John Champion

High resolution images of it may be hard to find but fast images with the new Sigma 70-200mm APO EX DG OS HSM for both Nikon and Canon which will make you quite happy.

New lens for your Nikon

The lens uses two FLD panels which will help it give you a clear image, and it also has three SLD glass plates to help prevent abberation.

Now this lens has a large aperture which means that f2.8 will come in handy with your wildlife, wildflower, and even sports photography. While I would not recommend using this to shoot action on say a football or baseball field, it might work well for hockey, basketball, or other indoor sports.

Nikon's newest newbie-friendly DSLR

Now Nikon has introduced to the world the new D3100. So what has changed? Let’s see…according to the folks at DPReview.com, the new DSLR has four additional megapixels topping out at 14.2 megapixels. This addition means larger file sizes. How big are the new files? Well that purely depends on your format. If you shoot in a raw format, it could make your file sizes a couple of megabytes larger however, it still is nowhere near the 77 megabyte file sizes of the Canon Mark III series.

It has live view which means that you can use the LCD monitor as a viewfinder and compose your image like you do as when you use a point and shoot digital camera.

In many ways this new camera seems to mark the new standards for Nikons updated line for 2010-11. You can bet that many of the same improvements that we see in this camera will make their ways up the line for at least the consumer grade DSLR’s. So this means that I expect to see similar jumps in the D5000 line and maybe even the D90 line however I would not expect to see this in their pro-sumer catagory which, to me anyway, starts with the Nikon D300s which already has most of these upgrades in this $1500 model.

The best part of this camera is that it can shoot videos at 1080p using any of the existing range of Nikon lenses. (You can see the details of those lenses at Nikon.com or at DPReview.com or any other review site). It also has a wonderful new HDMI output so you can plug that camera into your plasma, LED/LCD, or other high definition telelvisions and view your work before editting it or burning it to DVD.

The camera has more than 2 megapixels in quality

Comparison of the original image with the lossy jpg version of the same photo-Courtesy of Rick Miller/Wake Forest University

Okay…so if you’re like me you shoot in raw or maybe jpg and then rush over to your PC to download your shots and view them in some tool like Lightroom, Picasa, Microsoft Paint, whatever…

There is a reason why you should not save those precious images in a .jpg format for long term.

Everytime you open a .jpg type image you decompress the image and when you close it, you recompress it. It’s in this recompression that you wind up losing data. To understand why this happens you have to understand how compression works.

Compression works by using an algorithm to compute where changes in your file can be safely made to substitute one character for several. Now for you techies…this is a major simplification of the process. There is actually a lot that happens but suffice it to say that the original file that you started out with is stored in a compressed format. JPG uses this to reduce the size of the file and there are two formats…lossless and lossy.

If you are using lossy, you are also using a format that loses data. So everytime you open a file in Picasa, Photoshop, John’s photo viewer, etc…you are losing data. So over time, that image of your loved one, pet, flower, or something else over time, and multiple openings and closings, will start showing noticeable signs of deterioration in the digital version.

So what’s the solution? Save images in a lossless .jpg format or save them in an entirely different format like tiff, or maybe even .bmp (yes…a bitmap). Another option is to save original in their raw format that your camera shots them in, and use a lossless .jjpg for sharing and use a tiff/bmp on those images that you want to save for a very long time.

If your images are already in a lossy .jpg format. save them in a different format like tiff now. If you are just now importing images from your camera in a nice raw file mode, leave them in that mode and work with/use .jpg copies for short periods of time. Of course you can always make digital copies of your jpgs and share them.

Well I told you a couple of months ago that I would give you some additional information regarding online photo storage and there has been a little movement in the market as prices have come down a little bit and services have become easier to use and access. So let’s review my top five online digital photography storage sites.

First let’s review my criteria for selecting someplace to store your images online:

1. Provides you with tools to upload multiple images off of your PC/Camera at one time
2. Provides you with access to your images regardless of platform (PC/Phone/etc)
3. Provides you with quality service around the clock
4. Provides you the ability to have backups of your image collection
5. The service does not automatically resize your images or provides you with tools to restore their original size
6. The service gives you control over who looks at and downloads your images

With that in mind, here are my top 7 online image hosting services. These are in no particular order. I do this because I want you to go to each site and maybe look up one or two of your own and see which ones you will think can work best for your needs.

1. Adobe Photoshop.com starts you with 2GB of storage for free but that’s not this site’s strength. Oh no…this site’s strength is in its editting
   tools. These tools allow you to make basic image edits like remove red eye, crop the image, or make some basic changes. For $20/year, you
   can buy 20GB of space. And you can expect to pay $1/GB for each increase above that.
2. Flickr’s free account provides you with a monthly upload/download limit which has changed and continues to change. For $25/year you get
   unlimited photo and video storage.
3. Smugmug is service geared at semi-professional and professional photographers. For $40/$60/$150 a year you can have more control over the
   site that presents your images. All plans have unlimited storage and allow you universal access to your images. The high end plan gives you
   complete control over the page that displays your images plus the way you sell your photographs.
4. Photobucket is an Internet staple. Free accounts get 500 MB of online storage and you are allowed up to 10GB of downloadable bandwidth per
   month. There is a 1MB size limit per photo so if you use a Canon Mark V with the 77MB raw files, this is not going to be the solution for
   you. However for $25 a year, those limitations are removed and you get to post images up to 4000×3000 plus access to their technical support
   team
5. Webshots by American Greetings, is a service that comes with the ability to use your images or the predefined images of other photographers
   into your projects. What this means is that there is also a likelihood for others to have access to your images for things like calendars, coffee
   mugs, and the like. They give you a 1000 image limit and then boost that with 100 extra images for every month that you remain a member of
   their free plan. For $20/year, those restrictions are limited but this offering is among the least favorable ones for photographers looking to post
   the thousands of images they generate a year.

