By : TJ Tierney

Having lost count of the number of people who have asked me: "have you gone digital?" I am always left wondering why it’s such a much-asked question. The camera is only a tool in which a photographer creates an image. His personal ability to create a unique image remains the same.

For many forms of photography, digital has long held obvious advantages, but for landscapes the resolution necessary to make larger prints just wasn’t available. But things have changed and digital cameras are fast becoming the tools that most pros use.

Modern digital cameras are perfectly capably of matching the 35 mm film - the format which most landscape photographers begin with. But can they really match the large format film cameras? This is probably the greatest question that all photographers face.

Instant LCD feedback is digitals greatest gift and this enables the photographer to check exposure and composition of their image in the blink of an eye. While this is a big advantage, the hours spent in front of the computer processing the raw images have to be a hindrance. A landscape photographers time is best spent behind a camera not in front of a computer.

The pros and cons of digital photography will remain an issue for some time. At the end of the day a digital camera won’t make a photographers images better. The same values we apply in our photography should remain regardless of which camera we use.

Good photography remains as elusive and as enticing as it ever was; going digital doesn’t change this or make getting good images any easier. It brings technical advantages, and plenty of them, but the majority of photographic techniques never change. Good landscape images come from the photographer’s personal ability, not the ability of a camera. The camera helps, but the creative eye remains the same.

As a landscape photographer I am still hesitant to embrace digital photography and all the qualities that digital has brought to other professionals in different photography fields.

There are a few simple reasons that I still use a film camera:

The authenticity of my images could be questioned if I used a digital camera. It is often assumed that great digital images have been manipulated.

Too much time is spent in front of a computer.

Slide film produce stronger colours than a digital camera.

There are many advantages for changing to digital but I’m going to stick with film; for the time-being that is. With time film cameras will be a thing of the past and all our images will be exchanged for the pixels. But, be wary - believing our work will be superior would be falling into a great trap. For me size matters, the larger I can print an image the better.

Lens is important component for every camera. Especially for DSLR users, choosing the right lens is a must. But todo this is a little tricky. There are factors to consider when choosing lens for your DSLR.


Your interest what klind of photos you like to take is the main factor. If you like taking picture of view or landscape, using wide lens is perfect choice. If your hobby is shooting animal, use tele lens or macro lens for capturing tiny object with high resolution.


DSLR especially mid and lowend has something called crop factor since DSLR use tinier sensor than analog SLR does. DSLR uses the same sensor size with analog SLR is still expensive and that's why they called them as high end DSLR. Crop factor influences to lens's focal length. Since the size of crop factor is 1,5, so when you use lens with 18 mm focal length, the camera read it as 28 mm. This doesn't count when the lens attached to the full frame DSLR.


You should consider about diafragma too when picking lens for your camera. When you shoot fast moving object alot, so 2,8 diafragma is good choice. It's different when you taking landscape image, it doesnt have to open diafragma too wide. Note that the more a lens support wide open diafragma, the more price you have to pay, and it goes along with the weigh.


The brand is also factor tobe considered. Generally a combination from the same vendor of camera and lens perform best producing image. And the fact is wellknown brand lens is expensive. This doens't matter for those who has unlimited budget. But when the budget is a serious problem, it's alrite to pick a third party lens.
Just remember, before deciding to choose a lens, always find information about it first, there are plenty of source you could find, such like internet, magazine, friends.
Ok, choose the righ lens for you, attach it to your camera.. then start shooting around!!!
Happy hunting!!



Sunday, 23th of April 2006
Sei Putih, Medan Petisah, Medan
Arief Kamajaya, freelance photographer

Gone are the days of the box-camera – it is the age of digital technology and digital cameras have taken over the entire range of photography. However, at its early stages, digital photography had eclipsed the most exciting aspect of seeing what you have clicked on photographic prints. Things have changed and various digital camera printers with many unique and useful features are now available to take care of this deficiency.

As these digital camera printers do not need a computer to give you the prints, you can print directly from the camera and this makes it very convenient and portable. However, deciding which printer, out of the hundreds flooding the market, would suit you best is the most important question. Given below are the special features and other information relating to these cameras that will help you make the right choice.

In order to get prints at home, digital camera printers have special features ranging from paper sensors that recognize photo media to built-in editing tools. The other special features are given below:

• Memory Card Slots: If you have a memory card slot, all that you have to do is to insert your camera’s memory card and print. You don’t need a computer or any cables.

• Color LCD screen: You can see the photos on a color LCD screen before you print.

• Front-panel buttons: If you want to preview, edit or remove the red eyes, you should choose a printer that has front-panel buttons for this purpose.

• Photo proof sheets: Thumbnail images on a printed page can be displayed on photo proof sheets to enable you to preview and choose the photos you wish to print.

• One-touch connections: You can have one-touch connections to your printer, TV, and PC if you place your camera in a built-in dock for printing directly from your camera. The other advantage is that you can recharge your batteries every time you connect.
Besides considering the above factors you should also consider the following paper-handling factors before you decide which digital camera printer you wish to buy.

