Let’s see what can this camera do: Action, Aperture priority, Auto (default), Beach, Document, Landscape, Manual mode, My mode, Night portrait, Night scenery, Panorama left, Panorama right (But only up to 5 picture, so I’m not very pleased with that), Portrait, Shutter priority, Snow, Steady Photo, Sunset, Theatre… Theatre? I haven’t seen this feature elsewhere. Adaptive Lighting, Adaptive light bracketing, AE bracketing, AE metering, auto focus area, colour bracketing, contrast, EV compensation, Auto Red-eye Removal (Really? Yes: The HP tool automatically recognises red-eye and lets you remove it immediately via your camera’s LCD screen.), saturation, sharpness, white balance. The lens focal range is approximately 0.5 m to infinity (wide), 0.6 m to infinity (telephoto), 0.10 to 1.0 m (macro wide). For the light exposure control: centre-weighted Auto Exposure (AE) metering (default), spot AE Metering, average AE Metering. Colour control seems satisfying: full colour (default), black & white, sepia, colour bracketing, plus that it adds artistic effects and borders right in the camera. You can make up to 2 shots with self timer (User selectable: 2, 5, 10, 20 or 30 sec). Photosmart’s R967 patented technology analyses your photos then offers tips and suggestions on how you might do things differently for even better results next time. This is great for someone who won’t complicate his life with outside of the box shooting. If you intend to dive deeper into photography, I recommend a more flexible camera, with more unlimited possibilities.
Other Technical data:
• 3 inches LCD
• 10 megapixel resolution
• 30x total zoom (3x optical, 10x digital)
• Anti-shake feature
• SD/MMC card slot
• Shutter speed 16 to 1/2000 sec
• Shutter lag 0.15 sec
• ISO 100, 200, 400
• Video specification: 24 fps, VGA 640 x 480
• Uses Lithium-Ion battery 1050 mA (rechargeable)

Tags: camera, photo, panorama, red eye removal, hp, hp photosmart, 10MP

Held annually, the competition aims to find the most stunning and original wildlife pictures taken by photographers worldwide of all ages.
The Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition is an international showcase for the very best photography featuring natural subjects. The competition is owned by two UK institutions that pride themselves on revealing and championing the diversity of life on Earth – the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine.
Being placed in this competition is something that wildlife photographers, worldwide, aspire to. Achieving the perfect picture is down to a mixture of skill, vision, originality, knowledge of nature and luck.
Each year thousands of entries are received and judged by a specially selected expert panel. The winners are announced at an awards ceremony that takes place each October at the Natural History Museum, London. Winning entries from the 2006 competition can be seen at the Natural History Museum until 29 April 2007.

From the last winners:
G̦ran Ehlm̩ (Sweden) РBeast of the Sediment (Nikon D2x with 12-24mm lens; 1/50 sec at f4; 400 ISO; Seacam housing with wide-angle port.)
Rick Stanley – The dilemma (Canon EOS 1D Mark II with Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L USM zoom lens; 1/400 sec at f8; 800 ISO.)
More about the 2006 winners.

Tags: natural history, wildlife, nature, photographer of the year, international contest

34 stunning images of smoke taken by Graham Jefferey made rumours around the world of photography.
To get the best possible smoke to work with, Graham uses simple incense sticks known as Joss sticks, which can be purchased from most Chinese supermarkets and in every Chinatown anywhere in the world. Alternatively, any reasonably large incense stick should do the trick.
Once you’ve got the smoke, the rest is all down to freezing the motion, and getting the lighting right. “In my opinion,” explains Graham, “the key technical factor is to adequately light the smoke so that it stands out from the background.”
“I want clean lines and shapes”, Graham explains. To do this, he shoots with a lot of light at a small aperture (and thereby a deeper depth of field). “This is very much easier to do if the smoke is allowed to rise naturally.” Once you’re taking photos, it’s worth keeping in mind that you need to keep the room well-ventilated : “as the air fills up with the fog of dissipated smoke your pictures will be robbed of light, contrast and sharpness” — never mind your health, think of the photos!
Read this excelent article at photocritic.org .

