Pentax offers K-30 in a variety of colors and finishes

Oh yuk!

Pentax has announced a wide range of new colors options for its K-30 weather-sealed mid-level DSLR. Available in either a shiny ‘Crystal’ or matte ‘Silky’ finish, the 16MP DSLR now comes in dramatic tones like orange, yellow and blue. The cameras are available for pre-order at a retail price of $799.95, including the 18-55 kit lens. See below for a complete list of available color options. If you are tempted there is more information here

 

Canon EOS 100D

One comes along and then immediately another. This little camera is a departure from the trend in DSLR cameras in that is attempting to offer a full DSLR experience but in  a smaller lighter camera. It is on sale at Amazon for about £700 with lens

Last year Canon made its long-anticipated entry into the mirrorless camera market with the EOS M, taking aim at compact-camera upgraders who desire better image quality but don’t want the bulk or intimidating controls of a DSLR. Yet the company has long hinted that another path to competing with mirrorless entries from Nikon, Sony, Olympus and Panasonic lay in the miniaturization of its familiar SLR design. With the announcement of the EOS 100D / Rebel SL1, Canon has laid its cards on the table. Billed as ‘the world’s smallest, lightest APS-C DSLR’, the EOS 100D unabashedly merges the Rebel-series’ DSLR operational hallmarks with an impressively small body.

Thanks to a downsizing of internal components that has resulted in a smaller shutter mechanism, thinner sensor module and smaller-footprint circuit board, the EOS 100D is significantly smaller and lighter than the co-announced EOS 700D, while offering the same 18MP pixel count, DIGIC 5 processor and, presumably image quality. The EOS 100D is, in fact, comfortably the smallest DSLR we’ve yet seen, and not so far off ‘SLR-style’ mirrorless models such as the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G5.

As attention-grabbing as the EOS 100D’s small footprint undoubtedly is, what’s equally impressive is that Canon has been able to retain most of the controls and features typically found on a Rebel-series camera. A front dial and dedicated ISO, exposure compensation and AF/AE lock buttons are among the controls that will be familiar to any Canon DSLR user. Its touchscreen is identical in resolution to that on the EOS 650Dand 700D, but is fixed, rather than articulated.

The EOS 100D introduces version two of Canon’s Hybrid CMOS AF system, originally seen in the EOS 650D. While Canon is making no claims about focus speed improvements of its hybrid phase/contrast detect system, the new version covers a significantly greater portion of the live view area (80% of the area). This should make it a significantly more useful option than the version found on the EOS M and 650D. FROM DP REVIEW SEE MORE HERE

This front view shows that the EOS 100D / Rebel SL1 is substantially smaller than the co-announced EOS 700D / Rebel T5i – itself not exactly a giant.

However, the 100D retains the majority of the external controls found on the larger camera. Although both cameras feature the same rear touchscreen, the 100D’s screen is fixed, not articulated.

The EOS 100D achieves its notable size reduction without sacrificing much in the way of external control compared to the EOS 650D. On the 100D the button at the center of the 4-way controller does double-duty as both the Q menu and Set button, and the surrounding buttons have lost their dedicated functions. The 100D has a lower capacity flash, with a guide number of 9m (versus 13mm on the 650D) and houses a mono versus stereo microphone, though it does retain a stereo mic input. And while the handgrip is not as deep as the one on its larger sibling, the 100D still provides a distinctly DSLR handling experience.

New Nikon D7100 digital SLR

The arrival of the 24MP D7100 comes two-and-a-half years after the announcement of its predecessor theD7000, and it’s a pretty serious upgrade. Significantly, Nikon Europe’s presentation of the camera describes the D7100 as the company’s ‘flagship DX model’, and omitted mention of the D300S in the company’s DSLR lineup. Certainly, the gap between the D7100 and D600 now leaves little obvious room for a ‘D400.’

It was only a matter of time before 24MP resolution became standard across Nikon’s entire range of DX-format APS-C DSLRs, and lo and behold – the 24MP D7100 is the latest in the series, but this isn’t just the sensor from a D5200 packaged a newer body. In fact, this would be a fundamental misunderstanding of the new camera.

The critical thing here is that despite the fact that the D7100 is Nikon’s third DX-format 24MP DSLR, its sensor is new, and unique in Nikon’s stable. In a first for Nikon, the D7100′s sensor lacks an optical low-pass filter (OLPF). The D800E, Nikon’s highest-resolution DSLR has the effect of its OLPF ‘cancelled out’, but the D7100, like the Pentax K-5 IIs, omits it altogether. The result should be higher resolution than is possible from the conventional 24MP sensors in the D5200 and D3200, and Nikon clearly feels comfortable with the associated higher risk of moiré in fine patterns – one of the few black marks against the 36MP D800E when we tested it last year. Read more here

Wrapping Up Another Week on Light Stalking – Popular Stories, Photo Contests and Great Shots

Here is a bit more from the other side of the world where it is still warm. and Lightstalking do their stuff, good on ‘em

Light Stalking has grown into a thriving community with close to a million people following us or seeing us online in one form or other, every month. In all of the hullabaloo, it’s easy to miss the core of what’s happening in photography on Light Stalking. So that’s why we decided to sum it up for you. Here’s what you missed recently on Light Stalking.

