More: Photog's Math
Monday 4 January 2010
Wednesday 23 December 2009
Wednesday 16 December 2009
Tuesday 15 December 2009
Sunday 6 December 2009
10 Extreme Cameras for Taking Impossible Shots
Original article: Gizmodo
From 10,000 fps camera, to the underwater camera that can withstand gigantic pressure of deep sea, 1.6 GIGAPixel resolution and extremely LARGE format camera!
From 10,000 fps camera, to the underwater camera that can withstand gigantic pressure of deep sea, 1.6 GIGAPixel resolution and extremely LARGE format camera!
It's Just A Media
"Photography is an art, just like any other form of arts, camera is just a media to deliver the message" - A friend of mine with 2 decades of experience in photography and cinematography.
Original Source: http://karlgrobl.com/EquipmentReviews/ThrashedCanons.htm
When people see my cameras they often say, are you still shooting film? or ...When are you going to replace those beat up things? or....do those still work?
Actually these cameras are in perfect working order (knock wood). Other than a broken shutter which was fixed back in 2006 (see story here) they have never been to Canon for "service". At some point I will purchase new gear, but for now this continues to be my set-up.
Below you will find some images of my Canon Mark II cameras and lenses. These pictures were taken April 6, 2009 The cameras (and lenses) have seen heavy use since being purchased in May, 2004. That's 5 straight years of dragging them around the planet, shooting in some of the least forgiving places and conditions imaginable.
A lot of the paint and whatever coating is under it, has been rubbed away,
leaving a nice silver patina.
The area just above the word Canon, is worn away from constantly rubbing up against my butt and thigh (see how I carry my cameras at this link (click here)
The hot shoe was ground down when I dropped it 9 feed down, off of the elephant I was riding on. Miraculously the camera and lens survived the fall: (that story here) and visit http://kenrockwell.com/canon/lenses/70-200mm-f28-is.htm to see a post-drop report about the 70-200 lens. Ken did a thorough evaluation of the lens after the incident.
I use exposure compensation all the time, and the area around my exposure comp button is heavily worn. (Please note that on the "factory settings" Canon does not have the exposure button here. I made this change by hooking it up to the computer and reassigning the button, so as to emulate the exposure compensation button position on my Nikon D1X which I was so familiar with, before being relieved of them when I was robbed in Lima Peru.
The wear here near the vertical shutter release is mostly due to putting the camera
down on the ground or other abrasive surfaces.
The area around the shutter button and index finger wheel is a quite worn
I broke this window on my 70-200 a while back but never bothered sending it
to Canon because the lens still functions fine.
A while ago I used clear tape and pieces of toothpicks to keep the focus limit switch and the stabilizer buttons in the positions that I wanted them in. Eventually the clear tape fell off. I needed a fix, but at the time, I was in rural, upcountry East Timor and all I could get my hands on was some black duct tape.
These cameras may look like hell, but they work fine. Please remember, you don't need the latest, greatest camera gear to make a living in photography, but if you shoot for a living and need the most durable cameras possible, I recommend "pro bodies" and "pro lenses". They are designed extra tough and can take a fair amount of abuse. If you are careful and easy on your gear, or are a hobbyist, you can probably get by with "pro-sumer" or "consumer" models that have all of the same functions and features at half the cost. In terms of lenses, buy the best that you can afford. Yes, pro lenses are more expensive, but they are sharper, faster and more durable. Bottom Line: Find a camera system that works for you, learn it like the back of your hand, and you'll probably make great pictures.
Don't worry too much about gear... concentrate on what's in front of the lens and how you're going to compose and expose the shot......When they hand out Pulitzer prizes, the judges never ask what kind of camera the image was shot with, or whether it was shot on film or digital!
Original Source: http://karlgrobl.com/EquipmentReviews/ThrashedCanons.htm
What I'm shooting now.
A five year old Canon Mark II system
When people see my cameras they often say, are you still shooting film? or ...When are you going to replace those beat up things? or....do those still work?
