Friday, June 19, 2009

GPS on Nikon gear

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Tilt shift Photography



Link ONE

Link TWO

The are the actual picture of before an after, if interested click on above link to learn more.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Real macro or fake macro

They said some companies in pursuit of quick bucks have dumb down the entire macro concept. I say, they are just meeting the market demands. Chill out.

If you can afford a macro lens worth thousand of dollars, by all means go for it. If you are on the budget side or shooting for fun, cheap macro extension tubes on ebay is a great solutions for under $20.

Definition first , macro photograph is really nothing more than close-up photography. Typically in macro photography the image seen by your sensor is at least 50% of its real size abbreviated.

Macro extension tubes push the lens farther from the camera. Because they are passive with no optics of their own your original lens quality remains. You will lose some light in an already tough-to-light situation. You'll also lose the ability to focus to infinity, but your closest focus point becomes much closer. These cheap and dumb tubes have no electronic connection to your camera or lens. Your auto everything camera will have to be adjusted manually to shoot macro.

Macro photography typically has very limited depth-of-field. Manual focusing is very critical.

Start to have fun with your friendly bugs in the garden.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Video camera concealed in prostetic eye


Troubles with filming documentaries or reality shows is that people tend to act differently when they are on camera. Rob Spence a Canadian filmmaker named has figured out a way to remove that on camera fear factor in his documentaries.

Video camera concealed in prostetic eye will transmit the wireless footage to a nearby storage device. I’m sure he realizes that his film could be one step into a surveillance society.

The special prosthetic eye was developed by OmniVision. Idea was born by watching The Six Million Dollar Man.

So if you see a man who wants to interview you, you might want to take a closer look at his eye to see if it has a camera. Be prepared to sign a release form if that is the case.

Source

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Photoshop Quick Tricks

30 seconds is all you need.



1. Lasso Tool (L)
2. Select Inverse (CTRL+SHIFT+I)
3. Desaturate (CTRL+SHIFT+U)

Developing own Black and White film

A whole new generation of photographer nowadays starts off with digital camera. Idiotic proof point and shoot by simple holding it out and looking at the LCD screen. Setting at auto and click. Bring memory card to self print kiosk and you are minutes away from the final product.

What about film camera? Are they becoming obsolete? Answer is no. As it has slowly infecting the world again with help from lomo fanatics. Shooting film has never been so satisfying, creative and intriguing. The major problem is when demand is low, price is expected to rise. As item become rare. Scarce. Exquisite.

For that, we the smart consumer will look for better ways in saving cost. That is where self developing comes into play, but how? I hope you enjoy the video below and for further info, click HERE

Hoya HD Filter



Hardened optical glass that has 4 times the breaking strength in ANSI standardized testing (ANSI Z80.3 : 2001) where a steel balls of varying size and weight were dropped from a height of 50 inches onto the glass.

The polarizing film is the same as that used in the latest high
definition LCD TV screens. It has 25% higher light transmission than standard polarizing film used in current photographic filters.

WATERPROOF / SCRATCH & STAIN RESISTANT MULTI-COATING
Specialized coatings that are not just water-proof to repel water spots but also hardened to be scratch and stain resistant. Of course these coatings are from HOYA so they are greatly reduce reflections off the surface of the glass allowing you to capture more light in your photos.





Price fixing scandal : PRESS HERE

Lensbaby


Lensbaby camera lenses are a line of camera lenses produced by Lensbabies that combine a simple lens with a bellows for use in special-effect photography. Lensbaby lenses can be used on cameras which accept interchangeable lenses, mainly of the 35mm or digital SLR formats. The focal length of the Lensbaby is approximately 50mm, making it a normal lens in 35mm format.

The front standard can be manipulated off axis to move the sharpest area of focus (called the "sweet spot") to almost anywhere in the frame. Therefore the important part of the subject can be rendered fairly sharp with everything else out of focus, even if it is the same distance from the camera. Aperture is controlled by a series of interchangeable discs (basically a Waterhouse stop). The Lensbaby naturally focuses at approximately 2 feet; closer focus is achieved by pushing the front of the lens out, and infinity focus is achieved by pulling the front of the lens toward the base of the lens.

Results achieved with a Lensbaby mimic that of the Holga camera (though without the light leakage) or other toy cameras. There is extreme speherical and some chromatic aberration outside the central sweet spot. The lens produces oval bokeh that point to the sweet spot, as seen in the sample photo on this page. The effect is unique and well suited to portraiture, some landscapes, and product photography.

The Lensbaby has no electronic components and does not communicate information to modern cameras. Because of this, some modern cameras may not recognize that a lens is attached at all and may require special settings to operate with the Lensbaby attached. Autofocus is unavailable on any camera because of the basic structure of the lens; additionally, the spherical aberration can make focus confirmation unpredictable or unavailable. For best results, the manufacturer recommends shooting in aperture priority or fully manual mode. The Lensbaby design also makes it impossible to include an index mark for infrared photography. However, infrared photography is certainly possible with the Lensbaby and very effective images have resulted.

The Lensbaby is available in several different lens mounts: Canon EF (EOS), Nikon F, Minolta Maxxum/Sony Alpha, Pentax K, Olympus Four Thirds System, Leica R, Olympus OM, Canon FD, Minolta SR (MD), Contax/Yashica, and screw mount.

The World’s Longest Exposures


British photographer Justin Quinnell is making waves with an amazing six month exposure he made in Bristol, England of the sun rising and falling over the city’s famous suspension bridge:

He made the photo not with a fancy digital camera but with an extremely rude, homemade device — a pinhole camera made from an empty soda can with a .25mm hole punched in it and one sheet of photo paper inside. He strapped it to a telephone pole and left it there for six months, from December 19, 2007 to June 21, 2008. If those dates sound familiar (or astronomically significant), they are — they’re the winter and summer solstices, respectively.

The lowest arc in the photo is the sun’s trail on the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. The highest arc is the summer solstice. The lines which are punctuated by dots represent overcast days when the sun penetrated the clouds only intermittently.

Bokeh



Bokeh (derived from Japanese, a noun boke 暈け, meaning "blurred or fuzzy") is a photographic term referring to the appearance of point of light sources in an out-of-focus area of an image produced by a camera lens using a shallow depth of field. Different lens bokeh produces different aesthetic qualities in out-of-focus backgrounds, which are often used to reduce distractions and emphasize the primary subject.

Bokeh is important for medium telephoto "portrait lenses" (typically 85–150 mm on 35-mm format) because the photographer would typically select a shallow depth of field (wide aperture) to achieve an out-of-focus background and make the subject stand out.