The Nikon D300 digital camera is also known as the ND300 and was launched in August 2007. This semi-professional digital SLR camera was launched along with the Nikon D3 FX camera. The ND300 is similar to the Nikon D3 FX, but is a higher speed camera with a better image resolution and a DX censor instead of a FX one. It is more compact than the regular D3 FX. A successor to the popular D200, it has the reputation of being the ultimate in DX format performance.
In fact, the Nikon D300 got rave reviews from some of the leading magazines like Shutterbug, Outdoor Photographer and the UK based magazine What Digital Camera. Post launch, the camera was conferred the title of The Official Camera of The Year by Popular Photography, a widely read magazine.
The Nikon D300 is packed with various features. The camera is driven by Nikonâs exclusive EXPEED Image Processing System. It features a new 51-point autofocus (AF) system and two new LiveView shooting modes. With a high-resolution 12.3-megapixel CMOS sensor, the camera captures high quality pictures. The D300 can shoot at a rapid six frames per second or at an incredible eight frames per second powered by its optional MB-D10 multi-power battery pack.
Equipped with the new Active D-Lighting mode, the camera allows you to make highlighting and shadow corrections in real-time. Its 3-inch LCD monitor has a wide viewing angle of 170 degrees, which makes it very easy to compose pictures in LiveView mode.
Its built-in ultrasound cleansing system helps to minimize sensor dust. Other features include advanced focusing modes, including single and continuous servo focusing modes. The focusing modes have a single area, a dynamic area and group dynamic area AF. The camera comes with an HDMI port that lets you connect the D300 directly to your HDTV.
All these features are housed in a robust magnesium alloy body with excellent ergonomics. With its functional design, the camera allows the user to take pictures with greater accuracy and comfort. All these features make this camera a favourite with both amateurs and professionals.
The standard accessories with the D300 include an EN-EL3e rechargeable lithium ion battery, an EG-D100 video cable, a LCD monitor cover, a DK-5 eyepiece cap, a DK-23 rubber eyecup, a MH-18a quick charger and a UC-E4 USB cable.
Jason Dion http://www.articlesbase.com/electronics-articles/nikon-d300-come-see-and-capture-684197.html
Digital cameras cost anywhere from tens to thousands of dollars, with all of them having excellent components and will be a good one. What it boils down to is what is it a person wants, and what eventually will suit their needs. The new word on the block is “prosumer” cameras – referring to cameras and their equipment focused on mainly advanced amateurs, a very inelegant word but getting the point across.
According to unbiased consumer reports, the leading brands about price, quality, and guarantees are Canon, Fujifilm, HP, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus, and Sony – with other brands coming from consumer-electronics, computer, traditional film, and film companies.
To avoid being stuck with this, recognize there is no such thing as a perfect camera. What is perfect is not what is the “top pick” but one that is the absolute most suitable one of all of them – for me – not the majority of the consumers. Choosing a digital camera from lists from the random choices of reviewers and camera critics is not the way to go, believe me, as they do not take a person’s needs into account with the most updated information available. Each camera comes with its own individual features like image resolution, storage capacity, lens power etc. So, what should the buyer look for in the camera?
The first step is thinking about what is needed and wanted. Look at various specifications – and recognize they are not always straightforward facts for all the cameras at once. An example is the number of pixels the sensor records on the cameras. We assume that a 5 Mp camera will give higher quality results than a 3 Mp, but this may not be true.
Questions need to be asked and looked in their entirety, not just one at a time. Some of these questions are: (1) what type of camera user am I?; (2) how important is camera size, megapixels, and finished picture size to me?; (3) what are the lens options to me?; (4) what are my memory choices, and how much do I need?; and (5) is money an issue, and how much can I pay or should I pay? A digital camera should last for about two or three years before upgrading; I need to look at the camera and how long it has lasted its present owners.
Many factors need to be considered when a buying a digital camera. Look at the online information of digital camera web sites and suitable models of what you want. Then go to your local camera store and handle the actual camera. Get a feel of it, and if it fits comfortably in your hands. Look at its build, its quality, and what it accessories it has.
