Steve Stevanovich appreciates the brilliance of America’s National Parks as a backdrop for destination weddings and a plethora of other activities. The lovely photography that results from holding an affair in of these National Parks is what tempts people to these beautiful natural settings. From Yellowstone National Park and Zion National Park to Channel Islands National Park or Biscayne National Park, diversity in locale abounds for superb destination weddings in America.

Steve Stevanovich sees how grand destination weddings and more, in America’s noble National Parks, are designed to lovely photography that catches significant moments. A trip to one of these locations inspires, as the vivid scenery is the idyllic background to the significance of the wedding celebration. It is worth taking note that every couple requires their particular wedding to be unmatched. This is why a National Park bespeaks class and character that is surely appropriate to a couple’s wedding.

A wedding holiday in one of these venues also provides the opportunity for bright pictures that catch the essence of a wedding celebration. Ponder a wedding photo with the amazing ocean and a row of swaying palm trees as your backdrop. Consider a wedding photo with the lush and colorful flora and fauna that a island destination provides. Steve Stevanovich appreciates how a areas diversity of landscape can enhance a wedding or any other holiday affair.

Couples often look back on a wedding holiday and see that the nicest part of it was the fact they stuck to no schedule. Relishing their lovely accommodations, they went with the flow. This meant lazy mornings over coffee and fresh fruit in their room. It also meant long beach days with nary a look at a watch. Steve Stevanovich and all who treasure quality R & R, certainly relate to this way of vacationing.

Steve Stevanovich can see how those contemplating destination weddings look to areas that offer quality amenities with spectacular natural beauty. It can certainly be worth the time and effort to explore the multitude of chances available in this regard. Steve Stevanovich and others who debate the diversity of destinations accessible for destination weddings know that affordable wedding vacations in abundance in the world’s most exciting regions.

Light painting is a term that I had never heard of until a few days ago. I was looking at a few photos on a photo web site, and I must say that I am amazed at the quality of some of the photos that were exhibited there.

Especially interesting to me was a set of pictures taken by a photographer that had the look of the “old world” Dutch master painters. The Light painting is just fantastic and the end result is most appealing. You can view some examples at PhotoZoomy.com.

The execution of Light Painting is actually very simple, although getting good results maybe a bit more exacting. First, set up a table with a dark cloth backdrop. Next, arrange your still life objects. Set up your camera on a tripod and focus on your objects with all the lights on.

Turn the lights off after you set your shutter speed to around 20 seconds. Click the shutter. Shine a flashlight on different parts of your objects that you want to highlight for about 2 seconds on each spot.

After 20 seconds you will have your Light Painted photo. This is of course is a very simplistic explanation of Light Painting and you will probably have to take 20 or 30 pictures to get it right, but it gives you the basic idea of how it works.

Light Painting Examples

Photography Training Manual

For the real adaptive worker out there, the capacity to get online and employ the gadgets back at the office can be a major help. Now found in a large proportion of the Nokia sets available today are Business Phones. These exceptional bits of high tech gadgetry make it possible for you to access data through browsers & e-mail your clients and teammates. In reality your phone acts in much the same way to a lap-top might, except it is much less than half the volume.

Nokia, as it’s said, concerns itself with connecting people. They also think that transportability makes firms healthier. Mobility gives people the ability to collude and transact business externally to the ordinary work environments and times. Nokia gives you a wide number of business devices. Each and every one of the devices is for different sorts of users.

Looking at their business range Nokia make 4 different makes of business telephone. These are communicators, smart phones, messaging devices and mobile telephones. Nokia business devices support solutions such as Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email. Nokia carried out some research & it has been discovered that people exploiting wireless email carried out an average of an extra fifty five minutes of work per day. This is thought to expand to eighty mins extra productivity a day xmas 2007. Yet another advantage to employing a Nokia Business hand sets is that they may save you money for your company or even for yourself because you’ll not depend upon 2 separate hand sets - you can have all you need encompassed in a single device.

Nokia phones are brilliant for companies and for the professional. All sets have excellent designs, are all wonderfully compatible and not forgetting simple to use, once played around with. The email capabilities are great with support from Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Microsoft Office 97, 2000, 2003 and XP and also it’s compatible with the zip manager & Adobe Reader. Folk can send and receive e mails throughout talking on the telephone but also they may access the up to date calendar and the contacts details. The e mail function will work in the offline mode which means users are able to read & write e-mails while the network is down. There are many business phones on the Nokia website.