Now there are some prominent sites that I left out. I left them out for a reason. Either I am not a fan of their policies or I do not like the software they ask the user to use for their site. However everyone is different and I urge you to research these other sites as well.

If you have any additional questions, just ask.

So from time to time it may be a good idea to take a class, either online or in-person to remember how this whole capture of light thing works. A few notes from the class I took over the weekend for those of you with new DSLR cameras.

1) Auto format–good if you really don’t know what you’re doing. But it’s like walking up to a baker and saying “make me a cake” and you get a strawberry banana cake when you wanted German chocolate. You didn’t specify what kind of cake and the same holds true for taking photographs.

2) ISO–you cannot overstate the importance of having the proper ISO for your conditions. If you are outside on a bright sunny day, ISO 200 or even 400 will work for you but at twilight, time to open that thing up higher and start approaching the 1600 range as lighting degrades. Experiment with different ISO settings to see how this works. It’s a DSLR and the space on a memory card is cheap. Blowing that once in a lifetime shot may not be so expendable.

3) Aperture (f-stop) — this is how big the hole is in the lens that lets light through. The bigger the hole, the more light shines through. It’s sorta like the family idiot…everyone knows he’s got a big enough hole in his head that you can see clean down to his gullet but he just won’t quit showing it off. Same is true here. The lower the number, the larger the opening. If you can find a lens with a 2.8, 1.8, 1.4 or so aperture then you can grab some really intense photos in low light. Conversely, if you have a smaller aperture lens, say a f4-6.3, you have what is called a slow lens. It’s slow because it requires more time for the shutter to remain open in lower lighting to achieve a decent image. That also means that your image is more prone to blurry shots because nothing really stands still long enough anymore. Well except for the oldest brother in my family…he sits still for so long, Mom had to dust him as a child…oh wait…that was me.

4) and finally…Shutter speed. This is how fast the shutter opens and closes to control how much light passes through the lens and into the sensor. It also determines how your image will be captured. A fast shutter speed means that you will stop motion faster but it also means that your aperture must be opened more in order for enough light to pass through to get a good enough image to use.  If you look at the photo above, you can see where I stopped the helicopters rotors in flight. It’s a neat trick but I must confess…the camera was on auto…and what was that about strawberry banana cake again.

Questions? Let me know…you can look online for digital photography classes in your community. Check with your local community college for continuing education classes as well as check with local camera shops. That’s where I took mine…and it only cost me $30 for two and a half hours of refreshing my brain. I wish I could do that for math. But if you are in the San Antonio area, check the Camera Exchange website and let them know you read about it here on Jchampion.com.

They aren’t paying me anything but I figure if I get enough referrals they might let me take the next class for free.

You knew it would happen. You got the camera you wanted and it’s a beginner and maybe the lens(es) that come with it are not exactly what you were hoping for but believe me, they will work well while you learn.

The first thing you need to do now is find a challenge for yourself on that camera. Go out and use it and shoot images of something. Kids playing in the park, deer eating your neighbors’ flowers, maybe even hit the local sporting facilities and shoot photos of athletes doing their thing.

Just use the camera.

The next thing you should do is learn the main rules of good photography and composition that you can get from here:  http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/photography-the-rules-of-composition/

It’s important to learn how to take photographs well. It gets boring seeing the same setup on every single photo. First rule…do not center every photograph and go on and get close to where the action is. Headroom is one thing but footroom and composition is very important.

Let’s talk about another area of focus…tools. Right now the only tool you need is you. You are equipped with everything you need to take good photographs. You do not need to buy a $200 tripod nor a $10,000 lens nor a $1000 flash. Step back…buy those things only when you need them and if you’ll use them more than once.

If you’re only going to use the camera component once or twice, consider renting. What? You can rent lenses, flashes, and tripods? Yes…and you can even rent another camera.

Just do a Google search for camera rental and check out the vendors. You can also check in your community. Stores like Camera Exchange in San Antonio, rent equipment and should you decide to buy it, they apply some of your rental fees to your purchase.

Next time…I’ll update you on when you can go wildflower hunting and where you can get the best clusters. Hint: you will need to get in a car and drive. Sorry…your backyard isn’t going to cut it unless you live on a farm.

A podcast is a simple audio or sometimes video file that provides you with any of a long list of items that can be used to teach you different languages, math, science, and even digital photography.

Some of the best guides and tutorials are podcasts. 

Here are some of them that I listen to:

• Photoshop User TV
• The Digital Photography Connection
• The Week in Photography

The main advantage of these podcast tutorials is that you can run them on your iPod or media player while you sit at your PC or in the field. 

If you know of any others, please let me know and I can add this to the list.