Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Stamp your photos

http://www.picture-shark.com/index.htm

This software is used to "stamp" visible logos or text on image files

Photography Books

I have read some posing on photography newsgroups about the photography books, the following books was recommended:

1st "The Complete Kodak Book of Photography" - Mitchell Beazley, 480 pages.
2nd "The New Manual of Photography" - John Hedgecoe, 416 pages.
3rd "The Photographers Manual" - John Freeman. Book changes name regularly.
aka "The New Complete Guide to Taking Photographs" see also "Practical Photography" and "Photography".

Also there's a link for list of photography books:
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/mani/books/mmbooks.html

Fashion Photography

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Photoshop Elements

The hidden power of photoshop elements:
http://www.hiddenelements.com/

and the forum http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=142

Monday, June 28, 2004

Links

Some photography information and tutorials
http://luminous-landscape.com/

Friday, June 25, 2004

A post from A80 yahoo group

> davef662003 wrote [link]


Why I Like the A80 over the competition:

1. The swivel LCD - much more than a marketing gimmick. As primarily a viewfinder kind of person, I've found myself using it more and more for "sneaky" waist-level shots of my grandson, and others.
Further, it's nicely protected when tucked in from pocket or purse damage, and you can take a viewfinder picture without using it at all! A wonderful tool.

2. Two Custom settings - Right on the top dial, you can switch to C1 or C2. I have one set up with a very fast "Snapshot Mode," and the other with available light ISO 200 mode.

3. Lens quality - I've carefully compared Steve's and others samples of the A80 and other DC's, with the A80 being typically just as clear and sharp as the others, with the exception, perhaps, of the S60. In a store, I shot some W1 samples, and compared to the A80, with the A80 winning most of the comparisons.

4. AA batteries - Very convenient, easy to get in a pinch.

5. Size and grip - fits nicely in my hand (partly due to 4 AA's in the grip), yet is small enough to be pocketable in my bermuda shorts. Overall ergonomics is outstanding, including placement of buttons, dials, etc.

6. Dial settings & exposure options - Right on the dial (without having to go into a menu with several steps), you can select fast and slow modes, portrait, landscape, night, etc - as well as two biggies - Aperture and Shutter priority modes, with all f stops selectable.

7. Menu accessibility - With both "function" and "menu" modes, it's very easy to get to exposure compensation, etc.

8. Full manual focus - not just set points, and with center focus assist.

9. Great macro mode - just see a lot of the shots others have taken with this fine feature, helped by that manual focus.

10. Up to 10x enlargement in playback of images, which helps a lot with initial thoughts on full sharpness of the image.

11. Cost of Compact Flash is the lowest of all media.

12. Direct PictBridge support - Kodak doesn't have this (DX 7440)

13. Wonderful and extremely helpful user support from a terrific Yahoo group located here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Canon_A80/

14. 2 seconds self-timer option - sounds strange, but is very useful with tripod and other low shutter speed pics to avoid camera movement with shutter button press;

15. Powerful flash - for its size. Illuminates a night-time living room very effectively, and is adjustable under Manual mode - 14 to 16 foot range. Much better than W1.


What I wish it had, but doesn't (can't get everything with any under $400 camera!):

Larger LCD (only 1.5"); 640/480 movie mode (only 320); 5mp; Auto braketing for exposure and focusing - all these are features of the S60, but it is $200 more, and not yet available, at least at Costco, so I finally had to decide!

Thanks for all the opinions and impressions you all have shared in this section, as well as Kodak and Sony portions. And special thanks to Steve for his fine and prompt analyses of cameras, together with pics that give great comparisons (cf. building with lots of bricks!) !

Dave"

Thursday, June 24, 2004

Valgrind

It's a program in a category called memory debugger, it's used to debug the application behavior with memory, and finding memory leaks. It's comparable to purify, but it works only on Linux x86. [link]

Open Source Awards 2004

A80 case

I may get the case from http://www.bhphotovideo.com/, I didn't make a research for the prices yet, but bh have the 2 case candidates for the A80, Lowepro AW 10, and Tamrac 5692.

Another place is digitalfotoclub.com

Memory leaks detection

Digital Review

Monday, June 21, 2004

Camcorder info

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Advice for Beginners [Photography Links]

The orginal forum post is here [link], and this is the list of the sites in this post, I didn't visit them yet, but I'm going to.

BASIC PHOTOGRSPHY:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/nav/takingPics.shtml
http://www.photo.net/learn/
http://www.photographytips.com

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY
http://www.shortcourses.com/using/index.htm
http://www.dpreview.com/learn
http://www.dpreview.com/learn/glossary
http://www.botzilla.com
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
http://www.cliffshade.com/dpfwiw
http://www.kleptography.com

SPECIFIC SUBJECTS:
Landscape Photography
http://www.luminous-landscape.com

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements
http://www.arraich.com/intro.htm
http://www.computer-darkroom.com

Curves
http://www.gurusnetwork.com/tutorials/photoshop/curves1.html

Workflow and RAW
http://www.kleptography.com/notes-workflow.htm

ADVANCED SITE:
http://www.zonezero.com

SCANNERS:
http://www.scantips.com

ON-LINE COURSES:
http://www.shortcourses.com
http://www.nyip.com
http://www.photoworkshop.com

NiMH AA Battaries review

Canon PowerShot A-Series Users Group

Canon A80 yahoogroup

Canon A80 Photo Gallery

Photography Blog

Canon S400

This review at attaboy.ca about the Canon S400, This guy loves his camera, but I noted that He like the "pocketable" size of the camera, He don't like the lack of manual control.