Talk to the camera professionals that are working there, or even people you know who actually owns one. Look at some of the reviews of the camera you want; do not decide to purchase based on their reviews – only how they feel AFTER they have purchased it. What problems have they had? Would they buy another one? What guarantees does it have, and do they honor it? What is their return time on answering questions or repair work?
Resolution is another major requirement – I need to ask myself how much flexibility would I need to enlarge my images? Are 4×6 or 8×10 pictures what I want – if so, I need to choose the camera accordingly, as the quality of the camera is directly proportional to the resolution of its images. For 4×6 photographs, the 4 or 5 MP (megapixels) is adequate, yet can still do the 8×10 photographs without a lot of image distortion; any enlargements would require a 6 to 8 MP camera.
The 3 megapixels camera outputs images that are anywhere from 1 to 2 MB in size while a 7 MP camera outputs images that are 4 to 5 MB in size. A gentle rule of thumb is if I was a professional photographer then I would go for high pixel cameras; if I was a beginners I can look at low or mid-end cameras.
None of us want to think about our camera malfunctioning or breaking down entirely before we ever purchase one for any length of time, but it can and probably will happen at some time. If this does happen, make sure the camera’s manufacturer will guarantee this, and for how long after the purchase? If they do, they will exchange the new camera for the broken one if requested, and then pass the defective camera onto there servicing department. It will be fixed and sent to the outlet warehouse, completely functional.
Many deals for consumers can be found this way, at a newer and lower price for a fully functional and almost new camera. For amateurs and novice users, restored products such as these are popular for a lower price, and still has a warranty that is slightly limited.
Mike Singh http://www.articlesbase.com/electronics-articles/how-to-choose-a-digital-camera-gimme-my-options-76922.html
Ahhâ¦wide angle photography, probably one of the easiest types of photo to take; but also one of the hardest to excel at.
Have you ever tried to cram 30 people into a single photograph? Youâd try to stack them, have some of them on the floor or even ask some of them at the back to jump at the press of the shutter!? Youâre also trying to make sure that you are able to see the faces of these people in the photograph. Difficult if your cameraâs lens is not wide enough and you have to move yourself further back to accommodate, which may not be possible if space is limited. When shooting indoors with flash, moving back may even give you an underexposed photograph, as flash is often not powerful enough to reach longer distances.
Apart from the utilitarian purpose of getting good group photographs, shooting wide angle lets you portray the scene in full detail with unusual and sometimes, exaggerated perspectives. This is especially true of super wide angle. Small objects can be made to appear larger than larger objects within the same scene, effectively shifting the balance of the image composition. When used well, it can bring attention to the subject of interest in the foreground, at the same time preserving the context of the whole image by showing the location or event in the background.
Choose your foreground interest wisely
-Wider Options
Lenses are categorized by their focal lengths. Typically, lenses fall into one of these categories:
· super wide angle (10~24mm)
· wide angle (24~35mm)
· standard (about 50mm)
· telephoto (70~300mm)
· super telephoto (300mm and beyond)
These numbers indicate the focal length, which describes the field of view achievable using that lens. Incidentally, the field of view of a 50mm lens is considered to be an approximation to what the human eye sees. For the DSLR owners, they can choose from a variety of lenses ranging from a super wide lens all the way up to a super telephoto. But what about the rest of us?
Digital compact camera owners are not left out of the picture. There are a multitude of wide-angle adapters for digital compacts; both made available as accessories as well as by third-party manufacturers. These can be attached via lens threads or bayonet mounts on their bodies. There are also some from third-party lenses which can be attached magnetically!
-Focal Length Multiplier
Note: The âfocal lengthâ of the lens determines the âfield of viewâ, which is the angle of view seen using this lens. âField-of-view cropâ is often referred to as âfocal length multiplierâ for the sake of simplicity.
