What’s the Canon Rebel T1i all about?

There’s a great review about the Canon Rebel T1i on the Hardware Secrets website.

Folks, this is the camera to get if you’re considering upgrading from a point-and-shoot. However, I would get only the camera body. The lens that comes with the kit–an EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens–is subpar as far as I’m concerned. I’d recommend a Canon 17mm-85mm.

The Rebel T1i’s a great camera. The Rebel name is a powerhouse in the photography world. I still have and use my Rebel XT.

If you’ve got nearly $600 to pay for this camera, you won’t be wasting a dime.

The camera has pop-up flash, Program, Tv (Shutter-priority), Av (Aperture-priority), M (Manual), CA (Creative Auto) and A-DEP (Automatic depth-of-field).

You might not recognize the CA mode. That’s because it’s new with this model camera. When you set the  Mode Dial to the “CA” setting, a screen appears on the LCD monitor with a variety of controls that you can set. The controls are Blurred to Sharp Background; Darker to Brighter Exposure Compensation; Selections of Picture Style such as Smooth skin tones, Vivid blues and greens, and Monochrome image; Image Quality and Drive Mode.

The camera also has a Live View button so that you can take your picture by looking at the LCD screen instead of the view finder. Finally, the camera shoots video, a feature which is definitely a step up from the older Rebel models.

10 Great Photo Gifts Under $100

Scratching  your head trying to figure out what to get your family and pals for the holidays?  Scratch no more, 101 Quick and Easy Secrets is here to guide you.

Check out these great gifts that are high quality and not all that expensive.

1. iPhone 3G ($99)  Join in on the fun of using hundreds of apps that are available on the spot for photos you’ve taken with the iPhone camera. Everyone’s shooting with their iPhone and tweaking their photos to turn them into works of art.

2. Kodak EasyShare DX7440 4MP Digital Camera ($99) If I were a new camera user who wanted to learn about photography, this is the camera I’d get. You can learn about aperture and shutter speed because the camera has both aperture and shutter priority modes so you can practice shooting with different apertures and shutter speeds.

3. 101 Quick and Easy Secrets for Using Your Digital Photographs ($19.79) If you don’t have a clue what to do with all those digital photos on your computer’s hard drive, this is the book to get. Filled with ideas from framing to tweaking online and even making coffee cups with them, this book will make your photos come alive.

4. Canon Wireless Remote Control RC1 for Digital Rebel ($21.99) Just point the remote control at your camera and the shutter will be released. It uses an infrared center and can run on the same battery for years. You’ll never have camera shake from pressing the shutter release button down again.

5. Canon Selphy CP740 Compact Photo Printer ($99) Get those photos in your camera/laptop printed, get a portable printer to print on the spot. This has to be the portable printer that is best bang for your buck. Better than the i80. Weighs only 5 lbs. Prints can last a lifetime.

6. Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens ($98.30) The best of the best for the price. Number 1 seller lens for dSLR cameras. If you want a lens with good optical quality this is the one to get. If you’re a beginning photographer and want something better (and inexpensive) than the lens that came with your camera, this is the lens to get.

7. IOGEAR 56-in-1 USB 2.0 Flash Memory Card Reader GFR281 ($16.39) Need your photos downloaded to your laptop fast? Just remove the memory card out of your camera and slip it into the memory card reader, which connects to your computer with a fast USB connection (cord supplied), then this is the gadget to have.

8. Photoshop Elements 8 ($99, $59 after mail-in rebate until Nov 30) Adobe’s having a Photoshop Elements sale. Get in on the action of tweaking your photos to make them winners. No digital camera buff should be without this software.

9. 3M Microfiber Lens Cleaning Cloth ($4.99) What good is a camera with a dirty lens?  Get it cleaned properly with a microfiber cloth.

10. Velbon Dual Function Mini Photographic Tripod ($32.24) Traveling? Don’t leave home without a mini tripod to get the sharpest shots on the road. Portable and easy to use, you won’t regret leaving home without it.