Actually these cameras are in perfect working order (knock wood). Other than a broken shutter which was fixed back in 2006 (see story here) they have never been to Canon for "service". At some point I will purchase new gear, but for now this continues to be my set-up.
Below you will find some images of my Canon Mark II cameras and lenses. These pictures were taken April 6, 2009 The cameras (and lenses) have seen heavy use since being purchased in May, 2004. That's 5 straight years of dragging them around the planet, shooting in some of the least forgiving places and conditions imaginable.
A lot of the paint and whatever coating is under it, has been rubbed away,
leaving a nice silver patina.
The area just above the word Canon, is worn away from constantly rubbing up against my butt and thigh (see how I carry my cameras at this link (click here)
The hot shoe was ground down when I dropped it 9 feed down, off of the elephant I was riding on. Miraculously the camera and lens survived the fall: (that story here) and visit http://kenrockwell.com/canon/lenses/70-200mm-f28-is.htm to see a post-drop report about the 70-200 lens. Ken did a thorough evaluation of the lens after the incident.
I use exposure compensation all the time, and the area around my exposure comp button is heavily worn. (Please note that on the "factory settings" Canon does not have the exposure button here. I made this change by hooking it up to the computer and reassigning the button, so as to emulate the exposure compensation button position on my Nikon D1X which I was so familiar with, before being relieved of them when I was robbed in Lima Peru.
The wear here near the vertical shutter release is mostly due to putting the camera
down on the ground or other abrasive surfaces.
The area around the shutter button and index finger wheel is a quite worn
I broke this window on my 70-200 a while back but never bothered sending it
to Canon because the lens still functions fine.
A while ago I used clear tape and pieces of toothpicks to keep the focus limit switch and the stabilizer buttons in the positions that I wanted them in. Eventually the clear tape fell off. I needed a fix, but at the time, I was in rural, upcountry East Timor and all I could get my hands on was some black duct tape.
These cameras may look like hell, but they work fine. Please remember, you don't need the latest, greatest camera gear to make a living in photography, but if you shoot for a living and need the most durable cameras possible, I recommend "pro bodies" and "pro lenses". They are designed extra tough and can take a fair amount of abuse. If you are careful and easy on your gear, or are a hobbyist, you can probably get by with "pro-sumer" or "consumer" models that have all of the same functions and features at half the cost. In terms of lenses, buy the best that you can afford. Yes, pro lenses are more expensive, but they are sharper, faster and more durable. Bottom Line: Find a camera system that works for you, learn it like the back of your hand, and you'll probably make great pictures.
Don't worry too much about gear... concentrate on what's in front of the lens and how you're going to compose and expose the shot......When they hand out Pulitzer prizes, the judges never ask what kind of camera the image was shot with, or whether it was shot on film or digital!
Just When I Thought I Knew Everything...
Perhaps the most fundamental basic in photography, especially in advance of auto focus point, made simpler by digital technology!
Thanks to a friend who brought up my attention on the subject. After finished reading the article below, now I'm like a child who already now hot to solve a simple math problem!
Original Source: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/using-focus-lock-on-your-autofocus-camera.html
Autofocus point-and-shoot cameras produce terrifically sharp pictures when you use them properly. But getting sharp results sometimes requires telling them where to focus.
A common focusing problem occurs when you deliberately place a subject off-center in the viewfinder frame. Say you want to compose the shot of your friends and the mountains this way. You ask your friends to stand to the right so that they block less of the background, giving the mountains center stage in your composition. You point and shoot. But the camera focuses on the mountains because that's where your composition has landed the focus point and your friends end up unsharp in the print. Call it tunnel focus.
Unintentional focusing on the background is, along with unwanted camera movement, the main cause of unsharp point-and-shoot pictures. And here's a simple way to avoid it — a photographic one-two punch called locking the focus.