Digital photography, from the hardware perspective, is based on principles of 35mm film cameras. For a photographer who shoots with film, there is no such thing as a âfocal length multiplierâ, because to them, everything is 1x. This means that a 50mm lens is a 50mm lens. Not so for a digital SLR. A 50mm lens virtually becomes a 75mm lens, when attached to a Nikon D200 digital SLR. This is because the âfocal length multiplierâ of 1.5x causes the 50mm lens to have a field of view equivalent to a 75mm lens.
Shooting wide angle is basically one way of depicting a scene using a wider field of view, which in turn is achieved by using a lens with a focal length of less than 50mm on a 35mm film SLR camera. These days, with the proliferation of digital SLR cameras, there might be some confusion to how focal lengths are calculated.
To keep things simple, we can use this rule of thumb. If you are using a 35mm film SLR, your focal length multiplier is 1x. If you are using a digital SLR, your focal length multiplier could be any one of these, depending on the model of DSLR camera: 1x (eg Canon 1Ds Mk II), 1.3x (eg Canon 1D Mk II), 1.5x (eg Nikon D200 or D70) or 1.6x (eg Canon 30D).
To get the actual focal length (and hence field of view achievable) of your lens, multiply the lens focal length with the multiplier.
Example 1
Nikon D200 (multiplier is 1.5x) with a 17~70mm lens
The actual focal length range of this combination is 25.5mm-105mm, achieved by multiplying the lens range with 1.5
Example 2
Canon 1Ds Mk II (multiplier is 1x) with a 70~300mm lens
The actual focal length range of this combination is still 70-300mm.
Example 3
Nikon F5 (35mm film camera with multiplier of 1x) with a 15mm fisheye lens
The actual focal length of this combination is still 15mm.
The reason behind the focal length multiplier falls to the size of the recording media, the CCD or CMOS. Different cameras use different sized CCD/CMOS for different reasons eg. to make a smaller camera and for better power efficiency. For compact digital cameras which do not fall under the digital SLR category, focal length multipliers are rarely used because they donât have interchangeable lenses. What they do have are wide angle adapters or telephoto adapters. A wide angle adapter may be referred to as a 0.7x wide adapter. What this number means is that this adapter shortens the focal length of the built-in lens by multiplying it with 0.7, effectively creating a wider field of view.
Super wide angle shots sometimes appear distorted, but they do show a lot more in the background, lending context to an image
-Focusing with Wide Angle Lenses
An inherent characteristic of camera lenses is that wide angle lenses come with more depth-of-field compared to telephoto lenses. This reduces focusing errors to some extent, which means that you can focus on almost anything around the center of the frame and get an acceptably sharp image. In this case, a small aperture further increases the chance of a sharp image. For best results though, we can use the â1/3 of the distance rule”. Look inside your camera viewfinder, estimate the distance from the nearest point that is visible in the viewfinder, to the furthest point that is also visible in your viewfinder. Focus on a point that is roughly one-third of the distance away from you. If you cannot use autofocus effectively on that point (perhaps due to very dim light levels or low contrast early in the morning on a mountain), you can estimate the distance and manually focus your lens, using the distance scale on your lens. A small aperture (eg. f16) gives you more depth-of-field, so use it if possible. Thatâs why itâs good to carry a tripod, which will let you use smaller apertures without camera shake.
-Composing with Wide Angle Lenses
Wide angle photography has its own set of challenges. While it lets you show more of the scene, sometimes less is more. If not properly framed, a super wide angle image may include distracting elements which detract from your image, because a wide angle lens sees a wider field of view than a normal lens. Therefore itâs good to fill the frame well, composing it in such a way that only the necessary elements are included. Landscape photography is a classic candidate for using wide angle lenses. In order to shoot great landscape photography, foreground interest is important. Wide angle lenses let you include a sizeable portion of the foreground in the frame, so use it well by choosing a foreground that is actually interesting.
When shooting super wide angle, we can also get away with a slower shutter speed because the shorter focal length downplays slight camera shake errors, opening up new possibilites with photography. One example is hand-holding your SLR camera in a busy street downtown, capturing a sharp image of your subject while rendering the pedestrian traffic as a blur, due to the slower shutter speed.
