| Image Sensor | 10.0 Megapixels (effective), 1/2.33” CCD (1.1cm) |
| Focal Length/Lens Configuration | 4.60 - 92.0 mm (26 – 520 mm equivalent in 35mm photography), 14 Lenses in 11 Groups, 4 Aspherical Lenses, 2 ED Lenses |
| Zoom | 20x Optical Zoom + 5x Digital Zoom (Seamless to 100x) |
| Aperture Range | Wide: F2.8-F8.0; Tele: F4.5-F8.0 |
| Display | 2.7” (6.9cm) HyperCrystal™ LCD, approx. 230,000 pixels 5 Steps Brightness Adjustment |
| Viewfinder | Electronic View Finder with Dioptic Correction |
| Focus System | CCD Contrast Detection |
| Focus Range (from lens surface) | Normal mode: Wide: 3.9” – infinity (0.1m – infinity), Tele: 47.2” – infinity (1.2m – infinity) Macro mode: Wide: 3.9” – infinity (0.1m – infinity), Tele: 47.2” – infinity (1.2m – infinity) Super Macro mode: 0.4" – infinity (1cm – infinity) |
| Focus Mode | iESP Auto, Spot AF, Face Detection AF, Full-Time AF, Selective AF Target, AF Lock, Predictive AF, Manual |
| Shutter Speed | Auto: 1/2000 sec. –1/2 sec. (up to 4 sec. in Night Scene mode) Manual: 1/2000 sec. - 15 sec. Bulb: up to 8 min." |
| ISO Sensitivity (SOS: Standard Output Sensitivity) | Auto, High Auto, 64, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 |
| Exposure Metering | Digital ESP Metering, Spot Metering, Center-Weighted Metering, Face Detection AE (when Face Detection AF is selected) |
| White Balance Control | iESP 2 Auto, One-Touch, Presets (Daylight, Overcast, Tungsten, and 3 Fluorescents), White Balance Compensation |
| Exposure Compensation | ±2 EV steps in 1/3 EV steps |
| Image File Format | Still Image: JPEG, RAW Movie: AVI Motion JPEG |
| Number of Recorded Pixels | 10MP (3,648 x 2,736) 5MP (2,560 x 1,920) 3MP (2,048 x 1,536) 2MP (1,600 x 1,200) 1MP (1,280 x 960) VGA (640 x 480) 16:9 (1,920 x 1,080) |
| Shooting Modes | 31 Shooting Modes; Auto, Program Auto, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Manual, My Mode, Sensor-Shift Image Stabilization, Scene Modes (1. PORTRAIT, 2. LANDSCAPE, 3. LANDSCAPE+PORTRAIT, 4. SPORT, 5. NIGHT SCENE, 6. NIGHT+PORTRAIT, 7. INDOOR, 8. CANDLE, 9. SELF PORTRAIT, 10. AVAILABLE LIGHT PORTRAIT, 11. SUNSET, 12. FIREWORKS, 13. MULTI-FIREWORK, 14. CUISINE, 15. BEHIND GLASS, 16. DOCUMENTS, 17.AUCTION, 18.SHOOT & SELECT1, 19. SHOOT & SELECT2, 20. SMILE SHOT, 21. BEACH, 22.SNOW, 23. QUICK SHUTTER), Movie |
| Panorama | Up to 10 frames automatically stitchable with OLYMPUS Master software when using Olympus brand xD-Picture Card™ |
| Continuous Shooting | High-speed2: 13.5 frames per second, 30 frames (3MP) High-speed1: 7.2 frames per second, 30 frames (5MP) Normal speed: 1.2 frames per second, 7 frames (10MP) Bracketing: Exposure Bracketing, 5 Frames Interval Shooting |
| Shooting Assist Functions | Shooting Guide, Perfect Shot Preview, Histogram, Frame Assist, AF Lock, AE Lock, Voice Recording |
| Movie Mode | AVI Movie with Sound; 640x480 (30/15fps) 320x240 (30/15fps) |
| Image Processing | TruePic™ III Image Processor |
| Noise Reduction | Set automatically at shutter speeds of 0.5 second or longer |
| Image Playback | Still Image: Single, Index Display (4/9/16/25), Up to 10x Enlargement, Slideshow, Rotation, My Favorites Movie: Normal, Reverse, Frame-by-Frame |
| Playback Edit Effects | Still Image: Red-Eye Fix, Lighting Fix, Resize, Rotation, Black & White, Sepia, Frame, Label, Calendar, Layout, Expression Edit, Face Focus, RAW Edit, Cropping Movie: Frame Index, Movie Edit, Still Image Cropping |
| Flash | Built-in, External Flash, Wireless Flash |
| Flash Modes | Auto (for low light and backlit conditions) Red-Eye Reduction Fill-in Fill-in + Red-Eye Reduction Slow Synchro1 Slow1 + Red-Eye Reduction Slow Synchro 2 Off |
| Flash Working Range | Wide: 0.98ft (0.3m) – 21ft (6.4m) at ISO 400 Tele: 3.9ft (1.2m) – 13.1ft. (4m) at ISO 400 |
| Self-Timer | 12 Seconds |
| Memory | 45 MB Internal Memory |
| Removable Media Card | xD-Picture Card™ (1GB, 2GB) |
| Outer Connectors | USB Connector, Audio/Video Output, DC Input |
| Auto-Connect USB | USB 2.0 High-Speed (USB Mass Storage) |
