Just because your camera doesn’t have a large sensor or a nice lens doesn’t mean that you can’t take great pictures with it. As much as I love taking my Canon 5D Mark II out with me, she (her name is Dahlia) can be a bit bulky at times in my messenger bag. On top of that, I can’t exactly fully justify the purchase of a Micro Four Thirds camera or a Leica X1 in this economy. So at times, I find myself turning to my T-Mobile G1. Here’s how to take better photos with a cameraphone.
Trade Secret Cards has partnered with Chase Jarvis to produce a set of 22 cards that take killer images from Chase’s portfolio and couple them with a detailed “how-to” containing an explanation, diagrams and gear.
They’ve produced a run of 5000 sets of the 22 cards, which cost $21.95 per set. Chase mentioned on his blog that he gets 10% of the purchase price; however, he’s elected to put that money back into the photo community and has given his community of followers the power to help decide how that money is spent.
The Cotton Carrier is another product that is meant to help you with carrying your cameras around just like the Spider. Designed kind of like a lightweight vest, the advertising for the product will appeal most to wildlife and landscape photographers. However, it may also have some appeal to wedding or sports photographers. I used the Cotton Carrier while shooting in Central Park and while also shooting the recent Yankee parade celebrating their win during the World Series. My findings, after the jump.
For those of you interested in a little more pixel peeping with the Sony A850, A900 and Canon 5D Mark II, I’ve added several more samples taken at various noise reduction settings.
I’ve made all of these available in this forum thread, which includes 100% crops and full-res files for download and inspection.
The original ISO comparison, which did not use noise reduction, can be found here.
Here’s a cool contest with some really cool folks involved.
Nikon is giving away $100,000 for a 140 second video about your day. The theme is “A Day through Your Lens.” The above video is Rainn Wilson’s hilarious take on the concept.
Of course, Nikon is promoting the capabilities of its D-Movie function on several of its DSLRs like the D300s, D3s, D5000 and D90; however, the contest is open to anyone shooting with any kind of gear. Kudos to Nikon on that.
The winner will be chosen by pioneering photographer and filmmaker Chase Jarvis actor Rainn Wilson from NBC’s The Office, internet queen and actress “iJustine” Ezarik. Chase seems pretty stoked about this.
The ColorRight custom white balance tool has been updated to a 4th version, which features a semi-transparent plastic center piece, instead of glass in the former version. Likewise, the outer ring is now a hard plastic shell instead of metal. (Update: The ring is metal, but it feels better than the old version.) [click to continue…]
