Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"What's more important, the final image or how it's achieved? Over the past year or so, we've encountered an increasing number of cameras with lenses that capture significantly distorted images which are then corrected using in-camera software. It's a process that has divided the forums, with some arguing passionately that it's cheating and that the lenses aren't really as good as they appear, while others maintain that it's the final results that matter, rather than how they're achieved."

Software correction in this day and age is highly proficient, and correctly done can result in smaller and cheaper lenses with a minimum of image quality loss. Of course, we then get purists screaming bloody murder because said lens doesn't come with two aspherical elements to do the necessary corrections, which is a real pet peeve of mine. dpreview's informal test here shows that the image quality drop off is not as severe as one might think, and that the compromise all but the most critical photographers well.

The matter of the fact is that the while correcting distortion means stretching out the photo by interpolation, optical correction of distortion can also lead to compromises with lens resolution, and potentially introducing other aberrations. I think it's time we stop determining our purchasing decisions for lenses based on specifications, but rather what they produce in the field. Many working professionals never trusted a lens they never had significant shooting time with for that reason!

"You're at a popular location and you really would love a photo of the place without all the people in the way. Looks like you're out of luck and you should just buy a postcard, right? Not with this clever trick."

The end result is pretty cool, but unfortunately the end result requires Photoshop, a very expensive tool that most people don't own. A comment in the Lifehacker thread mentions an interesting alternative: using an ND filter to allow long exposure times. The idea being that with a long enough exposure, most people will move in and out of the frame, essentially blurring away. You'll need to fix the clouds up after though, so make a snapshot of the clouds separately. Boy, seems like a lot of work, doesn't it? Maybe it's better to just yell "MOVE!" really loudly. ;-)

The "golden hour" is the photographic term when the afternoon sun is at a stage when the light is soft and generally quite beautiful. It's generally considered the best light for most types of photos, though not all. This Web site will calculate at what times the golden hour starts and stops when you give it the location you're in. Pretty slick!

"The growth in video sharing (on places like YouTube) has ensured movie capture has long been a standard feature even on the cheapest compact camera. And now the increasing mainstream adoption of High Definition flatscreen televisions (and advances in sensor technology) has seen a new wave of HD-capable stills cameras appearing in the last year or so."

HD is the hot buzzword when it comes to technology sales these days. Televisions in HD. Media Centers in HD. If you will believe it, they even have sunglasses in HD. Digital Photography Review has posted a primer on what you need to know to start taking those family videos in high definition. From cameras to camcorders, many are now offering still or video recording in 720p or 1080p. Of course, just like how the megapixels are not the end all and be all of cameras, HD is not all there is to the newest generation of video recording devices. There are increased storage concerns, codec issues and typically, new software is needed. Confused? Check out the guide!

"Ya know somethin'? We love camera tossing. We love light painting. But we've got a brand new favorite: refractographs! They look super high-tech, but you just need a flashlight and a piece of clear glass or plastic to make ‘em happen. Shine the light through the glass and take pictures of the patterns that come through!"

Wow - those are some amazing results! This is something I just have to try...

"Ever taken a picture of a cough? Not just somebody coughing. No, we mean the actual air currents as they’re being expelled. Well, they just did it at Penn State, thanks to the magic of schlieren photography. “Schlieren” are density variations in a gas or liquid that you can’t see with the naked eye, like air currents caused by heat, movement, or explosions."

Photojojo has put up an interesting article explaining how you can take photographs of air density with a digital camera and a few extra tools. Yes, you could probably use an old film camera, but the immediate results of a digital camera would give you instant feedback as to whether you're doing it right. It can allow for some really striking and interesting pictures, and is probably a great way to spend a weekend. The trick isn't limited to cameras either. With enough time and effort, you can probably set up a webcam to do the same thing and watch was the wind passes by. On the slightly geekier side, I can actually see this having a more practical use, like examining airflow when designing that custom PC case you've always wanted. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to see if I can find those x-ray glasses I got as a kid.

"Megapixels are the digital camera market's equivalent of horsepower and megahertz—a single metric that consumers and marketers latch on to tenaciously, despite the fact that it hardly describes overall performance. Over the last several years, camera manufacturers have been pumping up the megapixels on each successive camera model, regardless of whether such increases offered any real benefits (hint: they usually did not)."