| System Requirements | Auto-Connect USB: Windows® 98 (driver required), Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows Vista with USB port; Mac OS 9.0-9.2x, OS X with USB port Software: Windows® 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows Vista; Mac OS X v10.3 ("Panther") or later |
| Operating Temperature/Humidity | Operation: 32° – 104°F (0° – 40°C), 30% – 90% humidity Storage: -4° – 140°F (-20° – 60°C), 10% – 90% humidity |
| Power Source | 4 AA Batteries, optional AC Adapter (C-7AU) |
| Battery Life (CIPA DC-002) | Approximately 390 shots with 4 AA batteries (based on CIPA battery life measurement standards) |
| Dimension | 4.7"W x 3.3"H x 3.4"D (118mm x 84mm x 87.5mm) |
| Weight | 15.7oz (445g) without batteries and memory card |
- Step 1
Keep up with your digital photos before and after editing with two basic computer programs: photo catalog software and a database of where files are stored. Your camera usually comes with a catalog-type software, but it can be cumbersome and unreliable.
- Step 2
Do not store photos on your computer's hard drive permanently. You need a backup storage device such as a dedicated hard drive (external or internal) or burned CDs or DVDs to ensure the safety of digital photos. Create a running database of your photo names and locations, such as an Excel spreadsheet.
- Step 3
To edit digital photos you need a photo editing program. Programs range from free basic programs that accompany digital
cameras to professional photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop, Photo Genetics, and Picture Window to free downloads like Picasa 2.
- Step 1
Photo editing capabilities vary across programs, but there are some basic features common to all programs. The first step in editing photos is to look at image size. Correlate the image size to the medium you will publish to—print or the Web. Make sure to click the "maintain aspect ratio" control for an undistorted image.
- Step 2
Maintain the size of the original photo if you need to use it again. Enlarging a smaller photo causes distortion. Choose the "Save As" option for the resized photo.
- Step 3
To cut out unnecessary or distracting parts of the photo, use the "Crop" feature in your editing software. This feature can make photos more dramatic or can make it fit in a publication space. Select the Crop option from your toolbox. Create a box around the photo. By dragging in or out on the corners, you will cut everything out beyond the box. This forms a new image.
- Step 1
Familiarize yourself with the numerous controls in your photo editing programs to change the brightness and contrast of photos, usually operated by slider bars.
- Step 2
Play with the color output to adjust the color balance of your photos. Most basic programs use red, green and blue channels or RGB. Some of the more advanced programs use other channels such as cyan, magenta, yellow and key (CMYK). For basic editing purposes, the RGB channels are fine. Professional printers use CMYK.
- Step 3
Adjust the color saturation of your photos by using slider bars to add more or less of one of these colors. You can work with the color balance and saturation to produce color photos that look great.
- Step 4
Know that different programs have different filters. Filters can change the photo's finish to something that looks like paintings or drawings.
- Step 1
Use photo editing software for common errors in digital photos. Cropping can remove some errors and straighten edges.
- Step 2
Use the red eye feature. Red eye is one of the most common errors in digital photography. Most editing software has a feature to reduce red eye. This feature takes a sample of the area around the red eye and replaced the redness with a layer of these same pixels as the surrounding area.
Photo Sizing
Color and Light Controls
Correcting Errors
Histograms are the key to understanding digital images. This 10x4 mosaic contains 40 tiles which we could sort by color and then stack up accordingly. The higher the pile, the more tiles of that color in the mosaic. The resulting "histogram" would represent the color distribution of the mosaic.