I still think about the Canon A80.

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

Understanding Histograms

Yashica FX-3 links

I have this camera, and Here's some web links and information about it:

- http://www.camerahobby.com/Review-FX2000.html


This link is for photographer who uses the Yashica FX-3:
http://www.usefilm.com/photographer/11892.html

photographer links

Monday, June 07, 2004

photo blog

Reseller Ratings

The site http://www.gografx.com/digitalcamera.html recommens checking the reseller rating using the site resellerratings.com before trying to buy anything from that site.

DealTime , and PriceGrabber seems providing the same service.

I should condider this before buying a digital camera.

Canon A80 vs. Nikon CP4300

some user advices another on a forum [link]

Short advice:


But anyways, get the canon A80, it is a revolutionary camera that leads its class... Forget nikons, most of their consumer camera lack tolerance for low lighting situations yielding soft, noise pictures and at times because of autofocus problems, images can be blurry too.

Indepth advice:


History: I have been a nikon fan since 1999, I have owned the 880, 990 and 4500. Starting with the 880, 950, 990, 4500, 5700, 5400 and everything in between Nikons all suffer from the same disease, read the reviews and learn, they lack tolerance for low light situation, and that can be very trouble some.

Because of their low light intolerance, consumer nikons can fail at even something as simple as being able to focus on the person in front of you accross the table at a restaurant dinner under mood lighting. Never mind running after hyper kids to get a snap shots. All that nikons have going for them is a powerful macro...

I was at the same situation that you are in about a week ego, when I was researching the A70 and at one point cosidered the nikon 3100. But my findings were that the 3100 only produce good noise-free images when you use the scene modes, anything other than that will produce noisy images. The camera is a truely handicap point and shoot, it doesn't provide much manual featues. Also it looks like a little ball so being ackward to hold and carry, good luck finding a nice bag for it that would fit nice.

Both camera A70/3100 or A80/4300 being priced the same, I would not hesitate to choose canon over nikon in this particular situation.

From my perspective I have always been shy of canon consumer digital cameras and stayed away from it, first because they have always been known to struggle a bit with their auto focus not being too reliable, second I hated the color tone of older canon digital cameras. I always found it too yellowish, almost like car antifrezze color...


Pros of the A80:


But the Canon A80 is something else... If you are looking for something to carry around and trow it everywhere then the A70 has that feel, more of a point and shoot and of a camera that you really done care about, just trow it everywhere...

Now, the A80 has a different feel, it has metal on it, it feels heavy, and build with quality, something that you want to protect and preserve. In short the camera is very fast, it zooms really fast, it takes picture very fast with minimal lag, and it saves to memory very fast, so operating it in general is very quick so you won't be missing to many good shots due to camera delay. Second, it handles very well at indoors situation, so do take it to that restaurant dinner, it will focus and it will take decent images.

Image quality to me is superb, very smooth tones, not oversaturated colors and good detail.

Excellent battery quality, I hardly use the view finder, and so fart I have been taking about 40 shots everyday for the past 4 days and still running good.

It has an excellent optical viewfinder, that is why I hardly use the LCD, something I never did with my Olympus 3030z becuse the optical viewfinder was so ackward.

It is actually smaller that what it looks like, I find it very easy to put it on my jacket pocket and to hide.

Excellent manual feature and memory of the settings. Full automatic mode is the only mode that doesn't remember anything if you turn off the camera off/on. But every other mode stay the way you set it after off/on.

Flash is good and I don't find the warm yellowish I used to see on older canon, on the contrary the A80 can sometimes be a little on the cool side which I don't mind and like.

Check my oldinary joe gallery, which will give you normal daily sample snap shots that normal people would produce with this camera.

http://cloud.prohosting.com/~poder2k/canon/

CF performance database on DSLR

CoolPix 4300 reviews

Canon A80 vs. Nikon CoolPix 4300

Some user points on the differences between both cameras [link]:

- A80 has swivel LCD which Allows for creative shooting angles, as well as the ability to tilt to avoid glare, and finally adds protection when not in use by folding against the camera body.

- A80 has self-contained lens protection. When the A80 lens retracts, there is an integrated cap which autmatically protects the lens. With the 4300, you have to manually put the cap on. the new 4200 and 5200 Coolpix Nikon models may have addressed this design flaw.

- A80 uses AA batterries. They last longer, are cheaper, and easier to find anywhere in the world. Additionally because the demand is so great, technology is always improving on AA rechargeables.

The 4300 includes its own charging system vs the A80 where AA rechargeables must be bought seperately.

The 4300 also has a better macro mode (something for which all Nikon P&S digicams are famous for).

Sunday, June 06, 2004

A80 reviews

- dcresource.com
- tomshardware.com
- www.photo.net with some readers' comments.
- albert.achtung.com
- dcviews.com
- photoxels.com
- www.imaging-resource.com
- megapixel.net

PHOTOS:
and also here's a link for some photos taken by the Canon A80.
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/powershot_a80

Digital Camera

I think about buying a digital camera, my choice now is for the Canon A80 ($319 Amazon).

I think I'll need to get some accessories with it, including a battery/charger kit ($45), AC adapter ($65), and a soft case.

Also to get a CF type I with at least 256 MB capacity