Although the business handsets provided by Nokia are not all outstandingly small scale, what one needs to remember is the sets are great sizes when you consider what they are able to do. Nearly all the hand sets have a full featured keyboard with back-light, a large landscape screen along with an easy to use one press feature to access email function.

A business set may not be for everyone but for the help it gives folk who’ll make use of all the facilities, it’s definitely going to make their life much easier.

Fact of life: when you’re the dominant company in your industry you no longer have to innovate.

It makes sense - with the lion’s share of the market, why change anything? If it’s not broken don’t fix it.

It’s the little guys who must be creative to get noticed.

The Olympus Edge

Many will agree that Olympus is not exactly a “little guy”. But they are when it comes to the digital SLR market.

Olympus trails behind both Canon and Nikon in the distribution and sales of digital Single Lens Reflex cameras.

This makes Olympus a company primed for innovation - and that’s exactly what they’ve done.

In March of 2006, Olympus released the EVOLT E330, a camera that is one-of-a-kind: it’s the only digital SLR with a live preview mode on the LCD.

This may not sound like an innovation to you. After all, every compact digital camera out there shows you what picture you’re about to take on the LCD.

But it’s not standard on digital SLR cameras.

With any other SLR you must look through the viewfinder to compose a photo. You can only use the LCD to review photos and change menus.

That’s it.

The live LCD makes the EVOLT E330 a unique camera. It’s made even more so by a vibrating sensor that clears itself of dust every time you turn the camera on.

This feature is also exclusive to Olympus cameras - if dust gets on the sensor of your Canon or Nikon, you have to clean it yourself (a tricky operation) or have it cleaned professionally.

Canon in Comparison

Canon’s new camera release this year is the 30D.

Despite the addition of some new features, this camera is virtually identical to the 20D, released in 2004.

While the 20D broke a lot of ground for digital SLR cameras, the 30D is wholly unremarkable. It’s a minor upgrade to a camera that sold exceptionally well.

The 30D doesn’t have unique features like the Olympus E330.

Does this mean that everyone will go rushing out to purchase Olympus cameras and drop Canon’s sales like a brick?

I doubt it.

Too many photographers already have an investment in Canon lenses, so a Canon digital SLR is the natural choice, regardless of whether or not the camera is innovative.

Still, it seems a shame that a market leader can establish a position and grind out products with nothing new to offer.

Time will tell whether this approach is successful. Eventually Canon may have to adopt the new technology pioneered by their competition.

While this may only occur due to a loss of market share, I hope that it doesn’t have to come to that.

As a digital SLR enthusiast I enjoy innovation, since I believe that digital SLR technology still has some secrets that have yet to be revealed.

What remains to be seen is which company finds them first.

Chris Roberts dispenses practical plain-English advice and information about digital SLR cameras at the Digital SLR Guide. His 5-week ecourse in digital SLR technique helps beginners get the most out of their digital SLR cameras.

Most older digital cameras come equipped with fixed storage which limits the number of pictures you can take before you have to download to make room for more. If that sound like your camera, then it’s time to upgrade.

Removable storage devices enable you to take as many shots as the device will hold, pop it out, pop in another and keep on shooting. It’s like carrying extra film for your analog camera. You can keep shooting until you run out of “rolls”.

How many shots you can store is a factor of the capacity (number of Megabytes) of the storage device, the image resolution and the type of compression being used.

This is an important number to know because when you reach the capacity limit you’re either going to have to remove the device and slip in another, download the images to a computer or erase some of the images.

It’s easier to choose storage device capacity if you think in terms of “rolls of film”. If you normally shoot 10 rolls of 24 exposure when you’re off on vacation, then you need enough removable storage to hold 240 images at whatever resolution
you’ll be shooting. Storage is cheap so it’s better to have and not need than to need and not have.

There are different types of removable storage technologies available and the one that you use is dictated by what your particular camera supports.

Removable Flash Memory cards use RAM chips which are similar to the ones found in computers except they do not have to stay powered up to store your images.

