Digital Camera Master

If your camera lets you set shutter speeds manually, you can capture a range of moving
subject matter but, as Tim Daly explains, knowing when to press it is a different matter…

A camera’s shutter controls the amount of time that the sensor is exposed to light. Like apertures, shutter speeds are organized into standard scale, but measured in fractions of a second Unusually for an international measurement, shutter speeds are expressed in old-fashioned fractions rather than decimal values and are typically arranged a follows: 1/1000th, 1/500th, 1/250th, 1/125th, 1/60th 1/30th, 1/15th, 1/8th, 1/4, 1/2 and 1 second

At the 1/1000th end of the scale, the shutter remains open only for a short time, but at 1/2 second the shutter remains open for longer. Like the aperture scale, one step along the scale will either double o halve the time that the sensor is exposed to light All digital cameras suffer from an effect called shutter lag caused by a slight delay when data is captured processed and stored on the memory card. This prevent you taking another image immediately while the data from the previous image is filed away

Which cameras lag moss

Budget cameras suffer most of all from shutter lag, a they have little or no built-in memory buffer, but o more expensive compacts and SLRs, built-in memory acts as a kind of temporary storage facility so you ca keep on shooting

If you’re stuck with a camera with lag problems consider shooting low-quality JPEGs for a fasted turnaround. On better cameras, uncompressed file formats such as TIFFs may give much better image quality, but will increase the shutter lag due to the time taken to process and store the files

The decisive moment

The greatest photographic skill that only comes wit practice is knowing instinctively when to press the shutter. All the best documentary photographers an photojournalists have developed this ability as a sixth sense and can predict when to press the shutter

The term decisive moment was first used by the French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, founder o the internationally-acclaimed Magnum Photo agency Cartier-Bresson declared that all photographers should be able to know exactly when a subject best present itself to the camera, hence the term ‘decisive moment’ Practice your skills of anticipation by shooting sequence of a person performing a simple task o activity. Try to predict beforehand which stages of the action will provide you with the best photo opportunity both in terms of composition and defining the essence of the task itself in a single shot. The results usually occur when you’ve captured the right facial expression together with a key moment of activity

Unintentionally blurred images are generally cause by camera shake rather than poor focusing. Camera shake occurs when too slow a shutter speed is selected coupled with a slight movement of the photographer’ body as the exposure is taken. Even the slightest saw will cause the lens to move during exposure, and result in a blurred picture, regardless of how well you focuses in the first place

There are times when, even with a digital camera, it’s necessary to use a filter at image-capture stage. The trouble is, most compact digital cameras aren’t geared up to filters. This is when we need to do that thing I love to do – improvise!

If you’ve moved from SLR film to compact digital you may well have some filters in your camera bag. These can easily be used with any digital camera – you can either hold them over the lens or use Blu Tack to secure them to the front of the camera.
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What it is: digital images are made up of a grid of pixels, each one a specific colour. You’d expect each pixel in the image to correspond to a pixel in the camera’s sensor, but it’s not quite as simple as that. Nearly all consumer digital cameras have a CCD or CMOS sensor with one layer of photosensors, each one capturing one colour only. The sensors are arranged in a mosaic pattern of red, green, blue and green. The colour information is then interpolated to give a full colour image.

Clever but, unfortunately, the interpolation process leads to a degradation of image quality. The Foveon X3 is a new type of image sensor developed by US-based company, Foveon.

How it works: like colour film, it has three layers, and is able to capture red, green and blue at each pixel location. The result is an image with a similar tonal resolution to a conventional sensor, but with three times the colour information. Because no interpolation is necessary, the processing of the picture information becomes simpler and the image quality is higher. It can also be used to capture high-quality video and highresolution photography.

The telephoto lens

At the opposite end of the scale is the telephoto lens, loosely described as anything with a focal length greater than a standard lens. The telephoto is most useful for making distant subjects much bigger in your viewfinder and cropping out unwanted peripheral detail.
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Understanding exactly how a camera lens works is the key to more dynamic photographs. Tim Daly shows how the design and specification of a lens can determine the kind of subjects you can tackle with confidence

A lens is described by its focal length in millimetres such as 50mm or 18mm. The angle of view (how much of the scene can be seen through the lens) has a direct link to this focal length. In the familiar territory of the 35mm film camera world, a 50mm lens is referred to as a ‘standard’ lens because it comes close to giving the same angle of view as the human eye. In the digital world, lightsensitive image sensors are physically smaller than 35mm film and the equivalent standard lens has a much shorter focal length. This month we take a look at the different lens types (each lens usually has information on the focal length printed on its inner rim) and how they affect the photos you capture.
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A firm favourite with motorsports enthusiasts, the technique of panning conveys all the drama and excitement of a finely-tuned machine at top speed. Panning works when the camera tracks the position of a moving object during exposure.

The panning technique is based on a slower shutter speed and needs to be practiced. Arrange your shooting position so that the moving object passes from one side of your viewfinder frame to the other, and select a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second. Press your shutter just as the moving object appears and immediately follow its path by moving your camera. As the shutter closes, the resulting image will display a sharpish moving object against a very streaky background. The same kind of effect can be applied to the backgrounds of frozen movement photographs using the Motion Blur filter in Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements

The problem occurs most frequently with digital compact zooms set on the telephoto end of the scale, and especially in low light conditions. As telephoto lenses capture far off subjects, any slight body movement will cause the viewfinder image to change composition dramatically. Camera shake can be solved by setting a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second or faster, but if you haven’t got faster shutter speeds can’t be used, use a tripod or steady yourself against a wall. Ultra-long telephoto lenses used on digital SLRs need a minimum 1/250th to offset the increase in camera shake because of the extra weight and awkward balancing involved. If light levels are too low to use a fast shutter speed, make your ISO higher or use a flash instead.

