cameras, the Canon PowerShot SD1000 still manages to stand out from the pack. This ultracompact produces fantastic picture quality, zero shutter lag, and a beautiful design. This Editors’ Choice digital camera is a perfect edition to your amateur photographer tool kit.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3
If you want something more advanced than a point-and-shoot camera, but don’t have the need or money to buy a D-SLR, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 superzoom camera would be a good choice. It takes awesome photos, yet is still compact enough to carry around.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6
For Adobe, the king of digital image software, the challenge isn’t making a powerful photo-editing app, but making an app everyone can use. Elements takes a comprehensive professional-grade feature set and makes it accessible to amateurs.
Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2
This app is a good choice for photo enthusiasts who want to make quick corrections to their images. This latest edition features a revamped interface, an Express Lab option for speedy photo editing, and an added Layer Styles feature strengthens the program’s already powerful graphics-creation capabilities.
Corel MediaOne Plus
This app lets you easily create and share basic projects like albums, calendars, scrapbooks, and slide shows that include audio and video. It also offers free lifetime online image backup so you don’t have to worry about losing your precious snapshots.
Corel Painter Essentials 4
Explore your creative side with this entry-level digital painting app. Painter Essentials 4 can transform digital photos into paintings or produce realistic paintings on your computer. If you’re curious about creating digital art, there’s no better place to start.
Wacom Bamboo Fun
The Bamboo Fun is the perfect compliment for digital painting software like Corel Painter Essentials 4. This sleek pen tablet lets you draw and paint with ease, and the tablet itself is almost a work of art.
Sharpcast Photos Beta 2
This service offers elegant PC-to-Web synchronization that makes organizing and editing your photos easy. It lets you store photos as large as 1,600 by 1,200 pixels, ideal for 5-by-7-inch prints without crunching down images, sacrificing quality for storage space. It’s not as powerful as the other previously recommended hosting service, Phanfare, but Sharpcast makes sharing and securing your photos incredibly intuitive
HP Photosmart A626 Compact Photo Printer
After you’ve uploaded your shots and fine-tuned them on your computer, you’ll want an easy way to print them out and show them off. You can’t go wrong with the Photosmart A626, which replaced our previous Editors’ Choice HP Photosmart A716 as the new top of the compact photo printer line for HP.
October 31st, 2007
Samsung Focuses on Leading Digital Camera Market
Chosun Ilbo, South Korea
Samsung Electronics is ready to take over the global digital camera market. Korea’s largest electronics maker recently integrated the sales and marketing network of its digital camera affiliate, Samsung Techwin, into its own to increase its presence in the market.
A Samsung Techwin source said the two companies formed a task force of four or five staff from each firm to plan strategies that would utilize the group’s global sales and marketing network for the digital camera business. “The strategies will be implemented from next year and they aim to be the leader of the market by 2010,” he added.
The new plan is based on the company’s success in growing its sales of TVs and printers by cranking up supply. It plans to turn out 12 million digital cameras this year alone from its camera plants including Samsung Techwin’s factory in Tianjin, China, which was completed in March. This will make it the world’s number three digital camera maker, following Canon (20 million) and Sony (16 million).
Digital camera makers have been enjoying growing profits recently. Canon saw its operating margin for its digital camera business rise 18.5 percent. Sony posted a 16.9 percent jump in sales of electronics in the third quarter thanks mainly to rising sales of its Cyber-shot digital cameras. Contrary to forecasts that the market would be saturated by now, sales are still expanding. That’s why Samsung plans to grab a larger share by increasing production.
There are some concerns about Samsung’s plan. The digital camera market has two sectors — premium products such as DSLRs and mass products. Samsung is competitive only in the mass sector. Also, the market has not responded well to the plan. Samsung Techwin’s stock price rose to around W70,000 (US$1=W907) due to market expectations, but has fallen to its usual value of around W50,000.
An industry source said that Samsung Electronics’ sales network would be very helpful, but what is essential for increasing sales is optics technology. “The key to the success of the plan is whether Samsung can catch up with other marker leaders’ technological power within two to three years. In the case of Canon, it’s the third largest patent holder in the world,” he said.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
October 30th, 2007
Fujifilm Finepix S700
Reviews of the latest cameras Comparisons by price and features
www.nytimes.com
infoSync World, Norway
We attended Fujifilm Finepix’s Z10fd launch party at the Fillmore here in New York and got an early look at Fujifilm’s tweener-targeted point-and-shoot.
