September, 2009: With the release of the new H4D-60, the first H4D camera and most recent addition to the Hasselblad H System, Hasselblad marks the beginning of a new chapter in the history of medium format DSLRs. The H4D-60 will feature True Focus with APL (Absolute Position Lock), making auto-focus substantially easier and more accurate for photography professionals. As part of the celebration honoring the first manned lunar landing and the first lunar photography, camera manufacturer Hasselblad is announcing another first, the launch of the H4D camera series. The first model in the new series is the H4D-60, featuring a 60 Megapixel medium format sensor. “We are thrilled to be able to announce the introduction of the H4D,” says Christian Poulsen, CEO of Hasselblad. “This step represents the natural evolution of our H System and of our photographic strategy in general. As part of our efforts to inspire 35mm photographers to step up to the quality found in high-end DSLRs, the H4D... (more...)

COPENHAGEN, September 28, 2009 – Phase One, the world’s leader in open-platform medium format camera systems and solutions, today announced the Phase One 645DF camera. Engineered in partnership with Mamiya Digital Imaging for superior quality image capture and ease of handling, it sets a new standard for high flash sync speeds – up to 1/1600 of a second. Also today, Phase One announced the availability of three new high performance leaf shutter lenses, 55mm, 80mm and 110mm, all f/2.8 and all designed with the Phase One 645DF camera in mind. The lenses are a result of close collaboration with Mamiya Digital Imaging and Schneider Kreuznach (see today’s related announcement). “Our patent-pending flash sync breakthrough eases working with wide open apertures and fill-in flash on location,” said Jan H. Christiansen, Phase One marketing director. “We already offer the most flexible exposure times ranging from 1/4000 of a second to one full hour. Setting new performance standards... (more...)

GOLDEN, CO (September 16, 2009)… PENTAX Imaging Company redefines the entry-level digital SLR category with the introduction of the K-x digital SLR.  This latest PENTAX camera offers high-end features including Live View and HD video.  And, since there’s no rule that SLR cameras must come in black only, the K-x will be available in a choice of white or black, as well as special, limited edition red and navy. Priced at $649.95 USD (for body with DA L 18-55mm lens), the extremely compact and lightweight PENTAX K-x forges ahead on the trail initiated by the popular PENTAX K2000.   With a one-handed shooting design and simple, easy-to-use operation, the K-x is perfect for users stepping up from a point and shoot digital camera to their first digital SLR. The PENTAX K-x offers photographic performance that challenges higher class DSLR models and offers several features that set this camera apart in the entry-level category: •         High resolution 12.4 megapixel CMOS image... (more...)

A typical landscape scene can easily have a range of 10 stops or more. But with modern digital cameras, we can only capture around 8 stops. And when we go to print, we are further reduced to about 5 stops. The rule of thumb for shooting a scene with a high dynamic range is to “expose for the highlights and let the the shadows take care of themselves.” This works fine, but by the time we go to print, we’ve tried to compress this 10 stop scene into 5 stops. What ends up happening is we lose contrast. The Unsharp Mask filter in Photoshop provides the solutions. Although this tool is generally intended for sharpening images, the way in which it works makes it ideal for enhancing the contrast in the shadow areas. Set the amount to 20%, radius to 50, and threshold to 0 as shown in the picture below. The effect can be rather subtle as shown in the pictures below. But it is an easy way to give a little pop to your images. Before After ProctorPhotos.com Related Stories:Photography... (more...)

If you own a Canon EOS Digital Rebel series camera, you can save a little money by building your own remote shutter release cable with a few spare parts from Radio Shack. Some of the parts, and at least the tools you should have already. If you don’t already have some of these things, you may not save yourself much money by building your own since they are not all that expensive to buy anyways. However, the wireless ones only work from in front of the camera, and the corded one only has a 18″ cord. By building your own, you can make the cord as long as you want. Mine has a cord about 36″ long. The jack used is a 3/32″ stereo plug with three connections. Called tip, ring, and sleeve. The tip is the top most part of the plug, the ring is the middle section, and the sleeve is the largest part at the back of the plug. When I build mine, other websites that had discussed this mentioned using all three. After trying every combination multiple times, I only found the tip... (more...)

