Update – buying and using a DSLR for beginners
December 10, 2008
A little while ago I posted a link to a site providing some basic info for those making the transition into theworld of the Digital SLR (DSLR).
http://site.rockportrait.com.au/2008/08/27/upgrading-from-a-point-and-shoot-to-a-dslr/
Yesterday I stumbled on CNet’s much better version of this, so I’ve made it available to you all here. The content that really stands out to me is the workflow section. This is a critical component of digital photography yet few actually consider it so until after they enter chaos or panic stage. Once you start creating and collecting all that digital data you really do need a time-effective, and safe means of managing and protecting it. My own process took a while to put together, but works well. I use a number of products to make my life easy (see below), and I store my precious photos in four different locations – the process of which is fully automated. Seems like a lot of trouble? Maybe, but well worth it when the hard drive crashes (it will) or the house burns down (I hope it won’t, but it happens).
Saves me having to go through it with you, although you know I love it 
Please read through this, but if you still want a human being to help you with your questions about getting into the DSLR side of things, feel free to get in touch.
The main tools of my trade:
GretagMacbeth Display Calibrator – not the best available, but cheap, and if you are serious about making great shots you need to calibrate your monitor regularly.
BreezeSys Downloader Pro – I couldn’t live without this. With very little input It allows me to create and populate all the backup locations I need, as well as add the EXIF data (image identification and copyright info) and rename and deliver all my images to my working directories. It kicks in the moment my camera or card reader is detected by the computer.
BreezeSys Breezebrowser Pro – not critical, but a useful and rapid way of creating proofs. It will do a lot more, but I use Lightroom for my other image manipulation requirements.
Adobe Lightroom – The best thing for photographers since sliced cheese, and almost replaces Photoshop. An affordable way to manage and manipulate your images, including the output stages – web pages, printing, uploading, slideshows. Supports plugins and extensions. The latest version lets you make locational changes like spot removal and specific exposure modifications without affecting the entire image. Most of all I love the filter plugins – make’s black and white and wild effects so easy.
Google Picasa – Hey! You other photographers out there, don’t laugh! For a free product this thing is amazingly good. When it comes to my snapshots (you know, the non-pro stuff I’m sure you all do as well?) I want a really fast way of polishing my images and getting them online. This does exactly that. And don’t underestimate how good the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button is. They’re a clever bunch those Googleheads. And yes, I’m a fanboy. 
Adobe Photoshop – The beeze neeze of photography tools, but becoming less relevant as Lightroom ramps up. Far too expensive for anyone but genuine pros, but also by far the best product out there to fully control your images.
Wacom Pen Tablet – Until you’ve used one of these you think the mouse is all you need. However, making accurate exposure changes, and drawing objects in and out of images is so much more natural with a pen tablet.
Syncback – Do you backup? I bet you don’t. Hey, almost no-one does! In every job I’ve worked in the backup process wasn’t refined, and in some cases didn’t even exist, until after a disaster. So – BACKUP!!!! OFTEN!!! Syncback has a free version that does everything for you when you are asleep.
Filezilla FTP Client – Finally, you need a way to get your images online if you are running your own web server (easier than you might think). Why give your copyright away to Flickr, Myspace or Facebook? (Did you even know you were doing that?) Host your own images. Use FTP to manage your site.
That’s all for today. Have fun installing and playing with your new workflow management tools!
More Melbourne Panasonica
May 28, 2008
OK – I did say next stop Singapore, didn’t I? Well I am still loving playing with my new point-and-shoot, so I’ll treat you to a few more Melbourne CBD sights.
Today I stumbled across a public speed chess match played with man-size pieces. It attracted quite a crowd!
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| From Melbourne CBD |
Whilst heading back inside the office two kids grabbed my attention. Each had an extra head in their hands, complete with hair, and a full face. They took turns to place them inside their hoods on top of their head, as second heads (who was that character on Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?), on the ground where they stood on them and occasionally throwing them at unsuspecting passers-by.
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| From Melbourne CBD |
Everywhere you look along Bourke and Swanston Streets you see buskers. Some are way better than others. This guy was one of the better ones, and was selling CDs – I bought one of course. His didjeridoo and guitar are both hand-made by himself, and he even threw in a DVD showing how to find a didj tree then actually make the instrument.
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| From Melbourne CBD |
Trialing the Panasonic around Melbourne
May 25, 2008
Day 2 in the city with my new point and shoot – the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18, and I thought I should try a few shots over lunch and on the night walk back to my car. Check out all of the shots here.
Sitting on a bench in the middle of the CBD, I was staring into my LCD screen trying to interpret the icons. Suddenly feet started appearing in the preview. I decided to see how fast the autofocus worked on a dull day with no pre-focus and got this.
Don't tread on me
Looking back up from the foot, I noticed a street artist using his hands to create some pretty authentic renaissance style painting on the concrete. You could spend all day in Melbourne photographing the various street performers, and when you get bored with them you just photograph some of the more unusual people hanging around.
I was curious about how the camera handled night lights and handheld slow shutter speeds. For the most part it does a great job, although at times I had to place it on a steady surface and take long exposures. This shot was handheld and typifies some of the night shots I might be capturing in many of the world’s busiest Asian cities.
After much dawdling around the CBD I started to get cold and began to make my way back to Crown Casino, where I had parked for the day. The rest of these images were taken on longer exposures, but show what you can do with a cheap camera when you are traveling. These are all different views of the Yarra River around the Southbank and Crown Casino areas.