• Capacity: It is cumbersome to keep on adding paper to the printer. As such the number of sheets a printer can hold is important. Generally personal printers hold between 100 and 300 sheets.

• Versatility: Choose the printer that can print on the type of paper you wish to use. Some printers cannot print on certain types of papers that other printers can.

• Paper size: Your choice of a printer should be such that it can handle letter (8 1/2" x 11") and legal (8 1/2" x 14") sizes, as well as borderless 4" x 6" and 5" x 7" photo paper, panoramic paper, and envelopes.

• Image Quality: The prices of the printers of color photographs, though high in the beginning, have now come down and are within the reach of the average buyer but you must ensure that the printer can deliver photo realistic results, which should be as close to real photographic prints as possible.

• Print Resolution: For fine details and smooth gradation the print resolution should be about 2,400 x 1,200 dpi and this would be more than sufficient.

These digital camera printers store the images we capture on a memory storage device like a memory stick, a memory card, or even the camera’s built-in memory. There are many people who would also like to have actual copies of their photographs. It is a matter of choice and depending on your needs you can choose the best digital camera printer. The above-mentioned features will help you in making the right choice.

by: Ismael D. Tabije

There are various type of digital cameras out there, from low to high price, from low features to complete features. No doubt we must be careful when deciding to pick digicam that match with the need and budget. Well, here are few things tobe considered before buying digicam ....


Shape

Make up your mind, gonna use digicam or DSLR. Actually, digicam non SLR could be divided tobe : 'consumer digicam' and 'prosumer digicam'. But in this article, writer decide to call them as 'digicam'.
For Consiseness, it is better if you choose digicam. There plenty type and branded of digicams. Names are Sony, Canon, Nikon are leading the market. This type of camera has fully automatic setting to take photo while manual setting is available too. For some people who don't want tobe confused by various setting before take a shot, this features is gonna make them happy. And additional feature to this digicam is the ability to record moving image (movie) with various format file. The result of course could be playback with your player or PC.

Note that this type of camera has fix lens, which mean that you cannot change the lens at all, what you can do to maximize the ability of the lens is to use a converter and attach additional lens.
For those who want a maximum quality photo, well they could pick DSLR (Digital Single Reflect Lens). With this type of camera, you could explore many possibilities about taking photo, its benefit is the image quality, wide range of ISO you could pick, many accessories available. The most important factor, DSLR camera is changeable lens. There are so many kind of lens out there that you could use with your DSLR, from wide lens, ultra wide lens, zoom lens, or macro lens. The bad news about this camera is its size. This kind of camera has a big body and not practical at all.


Purpose

What do we buy digical camera for?
is it for documentation of an event or for more proffesional purpose?
For taking a snapshot, recreation, or simple documentation of event, ordinary digicam is enought. you will not be bothered by the size or the weight of the camera. Even tough its still possible to do all the documentation mentioned above using DSLR, but from the practical side, the price you pay is too high

Generally, DSLR is use for hoby or proffesional activity. People using this camera consider that taking shot is not 'point and shoot', there are many factors tobe set, that is why they take wonderful pictures, art image, or dramatical event. Their image could 'talk' or 'tell story'...


Resolution

Resolution capacity of a camera is known as megapixel (MP). For normal quality image, 2 megapixels or less image is enough for documentation purposes. But for printing or publishing purpose, the image should 6 megapixels or more to keep the quality of the image maximize
Less megapixels capasity usually found on lowend digital camera, while more capasity is supported by highend digital camera such like DSLR. But these days, there is digicam that reach above 6 megapixel capacity yet it's not DSLR.

Also, Additional source such like finding information or article about digital camera would be nice. There are many review about digital camera in magazines or websites. This information could be held by us before deciding which camera we're gonna pick. The reviews usually contain many subjects, from design, technology, image quality, price, performance, and so on.
Ok good luck for you, have a nice camera hunt....


Medan, 25th of March 2006

by : Arief Kamajaya, freelance photographer

What kind of camera do you use? Is it a point 'n shoot camera? or prosumer camera?, or even an SLR camera? Almost averybody has camera these days, espesially digital one since it's getting cheap with no additional cost you have to pay, such like film or printing to see images you've taken. But, no matter what camera you use, I am sure you would use the camera to capture nice view, to celebrate something, record unforgetable moment, or anything else. Definitely that camera has made your life more fun and colorful.

Digicam or Digital Camera made doing photographic stuff become alot easier. We could take as many as pictures without having to worry you'll be running out of film, you could see the result just in a moment after taking shot, and when you don't like a pict you've taken, just delete it. It's so simple.

We provide tips and tricks around camera in this blog, factors tobe considered before buying camera you like, and so on. We try to explain photographic thing as easy as possible tobe understood by rookie or beginner. There will be alot of explanations about digital camera, but it doesnt mean the article could not be applied to film camera. Principlly, the difference between digital camera and film camera is where the image store. Digital camera uses storage device to store images or well known as : memory card, while film camera uses film to store images.