-Wide Angle Care
Exercise more caution when handling your DSLR or digicam with a wide-angle lens/adapter. Some wide angle lenses have protruding glass which is more exposed and susceptible to accidental contact with dirty fingers or worse, it may end up getting scratched. If your lens accepts a UV filter, get one. It will protect your lens from countless dangers. Many wide angle lenses allow you to focus closer than a telephoto lens, so a lens hood helps to some extent to protect your lens from your overzealous attempts to get a closer shot.
Wide angle photography is exciting, go forth and experiment!
Enjoy !
Warmly,
Bernard Tan Min Chun
Photographic Artist
http://www.dreamentry4u.com/photo.html
BERNARD TAN MIN CHUN http://www.articlesbase.com/graphic-design-articles/seriously-wide-110362.html
Ahhâ¦wide angle photography, probably one of the easiest types of photo to take; but also one of the hardest to excel at.
Have you ever tried to cram 30 people into a single photograph? Youâd try to stack them, have some of them on the floor or even ask some of them at the back to jump at the press of the shutter!? Youâre also trying to make sure that you are able to see the faces of these people in the photograph. Difficult if your cameraâs lens is not wide enough and you have to move yourself further back to accommodate, which may not be possible if space is limited. When shooting indoors with flash, moving back may even give you an underexposed photograph, as flash is often not powerful enough to reach longer distances.
Apart from the utilitarian purpose of getting good group photographs, shooting wide angle lets you portray the scene in full detail with unusual and sometimes, exaggerated perspectives. This is especially true of super wide angle. Small objects can be made to appear larger than larger objects within the same scene, effectively shifting the balance of the image composition. When used well, it can bring attention to the subject of interest in the foreground, at the same time preserving the context of the whole image by showing the location or event in the background.
Choose your foreground interest wisely
-Wider Options
Lenses are categorized by their focal lengths. Typically, lenses fall into one of these categories:
· super wide angle (10~24mm)
· wide angle (24~35mm)
· standard (about 50mm)
· telephoto (70~300mm)
· super telephoto (300mm and beyond)
These numbers indicate the focal length, which describes the field of view achievable using that lens. Incidentally, the field of view of a 50mm lens is considered to be an approximation to what the human eye sees. For the DSLR owners, they can choose from a variety of lenses ranging from a super wide lens all the way up to a super telephoto. But what about the rest of us?
Digital compact camera owners are not left out of the picture. There are a multitude of wide-angle adapters for digital compacts; both made available as accessories as well as by third-party manufacturers. These can be attached via lens threads or bayonet mounts on their bodies. There are also some from third-party lenses which can be attached magnetically!
-Focal Length Multiplier
Note: The âfocal lengthâ of the lens determines the âfield of viewâ, which is the angle of view seen using this lens. âField-of-view cropâ is often referred to as âfocal length multiplierâ for the sake of simplicity.
Digital photography, from the hardware perspective, is based on principles of 35mm film cameras. For a photographer who shoots with film, there is no such thing as a âfocal length multiplierâ, because to them, everything is 1x. This means that a 50mm lens is a 50mm lens. Not so for a digital SLR. A 50mm lens virtually becomes a 75mm lens, when attached to a Nikon D200 digital SLR. This is because the âfocal length multiplierâ of 1.5x causes the 50mm lens to have a field of view equivalent to a 75mm lens.
Shooting wide angle is basically one way of depicting a scene using a wider field of view, which in turn is achieved by using a lens with a focal length of less than 50mm on a 35mm film SLR camera. These days, with the proliferation of digital SLR cameras, there might be some confusion to how focal lengths are calculated.
To keep things simple, we can use this rule of thumb. If you are using a 35mm film SLR, your focal length multiplier is 1x. If you are using a digital SLR, your focal length multiplier could be any one of these, depending on the model of DSLR camera: 1x (eg Canon 1Ds Mk II), 1.3x (eg Canon 1D Mk II), 1.5x (eg Nikon D200 or D70) or 1.6x (eg Canon 30D).