Tags: smoke, photo, photography, jefferey graham, fog, incense sticks

Since 1985, Richardson has worked as a freelancer for the National Geographic Society. His story number 21 under National Geographic Society was published in March 2006.
Even if he worked for other worldwide Photography Centres, this is what for he became famous. He has lectured in the National Geographic Society’s “Masters of Photography” series four times and offered intensive travel photography seminars for The Maine Photographic Workshops. In his case, it was the first time that the National Geographic Society has allowed an outside journalist to document its behind-the-scenes editorial process.

He describes himself as a journalism photographer, focusing on the lives of people who shape or are affected by a particular place.
Richardson started experimenting with his father’s box camera on his parents’ farmstead in north central Kansas. He developed his photography skills while working for Student Publications at Kansas State University during the 1960s, and, from 1970 to 1981, he worked at the Topeka Capital-Journal. Then, at the Denver Post, from 1981 to 1984, he became a special assignment photographer.
Special Recognition Award for World Understanding (from Nikon) was given to him for his documentary photographs of Kansas people and places.
In 1979, Richardson published his first book, “High School USA“, a three-year study of adolescence in Rossville High School (a photo essay classic), followed by another 6 books.
More information about his work and awards at Venice School of Photography.

“You have these people there who are dedicated to the place, who understand it, who know how to make community happen and when they virtually nothing to make it out of and they are very talented at being a community.”

Tags: photographer, jim richardson, national geographic, people, journalism, workshop, documentary, kansas

Nikon’s D70 (improvement of D100) was Digital SLR camera of the year in 2004. Solid ergonomic body (600g without battery) and easy to use menu (even a help button). Aperture priority, shutter priority and full manual modes offer the possibility to simultaneously think about composition, depth of field, motion blur, focus, and exposure compensation.
Depth of Field preview button aids composition accuracy. However, other easy modes are available: Auto, Portrait, Landscape, Close Up, Sports, Night Landscape and Night Portrait. Vivid and normal colour saturation, degree of sharpening, the use of extra noise reduction algorithms are a few effects you can add to the shoots. Nothing to say against the performance of white balance for this camera. Even if the auto-focus is very rapid and efficient, D70 supports manual focus. Processing of the image is available in both JPEG and RAW mode. Some little complains about the viewfinder being too small.
But as for the bad parts of this camera, The Blinking Green Light Of Death is a common cause of failure for many early Nikon D70 digital SLR cameras. Symptoms of failure are a constant blinking green Compact Flash card access light and the camera does not perform any operation. The camera basically dies and does not perform any operation. But don’t panic: Nikon seems to fix this problem even for out-of-warranty cameras without any charge.

Technical Data:
• 6.1 MPixel images
• Nikon F-mount supports AF, AF-D/G, AFS, AI-P, and non-cpu lenses.
• 1/8,000 maximum shutter speed. Flash sync at up to 1/500
• Continuous shooting at 3 frames per second for a continuous burst of up to 144 pictures
• Five area AF with predictive tracking
• ISO sensitivity from 200 to 1600, including auto ISO selection, very low noise
• 3D TTL flash with built in speedlight or SB600/SB800 flashes
• Compact Flash type I and II cards, including microdrives
• Starting speed is 0,45 (acceptable)
• LCD screen 1.8″ 130,000 pixel display
• EN-EL3 1400 mAH rechargeable lithium battery (up to 2000 images until recharge) – very good

Tags: digital slr, camera, nikon, D70, RAW, manual focus, low noise, dsrl

Rules:
This is a traditional photography contest.
No edits using software.
One entry per person.
New entries to the site only.
Deadline: Wednesday, February 28, 2007.

Prizes:
The winners will be selected by the FanArtReview.com Contest Committee.
A winner will be announced approximately one to two weeks after the deadline passes. The decision is final.
First place: one hundred dollar pre-paid Visa gift card.
Second place: twenty-five member dollars.
Third place: ten member dollars.

The judges will be looking for photographs that capture the spirit and personality of your subject. Creative approaches are welcomed. This contest is for photographers of all skill levels.
Click here to enter the contest

Tags: contest, personality, photography, photogenic, portrait

This entire book (240 pages) is written with a brilliant premise, and here’s how Scott Kelby, its author, describes it:

If you and I were out on a shoot, and you asked me, ‘Hey, how do I get this flower to be in focus, but I want the background out of focus?’ I wouldn’t stand there and give you a lecture about aperture, exposure, and depth of field. In real life, I’d just say, ‘Get out your telephoto lens, set your f/stop to f/2.8, focus on the flower, and fire away.’ You d say, ‘OK,’ and you’d get the shot. That’s what this book is all about. A book of you and I shooting, and I answer the questions, give you advice, and share the secrets I’ve learned just like I would with a friend, without all the technical explanations and without all the techno-photo-speak.

