Photo (c) M. Plonsky
What kind of closeups can you take with Canon G1 and G3 point and shoot digital cameras? The insect photos at M. Plonsky’s website are a good example. The site has a one page tutorial on macro photography with the G1 and G3. You can see more of Plonsky’s work in the galleries posted at PBase.
If you want to do closeup photography with an SLR, I have an article here.
Photo (c) M. Plonsky
The digital photos stored on your CD-R discs may be fading away even as you read this.
Are you backing up your photos on CD-R discs? You should since every hard drive will eventually crash. BUT those photos on CD’s may not last as long as you think. In recent tests (see the links below), some brands of CD-R discs lose their data in as little as 2 years. Whatever you do, don’t buy cheap discs. And you should store your data on at least two CD-R discs which are stored under the right conditions (coll, dark, dry) in at least two separate locations.
Other options are to store your photos on multiple internal and/or external hard drives. DVD’s are an option too but some DVD’s may not be much better than the cheap CD-R discs. Again, buy good quality. One of the best currently available options are the Mitsui Gold CD-R discs which you can get from InkjetArt. Paying more for top quality discs is better than discovering your digital photos have faded away to nothing. Don’t assume your data is safe for anywhere near as long as the claims you read. Go back periodically and check your discs.
Another option is turn your best digital photos into prints and copy the prints onto high quality slide film. Recent Kodak or Fuji slide film, if stored in a cool (70 degrees or less), dark, low humidity (40% or less) place will outlast the vast majority of digital storage media now available.
You can read some recent research at news.independent.co.uk. They have links to two other articles here and here.
You should also read the article on storing photos on CD-R discs at my website.
A crop of the image below, but before filtering. The insets show “filtered” portions of the image.
Version 4.0 of Neat Image software was released earlier this month. There are several versions including a freeware version for non-commercial use. Neat Image is a digital noise filter and it also minimizes grain from scanned film images. The above photo is a crop at 100% (actual pixels) from an original image taken with a Canon 10D at ISO 1600. You can see the grain in the faces, which is actually pretty minimal for 1600 speed. The two insets are from the same image after it has been filtered through Neat Image. The faces look smoother with less digital noise. The complete image is below (filtered and reduced in size).
My review of Neat Image is here.
The full, original image after being filtered in Neat Image.
At last! Yesterday I wanted full reviews of 8 megapixel digicams at DP review. This morning they are up at at DP Review.
Here is a quick summary of the conclusions:
Olympus C-8080 – Highly Recommended
Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2 – Recommended
Canon PowerShot Pro1 – Recommended
Nikon Coolpix 8700 – Recommended
Sony Cybershot DSC-F828 – Recommended
Highly Recommended is the top rating, followed by Recommended, Above Average, Average, and Below Avergage. I recommend picking a digital camera that receives a “Recommended” or “Highly Recommended” rating from DP Review.
These results are both surprising and disappointing. I must say that none of these cameras has all the features I want in an 8 megapixel camera. What I want already exists, just in 2 or 3 different cameras. What do I want? High image quality, 28-200 mm lens (35 mm equivalent), image stabilization, fast lens apertures, a buffer for raw files (no waiting to take 3 or 4 photos in fast succession), manual lens zooming, convenient manual focus, good close up ability, touch the shutter to go instantly back to shooting mode from any other mode, and intuitive controls. Maybe the next generation of 8 megapixel digicams will have everything, or almost everything in one camera.
Are these bad cameras? No, they are very good cameras. It is just that I have a good digicam already and none of these has the right combinations of features to compel me to upgrade.
But that shouldn’t stop you. One of these cameras may be just what you want. Read the reviews linked below and decide for yourself.
Image quaility from all these cameras is good, with some image attribute variations from camera to camera.
Image Quality Comparison Chart (c) DP Review
To recap my comments from yesterday, Reichmann likes these cameras in this order: The Minolta and Sony are his favorites with the Minolta edging out the Sony. The Canon is his middle of the road pick. The Olympus and Nikon are at the bottom of Reichmann’s list. It will be interesting to compare reviews.
Here are links for reviews at both sites:
DP Review: Olympus C-8080
Luminous Landscape: Olympus C-8080
DP Review: Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2
Luminous Landscape: Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2
DP Review: Canon PowerShot Pro1
Luminous Landscape: Canon PowerShot Pro1
DP Review: Nikon Coolpix 8700
Luminous Landscape: Nikon Coolpix 8700 Non-Review
DP Review: Sony Cybershot DSC-F828
Luminous Landscape: Sony Cybershot DSC-F828
Michael Reichmann has reviewed (or in one case almost reviewed) the 8 megapixel digicams from Minolta, Sony, Canon, Olympus and Nikon. So which did he like best? Go back and read the prior list in order.
He prefers the Minolta and Sony as the best in the group, places the Canon in the middle, and finds the Olympus and Nikon disappointing. Why? Read his comparisons of the group, as well as the individual reviews (linked from the top of his article). Reichmann is not the final answer – nor does he claim to be – but his opinions are well worth considering.
I am anxiously awaiting the appearance of full reviews from DP Review.
Victim of a Belfast girl gang. Photo copyright Thomas McMullan.
This photo is featured among the highest rated at the Photosig photo sharing site. Some stunning work is posted at this site and it is worth looking at from time to time.
Windmill near Schermerhorn. Photo copyright Jaap Hart.
Viewing a single image in full-screen mode in ACDSee software. Super Bowl XXXVIII photo taken with a Canon EOS-1D by Bob Rosato, Sports Illustrated staff photographer.
Keeping track of digital images is a problem. I have taken 25,000 digital photos in the last 12 months. It takes time to go through them all, toss out the bad and mediocre ones, decide how to organize the keepers, caption them, and then burn them all to disc.
I covered a church convention for a religious periodical earlier this month. I took over 3,500 photos in 10 days. Every night I would download all the photos from CF card to laptop, do a preliminary edit and throw out all of the bad shots, pick around 100-150 of the day’s best, and burn them to disc for the editors. Then I would pick 40-60 photos from the day to post online for friends to view (see the World Conference albums). Finally I would pick a handful of photos to illustrate daily conference reports written by my brother-in-law. This whole process – usually called “digital workflow” – would take at least a couple of hours per day.
So what would you do if you had to deal with 16,183 digital pictures taken by eleven photographers in the space of around 6 hours? Ask the photo editors of Sports Illustrated magazine.
And that is just part of a bigger challenge, dealing with over 1 million digital photos submitted each year to SI (and over 3 million in an Olympics year). It boggles my mind.
Picture an editor sitting in a trailer at the Super Bowl going through two photos per second for seven hours, picking “selects” for further review. Ouch.
It is not easy on the photographers either. There is all the the pressure of getting the great shot. As a side note, the equipment an SI photographer takes to a football or basketball game is staggering. “Staff photographer Bob Rosato’s collection of gear is fairly typical. To a football game he takes four or five EOS-1D bodies and 600mm f/4, 400mm f/2.8, 300mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8, and 50mm f/1.4 lenses. For basketball, he adds five or six EOS-1Ds cameras and dispenses with the 400 and 600mm lenses. Of the ten or so camera bodies that he takes to a basketball game, many are of course mounted overhead or around the basket for remote operation.” (Sports Illustrated’s digital workflow by Eamon Hickey)
The whole proces is really quite a story. Read it all here. My apologies in advance for some words I would prefer they did not use.
Downloading incoming Super Bowl XXXVIII photos to 10 IBM T40 laptops in the Sports llustrated media trailer outside Houston’s Reliant Stadium. (Photo by Eamon Hickey/Little Guy Media)