---

Updated 17th March 2008

Where are our memories?!

I got an email recently from a client who had lost photos on a CD. What was uncanny was that I had also recently lost photos through the breakdown of a hard drive! The incident made me re-evaluate how we can "back-up" our photos effectively and safely. Printing our photos is an easy and inexpensive option, especially now that you can just send your photo files to a photo retailer like this one CLICK Backing up on CD/DVD is another obvious choice and creating duplicate discs gives you extra protection. You can also pay online photo site companies to look after your photo files and at the same time make them available for your friends to see online! You'll find one that I recently chose to store my memories on here 

---

Gentlemen...start your sensors!!

For those who want to understand the ins and outs of modern camera sensor technology, one of the best places to visit is the VERY informative website from CANON. There you'll find detailed explanations on the workings of the sensor used in their D-SLR cameras. CCD sensors and CMOS sensors are the 2 main types of photo sensors used in cameras today and both have different performance characteristics. Pixels capture the light from the lens and then are processed in a computer in the camera. This computer needs to calculate the information to recreate an image. There are other sensor details apart from the amount of pixels that should be looked at. "Dynamic range", the amount of detail you get in the shadows and the highlights, is quite important when manufacturing a sensor for a camera. You may have read about "full size", which are sensors that are the same size as a piece of film negative (35mm wide). These differ from the current crop of 22mm wide sensors. This size question also plays havoc when attaching a lens to a camera as it changes the focal length of the lens (how much zoom it has).  Read all about Canon Sensors

---

View your world in panorama.

Panorama photography is a great way to view an image, as the aspect the photo is shown in resembles how we actually see. Current compact cameras that have panorama features help you line up the positioning of the cameras so you can join the photo series up in your PC using software (some cameras do actually stitch in the camera itself). A great site that explains all you need to know to get your photos stiched together is here

---

 Landscape photographers will get more colour from graduated filters!

The importance of certain filters is underestimated in the world of digital photography. There are some things that just cannot be "fixed up" in photoshop. For example, a polarising filter reduces the glare of shiny surfaces. Light, especially contrast, can be the enemy of good photography. Early morning and late evening produces some beautiful lighting conditions, but working with filters can make a badly lit situation into a great colour photo WITHOUT the use of Photoshop  Look here for examples of Graduated Filters     


___________________________________________________________________________________________

 NEW camera with a sensor that works like film!!

A new compact camera has been released that uses yet another type of imaging sensor known as the Foveon sensor chip. This sensor design almost mimcs the way film works by having 3 "layers" of sensors, each capturing the red, green and blue light needed to make an image. Sigma, renowned for manufacturing lenses, also has a finger in the DSLR world but due to their unique "SIGMA" lens mount and lack of lenses, their cameras are not as popular as they could be. There is no doubt that the SIGMA SD10 and now SD14 are fantastic cameras and the quality from them is known to be as accurate as many other models on the market. So now SIGMA is releasing a unique compact camera using the sensor out of the SD14. This camera does not have zoom and won't suit everyone, but some people prefer the photos coming out of these very high quality fixed focal length lenses. See some great images  here