Every hour the Crown Casino flame jets explode into life, lighting up the boardwalk with spurts of a hot, orange glow. Far more difficult to photograph with this type of camera, and I really wasn’t in the right place to shoot them effectively, but hey – I had fun trying. Perhaps the tourists in the foreground of this image had more luck than I did.
Well, next stop Singapore. See you there…
New Point and Shoot meets AFL at the Dome
May 23, 2008
I’d like to talk about the long and arduous process I put myself through in choosing a suitable point and shoot camera for my upcoming travels. I own two Canon DLSRs and an old Powershot S50, but I wasn’t prepared to lug a big body and even bigger and expensive lenses all around Asia for 53 days.
Oh – yes, I’m leaving my office job and travelling through seven countries from June until August. You’ll be able to read (I hope) a daily blog update from me, including photos, once I kick it off. [Read more]
How to choose a DSLR Camera
November 5, 2006
Well, I get asked all the time – “which camera should I buy?”
So I wanted to write a piece on exactly that. Well, guess what? Like everything in this world it’s been done before.
- and here it is …
http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/how-to-buy-a-dslr-camera/#
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Samsung 10 Megapixel Camera Phone
October 11, 2006
If you are one of these people that thinks the more megapixels a camera has the better it is, and if you believe that you can take great pics with a cameraphone, then you are going to love Samsung!
The Korean smallgoods and el cheapo electronica manufacturer has cornered the mobile megapixel market by releasing the world’s first 10 (yes, you read that right, TEN) megapixed cameraphone. This is on top of 2004′s 5 mpx, and 2005′s 7mpx models.
There’s a bunch of other genuine camera functions including flash, 3x optical zoom & LED autofocus, as well as add-ons such as MP3 capability, TV-out, Satellite TV (probably useless in Australia) and bluetooth. And it’s small. I’ve no idea how well the phone itself works, or whether the software and buttons are easy to use, but if you want a relatively OK camera that takes better pics than any other mobile phone out there, then this is definitely for you.
Samsung SCH-B600 10 Megapixel Camera Phone – PhotographyBLOG
Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s a place for digital cameraphones, and occasionally I even wish I had one on me. However, the negatives far outway the positives in my mind. The colours always look so fake, the images plastic, and the response time from when you press the button to the time the shot is taken is woeful! My totally portable solution for those occasions when the DSLR is too big will continue to be a dedicated, quality Canon or Sony compact digital.
If you are not a photographer and only want to carry one gadget around, then seriously consider this one!
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Why the Canon 30D is the best Digital SLR
August 5, 2006
If you are serious about your digital photography, you need a Digital SLR. SLR stands for “Single Lens Reflex” and these cameras offer the best quality and most flexible creativity options available to you in a camera. There are three levels of Digital SLR camera to consider. Each is basically separated by your budget considerations, and how serious you really want to be about your photography.
It’s widely accepted that (as of today’s offerings) the following cameras make the shortlist of best in breed:
Professional
- Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II
- Nikon D2X
- Canon EOS 5D
Semi-professional
- Nikon D200
- Canon EOS 30D
- Fujifilm S3 Pro
- Olympus E-330
Hobbyist (entry level)
- Sony Alpha 100
- Nikon D70s
- Canon EOS 350D
- Pentax *ist DS2
- Olympus E-500 Evolt
- Nikon D50
With any of these cameras and a good lens (I recommend you buy the camera body alone, and choose a quality lens separately), you can create amazing shots, limited only by your imagination.
Your choice of camera body will subsequently limit you to a range of lenses, so choose wisely according to what types of lenses you may want to use. Having said that, most lens manufacturers make a full range of lens types. Once you spend money on a lens, you will keep it for life, so the camera manufacturer becomes one you stick with for a long time.
Another thing to consider is whether you want camera anti-shake technology built into the camera body, or whether you are happy to just buy a lens with this function built in. Dust protection is yet another technology that new cameras are beginning to include. Digital cameras are more exposed to electro-magnetic attraction of dust particles on the sensor than film cameras. This can result in dark spots on shots with a lot of sky.
In my opinion, the Canon 30D is the best value digital SLR available.
It’s an excellent combination of style, picture quality and value for money. You can pick it up from anywhere between $1950-$2250 if you shop well. The 30D excels at low-light photography, meaning you can shoot at much higher ISOs than other cameras, with far less digital noise in your resultant shots. This makes it a great choice for me with my live rock photography. It doesn’t include dust protection or anti-shake technology, but more than makes up for this by offering the very best quality a digital camera can offer. It uses a 1:1.6 ratio sensor, meaning that a lens focal length needs to be multiplied by this amount to get the true focal length. So, a 100mm lens is really a 160mm on this camera. This is great for zoom lenses, but not so good for wide-angle shots. If you plan to do a lot of landscape or commercial photography, then the next Canon in their range, the 5D, is possibly a better option as it has a 1:1 sensor. However it is a lot more expensive and doesn’t really offer any further improvement on the 30D.
The 30D has a popup flash. If you are serious about your photography you will use a dedicated flash unit, but there are times when you are taking snapshots and the onboard flash can be very useful.
For a very detailed review of the Canon 30D, as well as most other cameras on the market, check out Steve’s Digicams.
