Tag: Toolbox
Many photographers think a tripod is a tripod, a necessary evil if you want to get sharp pictures when using long lenses or long exposure times. But a tripod is more than a camera-steadier, and tripods vary greatly in design, features and versatility. In addition to preventing camera movement from blurring your photos, a tripod locks in your composition so you can study it, and so you won’t accidentally change it as you squeeze off the shot. Here’s a look at some of the top models on the market today.
Whether you’re setting out for a big trip or just a day hike, you need
a camera bag to protect, organize and keep all of your gear together in
one place. The right bag for the job will balance convenience with
necessity, and since necessity depends on circumstance, you’ll probably
want a couple of bags at your disposal: one for daily use and one that
can fit most or all of your camera system when you need everything with
you.
The best camera is the one you actually take with you. It’s true that
for ultimate image quality and control, compact cameras can’t beat
digital SLRs, but advances in technology have made pocketable models a
terrific alternative for many situations. We’re not suggesting that you
replace your D-SLR, but rather that you give yourself the option of a
smaller system when size and weight matter. With sensor sizes hitting
the 12-megapixel range, compacts are a great solution for occasions
when a D-SLR and its various accessories would be a burden.
It may not be an absolute necessity, but taking your digital darkroom
with you when you travel is definitely a huge benefit for your
photography. You can thoroughly review, organize, annotate, edit and
back up your photos as you go, so there’s less to do when you get home.
You also can upload to the Web and create an online gallery of your
travels as they happen or send photo postcards.
Many digital cameras are now sporting large, high-resolution LCDs, which are terrific for composition and limited review of images. We’re glad to see these larger screens, but for an even better mobile viewing experience, multimedia viewers are hard to beat.
It may not be as exciting a topic as the latest D-SLR technologies, but
color calibration is a critical part of digital photography. With a
properly calibrated monitor, you can be confident that the adjustments
you make to your images are exactly what you intend. Don’t
underestimate the importance of this! Adjusting an image on an
uncalibrated screen can be a waste of time at best, and at worst, can
cause permanent degradation to an image. You may also experience big
frustration when your prints don’t match what you see on screen.
With enough capacity on an external hard drive, you can store an entire library of photos in a space the size of a hardbound book. Externals offer fast plug-in and quick removal, too, for convenient transport of pictures, music, files or whatever media that you might need to grab and go.
Choosing the best photo printer for your needs may mean choosing more than one printer. We’ve come a long way from the one-size-fits-all office inkjets—with specialty photo printers ranging from fast and portable mini-printers for quick proofs and 4x6s to pro-quality, large-format printers for making frame-worthy display prints.
One of the fastest, easiest ways to improve your digital photography is to
understand and use traditional filters. Yes, imaging software can
simulate the effects of some traditional photo filters, but this isn’t ideal.
Applying digital filters means spending a lot more time in front of a
computer and less time behind the lens. As a general rule, there’s no
good digital substitute for capturing the image as you envision it
right from the start. That’s why filters are so important for all
photographers. They help us to capture better digital files, making our
editing work faster and more successful.
We’re always searching for the perfect camera bag, but much like the
Holy Grail, this can prove to be an elusive, if not impossible quest.
The result is often multiple bags in a storage closet. Owning several
bags can be a very good thing, however—unless you’re asking an annoyed
spouse.
Photographers are always concerned with sharpness. They’ll often search
for reviews and lens comparisons to make sure that their optics produce
the sharpest image possible. Yet even the best-engineered lens in the
world will deliver soft photographs when the camera isn’t as steady as
it needs to be. Whether you’re shooting landscapes or portraits, a
sharp result is sometimes only possible when the lens and the camera
are seated on a stable platform, be it a tripod, monopod or beanbag.
With the growth of file sizes and the sheer number of archives created
in digital photography, transferring and storing files has leaped from
a simple home-computing environment to something resembling more of a
business scheme (albeit on a smaller scale). Hubs, routers and
network-attached storage (NAS), once confined to corporate IT
departments, are now common components in the digital photographer’s
realm as well.
There’s no time to fumble with a camera when scaling steep mountains or
cycling through deep canyons. With action sports attracting more
devotees every year, the gear for capturing these athletic feats on
camera is becoming more affordable. Of course, choosing the right
sports video camera depends on the kind of action you’re into and what
kind of video quality you’re looking for. Most helmet cams now are
about 1.5 inches wide, up to six inches long and weigh less than a
pound. So capturing your mad dash down a black diamond trail is as
simple as strapping the camera on your helmet and hitting record.
For more than a decade, inkjet printers have provided photographers
with a relatively inexpensive way to produce high-quality prints at
home. The speed and convenience of being able to print your own images
at your desktop, whenever you want, along with the control that doing
it yourself offers, makes home printing well worth the investment in a
printer, ink and paper.
While
you may have a memory card that fits into your camera, it doesn’t
automatically mean that you’ll get the best performance from
either the card or the camera. A 1 GB CompactFlash card may promise
storage for hundreds of JPEG images, but when that same card relegates
the camera to performing sluggishly, we may well feel that we’re more
decked out for sweeping off the porch than dancing at the ball.
Although professional photographers are always searching for and
approaching new clients, a large percentage of their income often comes
from images they have shot in the past. Whether measured in months or
years, a photographer's body of work is vital to the success of his or
her business, as is the lucrative client booked for this week. That's
why it's essential for professional photographers to archive and
protect their images.
