Camera Sensor Cleaning Techniques

From those very clever people at Cambridge in Colour a useful tutorial on how to clean the sensor on your camera. You may be aware of spots appearing in areas of clear tone in your pictures, areas like blue sky, these are almost always caused by dust on the sensor. This in depth article explains how to resolve the issue and explains about use of brushes, blowers and other stuff.

“If you’re using an SLR camera, you’ll eventually encounter spots in your photos due to a dirty camera sensor. If it hasn’t happened yet, don’t worry — it will. When it does, you’ll need to know if what you’re seeing is indeed from sensor dust, or is instead the result of a dirty viewfinder, mirror or lens. Most importantly though, you’ll need to know how to clean the sensor, and how to minimize the risk of this happening again.”

How To Guide: Close-up

From the Canon tutorials we bring you this,….Macro is the perfect photographic activity for the autumn and winter months as it can be done indoors as well as out when the days are shorter and weather is less predictable. We agree with this and recommend it in our classes.

Getting going
If you are starting off you can use the standard zoom lens that typically comes with EOS cameras before possibly upgrading to a dedicated macro lens. Use the telephoto to zoom in to maximum magnification Good advice too

Read More here

 

Harmony in the water, © Roberto Tacchetto, Canon EOS-1D Mark III

Best Entry-Level DSLR Camera Comparisons & Reviews 2011

If you are thinking about buying a starter DSLR camera either for yourself or as a present this link will give an idea of the range before you. The Canon Ti is the 1100D I think and the T3i is the 600D. Odd that they don’t keep the same names worldwide Here is that link

I see many different DSLR’s in class and have to say that I would always recommend a Canon or a Nikon but it is your choice.

Nikon D7000 on test

This review of the Nikon D7000 by Richard Kilpatrick is in the BJP

“Nikon has been busy expanding its DSLR range this year, adding choice and breadth to the D series, exemplified by the latest arrival, the D7000. Richard Kilpatrick tests the “baby D3s”, and finds it’s definitely a pro contender.”.….more

Olympus PEN E-P3, PEN Lite E-PL3, and PEN Mini E-PM1

Image via Wikipedia

This preview of the new Olympus cameras is full of information and useful data if you are interested in the new Four Thirds type cameras (does anyone else find Micro 4 thirds an odd idea, if it is thirds how can there be 4 of them?) The preview is by Josh Root on photo.net

“In 2009 when Olympus revived the iconic line with the digital PEN E-P1. The new PEN camera was the first body to use the Micro Four-Thirds mount, which allowed a far more compact body design than previous Four-Thirds cameras. The E-P1’s aesthetic look was reminiscent of the older PEN cameras, particularly the PEN F. The E-P1 was followed in 2010 by the updated E-P2 and the more compact E-PL1. In turn, those cameras were followed by the E-PL2 body in 2011.”...more

Why Lens Speed Varies or why does my lens have different apertures at different zoom lengths

In class when teaching Understanding Your Digital SLR camera I am often asked why does the zoom lens I bought with my camera say f3.5-f5.6 and why does it vary when I zoom. There is a simple explanation to this but this answer on the digitalphotography lifetips site says it all so if you want to know have a look here

10 Things I Learned Shooting Corporate Events

“I’ll never forget the day I shot my first corporate event. I rented a Nikon D2h and an 80-200 2.8 lens.  An hour into the shoot my neck was already killing me and the client had already told me to stand in the back because my camera was “making too much noise.”  It was there, at some Economist Conferences Event, that my life as an event photographer began.” Brian Friedman

This interesting and useful article appears on the Picatge site, which in itself is worth a visit, here are Brian’s 10 tips

How to Clean Your Camera Lens Properly (VIDEO)

Cleaning a camera lens is definitely something that every photographer is going to need to do at some point. Doing it properly is imperative if you’re to take perfectly clear images. This great little video from the folks at the unofficial Nikon Help Hotline on Youtube have put together this great video on how to clean your camera lens properly.

As you can see, it is a little more involved than you might think if you are to do the job properly and it may even take more than one attempt. With a little patience though, you might get away without having to get it professionally done. The video and additional information on the excellent Lightstalking site will get you doing it right

20 Top posts

This is a link to a blog site that you might find useful. It is aimed at those interested in photography but unlike our space is almost entirely devoted to equipment. We are more interested in the ideas surrounding photography than the kit involved. This site offers technical information as well as reports on the hands on experience of shooting with particular types of cameras.

Here is a list of the top five posts

Which One Should I Buy: Canon 60D? T2i? or 7D?		75,771
Which One Should I Get?: Canon S95 vs Panasonic LX-5K		49,050
The Best Budget Lenses		32,752
Hands On: Nikon D3100, D7000 and the SB-700 Speedlight		25,019
The Canon 7D vs Nikon D300s In Shooting Concerts		24,955
Hands on and Hands Off: Olympus EPL-1

Got a new camera? Techniques and Rules All New Camera Owners Should Know

Did the holidays find you the proud owner of a new camera. You may be well versed in the details and techniques of digital cameras but if not then these tutorials will be very useful to you. You might also want to consider taking one of our courses scheduled for the new year. Starting towards the end of January we have a range of camera and technique based courses that if you are lucky enough to live in Oxford you might want to take.