Aimed at the teenager growing up in the heyday of Web 2.0, Fujifilm seems to envision their neon-colored point-and-shoot as the centerpiece of their socially-networked lives. At the launch event for their Finepix Z10fd camera, featuring MTV-favorite rock bands The Bravery and Locksley (not to mention miniature hamburgers and hot dogs), Fujifilm made no bones about who their audience is. But does the hardware stand up to the needs of a 13-year-old with a MySpace addiction?
They’ve included a beam feature, using Infrared beams to transfer photos from one camera to another, also working with any Infrared beaming device, like a mobile phone. The “Blog mode” crops and resize photos in-camera, for instant uploading from a computer. “Auction mode” allows users to combine multiple images into one to quickly post to an auction site like eBay.
Of the four current Z-series models, the Z10fd certainly stands out the most. A brand new “Twin Ring” button structure on the back panel of the camera pairs with a curvy form factor to separate it from the sharp, crisp lines of the rest of the Z-series. The Z10fd also becomes one of only two Z-series cameras that are compatible with both SD and SDHC memory cards in addition to xD. It is also available in 7 colors, as opposed to the Z-series standard of 4.
The interface hasn’t changed much from the standard Finepix menus, but the slideshow, scrapbook and micro thumbnail view options were probably the most interesting of the camera’s features. The slideshow could be played with music, and both the scrap book and thumbnail views allowed us to view a lot more images than we’d ever imagined looking at on a camera’s LCD screen. We’ll wait to pass judgement on the images it took until we can shoot outside of a dark club and view our photos on a computer.
Spec-wise, the Z10fd is incredibly average; the 7.2 megapixel sensor, 3x optical zoom lens, VGA video and face detection can be found on countless other cameras. We liked that it had 54MB of internal memory, but the low ISO setting (max of ISO 1600) and the 2.5-inch LCD with only 150,000 pixels were disappointing.
Fujifilm seems to have attempted to streamline and simplify the proliferation of photographs between kids and their friends, but on first glance they seem to fall short. They seem to be pushing the youth angle really hard, and while they seem to have the marketing down, the technology is just the opposite: old. IR beaming is a slow, line-of-sight dependent transfer technology (where’s the Bluetooth?). Rather than resizing photos in-camera for easy uploading once hooked up to a computer, why can’t we have Wi-Fi to send the photos directly from the camera over the internet? These are all prevalent technologies, in no way unreasonable to expect from a camera being marketed the way the Z10fd is.
October 29th, 2007
Small digital cameras crammed with more features for less cash
Modesto Bee, CA
By NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.
last updated: October 28, 2007 03:33:22 AM
This season, you’ll see small digital cameras not only in sober black and silver but also in hues such as wasabi green and sunset orange.
In a recent study, Consumer Reports found that even modestly priced models are offering more and more features, such as image stabilization, which can compensate for camera shake and minimize blurring, and face detection, which aids in portrait shots. The touch-screen technology found on the iPhone and other smart phones is showing up on more digital cameras’ LCD screens, and those screens are getting bigger.
Prices have dropped, too, especially for compacts and SLRs. In recent ratings, CR rated two compacts priced at or near $200 among its Best Buys. And now you can find respectable compacts with familiar brand names for less than $200.
According to CR, the best budget choices overall are the Canon PowerShot A550, with 7 megapixels, at $150, and the Canon PowerShot A460, with 5 megapixels, at $130. Several models proved competent though slower than most, including the Kodak EasyShare C653 (6 megapixels) at $140, the Nikon Coolpix L10 (5 megapixels) at $120, the Pentax Optio M30 (7 megapixels) at $190 and the Olympus FE-210 (7 megapixels) at $140.
The Polaroid T737 (7 megapixels), at $180, proved too slow for action- packed scenes. It has the biggest LCD of the group, at 3 inches, but its image quality is fair to middling. Next-shot delay is a full five seconds, longer than any rated model. Shutter lag is also on the slow side, at 1½ seconds.
HOW TO CHOOSE — Here’s what you need to know to choose the camera that’s right for you:
Don’t buy too big or too small. Almost all the cameras that CR rated took decent pictures. Your choice will depend a lot on whether you favor small size or extra photographic power and flexibility.