Droid´s Camera Competes with iPhone´s

The Droid is out, has a 5 MP camera, costs $199, creating stiff compitition with the iPhone GS, which costs the same and has a 3MP camera.

Decisions, decisions.  If you´ve already got Verizon, you´ll be getting a cheaper contract than you would with ATT´s iPhone.

While Apple´s camera has touch focus and Droid doesn´t, Droid has many other options that iPhone doesn´t, like flash, image stablization and 4X zoom.

Personally, I think the iphone takes better pictures, even without the extras.

Take a look for yourself. Some Droid photos are at http://phandroid.com/2009/11/03/motorola-droid-camera-review/

Some iPhone photos are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmohns/sets/72157600587133596/

Which mobile phone do you think takes better pictures?

Medium Format Digital Camera Is a Whopping 56 MP

I just ran into an interesting article about new medium format digital cameras coming out this month.

Until I read this article, I thought I had a fairly decent camera, a 12 MP Canon D5 with a full frame sensor (35 X24 mm).

Now I read that there is a Mamiya DM56 that’s coming to market this month. It’s one camera I’ll probably never see in my hands. It makes my camera look like a beginner’s.

However it is exciting to know that such a camera even exists. The DM 56 (it has 56 MP) camera has a sensor size of  56 X36 mm. It costs nearly $33,000.

Ouch, I wouldn’t be able to carry that much credit card debt.

Nikon Coolpix 1000pj has Built-in Projector

Nikon point-and-shoot has built-in projector.

What will camera manufacturers think of next? I mean a projector inside a camera? What’s this all about?

It’s true; not only does this camera have a projector, it’s also powerful. With a resolution of 12 MP, those images on the wall must  be really sharp. Well, according to the Boston Globe, the wall images have good color, but not great contrast. At $429, the camera’s not a bad deal, but I’d still opt for a dSLR for $100 to $200 more. The small sensors in point-and-shoots never can compete for picture quality with the larger-sensor dSLRs.

Hmm, Nikon’s site is telling me that the camera has image stabilization; motion detection (camera adjusts shutter speed, ISO automatically for a better picture; I’d rather do it myself, thank you); ISO speeds up to 400 and some sort of best shot selector, which has the camera taking a set of 10 shots while the shutter release is pressed down, picking the best one (gee, these cameras are smart). The thing’s got a movie camera, too, not to mention a rechargeable battery (hey, I’m almost sold on this).

The real question in my mind is does this camera have manual controls. I mean can you adjust aperture and shutter speed?  Sorry, folks the answer to that question is nowhere to be found. You’ll just have to buy the camera and see.

Everyone’s Talkin about the Canon 7D

The Canon 7D is here. First the price–it’s $1700. Not bad for an 18 MP camera that shoots HD video. Only drawback is that the camera does not have a full frame sensor (24X36mm). Its sensor is an APS-C (15X22.5 mm). Full frame sensors have better resolution than APS sensors.

When you buy lenses for this camera, you have to multiply the focal length of the lens by 1.6 to get the 35 mm equivalent focal length you are shooting at. For example if a lens is 200 mm the focal length will be 320 mm, quite an advantage if you’re looking to zoom into your subject closely.

One good thing about smaller sensors is that the produce less vignetting (corners don’t darken as much as they do with full frame sensors).

Canon is touting the camera’s iFCL Metering as metering that provides “accurate exposure even in difficult lighting.” The camera shoots at up to 6400 ISO (expandable to 12,800). Just in case if you were wondering expandable means that the camera uses software to determine ISO and not it’s internal mechanisms like it would at 6400 and lower.

The camera also has automatic sensor cleaning, shutter speeds as fast as 1/8000 sec and built-in flash.

12 MP Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR Best or Money Back

The Fuji FinePix F200 EXR is touted as a camera that will take the best pictures in an unedited media release on a New Zealand Web site. In the release, Fujifilm guarantees it.