To get the actual focal length (and hence field of view achievable) of your lens, multiply the lens focal length with the multiplier.
Example 1
Nikon D200 (multiplier is 1.5x) with a 17~70mm lens
The actual focal length range of this combination is 25.5mm-105mm, achieved by multiplying the lens range with 1.5
Example 2
Canon 1Ds Mk II (multiplier is 1x) with a 70~300mm lens
The actual focal length range of this combination is still 70-300mm.
Example 3
Nikon F5 (35mm film camera with multiplier of 1x) with a 15mm fisheye lens
The actual focal length of this combination is still 15mm.
The reason behind the focal length multiplier falls to the size of the recording media, the CCD or CMOS. Different cameras use different sized CCD/CMOS for different reasons eg. to make a smaller camera and for better power efficiency. For compact digital cameras which do not fall under the digital SLR category, focal length multipliers are rarely used because they donât have interchangeable lenses. What they do have are wide angle adapters or telephoto adapters. A wide angle adapter may be referred to as a 0.7x wide adapter. What this number means is that this adapter shortens the focal length of the built-in lens by multiplying it with 0.7, effectively creating a wider field of view.
Super wide angle shots sometimes appear distorted, but they do show a lot more in the background, lending context to an image
-Focusing with Wide Angle Lenses
An inherent characteristic of camera lenses is that wide angle lenses come with more depth-of-field compared to telephoto lenses. This reduces focusing errors to some extent, which means that you can focus on almost anything around the center of the frame and get an acceptably sharp image. In this case, a small aperture further increases the chance of a sharp image. For best results though, we can use the â1/3 of the distance rule”. Look inside your camera viewfinder, estimate the distance from the nearest point that is visible in the viewfinder, to the furthest point that is also visible in your viewfinder. Focus on a point that is roughly one-third of the distance away from you. If you cannot use autofocus effectively on that point (perhaps due to very dim light levels or low contrast early in the morning on a mountain), you can estimate the distance and manually focus your lens, using the distance scale on your lens. A small aperture (eg. f16) gives you more depth-of-field, so use it if possible. Thatâs why itâs good to carry a tripod, which will let you use smaller apertures without camera shake.
-Composing with Wide Angle Lenses
Wide angle photography has its own set of challenges. While it lets you show more of the scene, sometimes less is more. If not properly framed, a super wide angle image may include distracting elements which detract from your image, because a wide angle lens sees a wider field of view than a normal lens. Therefore itâs good to fill the frame well, composing it in such a way that only the necessary elements are included. Landscape photography is a classic candidate for using wide angle lenses. In order to shoot great landscape photography, foreground interest is important. Wide angle lenses let you include a sizeable portion of the foreground in the frame, so use it well by choosing a foreground that is actually interesting.
When shooting super wide angle, we can also get away with a slower shutter speed because the shorter focal length downplays slight camera shake errors, opening up new possibilites with photography. One example is hand-holding your SLR camera in a busy street downtown, capturing a sharp image of your subject while rendering the pedestrian traffic as a blur, due to the slower shutter speed.
-Wide Angle Care
Exercise more caution when handling your DSLR or digicam with a wide-angle lens/adapter. Some wide angle lenses have protruding glass which is more exposed and susceptible to accidental contact with dirty fingers or worse, it may end up getting scratched. If your lens accepts a UV filter, get one. It will protect your lens from countless dangers. Many wide angle lenses allow you to focus closer than a telephoto lens, so a lens hood helps to some extent to protect your lens from your overzealous attempts to get a closer shot.
Wide angle photography is exciting, go forth and experiment!
Enjoy !
Warmly,
Bernard Tan Min Chun
Photographic Artist
http://www.dreamentry4u.com/photo.html
BERNARD TAN MIN CHUN http://www.articlesbase.com/graphic-design-articles/seriously-wide-110362.html
Headed to the beach? Scared of any nearby cameras? Don't be! Watch Carson work his photo magic with this bathing suit-clad couple.
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