Compact cameras, too big for a pocket but small enough to fit easily in a bag, remain the best choice for most people, especially if your budget is tight.
Don’t overspend on the specs. While some 5-megapixel models might linger in stores, most new cameras now offer at least 6 or 7 megapixels.
A growing number of point-and- shoots, or cameras with built-in lenses, offer 10 and 12. Six megapixels provide all the resolution most people need. If you often crop or dramatically enlarge your images, get at least 7 megapixels.
Weigh zoom trade-offs. Another feature to consider carefully is an optical zoom range that’s greater than the 3x found on most cameras.
(A zoom lens’s range is the ratio of its highest telephoto focal length to its lower wide-angle length. For example, a zoom lens considered equivalent to a film camera’s 35 mm to 105 mm lens has a range of 3x.) Greater zoom means greater weight and bulk, though a few pricey compacts manage to squeeze 10x into a package just a few ounces heavier than many basic compacts and slightly larger than many subcompacts.
Forgo the extended warranty. CR has found digital cameras to be among the most reliable products in its subscriber surveys. About 5 percent of those purchased from 2004 to 2007 have been repaired or had a serious problem. Yet in its latest electronics buying survey, CR found that more than 70 percent of digital-camera buyers were pitched an extended warranty in stores.
Best times to buy. Camera prices don’t fluctuate seasonally, but most new models reach the market during two periods: March through May and September and November. During those times, many older models are replaced by more capable ones that often cost about the same. To catch the wave of the latest models, buy between November and February or May and August, when older models might be discounted before they disappear. But scrutinize offers that are too good to be true, since some dealers use them to unload refurbished cameras.
On the Net:
October 29th, 2007
Review: Ricoh Caplio R7 digital camera
VNUNet.com, UK
Compact digital cameras with large zoom lenses are now fairly common, and the Caplio R7 is the latest such offering from Ricoh.
Its wide-angle lens has a 7.1x zoom (equivalent to 28-200mm on a film camera) allowing both close ups and wide shots, so it’s ideal for both group pictures and landscapes.
A number of enhancements have been made since its last incarnation, the R6. There’s a choice of black, silver, or orange body, and the resolution has been increased to over eight megapixels. Its shares an all-metal construction with its recent predecessors, making for a solid, weighty build quality.
All of the menu buttons have been enlarged so they are more accessible, and as a result the camera is more user-friendly than the R6. Refreshingly, an excellent manual is included, covering everything from how to charge the battery to good practice when composing a shot.
It also has a large, bright screen, but sadly, as with many other modern digital cameras, there’s no optical viewfinder. Anyone who has tried to view a screen in bright sunlight will know how difficult this can be.
During testing, the results we got were inconsistent. In low light, the camera produced grainy, blurred pictures despite using the image stabiliser feature, which should have compensated for camera shake on longer exposures. Enabling the flash corrected the fuzziness, but bleached the whole image out, making a softly-lit lounge look more like the scene of an X-Files alien abduction.
Conversely, however, outdoor pictures were sharp, well-balanced and extremely detailed at the highest resolution setting. The difference in the quality of the results obtained could be reduced with some tweaking of the advanced settings, but we were unimpressed that the camera’s auto mode didn’t address this. Its erratic performance in different lighting conditions makes it hard to recommend as a reliable point-and-shoot camera, which is what it is intended to be.
October 26th, 2007
Fall Tech Guide: Digital Camera Roundup
PC World Canada, Canada
As the holidays approach, one of the key pieces of gear people look to splurge on are digital cameras. And as always, there’s a new crop of models on the market that would be worth a look
Nikon Coolpix S51c (Retail price: $430)
The truly unique feature in the Coolpix S51c is that it’s got built-in Wi-Fi. That means you can take photos you just shot and email them over to friends directly from the camera, so long as you’re in a Wi-Fi hotspot. Alternatively, you can upload them to a Nikon-hosted Web site called myPicturetown (with 2GB of storage for you) where friends and family can go to download those same images
It’s the second Wi-Fi-enabled digicam from Nikon, and a pretty novel idea in its implementation, albeit with some limitations. Many public Wi-Fi hotspots out there require activation by either paying a fee or agreeing to access terms - both of which you can’t do with the S51c. Without a built-in Web browser, it becomes difficult to go through the motions. However, this does mean that open hotspots are fair game for doing your business in sharing photos. You can also access private routers where you can enter a security code to get access.