Locking the focus
Lock the focus any time your composition does not place the viewfinder's focus point on the most important part of the scene you're shooting. Locking the focus means that you deliberately make your camera focus on some object in the scene — a person, or something interesting in the foreground — and keep the focus locked at that exact distance until you take the picture. Here's how you lock the focus:
1. Look through the viewfinder and position its focus point on the most important part of the scene — your main subject.
In effect, you center that subject.
2. Press the shutter button halfway down, until the green focus-OK lamp in the viewfinder eyepiece glows steadily.
See the next section, "Making sure your focus is locked," for more on the focus-OK lamp.
3. Holding the shutter button halfway down, reorient the camera so that your desired composition appears in the viewfinder.
4. Press the shutter button all the way down to take the picture.
Back to those friends and the mountains, you lock the focus by aiming the focus point at your friends (which temporarily puts them in the center of the viewfinder) and pressing the shutter button halfway. Then, keeping the shutter button halfway down, you swing the camera to place your friends off-center (see Figure 1). Now press the shutter button the rest of the way to take the picture.
Figure 1: Lock the focus to prevent your point-and-shoot from focusing on the background with an off-center subject.
You may need to use this technique with vertical composition, too. Say you're standing on a rock to shoot a vertical picture in which your friends are at the bottom of the viewfinder and the mountains in the background are at the top. To maintain the focus of your friends, first aim the camera down to place the focus point over one their faces and press the shutter button halfway. Hold the shutter button halfway down and swing the camera back up to include the mountains and reestablish your desired composition. Press the shutter button the rest of the way to take the picture.
Regardless of your composition — centered or off-center —always keep your eye on where the focus point lands. Even if your two friends are smack in the middle of the viewfinder fame, between them is a little gap and the viewfinder's focus point falls neatly into it. First "aim" the focus point so that it's on one friend's face, then reorient the camera to center your friends.
Particularly if you're a landscape fan, you may be wondering what happens to distant objects when you lock the focus on closer objects. "If I focus on my friends in front of the mountains, instead of the mountains," you ask, "then won't the mountains be out of focus?" Not necessarily.
With most scenes in which you photograph a relatively close object in front of a distant background, if you focus on the close object, the background will be reasonably sharp in the print. But the reverse is not true. Focus on the background — those mountains — and the close object simply won't be sharp.
Making sure your focus is locked
When you lock your focus, you can't actually see the subject getting sharp in the viewfinder. However, you can verify that your point-and-shoot has autofocused on something by looking at its focus-OK lamp (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: The viewfinder's green focus-OK lamp glows steadily to confirm the focus.
The focus-OK lamp lights up whenever you press the shutter button halfway. If it glows steadily, it's telling you that the camera has successfully focused. If the focus-OK lamp blinks, or doesn't light, or lights briefly but then goes out or starts blinking, it's telling you that the camera can't focus.
More often than not, your camera can't focus because you're too close to the subject. Fix the problem by easing up on the shutter button, stepping back a foot or two, and then pressing the shutter button again.
If you move, the focus doesn't
Locking the focus is vitally important to getting consistently sharp pictures. But remember that when you have that shutter button pressed halfway, the focus doesn't budge. If you ask your subject to move closer or farther away, or you move closer or farther from it to adjust your composition, your subject's no longer in focus. If the distance to the subject changes after you've locked the focus, let up on the shutter button and repeat the focus-locking procedure.
Zoom before you lock the focus. With most point-and-shoot cameras, locking the focus also prevents you from adjusting the zoom. If you want to zoom in or out after locking the focus, let up on the shutter button, adjust the zoom, and then lock the focus again.
Thanks to a friend who brought up my attention on the subject. After finished reading the article below, now I'm like a child who already now hot to solve a simple math problem!
Original Source: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/using-focus-lock-on-your-autofocus-camera.html
Using Focus Lock on Your Autofocus Camera
Autofocus point-and-shoot cameras produce terrifically sharp pictures when you use them properly. But getting sharp results sometimes requires telling them where to focus.
