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Tuesday, 28 May 2013

Nikon releases f1.2 Nikkor lens for 32mm


Today, Nikon announced a new lens as part of its 1 NIKKOR lens series, the 1 NIKKOR 32mm f/1.2 lens.
The new 32mm lens is a medium-telephone lens for Nikon 1 system shooters with a fixed focal length of 32mm and a maximum aperture of f/1.2. It was originally introduced as a development lens in October 2012 and has become the fastest ever in the 1 NIKKOR line.
Features of the lens include a manual focus ring and AF with manual override function, a Nano Crystal Coat and Silent Wave Motor technology to "ensure quiet operation." The lens is compatible with the entire Nikon 1 system and will be available in June in black and silver. The lens has a suggested retail price of $899.95, at the time of this writing.

Monday, 20 May 2013

Camera- Choosing the Right Camera

Many my students have asked me on how to begin a life in photography. I end up telling them that, why not get to know what it takes to roll the game than just getting a life.
Today's lecture will be focusing on choosing yourself a good cam.

Whether you want a DSLR or a compact camera or a pocket camera, there are so many models to choose from, at a bewildering range of prices, where do you start? Well, the way I choose any new toy these days is to start at the end. What do you want it to do?
Err . . . take pictures. Yes but what kind of pictures and what are you going to do with them? The other burning question is how much are you prepared to learn? And, of course, how much are you prepared to pay?
As you are reading this and have actually made it to paragraph two, I think we can assume that you are prepared to learn at least a little. So what do you want to do? Do you want something that you can keep in your pocket at all times so you can snap the kids?
Do you want a camera that will allow you to take pictures in any lighting conditions from any distance (with the right gadget screwed on the front of course)? Is this going to be a hobby or just some quick snaps?


I haven't seen any cameras on sale in recent years that do not have a fully automatic 'point and shoot' mode, most will automatically switch on the flash for you when it is needed so you may wonder why we need all the other manual and semi automatic modes and an instruction book to make your head spin.


The Learning Curve

The answer is that, although the camera can produce good exposures most of the time, there are times when, to get the results we want, we have to apply a little know-how and select more appropriate settings than the camera would automatically choose.
Before choosing a camera with lots of knobs and dials it is a good idea to consider whether you are ever going to bother to learn what they are all for. I've been around cameras for many years now, and I'm still learning what all the settings on my latest camera actually do. I never bother to learn how to do something until I need to. So there are certain obscure settings that I have yet to find a use for. Of course it would be nice if we could choose just the buttons we need and have each camera custom made for us but in the real world all we can do is choose the level of control based on how much we think we might want to get involved. Generally speaking an SLR will have more knobs, dials and menus than a compact camera which will give you more control over your pictures but will have a much steeper learning curve.

SLR or Compact?

All the cameras on the market can be categorized into a few simple groups. The most important two groups are fixed lens and interchangeable lens. The fixed lens cameras tend, with a few exceptions, to be smaller, lighter and more pocketable, therefore you are more likely to have it with you when you need it. Well that's the theory anyway but I think we can say that you are more likely to be bothered to take it with you on that outing to the beach or the zoo.
However even with today's zoom lenses, which are pretty wonderful, you will often find that you are too far away or too close to get the picture you want so you need to be able to change the lens for a longer telephoto or a wider angle. The other major advantage of these single lens reflex (SLR) cameras is that you are actually looking through the lens instead of a separate viewfinder so what you see is what you get, although this is less of an issue now that we can review our photos on the screen of the digital camera. The down side of these SLR cameras is that you very soon end up with quite a heavy bag of gadgets and are less likely to carry it everywhere with you. However much I yearn for a compact camera for it's handiness I know I would be frustrated by it's shortcomings so for me the choice is SLR every time.

Digital or Film?

Do they still make film cameras? Oh yes they do and I wouldn't mind betting that they continue to do so for many years and I wouldn't mind betting that at some time in the future there will be a retro backlash and a large number of 'serious' photographers will return to the darkroom. Some will probably claim that they have never used digital at all, ever.
Nothing could be further from the truth actually, I am now fully converted to digital and loving it. I am going to make the pros and cons a separate discussion that will be posted soon but, for now, I'll just say that I am completely sold on digital and do not feel that I have lost anything significant by changing.

Which brand?

This, of course, is the big question that you really want an answer to and you know that nobody is going to give you one. If you ask anyone who already has a camera most will support the brand of the camera they have unless they have had some trouble with it, even then people are very forgiving. I think the reason for this is that people think that, if they have made the wrong choice it is because they have somehow failed, and they are not going to admit their failure.