When you move past the Wi-Fi feature, there is a good camera to be had here. The three-inch screen is nice, the form factor is slim and thin and it’s user-friendly. But from a more technical standpoint, the S51c takes better photos in lower-light (up to 1600 ISO) because of an improved image sensor. The range of the lens is pretty low because it doesn’t protrude, though that may not matter if you’re shooting mostly generic group and landscape shots at the full 8.1-megapixel resolution.
Canon PowerShot SD870 IS (Retail price: $500)
It’s no surprise that one of the first things that sticks out at you about Canon’s new SD870 IS is the price point. At $500, it’s one of the more expensive compact digicams out on the market, and part of the reason for that is the special wide-angle lens that comes with it. In paraphrasing what many a consumer might say about that: so what?
But a wider-angle lens is actually a big deal when you consider how much more you can cram into the average photo. Those big landmarks or large group photos would be easier to shoot, instead of having to take steps back to squeeze everything in. It’s easy to see this illustrated in front of you when you’re staring at a three-inch screen. And if you’re shooting at the full 8.3-megapixel resolution, it’s likely that you’ll have more options when cropping a photo.
The IS at the end of the name means “image stabilization”, and is probably the key overall feature of this camera. With optical image stabilization, it makes it easier to take great shots in lower-light settings because the lens compensates for any shakiness in your hands. Now, that doesn’t mean shooting sporting events or fast movement is just as easy because you would need a higher ISO to help with that. And at 1600 ISO, the SD870 IS doesn’t perform extremely well. You also won’t get much in manual controls, and dedicated shooting modes are pretty basic, too. But all in all, this is one of the best compact digicams out on the market.
Fuji Finepix F50fd (Retail price: $350)
Using a flash all the time is not a great way to take photos, as all those washed out faces and darkened backgrounds will prove to you time and time again. Fuji’s F series cameras are among the best out there for shooting under natural light, mainly because the image sensor is good at capturing higher levels of detail with minimal noise.
Fuji introduced a cool mode in last year’s F30 that allows you to shoot two photos at the same time - one with flash, and one without. The F50fd carries this as well, and improves on it by cutting the amount of time in between capturing both shots. The two are then displayed side-by-side on the 2.5-inch LCD screen so you can see the difference. This feature actually tends to work better than the standalone natural light option, which seems to capture images with a little more noise. There’s also a small image stabilization button at the top next to the shutter to help steady your hands.
Face detection, a feature that first made waves last year, is back in the F50fd with improved execution. There’s also a unique feature in the F50fd that allows you to share photos with other compatible Fuji camera owners via infrared (it’s found on the other side of the shutter). If you took a great shot that a friend wants, you can send it over to them by facing the infrared slots directly toward each other like a remote control to a TV. No need to wait till getting home to email them over.
Sony CyberShot DSC-T70 (Retail price: $380)
The traditional knock against Sony’s compact digicams is that they’re not robust enough, usually sacrificing substance to go with a sense of style and brand name. In the last couple of years, that seems to be changing. In the CyberShot DSC-T70 8.1-megapixel, Sony is finally showing that they can try some new things.
Face detection isn’t a new feature, but the “smile shutter” that works in tandem with it is one of Sony’s innovations. The idea behind it is pretty simple: the T70 would recognize a smile on a subject’s face and snap the photo on its own. It comes across as a gimmick (much like face detection does), and still needs some refinement, but it’s also the sort of feature the average digicam owner could appreciate. Part of the problem is that the smile shutter can jump the gun when only one person is showing teeth in a group photo of three people. It also tends to have trouble identifying a smile where no teeth are being shown at all.
Another unique innovation is the wide angle three-inch touchscreen in the back. Having a fully-functional menu based on touch has been done with a few other digicams as well, but there is a cool factor here. You can touch the screen on a certain subject in order to have the lens focus on it before shooting. It takes some getting used to but it works well enough to keep using it. The T70 also comes in silver, black and pink.
Olympus Stylus 790 SW (Retail price: $350)
The Stylus SW series from Olympus is arguably the most rugged and durable of any digicam line out on the market. Not only can the 790 SW survive a drop of up to five feet but it can also handle a plunge in depths of up to 10 feet underwater. The bonus is that you can also take underwater shots with a dedicated shooting mode specifically for it. And for those cold winter months here in Canada, the 790 SW can keep on clicking in temperatures as low as -25 celsius.
