Here is the story - my wife find herself interested in photography, she has tried the 400D & 17-85 combo (see also Canon EOS 400D Combo for Everyday Snaps) and complained that is just too much for her, she want something lighter and easier, I think she is referring to a point & shoot compact camera. After a second thought, I am not going to acquire a new toy for her, I decided to have a light prime for the 400D, such as 24/2.8, 28/1.8 & 35/2 and 50/1.8 (we have also considered the EF-S 18-55 which is light zoom lens, however, it is still too complex for my wife, we want something fixed and easier, it is also not fast enough for indoor environment).

I finally picked a 24/2.8 for its overall performance across apertures (even wide open at f/2.8), it outperforms my 24-105/4 and 16-35 II at 24mm. 24/2.8 actually held up very well to the much expensive 24/1.4 L in color and sharpness departments …. see full article.

All digital cameras take their original image in some kind of RAW format. RAW files are usually proprietary to the camera manufacturer and sometimes to the specific model of camera. That means, only the camera that takes the picture can understand the information collected on the camera sensors. That information is then translated by means of firmware (software) built into the camera and the usual result is a more user friendly format called JPEG. That is why most cameras produce images with an .jpg extension. JPEG is a compressed format (and has the ability of varying degrees of compression). JPEG has become a fairly universal digital standard for photo images.

What happens is that all digital cameras use firmware to apply various qualities to the RAW format before it is written to the memory card in JPEG form. The firmware in the camera will apply varying degrees of sharpening, varying degrees of saturation, varying degrees of contrast, etc. Most cameras have facilities to change these settings to the photographers liking. The only hint you have of what that photo will look like is the small LCD on your camera. This is usually too small to tell enough to make changes until it is too late. Often the photographer doesn’t want to mess with those changes on the field anyway. So you set your camera based on the last experience. Many people never experiment with changing these settings anyway…. see full article.

I have been busy shooting with my Canon system (Get the Most from Your Camera & Lens Collection) in the past year and my Nikkor lenses collection (Nikon Nikkor Lens Mini-Review) were kept in an electronic dry box with humidity control for a while, now I would expect that is going to change because of the D700, my Nikkor will work in their full wide capabilities (though I already have a DX lens Fisheye-Nikkor 10.5mm f/2.8G ED) that is important to me as I do most in wide and ultra wide shots.

In additional to my existing Nikkor primes, I will be interested in adding a general-purpose zoom lens with the D700 into my Nikon collections, this is a native move to preserve my previous investment. The D700 calibration features for separate lens settings and high-iso capabilities means additional convenience and productivities.

I would hope the D700 comes with 16M pixels size, but I realized that Nikon would probably want to keep that cost down with an optimized 12M quality output instead of chasing up the pixel count war.

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The way I see it there are a few careful descisions which need making.

In this instance my sight was of this mountain, with the lake before it and plenty of other surrounding mountains all incredibly beautiful. Knowing I wanted to take a picture which would show it at its best I had to decide..

1. Which lens would work best
2. How much of the scenery to include
3. Portrait or landscape
4. Will my film/ file size cope?

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Given my background, I tend to think of the camera as a scanner that you point. If you don’t get the scan correct the first time, try again (and again). Compact flash is an endless roll of film. When I first got the camera, my (then) 5 year old son came into my office one day and suggested I photograph a bug that he had his eye on and we did. It was worse than terrible by my current standards, but it did allow us to see the bug in more detail than we could in real life. That is what got me started and what I enjoy so much about macros…..Full Article.

While I am happy with the current setup, I decided to have a serious assessment how all these (3 Canon DSLR bodies and 4 lenses) can be further optimized for different circumstances and applications. Well, some configuration may look odd, but that is interesting and let me have a prospect of all possibilities.

Here comes an assessment chart…. read full article.

The broader zone of the national park hides rich forest and meadow habitats with many diverse species of plants and animals. Possible activities in the park include: walking, trekking, electrical boat and train riding, talking photos, cycling, skiing and rowing.

Thought nothing really huge nor in colorful fashion, there are simply clear, pure, silence and beautiful nature scenes in water, lakes, waterfalls and forest. Plitvice Lakes is quite unique.

It is a pity that we only have 3 hours for a limited exploration to about one-third of the park and I have to run in a dynamic mode (that means not only no tripod, but also not much time to make a better composition, everything goes in hurry) during the tour.

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Firstly, it comes with my most favorite focal length ranges and that is a compromised solution - versatile, and high speed for my dynamic style. I say dynamic, that means to be able to run under most environment without the requirement of tripod and minimal time of lens change. (I prefer priorly to have the right lens attached to the right camera and shoot throughout the job). Now the 16-35/2.8 II is always on my 5D and 24-105/4 on the 40D, they are ready to serve my instance requirement.

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