Back in the 1980s I had a camera shop in England and at the time a lot of people, who already owned an SLR, were buying compact cameras 'for the wife'. They would ask me which brand was the best and, if I didn't already know, I would discreetly try to find out which brand of SLR they owned, then I would recommend the same brand of compact camera.
Trying to sell them another brand was like telling them they had made a wrong choice when buying their old camera and was likely to lose me a sale. So I'd better have a really good reason for not recommending the Canon, Olympus, Nikon, Pentax or whatever and I didn't have one. All of the well known brands produce similar cameras at similar prices and, by and large, you get what you pay for.
I will stick my neck out a little bit here and say that in my humble opinion the manufacturers who make the best film cameras the Japanese Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta and the German Contax and Leica seem to make the best digital cameras.
I would not be too happy to put my trust in brands whose traditional expertise is in other fields when there are such good cameras available from the traditional sources. I will probably get a lot of hate mail from people who have bought Sony cameras or Hewlett Packard and are perfectly happy with them.
If I wanted a printer Hewlett Packard would be top of my list and I am a huge fan of Sony video and TV equipment but my first choice for a digital SLR would be one of the names mentioned above. Right now in 2012 Olympus have fallen on hard times but we’ll see what happens there.

How Many Pixels?

Until recently the quality of a digital camera was measured by how many pixels it boasted. Now we have cameras with tens of millions of them and it has ceased to be the most important test of quality. In the real world the number of pixels you need depends on how big you want to print your pictures. If you mainly want postcard size or A5 then I would consider 6 to 10 million pixels to be perfectly adequate. Even at A4 size I would be hard pushed to tell the difference between my 10 million pixel camera and my 18 million pixel camera. Don’t forget though that your framing in the camera may not always be perfect so you may be enlarging only a portion of the image. Top of the range camera sensors seem to have settled down now (in 2012) at around the 16 to 20 million pixel mark, and maybe we finally have enough of them. The main difference between a pro camera and an amateur camera is that the sensor is bigger and therefore each pixel is bigger but there are roughly the same number of them, the bigger pixels certainly do seem to produce better quality, smoother pictures.
I find the main advantage of having more pixels is being able to shoot at faster ISO settings and still get decent definition. This really helps to freeze the action in sports photography and other kinds of fast moving subjects. You get better definition at all ISO settings of course but, be warned, you need a good quality lens to really see the difference.
However we do sometimes seem to get too hung up on image quality, a fellow photographer once observed that photographers tend to smell pictures rather than look at them, by which he meant that they were more interested in the graininess and sharpness of the print than the actual content of the image itself.




Monday, 13 May 2013

Photo of the Day

Due to some rescheduling, and in our quest to serve you better in Stormz, we are adding a new favourite. The Photo of the day.

It's an abstract I came across today.....

Saturday, 4 May 2013

Carnivals and Photography (Part 1)


Carnivals are one of my best events take it or leave it. As a photographer the ability to create classic photography stays within a straight forward ambience (White and Black) but the ability to creating a captivating a more stunning image that could leave your mouth ajar, would have to entail color composition.

Carnivals are celebrations done in different cultures, in different ways but the high point is the identification of bizarre yet colorful outfits that easily attract attention. For a photographer or a photojournalist, there is more to it than just taking that picture. Your ability to identify the picture in the picture is the most important.

Everybody is jumping in Suits of Yellow color, that’s normal fun. Is there a 3 year old in their midst trying to imitate a jump? That’s the picture. Carnival piece should be attended to wisely.

There are salient points to take note of when doing carnival creatives.

Lights (Available lights)
The ability to use the available light at your creative disposal is one of the major things that is open to a photographer. There might be some outfits that really count in terms of the extent at which it blends up and creatures a illusion when bounced against the light. Lights are important when shooting during a carnival. Natural lights are better adviced.

Creativity
Your creativity is your ability to recognize a picture within the picture. Your ability to stop time, and making it worth the stop. Your creativity lies within what you notice that other photographers might not take mention of during photographic composition. Everybody takes photographs, but what distinguish a photographer from the other, is the ability to create an ICE-FREEZING image (soothing and captivating)

Lens
Your lens could either perfect your artwork and creativity in photo composition or stain it up. 70-300, 18-200, 70-200 and other zoom lens could help to create that sensual image.

Here are my funny carnival takes from Lagos Carnival archives

















fire Fighters...lol

Twins don't get separated easily even at carnivals









Creating Award Winning Images

Award winning images are not just award winners because they are beautiful, sensual, artistic or whatever could be ringing through your mind right now. Award winning images are far more out of the usual.
Some projects might require a fresh composition or existing ideas that have spanned over time.

On the actual, the kind of image created for an award winning piece should be drawn from the facet of detail description as referred by the pattern to follow when designing the project.

Award winners do not necessarily need to seize the moment, following precepts laid by organisers would help.

Here are a few tips that could help you in your choosing and creating an award masterpiece;

Secret to Success
Success is the basic for the creation of an image. Who wants an image without that image paying out as a sell off. The success of your image must lie within a particular secret no other person knows not off. You could share your success tips, but some things are what makes your work carve out its niche. Therefore, before your photograph becomes a full sell out, have you measured what level of success you can see it attaining.

Guidelines
Do not forget to follow guidelines laid down strictly, it helps in the composition of the photograph

Fatal Mistakes
Avoid mistakes. the blemishes of a write_up may be edited easily. the olossal blemishes of photoshop cannot be recalled.

Now I do have my personal works.....they might not be award winners, but they fall into the line.









In a simple summation, your ability to amuse us, sums up to your ability to amuse all. What stunning picture have you created today? is it award winning? or still begging the questions?.........................

All pictures could be copied for personal use...... unauthorized duplication not appreciated. Stop Piracy.....Hard work is encouraged.......