A common focusing problem occurs when you deliberately place a subject off-center in the viewfinder frame. Say you want to compose the shot of your friends and the mountains this way. You ask your friends to stand to the right so that they block less of the background, giving the mountains center stage in your composition. You point and shoot. But the camera focuses on the mountains because that's where your composition has landed the focus point and your friends end up unsharp in the print. Call it tunnel focus.
Unintentional focusing on the background is, along with unwanted camera movement, the main cause of unsharp point-and-shoot pictures. And here's a simple way to avoid it — a photographic one-two punch called locking the focus.
Locking the focus
Lock the focus any time your composition does not place the viewfinder's focus point on the most important part of the scene you're shooting. Locking the focus means that you deliberately make your camera focus on some object in the scene — a person, or something interesting in the foreground — and keep the focus locked at that exact distance until you take the picture. Here's how you lock the focus:
1. Look through the viewfinder and position its focus point on the most important part of the scene — your main subject.
In effect, you center that subject.
2. Press the shutter button halfway down, until the green focus-OK lamp in the viewfinder eyepiece glows steadily.
See the next section, "Making sure your focus is locked," for more on the focus-OK lamp.
3. Holding the shutter button halfway down, reorient the camera so that your desired composition appears in the viewfinder.
4. Press the shutter button all the way down to take the picture.
Back to those friends and the mountains, you lock the focus by aiming the focus point at your friends (which temporarily puts them in the center of the viewfinder) and pressing the shutter button halfway. Then, keeping the shutter button halfway down, you swing the camera to place your friends off-center (see Figure 1). Now press the shutter button the rest of the way to take the picture.
Figure 1: Lock the focus to prevent your point-and-shoot from focusing on the background with an off-center subject.
You may need to use this technique with vertical composition, too. Say you're standing on a rock to shoot a vertical picture in which your friends are at the bottom of the viewfinder and the mountains in the background are at the top. To maintain the focus of your friends, first aim the camera down to place the focus point over one their faces and press the shutter button halfway. Hold the shutter button halfway down and swing the camera back up to include the mountains and reestablish your desired composition. Press the shutter button the rest of the way to take the picture.
Regardless of your composition — centered or off-center —always keep your eye on where the focus point lands. Even if your two friends are smack in the middle of the viewfinder fame, between them is a little gap and the viewfinder's focus point falls neatly into it. First "aim" the focus point so that it's on one friend's face, then reorient the camera to center your friends.
Particularly if you're a landscape fan, you may be wondering what happens to distant objects when you lock the focus on closer objects. "If I focus on my friends in front of the mountains, instead of the mountains," you ask, "then won't the mountains be out of focus?" Not necessarily.
With most scenes in which you photograph a relatively close object in front of a distant background, if you focus on the close object, the background will be reasonably sharp in the print. But the reverse is not true. Focus on the background — those mountains — and the close object simply won't be sharp.
Making sure your focus is locked
When you lock your focus, you can't actually see the subject getting sharp in the viewfinder. However, you can verify that your point-and-shoot has autofocused on something by looking at its focus-OK lamp (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: The viewfinder's green focus-OK lamp glows steadily to confirm the focus.
The focus-OK lamp lights up whenever you press the shutter button halfway. If it glows steadily, it's telling you that the camera has successfully focused. If the focus-OK lamp blinks, or doesn't light, or lights briefly but then goes out or starts blinking, it's telling you that the camera can't focus.
More often than not, your camera can't focus because you're too close to the subject. Fix the problem by easing up on the shutter button, stepping back a foot or two, and then pressing the shutter button again.
If you move, the focus doesn't
Locking the focus is vitally important to getting consistently sharp pictures. But remember that when you have that shutter button pressed halfway, the focus doesn't budge. If you ask your subject to move closer or farther away, or you move closer or farther from it to adjust your composition, your subject's no longer in focus. If the distance to the subject changes after you've locked the focus, let up on the shutter button and repeat the focus-locking procedure.
Zoom before you lock the focus. With most point-and-shoot cameras, locking the focus also prevents you from adjusting the zoom. If you want to zoom in or out after locking the focus, let up on the shutter button, adjust the zoom, and then lock the focus again.
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