Despite its rugged resolve and the fact that it comes in multiple colours with a 7.1-megapixel image sensor, the 790 SW does take a small step back in one area. It’s predecessor, the 770 SW, was able to handle water depths of 33 feet and was also crushproof, meaning it can handle up to 220 lbs. of weight on it. But that may not matter to some consumers, especially those who couldn’t envision themselves sitting on the 790 SW for any particular reason.
In its feature set, the 790 SW has face detection and over 20 dedicated shooting modes. But its one key drawback is that it doesn’t shoot very well in lower-light conditions. When shooting at anything above 200 ISO in low light, the image captures a little noise (or a lot of noise at 1600 ISO) and appears to have a yellowish haze all over. You can fix the hazy part using image-editing software, but the noise is another story. The 790 SW isn’t the best camera for your average shooting needs, but is your best option for those beach-filled vacations and skiing trips.
Next page of the Fall Tech Guide: So You Wanna Buy a Smartphone?
October 25th, 2007
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T2 Digital Camera Announced
Digital Camera Reviews, OH
The new Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T2 is a new large screen, sharing-friendly, portable album, digital camera. It’s an 8 megapixel camera with a stabilized 3x optical zoom and 2.7 inch touch-senstiive LCD. 4 GB of internal storage provides plenty of space to keep your pictures with you. The T2 will be available in blue, green, white, pink or black, starting in December 2007 for around $350.
Sony has really concentrated on the sharing aspects of this camera. In addition to being able to store and view images by date or by event, you can also mark favorites (so they’re easy to find), and you can mark images that you’d like to share later (via the web). When you connect the camera to your computer, the software preloaded on the camera, Sony PMB Portable, will allow you to upload images and movies directly from your camera to popular sharing sites, like Crackle, Flickr, YouTube, Photobucket and Shutterfly.
The touch-sensitive screen removes the need for many buttons, like the Sony T200 that is currently on the market. You will see many of the similar features as well, where you can touch the screen of the area that you’d like to focus on, or zoom in on during playback mode. You’ll find the Smile Shutter mode that doesn’t fire the shutter until it detects smiles on the faces of people in your shots.
Scrapbooking features built into the camera lets you pick from 16 designs in which to view your photos and you can use 8 creative effects to play around with your images. When you’re ready to show your images off and have an HDTV in the room, you can connect the camera to your TV with a HD component cable or HD cradle.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T2 summary specifications:
8 megapixels, 1/2.5″ CCD
3x optical zoom with Super SteadyShot image stabilization system
2.7 inch, 230K pixel touch-sensitive LCD
Face detection
Movie recording: 640×480@30fps, 640×480@16.6fps, 320×240@8.3fps
Focus: Multi-area, center-weight, flexible spot (via touch panel)
Shutter speed range: 1 - 1/1000 second (program auto mode)
White balance: Auto, daylight, cloudy, fluorescent 1, fluorescent 2, fluorescent 3, incandescent
Metering: Multi-pattern, center-weighted, spot
ISO range: 80-3200
Exposure modes: Auto and program auto only
Scene modes: Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Soft Snap, Landscape, Beach, Snow, Fireworks, High-speed shutter, High Sensitivity, Smile Shutter
Flash modes: auto, fill flash, disabled, slow synchro
Focus assist lamp
Memory media: 4GB internal memory, Memory Stick Duo, Pro Duo, Pro Duo (High Speed), Pro-HG Duo
Power: Lithium-ion battery (NP-BD1)
Dimensions: 86.8mm x 56.8mm x 20.2mm
October 24th, 2007
Kodak EasyShare V1253 digital camera puts HD video in your pocket
Popular Mechanics
Taking decent video on most compact cameras is like drawing the Mona Lisa with a box of crayons. That’s why most people leave the live action to dedicated camcorders.
Remedying this issue, and thus saving you valuable bag space, is the impetus behind Kodak’s EasyShare V1253 camera, which claims to be the first compact cam to soak up high-definition, or HD, video at 720p. So how does it hold up?
The video definitely had that extra-sharp “high-def” feel. Unfortunately, because the camera is so tiny, tripod-free filming almost certainly means shaky videos (which are somewhat canceled out by the built-in anti-shake mechanisms). Worst of all, however, was the way the autofocus struggled in low-light situations, drifting in and out of focus like a teenager with attention deficit disorder.