This isn’t a book of theory—it isn’t full of confusing jargon and detailed concepts: this is a book of which button to push, which setting to use, when to use them, and nearly two hundred of the most closely guarded photographic “tricks of the trade” to get you shooting dramatically better-looking, sharper, more colorful, more professional-looking photos with your digital camera every time you press the shutter button.

Tags: digital photography, photography, book

The next step in Canon Powershot development after the 500 and 600 series, is the A700 series.
The A700 model incorporates 22 shooting modes from fully automatic to fully manual to achieve optimum results for any photographic application. The new camera is also compatible with optional wide angle and telephoto lens converters, as well as a close-up lens and a wireless flash unit like its predecessors. The LCD screen goes larger to 2.5-inch (with Night Display and Grid Line Display), an improved direct printing function that permits greater flexibility in print settings. The number of effects included in the menu got some extra features: Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, and Vivid Red; lighter and darker skin tones, and positive film effects; colour accent setting turns all colours but the one selected by the user to monochrome (My Colors mode).
Technical data: 6x optical zoom, the first of many cameras launched in 2006 to use the latest 1/2.5″ 6MP CCD, and the first to feature an ISO 800 mode, 1cm macro mode (wow for a compact), recording time remains looked to 3 min for 160×120, 15 fps.
Some say that in it’s class, Finepix E900 is currently the only compact digital camera that beats it and I belive this.

Acording to dpreview, the most important improvements of Powershot A710 after A700 are:
-> Higher Resolution (7MP vs 6MP)
-> Image Stabilization
-> New ‘Safety Zoom’ (advanced digital zoom function)
-> 60fps (QVGA) movie mode
-> MyColors effects in playback mode
-> Playback overexposure warning
-> 3:2 overlay on live view
-> Marginally lower battery life
-> SDHC card support
-> Slightly reduced continuous shooting speed (1.7fps vs 2.0fps)
-> 10g (0.36oz) heavier

Tags: powershot A700, macro mode, camera, zoom, effects, optimum results, shooting speed, compact digital camera, canon, LCD, high resolution

Rules:
This contest is for photographers of all types and for photographers of all skill levels.
Making changes to a photograph using software is permitted.
One entry per person.
New entries only.
The deadline is Valentines Day.

Prizes:
The winners will be selected by the FanArtReview.com Contest Committee. A winner will be announced approximately one to two weeks after the deadline passes. The decision is final. The winner will have the option to select the alternate prizes of 110 member dollars or a $100 Amazon Gift Certificate.
First place: one hundred dollar pre-paid Visa gift card,
Second place: l win twenty-five member dollars,
Third place: ten member dollars.

For our Valentines Photography Contest we were looking for photographs that somehow captured the spirit of this day. While Valentines day must be a focus – creative approaches were welcomed.
Click here to enter the contest.

Tags: contest, valentines day, photography

Combining features traditionally found on 35mm film cameras with the ease and storage capacity of digital cameras, a dSLR is a powerful new tool that can create truly great digital pictures. But the learning curve for photographers moving from the point-and-shoot digital world can be formidable. In this book (216 pages), Jon Canfield shows you how to take full advantage of dSLR photography, illuminating the entire process with pictures and tehnical expertise. He also shows you how to use popular image-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Elements to improve your images. The Digital SLR Guide is brimming with tips and tricks for getting the most from your equipment.
You’ll learn how to:
• Get the right stuff. Explore popular digital SLR cameras and compare accessories, such as lenses, flashes, and filters.
• Learn the camera inside and out. Master dSLR camera controls and advanced features for maximum impact.
• shoot like an expert. Cut to the chase with innovative, time-saving, and creative photography techniques.
• Edit your images. Use Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Elements to make your pictures even better.
• Boost quality. Work with high-quality raw capture modes for the best possible photos.

Tags: digital, slr, guide, point-and-shoot, digital photography, photography, tutorial, photo tutorial, photoshop