Photo of the Week

Congratulations to Andy Dorr for this very fantastical photo of the week!  David can also be found on Facebook.  You can comment on his photo here.

The Most Popular Stories from the Last 7 Days

•7 Lessons You Can Learn from Shooting with a Camera Phone – Most of us would rather do just about anything but give up our expensive, heavy DSLR.  However, most of us are familiar with the idea that a good photographer is going to take good photos no matter what camera they are using.  The most low-tech alternative to a DSLR would be a pinhole camera, which is not something that most of us are going to choose if we have a camera phone at our disposal.  There are a few obvious pluses to shooting with a camera phone as well as some serious drawbacks, both of which are illustrated in this article.  In the end, it might be worth it to put aside your DSLR for a few days and see what you learn.

•10 Photography Grants and Scholarships for Amateurs and Professionals – Sometimes we just don’t have the resources that we need to progress in our skills and careers as photographers.  Luckily, there are a number of grants available to both amateur and working photographers that are awarded each year.  It never hurts to try!

Click Here: Wrapping Up Another Week on Light Stalking – Popular Stories, Photo Contests and Great Shots

Why Good Photography Isn’t About the Gear

I was out in Australia over Christmas and I wish I had met up with Phil Hill, he sounds like someone I would get along with. Here, on the excellent Lightstalking site,  he makes some very fine points about equipment. I think he would probably agree with my often mentioned one liner, “if you don’t like your pictures don’t blame your camera”

With the release of the Nikon d800 and the Canon 5d mk3 many people will have no doubt begun checking their bank statements a bit more carefully and thinking about increasing that credit limit by a measly few thousand.

This got me thinking, how many bells and whistles do you actually need to take a great photograph anyway? Too many cameras are now available with enough fancy settings to give the geekiest of technology nerd’s nightmares…..With this in mind I decided I would go out and shoot some landscapes with my girlfriend’s entry level and well-used Canon 1000d and its bog standard 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens…more

Here is one of Phil’s pictures to illustrate this article

City Beach Lifeguard tower. f22 @ 3.2 sec ISO 400 ©Phil Hill

he concludes his article with The bottom line of course is that to become technically proficient at taking photographs all you really need is the ability to control aperture and shutter speed and you can do that for far less money than many of the cameras on the market will openly admit too. Think of it as if learning to play football brilliantly barefoot, then going out to get a gleaming pair of boots – bells and whistles will only complement a solid set of skills.

So if you have a camera and you don’t understand why your pictures aren’t great you might want to take a course, here is a link to our current schedule

Click Here: Why Good Photography Isn’t About the Gear

Phil Hill

Freelance travel and editorial photographer originally from the UK but find myself in Western Australia, Based in the amazing Scarborough, Perth, WA.

Cameras vs the human eye

I was teaching the first session of our Understanding Your DSLR Camera last night and in encouraging the students to explore their subjects and not to just take a picture from their standing position set me thinking about the difference between the human eye and a camera. Why can’t we just point a camera and capture what we see, how hard can it be? I am often told by those new to photography that what their cameras reproduce is not what they see so why is that. Doing a bit of research I found my way back to the ever excellent Cambridge in Colour website. This has to be the most technically correct site on photography, the detail and explanations are precise as a very precise thing, say an atomic clock….Here is a short bit of what is explained, go here for the full detail with pictures and diagrams, it is interesting

Portrait of Dennis Stock by Andreas Feininger

Our eyes are able to look around a scene and dynamically adjust based on subject matter, whereas cameras capture a single still image. This trait accounts for many of our commonly understood advantages over cameras. For example, our eyes can compensate as we focus on regions of varying brightness, can look around to encompass a broader angle of view, or can alternately focus on objects at a variety of distances…….

Our central angle of view — around 40-60° — is what most impacts our perception. Subjectively, this would correspond with the angle over which you could recall objects without moving your eyes. Incidentally, this is close to a 50 mm “normal” focal length lens on a full frame camera (43 mm to be precise), or a 27 mm focal length on a camera with a 1.6X crop factor. Although this doesn’t reproduce the full angle of view at which we see, it does correspond well with what we perceive as having the best trade-off between different types of distortion:…….