If you are fortunate enough to shoot on a perfectly stable surface under beaming lights, you’ll be richly rewarded with plasma TV-filling video. That is, until your memory card runs out of space. Because this is a compact camera and not a tape-lugging or hard-drive toting camcorder, it relies on SD cards for both photo and video storage. And because HD video is no slouch when it comes to size, you can only pack about a few minutes on a 1GB card. And because most TVs don’t have video-playing SD drives, you’ll have to invest in Kodak’s EasyShare HD dock ($99) if you want to easily free your videos from memory-card and computer purgatory.
As for still shots, the 12-megapixel sensor could certainly produce poster-sized prints if you asked it to, and the 3x optical zoom is certainly serviceable. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of noise in most photos, particularly when the ISO–or light sensitivity–was jacked up (it maxes out at a high 3200). There was also an unacceptable shutter lag, with the camera sometimes taking several seconds to get ready between shots, making high-speed clicking impossible at times. It really felt that, between the 12-megapixel sensor and high-def video capabilities, Kodak had stuffed so much power into such a small body that the processor struggled at times to keep up with such extraordinary demands. Still, there is something to be said for Kodak asking so much from their products. If other companies did the same, innovation would certainly get a nice shot in the arm.
In all, the $300 camera is not without its faults, but most of them really feel as if they are the result of being on the forefront of innovation, which is never a fault. Kodak’s ability to stuff a HD sensor into such a small package (and at such a reasonable price) really does feel like a remarkable technological innovation, and it could spell great things ahead for future generations as the technology is perfected. Kodak EasyShare V1253 —Seth Porges
October 23rd, 2007
Tips on buying a digital camera
Sunday Times.lk, Sri Lanka
Today, buying a digital camera has become a tedious task. Which digital camera is right for you? This is the key question to ask before buying a digital camera. If you’re not sure about the camera you want to buy, you are unlikely to pick the best model.
Why digital?
Even the most avid of film users has to admit that digital offers many unique benefits.
First of all, there’s the saving made of not having to buy copious amounts of film.
The digital equivalent to film is a memory card which comes in various capacities and can hold thousands of images. They can also be re-used.
The next is the instant results which appear on the cameras LCD. This means you can delete the bad shots and eliminate the problem of waste prints.
A further excellent reason is the immense control it gives you over your images at every stage. A digital image can be edited by reviewing the image on camera and on computer.
This gives you the opportunity to eliminate unwanted objects and also adjust colour or contrasts of your pictures.
Selecting a camera
First you need to ascertain why you need a camera. Think carefully about the kind of photographer you would like to be. Most people use their cameras for taking everyday snapshots of family, friends, special events and holidays.
If that’s the case you will be more concerned about the ease of use and pocketability.Most compact cameras have a straight forward “Auto mode” that takes care of every exposure decision for you.
Added to that there are many scene modes where the camera automatically adjusts it’s settings to meet the demands of a particular shooting situation making it easy to take excellent pictures without much effort.
If its as a hobby, it’s important that the camera be controlled to produce your desired effects. A camera with manual exposure controls and advanced shooting features will permit far more creativity when taking photographs.
There are plenty of mid range compacts and entry level SLR’s (Single Lens Reflex) cameras which boasts of high sophistication but still maintain user friendly control mechanisms. Even if you are a beginner you will find this shooting power does wonders for your photography.
Mega pixels
Mega pixel ratings have become the main selling point for digital camera manufacturers over the last few years, and this is for a good reason.
The number of pixels that your camera’s image sensor carries will determine the resolution of your pictures. More mega pixels available, higher the resolution, and therefore the colour and detail of the pictures are sharper.
However, it is vital not to overstate the importance of the mega pixels. In reality, a three mega pixel camera will provide more than adequate resolution for an ordinary 4x 6 photograph. It is only if you need to print larger versions that the picture quality starts to become a serious issue.
Today five mega pixel cameras have taken over from the three mega pixel cameras as standard. For every day photography, you will be hard pushed to spot the difference between 5 mega and 7 mega pixel image when printed out at a standard size. So don’t automatically go for the highest mega pixel rating. Check out for the camera’s other functions as well.
Camera functions
A lens is an important element in photography that is often overlooked by the first time camera buyer. The quality of the lens is paramount to the quality of your images. Therefore, always choose a time tested, reliable and world renowned camera brand.