People occasionally ask what kind of equipment I use to take my photographs when I’m out in the field. Obviously, a camera is required, but to get the most productivity there is a lot more that goes into making a good photograph than just a camera. Most of the time I carry a backpack with me that has the necessities. Below is a picture of the bag, what is in it, and how it is organized. Flash – I rarely use the flash and try to avoid it if at all possible. I don’t care for the look of the artificial light it produces. However, in some situations there is simply no alternative. So I bring it along just in case. Empty – This spot is for my 70-300mm lens that is currently attached to the camera. When I want to put the camera in the bag, I don’t always want to change out the lenses just to make thing fit, so each lens has it’s own spot. Leatherman – My Leatherman multi-tool goes in the side pocket. I use this tool in all kinds of situations, while... (more...)

Normally, when you take a picture through your digital camera, the camera will crop a few pixels around the edges. This is because some steps involved in processing the image are dependent on reading the data for a pixels neighbor. Since the edges don’t have all of the neighboring pixels, the camera crops these out. For my camera, the Canon EOS 400D, the output size is 3888×2592. This is, however, not using the full sensor. When shooting in RAW, the edge pixels are stored in the RAW file and can be retrieved. There are more usable pixels that may come in handy if you need to get all of an edge that you can get. For my camera the actual size of the image before cropping is 3906×2602. That’s 18 extra columns and 10 extra rows of pixels totaling about 85,700 pixels of extra data. Now, when looking at the whole image, this only accounts for about 1%. But sometimes every little bit helps. Some RAW converters will use the full sensor size (many based on dcraw), but most... (more...)

Every camera maker has their own proprietary RAW format. They can often have different RAW formats for each of the cameras that that make. RAW converter software has to deal with all these different formats. As time goes on, it is likely that new RAW converter software will not old cameras. It would be nice to be able to keep our RAW images for years to come just as film photographers keep their negatives. Adobe recognized this problem and developed an open standard for RAW images. They called this format DNG (Digital Negative). Adobe provides a program to convert the wide variety of current RAW formats into DNG. All of the RAW converters that I know of support the DNG format. There are a couple of arguments against DNG. Some claim that converting to DNG will degrade the image or that there will be data loss. I have not taken a close look at the specifications for the DNG format, but I find it unlikely as the DNG format only stores the same RAW data, that was in the original RAW. It is... (more...)

If you are looking to get the most out or your photography, shooting in RAW is a must. In my previous article RAW vs JPEG I explained some of the advantages of shooting in RAW. In this article, I wanted to share a little about my experiences with some of the many RAW converters that are available. There are many different RAW converters out there and for the most part, they all do a decent job of converting the RAW data. A few months ago I started using Adobe Lightroom. I have to say that Adobe Lightroom has quickly become my favorite. Not just for it’s quality in RAW conversion (which uses the same RAW engine as Adobe Camera RAW) but also for it’s entire workflow environment that allows quick processing and organization of my images. dcraw There are several freely available RAW converters out there and they are typically based on code from dcraw. dcraw is a RAW converter engine written by David Coffin. It is well written, supports numerous cameras, fast, and gives excellent... (more...)

Chromatic Aberration (CA) typically shows up on a photograph as blue or purple near an edge that is high in contrast. It is caused by the lens having a refracting index that is different for varying wavelengths of light. What this means is that the speed of the light traveling through the lens does not stay constant across the whole image. Changes in speed of light through the lens causes it to shift toward blue or purple. Here is a shot that I took a while back that has a lot of chromatic aberration. It may not be very visible in this small picture. So take a look at the next three 100% crops to see the details The neck shows blue on the left side and purple on the right This wing is looking pretty bad! Even the water has high amounts of chromatic aberration. What can be done to fix this? The best solution is use a better lens! But before you throw your lens in the trash, here is a method using Adobe Photoshop that can usually take care of the problem. First we need to zoom... (more...)