Faster speeds record motion and movement by capturing a fleeting slice of the action. Fast shutter technique forms the key to the best wildlife and sports photography, but knowing where to position yourself to see the action is important too. As a general guide, 1/250th of a second is necessary for most non-running human movement; for running and jumping action, 1/500th of a second is necessary; and for very fast action, such as motor sports, horse racing, cricket and football, 1/1000th of a second and over is needed.
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I must admit that I’m not a techie geek. I worked so hard just to learn the basic. But that was then, before I realized just how easy it was to have somebody else solve my proble without even I ask them for it. How can it be? so simple. I joined India broadband forum. I just browse the threads and topics to find the thing that I need. The searching option really works. You can search for posts based on username, word(s) in the post or just in the subject, by date, and only in particular forums.

Do you need information about wimax, iptv, or tata sky? well, the forum is just the right place for you. You will find many troubleshooting QA such problem in connecting to modem, strange problem with BSNL broadband on spesific products, wrong billing issues, etc. You name it, you can find just about anything.

Don’t have so much time to browse around? Then look for star sign that reflect the average vote cast, and can allow you to quickly see which threads are worth reading if you are on a very busy forum with a lot of threads.

In order to be able to post new threads, reply to other people’s threads, receive email notification of replies to post and threads you specify, and many other useful task, first you must register. I found that the most useful task I can do by registering is that you can send private message to other member. Why? because sometimes I just had some stupid question that I am too ashamed to be exposed in public . You can also talk about unrelated topics, building a new network with private message. Private messages work a little like email, but are limited to registered members of the forum. You may be able to include vB Code, smilies and images in private messages that you send. When you send a new private message, you may have the option to request a read-receipt for that message.

GPS photography is a huge help in photo archiveing. GPS can tell exactly where a photo has been shot. With the GPS coordinates written into the photo, it can always be found by location and been shown on the right spot on a map or satellite imagery.

The ideal GPS photography solution would be to take photos with a digital camera with incorporated GPS receiver that automatically writes the GPS coordinates into the photo’s EXIF header, together with all other information.

In 2007, Ricoh launched its awesome integrated GPS technology; the 500SE GPS-ready digital camera. Developed for outdoor location-based photography, the 500SE boasts extreme durability and high resolution to meet the image quality and all-weather usability demanded by the mobile GPS photographer. The camera’s integrated precision GPS module provides for an all-in-one, easy- to-use device for geo-coding images and video at the time of capture. For applications that require even greater precision, the camera is capable of receiving NMEA data streams from external GPS devices via its on-board Bluetooth(R) radio.

But the interesting issue comes with the using of GPS to track down a person. I mean it is true that GPS tracking devices have so many benefit. However, there are some privacy issues involved with using GPS devices that create controversy.

Lightning GPS is one reputable vendor that offers the next generation of GPS tracking solution which give you more control. They promise to be able to achieve delicate and complex situation with speed, efficency, and discreetness, thanks to their critical hardware and software solutions. They provide GPS technology to be apllied for Law Enforcement, Asset Tracking, Personal Tracking, and Fleet Management.

What interest me is that they develop the world first implantable GPS tracker with true real time tracking, and able to manage up to 100 of deployments. The Lightning GPS Bio-Trac GPS Tracker is so small it can be easily implanted under the skin quickly and easly, and that without any pain! You can also choose to swallow (yup, swallow) the rice sized tracker that will stay in your system for up to 72 hours.

Scary, eh?

Just look at the size, very small, eh.

Many companies that deploy vehicles or trucks use GPS tracking devices to keep track of their trucks. Some people feel that this gives the companies who use GPS tracking devices too much information about their drivers, though. Some parents use GPS tracking devices to keep track of their teens. They might put a GPS tracking device in the vehicle, or they might download GPS tracking technology to their teens’ mobile phones. The teens may or might not be aware that Mother and Father are monitoring them.

You can bet that a lot of teens think this is an invasion of their privacy. Do you wonder if your spouse is having an affair? Want to know what your brother-in-law is up to? Hide a GPS tracking device on their vehicle, and you’ll at least know where they go in the vehicle. You might have to draw your own conclusions as to what they are doing there….

However, I believe the satellite tracking of an individual’s whereabouts is not without controversy or benefits. As the technology becomes more accepted, and used, local, state, and federal laws will be necessary to protect individual rights.

While Parents have every right to know where their children are and what they are doing — its their job. Likewise, kids aren’t supposed to like the rules set up by their parents. Its unlikely however that GPS tracking of your child will threaten privacy issues enough to make courts intervene. Its likely to threaten parent-child relationships more than involve a child seeking help from the courts.

You can even track your dog ^_^

The main concern in this case was that personal information will be gathered by the GPS system such as visits to banks, doctors, restaurants, bars, houses of worship, and political meetings. Could law enforcement use such information in appropriately?