Most current digital cameras have 5-20 megapixels, which is often cited as falling far short of our own visual system. This is based on the fact that at 20/20 vision, the human eye is able to resolve the equivalent of a 52 megapixel camera (assuming a 60° angle of view)……

Taking the above into account, a single glance by our eyes is therefore only capable of perceiving detail comparable to a 5-15 megapixel camera….

Overall, most of the advantages of our visual system stem from the fact that our mind is able to intelligently interpret the information from our eyes, whereas with a camera, all we have is the raw image. Even so, current digital cameras fare surprisingly well, and surpass our own eyes for several visual capabilities. The real winner is the photographer who is able to intelligently assemble multiple camera images — thereby surpassing even our own mental image.  Go here for the full article on Cambridge in Colour

Vouchers for Photography Courses

We start a new term in January and have a mix of our most favourite and some of the more unusual courses we run. You may not know what to buy someone who is interested in photography but, well frankly, needs help. A voucher that can be used against any of our courses or for 121 tuition can be purchased and downloaded on line, here is a link OSP VOUCHERS

How to Photograph Senior Portraits That Will Take Pride of Place on the Mantlepiece

Over here in the UK we think of seniors as being people over 65, elsewhere the term ‘senior’ refers to late teens, odd huh?

We have a great friend and former student called Harriet Chen who is fantastic at this sort of work, have a look at her pictures here

All photos ©Harriet Chen

.Kent DuFault over at Lightstalking has written an article about shooting seniors (somehow that sounds so wrong!) have a look at it here

Bravo! You’ve got that nice camera and a great lens, why not put it to good use? You can have some fun, and perhaps, maybe even save a few bucks along the way. However, here is a secret you may not know. It’s not as easy as it looks. It doesn’t take a whole trunk-load of gear to get great results. What it does take is a little time, a small investment in materials, a good sense of humor, and a willingness to work with your subject.

Here’s a checklist to get you started.

1. You need a location.
2. Clothing and perhaps props.
3. A camera and lens. A DSLR with a selection of lenses would be nice but it’s not mandatory. You can also do this with a point-and-shoot camera as well.
4. Simple lighting and light modification gear.
5. A few extra human bodies will come in handy.

Want more……Click Here: How to Photograph Senior Portraits That Will Take Pride of Place on the Mantlepiece

Photography Courses starting January 2013

We have now released our most recent schedule of courses for next term, we have places on all the courses listed and full details can be found on the Oxford School of Photography website

Here are the dates, I will post more details later, if you are interested in taking a course please send me an email

Understanding Your Digital SLR Evening Classes:start dates 23.01.13; 7.03.13

Understanding Your Digital SLR Saturday Morning Classes start date 02.03.13

Understanding Your Digital Compact Camera – starts: 24.01.13

Introduction to Photoshop and Photoshop Elements starts 20.02.13

Composition In Photography – Seeing Pictures - starts 06.03.13

Understanding Flash Photography starts 05.03.13

Portrait Photography: starts: 04.02.13

Intermediate Photography - starts: 21.02.13

Black and White Digital Photography – starts 04.03.13

Travel Photography starts 04.03.13

One Day Understanding Your DSLR - 27.01.13; 17.02.13; 24.03.13

Nikon D5200 new camera

With only a few weeks of the year left Nikon have decided to release a new camera, the D5200. From the BJP we learn:

The Nikon D5200 is an upper entry-level DSLR that improves on the D5100 by offering a 24MP CMOS sensor, 1080i60 movie capability, a side-articulated 921K dot 3.0″ tilt/swivel LCD and new processing filters. Interestingly, the D5200 is equipped with a significantly upgraded AF system, based around the same Multi-Cam 4800DX AF sensor that is used in the D7000, and the same 2016-pixel RGB metering sensor.

Less than two years after the launch of the D5100, Nikon has unveiled its successor – the D5200. But, in a press presentation held yesterday in central London, Simon Iddon, product manager for DX products at Nikon UK, says that D5100 will continue to be sold alongside the D5200.

“The D5200′s target audience is for the real hobbyist,” adds Iddon. “It’s skewed towards the male [user], in the age range of 25 to 50 years old, with a very big interest in photography. The focus for this audience is on creative expression rather than recording moments. It’s all about the artistry of the shot. They want to focus on special moments rather than everyday snapshots.”

The D5200 weighs 505g and will retail from £720 (body only) or £820 with a 18-55mm VR lens. The camera will be available in time for Christmas, however, Nikon has yet to communicate an exact release date.

Surely any camera allows for “artistry” it is the user that creates, if Nikon have been making dslr cameras that eschew this as an intention we have to consider why and how they see themselves in the market place. For me this press release just sounds like marketing bollocks but I do think Nikon should feel a bit ashamed at marketing a camera at a male audience and one that claims to get back to artistry as a reason for taking photographs, what have they been making cameras for otherwise.

There is the usual excellent preview and review at dpreview.com        You can buy it here