Macrophoto and bird
(Monday, June 30th, 2008)
(Monday, June 30th, 2008)
(Monday, June 23rd, 2008)
With all this talk about existing Full-Frame photo cameras (Canon EOS 5D, Nikon D3) and about possibly upcoming new ones (Sony Alpha 900, Canon EOS 5D Mk II or some other similar name, etc.) many photographers happy with their existing digital equipment are wondering: “What’s all the fuss about?”
And it’s a good question to ask, but the answer goes with some of the comments about sensor resolution. About the same people who noticed that resolution is not all that counts (despite what is said or implied by some of the major brands on this market) also understand that going Full Frame is a possibly very important decision for the attentive digital photographer.
(Friday, May 30th, 2008)
When you have a web site, it becomes quite common that some people feel so easy to just borrow your images that they do not even take the time to make a copy on their own web site. Not only do they use your artwork, but they also use the bandwidth you paid for.
Normally, there is a solution. You can modify slightly your website to ensure that if this happens, the image served is not the original one, but a modified one (either a big red X, or a message to the reader). But it is a little difficult to do by hand. A wbe site tool comes handy for this: HTMLbasix – Htaccess Disable Hotlinking Code Generator.
(Wednesday, May 21st, 2008)
SitePoint is giving away (for a limited time only) an excellent e-book about PhotoShop. It’s well worth the effort to donwload the PDF file.
SitePoint sensational Photoshop book is now FREE to Download!
(Wednesday, April 30th, 2008)
Happy news here: I finally bought a lens I wanted for quite some time. I found and paid on eBay a Minolta APO G 400mm f/4.5 (Yes! The old white lens that is renowned so much for its optical and mechanical quality, while being nearly impossible to find in auctions).
It will go really well with the Giottos MT 8251 carbon tripod and the MH 1001-652 ball-head I bought a month ago in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China.
Soon to arrive from Osaka, Japan. I can’t wait.

(Monday, April 28th, 2008)
I don’t know why (maybe because I’m looking for them) but I seem to find plenty of posts about optimizing your photography of food. Let’s share some of the best ones here:
(Sunday, April 27th, 2008)
This was a little event a few days ago: Adobe launched its first beta version of the online PhotoShop under the name of Photoshop Express. As it was easy to predict, it’s not as simple as marketing would like you to believe and you cannot replace one by the other as most of the reviews hereafter will show you:
To notice: Photoshop Express is free, limited to 2GB of online storage (easy to reach) and in English only for now.
(Wednesday, April 9th, 2008)
If you have a simple Point-n-Shoot digital camera, you may not know it, but you are limited more by the marketing teams than by the real technical constraints of your hardware. But if your camera is from Canon you may find an easy way out.
The Canon Hacker’s Development Kit is an open-source software project that can be loaded on cameras using Canon’s DIGIC II or DIGIC III processors. Interestingly, it has the following features:
Impressive! The list is long enough to give your food for thought and it applies to an impressive list of compatible cameras.
Sources: Wired article, CHDK source.
(Wednesday, April 9th, 2008)
I found the user manuals of several Nikon SLR cameras on the web:
(Sunday, April 6th, 2008)
According to IDC, the sales of photo cameras progressed by 24% in 2007 to 131 million cameras. The global market is in the hands of several companies:
For the SLR market (Single Lens Reflex), two companies are overwhelming:
Canon looses some ground to Nikon, but the margins were going down thanks to added competition.
(Monday, March 24th, 2008)
Of course, you know it, a photo tripod is an excellent solution to stabilize your photo camera and get crisp images despite a long shutter time (or a trembling hand). But there are other simple solutions that you should keep in mind:
Last but not least, do not forget that if the subject itself is moving (and the camera is already stable) there is no other solution than a fast shutter speed (or flash light).
(Thursday, March 20th, 2008)
If you want the best possible Flash memory storage for your camera, you need to look for a good Flash memory card. But which one is the best? Just look at those tests:
And remember that the fastest memory cards are no longer needed if you are not using one of the biggest SLR cameras and in RAW mode. However, a fast memory card is still useful to get the data into Photoshop (if you have a really good flash card reader on your computer, not the first 13-in-1 USB reader on eBay).
(Friday, February 29th, 2008)
In order to easily realize good panoramic photos, it is not enuogh to have a good software package. You also need good images to start with, or the shooting results may degrade significantly the results.
Some easy-to-follow advice:
(Sunday, February 24th, 2008)
HDR photography (High Dynamic Range Photo) is a process where you take several photo pictures with very different exposures (different speeds or different apertures) and then use a software to pack them into one image packing the whole range of light. The result is often a little erie but allows to take images impossible to catch in any other circumstance.
Good examples come from the Japan HDR group on Flickr, like the following.
But if you want to test your capacity at this, I suggest you dig into the following links:
Whatever your software package, you should find something to use.
(Saturday, February 23rd, 2008)
If like me your a photographer who wouldn’t dare making a video, you still can think about doing a decent time-lapse sequence out of your photographs. However, this cannot happen just by taking images and loading them into a software.
You must start by studying the lessons from PhotoJojo.com’s Ultimate Guide to Time-Lapse Photography.
When you think that you’ve mastered the technique, you can think again and look at the following example created by Lucas Oleniuk, photographer of the Toronto Star. Taking 20,000 of his still photographs, he built a 20-days sequence re-hashing the issue of global warming for us.

(Friday, February 15th, 2008)
… the day dream of all photographers. Instead of spending your nights playing with the setups, knobs and buttons of Photoshop (are any other similar software package), why not simply go through a process full automated, effortless, questionless, and with a nice little result?
To be tested right now.
(Sunday, February 10th, 2008)
I recently stumbled upon several good ideas for the photographer (and cinematographer) with a limited budget. They seem quite simple and interesting to apply.
For macro-photography and proxi-photography, a flash is often needed. But it is difficult to obtain a nice light not simply coming from the side (and casting ugly shadows). This is why exist those ring flashes that are usually so expensive.
Today, Strobist provides a neat little idea to make nearly free ring flash out of a common cobra flash. Just use a circle (more precisely, an ellipse) of cardboard or white metal to reflect the light of a more common flash light (see the image below). In seconds, you’ll get most of the advantages of a ring flash without changing your equipment.

The flash light comes from the side and is reflected toward the scene while the hole in the middle allow the lens to peer naturally into the scene.
You may know that a steady-cam is a simple rig that allows to stabilize a video camera for use while walking or running. It is so essentially simple that Johnny Lee made one out of three metal pipes and a weight. It is much nicer than the expensive pro ones and you can easily copy the design if you do not want to pay for the 39$ he asks for it.

If you have been attentive, you can remember that there were similar other ideas popping up in these pages before.
Copyright (c) 1999-2009 - Yves Roumazeilles (all rights reserved)
Latest update: 8-sep-09