When considering what lens is suited for your needs, think about the focal length. This will determine the proportion of the scene in front of you that will fit within the frame. The smaller the focal length the wider the scene.
So a focal length of 18mm will give you a far wider view. All cameras offer a complete “Auto mode” which requires nothing from you except to press the shutter button, or a Programmed “scene mode” which automates the exposure settings for a specific situation. Some cameras offer over 20 scene modes such as portrait, landscape, sports, close up, night mode etc. In fact, they will produce decent shots in most circumstances.
More sophisticated digital cameras will offer additional manual controls where you have the full control of camera settings. Another feature is a large LCD. Most digital camera buyers like to have a larger LCD’s.
Manufacturers are constantly outdoing each other with ever-larger screens and some times it could be advantageous to have a large screen especially in High-Lit outdoor photography.
Accessories
A key consideration for any digital camera buyer is Battery Life and Storage Capacity. Most cameras carry AA size batteries or their own Lithium-ion battery pack. They both are Ni-MH rechargeable. Some camera manufacturers won’t supply rechargeable batteries. So remember to check this out as this could mean further investment. The most common memory type of memory card is Secure Digital (SD) format. Nikon and Canon use SD and Fuji film and Olympus both use XD, while Sony sticks to its Memory Stick.
Warranties
It is a wise idea to check the warranty policy being offered when you make your purchase. It probably will be worth paying a bit extra to receive warranty and after sales service because digital cameras are of both high tech and high value. Always make sure to visit an authorized distributor/retailer in the brand you choose. Almost all world renowned manufacturers’ warranty policy on digital cameras states that “digital cameras are warranted only in the country where it is purchased from,” which means no international warranty.
October 22nd, 2007
Country Scientist: Digital camera is perfect for capturing nature shots
San Antonio Express, TX
Web Posted: 10/21/2007 10:36 PM CDT
Forrest M. Mims III
Special to the Express-News
In 1888, high school dropout and amateur scientist George Eastman began selling the first successful camera designed for anyone to use. His camera was called the Kodak, and his slogan was “You press the button, we do the rest.”
In 1948, college dropout Edmund Land introduced what many said was impossible, the first camera to make nearly instant photographic prints.
Only a decade or so ago, digital photography revolutionized the inventions of Eastman and Land, and now both of the companies they founded are among many that make and sell digital cameras.
Practical digital cameras arrived on the scene well after the advent of the personal computer. The combination has completely transformed photography. As most of you already know, today anyone equipped with a digital camera, computer and printer can produce in minutes what darkrooms and specialty shops once did in days.
Digital photographs can be trimmed, cropped and even retouched to correct poor lighting, bad contrast and color. All this can be done easily, under your complete control and for a fraction of the cost charged by photo labs.
Most of the photographs that have accompanied this column were made with one of several digital “point and shoot” cameras that cost a few hundred dollars each.
Some photos are made with a fancier rig known as a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex). This camera is much bigger, uses exchangeable lenses and provides complete control of the photographic process. It’s the camera I use for important photo assignments and opportunities.
A good DSLR is much more expensive and provides far more control than a basic point-and-shoot consumer-level camera. The good news is that even an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera can provide very high quality images.
Recently Andrea Ottesen of the University of Maryland learned this firsthand when one of her photographs of a specimen of Irish moss, a beautiful and common variety of seaweed, tied for first place in the 2007 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.
Ottesen’s photograph was made using an economical Canon ELPH 7-megapixel digital camera in natural sunlight. Her winning image graced the cover of the Sept. 28 issue of Science, the world’s leading scientific magazine.
An article inside described how the photo was selected by the judges.
“There was this gasp when this photo came up on the screen,” panel of judges member Felice Frankel says. “We shouldn’t forget that we don’t need (complex equipment and techniques) to create beautiful representations.”
In my experience the digital camera is among the most powerful and flexible tools ever designed for amateur scientists and naturalists. So please join me in carrying a digital camera everywhere you go so those of us who have been doing so for years will look a bit more normal.
Maybe you will capture a fabulous image that wins a contest or becomes a magazine cover.
Forrest M. Mims III and his science are featured at www.forrestmims.org. E-mail him at forrest.mims@ieee.org. The Country Scientist appears Mondays.
October 22nd, 2007
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