Hey! That’s a pretty big claim. While reading that claim, I felt an inkling to do a bit of research on the camera. I mean I can always use a good point and shoot for candid photography.

It’s In the Sensor, Baby

So what makes this camera the best? Well, it was named the “Best Compact Digital Camera 2009” at the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) in Europe. And it has a super sensor–the Super CCD EXR–that adjusts itself wherever you are. The camera has three sensor modes, one of which is an EXR AUTOmode mode which optimizes the camera’s sensor for the best shot. (Gee, I never use auto mode on my dSLR; how can a point-and-shoot have a better auto mode than a dSLR?)

Digital Photography School Calls Sensor “Very Promising”

Digital-Photography-School.com called the camera a ground-breaking event for Fujifilm.  It says the sensor is very promising. It highlights an excellent point and one that would draw me to the camera: It has manual controls, including aperture and shutter priority modes.

The camera has a 5X optical zoom, f/stop 3.3-5, focal length 28-140mm (35 mm equiv), video capability and ISO 3200 at full resolution.

Small and Light dSLR

The Olympus E-450, a dSLR camera, weighs less than a pound.

I was surprised to have read today in the New York Times that Olympus made a dSLR camera that weights less than a pound, making it the world’s lightest dSLR camera. Where have I been? At any rate, a new model of this mini-dSLR camera–the E-450 comes out this summer.

This camera is perfect for beginners because Olympus has left in the scene modes from its point-and-shoot models.

The 10 megapixel camera has shutter speeds from 1/4000 to 60 seconds, and a Bulb mode that lets the shutter stay open for 30 minutes.

The camera also has a rechargeable battery, which is more than I can say for the Pentax K-200D.

Other features of the camera include: dust reduction system for its sensor, Live View mode and ISO speeds up to 1600.

14.7 MP Touch Screen Camera

PC World/Washington Post came out with a review of an interesting point-and-shoot camera yesterday. The camera, a Samsung TL34HD, has a minimal number of buttons, leaving most of the settings within the realm of the touchscreen.

At 14.7 MP this camera is pixel-heavy.  With that many pixels tucked into a 1.49 cm CCD sensor is not that great a thing. Your image is bound to lose quality when you look at it at 100 percent resolution on your computer screen, which means that, if you print big, your image won’t be all that clear. Nice thing about this camera is that it’s small and and can shoot at a wide angle.

The reviews on the camera haven’t been all that great. At $300, it’s not all that good a buy.

Here’s some other specs on the camera:

Shutter speed range in Manual Mode–1/2000 to 16 seconds

ISO speeds– up to 3200

Metering–Multi, Spot, Center-Weighted, Face Detection

Lens–28 mm, 3.6 x zoom

Video–30 fps, 720p resolution

Canon 5D Mark II–How Much Is Too Much?

I have a Canon 5D (2005 model) and while it’s not perfect, it certainly has given me some winning shots that I’m very proud of. At 12 MP it seems certainly adequate for my needs (images published in photography books).

The new Canon 5D Mark II, which is reviewed today in the Sydney Morning Herald has a whopping 21 MP. Now how much is too much? If you’re blowing up  images that are 21 MP, you can get them sharp when they are wall-sized. Sharp wall-sized photos sound great, but in order to get them you’d need extra software  (other than Photoshop) on your computer so it could process the big files that the camera will create. At 21 MP your Raw files will be humongous, eating up all the space on your computer. And processing them would take forever even with a good computer with lots of RAM.

This new camera has one great feature–a full HD movie mode, something that I would want because I’m interested in posting some book promotion videos on YouTube. Other features of the camera include: full-frame CMOS sensor; ISO 100-6400 (which is expandable) and  live view (so that you see your the picture you’re about to take on the LCD screen).

You can get the camera for $2,700 on Amazon, which isn’t a bad price.