Manufacturers have always had the tough challenge of benchmarking or rating electronics. With CPUs you have Mhz/Ghz, with TVs you have resolution (and contrast ratio, and response time and brightness) and with cameras you have megapixels. All these ratings fall short of considering everything that's important in electronics. Fortunately, it seems that cameras have hit such a plateau that megapixels won't mean much anymore. Of course, camera manufacturers will probably switch to other simplistic numbers to promote their wares but at least we won't see ads for 250 megapixel cameras that come with a free 256mb SD card. Olyumpus seems to think that 12 megapixels should be enough to satisfy all but the most discrinimating photog. Ars Technica thinks 6 should be more than adequate for most people. Being largely unbitten by the bug, I hit my comfort zone at 4. I just hope that they'll now focus more on improved colour reproduction, less distortion and good performance under low light conditions. Yes, high end, and even prosumer cameras can do that, but I'm waiting for then them to do that with camera phones. Now I'll go hang my head in shame for revealing just how casual a photographer I am.

Moo is a delightfully quirky printing company based out of the UK with an equally quirky product that they call "Minicards" that are incredibly fun, especially for digital photographers. Minicards measure 28mm wide, 70mm tall, and they're printed with a matte laminate finish on 350g/m2 paper (think business card stock). The print quality is extremely high, with no discernible dot patterns that I could see. So what makes these little cards so much fun? Everything! First off, unlike pretty much every other printing process for cards that I can think of, they allow you to upload up to 100 images for your 100 Minicards. Or, if you want, you can upload only 10 images and you'll get 10 Minicards of each image - or any combination thereof (you get the idea). They have a great interface for pulling photos from your Flickr, Facebook, and other accounts, or you can upload images off your computer. If you dont' want to use your own photos, they have a variety of ready-made designs. On the back you can have up to six lines of text, and a choice of several small icons. I wish there were more icon choices though! Read more...

"Shooting with a wide angle lens attached to your camera can help create some memorable shots when you’re doing portrait photography. At very wide focal lengths you can create some wonderful distortion. It might not be the type of shot you take of your wife or girlfriend (unless she’s in a playful mood) but using these focal lengths will enlarge parts of the face or body that are on the edge of the frame more than what is in the centre. It can also give a wide open and dramatic impact when your subject is in an impressive setting."

Some nice tips on taking great pictures. I personally think that this article is better than most because most of the advice and tips are pretty clear and easy to follow. If you like, you may also want to read 10 other tips by the same author.

"Call me crazy, but I happen to like airplane travel…no, I’m not a huge fan of screaming babies, recirculated air, or stale snack crackers. Nor do I like lengthy airport security lines, accusatory customs agents, or the way that my equipment cases get beaten, mauled, and abused by the TSA whenever I travel from city to city. Nope, what I happen to like so much about airplane travel is that — each and every time I fly — that I always manage to walk about from the flight with at least two portable/foldable flash diffusers tucked away in my pockets."

Suhit recently posted an article that explains how to make your own flash diffuser for built-in camera flashes using an empty film roll canister, but the article here explains an easy and cheap (if you don't count the price of the airplane ticket!) way of making a flash diffuser for external camera flashes with an unused airline barf bag. It's funny that I came across this article last week since I'm headed out to Washington DC this Wednesday and should be able to get my hands on a few of these "flash diffusers" while in transit. I'll be interested to try this out for myself since I normally just aim the flash at the ceiling and bounce the light onto the subject of the photo. This seems to work well, but I wonder if the barf bag would work even better.

"As we touched on briefly in Lesson 1, light is a form of energy that can be bent. Bending light is called refraction. What happens when light is refracted is that it actually slows down. It’s a common misconception that light always travels at the same speed. In fact, the speed of the light depends on the type of material that it is travelling through. The really useful thing about refraction is that it can bend the path of light. I don’t want to get into the mysterious “dual nature of light”, but remember that light can be seen as a series of waves. Line after line of these waves make up light, similar to waves hitting a beach. Imagine we have a fishtank of water and a torch. For the sake of simplicity lets also imagine that we can see the beam clearly in the air and water. When you shine the torch at the surface of the water at an angle, from the side of the tank, you can see that the beam has been bent. The many wavefronts of the light are aligned perpendicular with its direction of travel. When the wavefronts encounter the water, one part of the front hits it before the rest. The part that has entered the water and slows down, while the rest of the wave is still travelling at the same speed. The effect of this is to bend the beam."

Fantastic lesson. Instead of telling one what settings to use in a camera, this class starts from the raw physics of light and how it bends when passing through the glass medium. Topics like focus, and focal length are also covered. This is recommended reading for those that didn't learn this in school or need a refresher.