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Understanding Canon EF-S, Nikon DX and similar lenses for small sensor digital SLR cameras

May 23rd, 2009 | 8 Comments

Canon, Nikon, Sony and most of the rest of the camera companies, plus the third party lens makers, like Tamron, Sigma, etc., all make two series of lenses, on designed for full frame digital SLRs and 35mm film cameras, and another range designed for use on their smaller sensor digital SLRs. But there is a lot of confusion about these lenses. … Read entire article »

Filed under: Cameras, Photography, Starting Out

Digital Macro Photography, An Overview

January 16th, 2007 | Add a Comment

In this article we explore some aspects of macro photography with digital cameras. Macro is an excellent photography area that can really make good use of the strengths of digital cameras. This is the first of a series of articles on macro techniques and subjects. 0.5 second, f16 and 100ISO, Sigma 70mm Macro on Canon 400D Macro photography is a great and interesting area of photography. Technically covering the area of close-up photography where an object is reproduced on the sensor at a size of at least 1:1, these days it is also commonly used to refer to all close-up photography. Because of the close distance (relatively if not in actuality) from the subject to the lens, rangefinder or compact cameras were not ideal for it because the viewfinder would not reflect … Read entire article »

Filed under: Cameras, Macro, Photography, Starting Out

Depth of Field – How Does It Really Work?

January 15th, 2007 | Add a Comment

Depth of field is one of the least well-used aspects of photographic control. Yet it really is very simple to get your head around. A camera lens will actually only focus one single, flat (if it is a good lens) plane perfectly. As you move away from the plane of sharp focus, objects become gradually more blurred. In practice we can tolerate a small amount of blur (called a circle of confusion, from the blurred circle of light you get if you focus a point source of light, like a star). How much blur we can tolerate is determined by how much we will blow up the image in printing or projection. Common values for this circle of confusion range from 0.025mm to 0.033 mm. The reason larger format images appear … Read entire article »

Filed under: Cameras, Photography, Starting Out

Starting Out – Film versus Digital Cameras

June 5th, 2005 | Add a Comment

This article explores grain and noise, how they relate and other issues in choosing between film and digital capture. There are two ways to capture images photographically, use a film camera and scan or use a digital camera. Film Film is certainly, on the surface, the cheapest option. You probably already have a film camera of some sort, but new ones are very reasonably priced. You will have read that film is so much higher resolution than any digital camera around. That is true up to a point. Film is an analogue device, meaning that it is not sampled at fixed points, like a digital camera does. This does mean that, theoretically, there is more information in a piece of film. However there are two things that can get in the way of you having all this data to play … Read entire article »

Filed under: Cameras, Photography, Starting Out