In the sensor topic we learned that a digital image is basically a mosaic of square tiles or "pixels" of uniform color which are so tiny that it appears uniform and smooth. Instead of sorting them by color, we could sort these pixels into 256 levels of brightness from black (value 0) to white (value 255) with 254 gray levels in between. Just as we did manually for the mosaic, an imaging software automatically sorted the pixels of the image below into 256 groups (levels) of "brightness" and stacked them up accordingly. The height of each "stack" or vertical "bar" tells you how many pixels there are for that particular brightness. "0" and "255" are the darkest and brightest values, corresponding to black and white respectively.
On this histogram each "stack" or "bar" is one pixel wide. Unlike the mosaic histograms, the 256 bars are stacked side by side without any space between them, which is why for educational purposes, the vertical bars are shown in alternating shades of gray, allowing you to distinguish the individual bars. There are no blank spaces between bars to avoid confusion with blank spaces caused by missing tones in the image. Normally all bars will be black as indicated in the second histogram. Typical Histogram Examples
Keeping an Eye on the Histograms when Taking Pictures
Most prosumer cameras and all professional cameras allow you to view the histogram on the camera's LCD so you can adjust the exposure and take the shot again if necessary. Some cameras come with an overexposure warning, whereby the overexposed areas blink, as indicated in this animation. Usually the blinking areas indiate that at least one of the channels is clipped. Keeping an Eye on the Histograms when EditingWhen editing images, it is important to keep an eye on the histogram to avoid the above mentioned shadow and highlight clipping and posterization. Adobe Photoshop CS and later versions come with a live histogram palette, as stated in my Photoshop CS review. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SummaryIt is essential to keep an eye on the histogram when taking pictures and when editing them to ensure proper exposure and avoid losing shadow and highlight detail. |
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Optical zoom is the number of times the maximum focal length of a zoom lens is larger than the minimum focal length. Consumer and prosumer cameras often come also with a digital zoom, which we will discuss based on an example of a 5 megapixel prosumer camera. | ||||||||||||
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To Use Or Not to Use Digital ZoomSo what is the best thing to do? If your purpose is to capture the information shown in image B, using a lens with focal length of 50mm is of course the best option. If you only have a 31mm lens available (or in general, if you reached the maximum optical zoom and need to zoom in more) there are three things you can do: | ||||||||||||
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* If for some reason your intention is to upsample and you are shooting in JPEG, one benefit of digital zoom is that the upsampling in the camera is done before JPEG compression. If you shoot A, crop the 1,600 x 1,200 area, and then upsample to 2,560 x 1,920 on your computer, you will magnify the JPEG compression artifacts and the upsampled image will look not as good as image D. Because not all digital zooms are created equally, you may want to verify the quality differences with your particular digital camera before using digital zoom for this purpose. by | ||||||||||||
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Standard Zoom Lens
Posted by around the world 
A strong lens for light but serious travel photography on crop digital. I match it with the Tokina 12-24 f4(an excellent lens) and get 19-200+ range on the digital Rebel, with IS on the upper end. Though it's a slow lens, that's not as bad on the digitals as the Canon CMOS makes great pictures at high ISO's. I also use it on my EOS 3 for film shots and it does a good job there, too. If you get a good copy, you'll be very pleased. (I shoot RAW any way and my shots are always a bit neutral until I post process; the lens provides good detail for that.)
Strengths:
Good range, decent sharpness, can be used on film cameras, too.
Weaknesses:
Some zoom creep
Not super small
can pick up dust
Not super small
can pick up dust
Similar Products Used:
Canon 50 1.8, 35 2, 28-70 2.8L, 70-200 4L
Tokina 12-24 f4
Tokina 12-24 f4
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The 300mm f/2.8 IS is one of Canon's very best lenses. Optically it's about as close to perfect as you'll find. It's not too heavy, and the excellent Image Stabilization system delivers 3 stops of anti-shake compensation, so it's very popular with sports photographers.It can be used hand-held, but a tripod or monopod is recommended.
This lens works very well with Canon Extenders (teleconverters) and it will still deliver superb image quality. The 1.4x Extender makes it a 420mm f/4 lens and the 2x Extender makes it a 600mm f/5.6 lens; both of these combinations will autofocus on all EOS cameras.
Suggested extra: You might find the Manfrotto MN393 long lens bracket useful when mounting this lens on a monopod or tripod.
| Technical Data | |
| Length | 252 mm |
| Diameter | 128 mm |
| Filter size | rear drop-in |
| Weight | 2550 g |
| Packed weight | 6900 g |
| Insurance value | £ 3800 |
Monday, May 11, 2009
Mountainsmith Exposure II - Large - Camera Pouch CLOSEOUT
Posted by around the world
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An ideal carrying solution for compact film or digital cameras with easy access front pocket to stash extra film, batteries or memory card.
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