While many digital cameras us the standard PC Card (PCMCIA)interface for their flash memory, some manufacturers are introducing proprietary formats which restrict the type and brand of card which can be used.

Common flash memory devices include PC Cards, CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Sony MemorySticks and xD-Picture Cards.

PC Cards have the most storage capacity but their large physical size restricts their use only to big-frame cameras.

CompactFlash (CF) cards are the most widely used storage device among the entries in the consumer camera market. There are two types of CF cards. CompactFlash cards with slots that are 3.3 mm thick are known as CompactFlash (CF) or CompactFlash Type I (CF-I). If the slot is 5mm thick then it is a CompactFlash

Type II (CF-II). CF-II is gaining in popularity.

SmartMedia cards are smaller than CF cards and do not have as much storage capacity.

Sony Memory Sticks are used mostly in Sony digital cameras although some other brands do support them.

xD-Picture Cards are the tiniest of the removable storage devices and are used in miniature digital cameras. They are designed as a replacement for the larger SmartMedia card.

It’s important to know what type pf storage device a camera uses before you buy it. That way you can make intelligent decisions concerning the ongoing costs of storage and choose a camera which most closely matches your needs.

It’s true that taking photos is as simple as running out and grabbing a cheap five dollar camera. But taking good, quality photos has never been easier. So lets explore some quick ideas that can help you take photos that you will be happy to share with friends and family.

Photography as an art has never been more exciting or enjoyable. Todays photography enthusiast has many styles, topics, and tools open to them. Plus, the blending of digital with print makes the craft of taking photos very versatile.

Here are four tips to help.

1. Get a little closer, don’t be shy. One of the biggest mistakes most beginning photographers make is shooting from so far away. They leave too much distance between themselves and their subjects. Instead, get up close and personal. Fill up as much of the camera frame, with your subject, as you can. You can always reshape, trim, and resize a good quality shot. But you can’t continue to blow up a distant subject and hope that it will come into focus. It just won’t happen.

2. This tip springs directly from #1(above)… focus your shot on only one subject. Determine what the main subject of the photo will be, and catch that image. Try and find the one key subject, person, or event that accurately portrays the feeling you are trying to capture.

3. In addition to getting one subject, in your photos, you will want to make the background of the photo as simple as possible. Busy, distracting backgrounds pull the attention away from the central theme of your photo. The subject of your photo is absolutely the most important element, and anything that detracts from the subject can ruin your shot.

4. Finally, you want to take your subject out of the exact center of the frame. You do this by using the rule of thirds. Imagine having a camera lens split into 9 equal sized boxes, 3 across and 3 down (like having a tic-tac-toe game printed right on your camera lens). Where those “tic-tac-toe” lines cross, should become the focusing point of your subject, when you are arranging to take your photo.

Based on this tip, every time you compose a shot, the main subject of your photo should be located primarily on one of these “third” lines.

These are just four very basic tips and strategies to help improve your photos. As you know, photography skills can always be improved. In fact, most professional photographers exhibit a life long passion for learning new techniques, photography angles, and photo inspirations.

Yvonne Volante is an author, webmistress and camera junkie. She has a site at www.ylcamera.com which is a great source for camera information. Please be sure to visit www.ylcamera.com

This is a great time of the year to get out and get those photos.

In most parts of the world, Spring is in full swing. Spring Flowers and spectacular weather providing sunny spells often between the rain and storms.

But what happens when somebody asks you to take a picture of them.

And for those of you in Sunny climeswill find that Young fashion in also in full swing with sexy young and not so young people expressing their fashion taste or lack of it, where low cleavage almost meats up with tattooed belly or butt. And I’m not just talking about the men!

I was in Tel-Aviv the other day, as one sometimes is, when I met up with two young ladies heading off to the beach, they were wearing their pants so low, it seemed to me a waste of time bothering to ware them at all…

Now I’m not one to complainwhen it comes to seeing more of a young lady than your use to, but I always seem to think, they didn’t make them like that when I was that age and sad to think that I would have to read the instruction manual to know what to do about it if asked…

The conversation went something like this, “So your a photographer, do you work for CNN”, (they must had noticed my camera bag and tripod) No, I replied, they usually employ somebody less than half my age. “You must be nearly 40 years old then”, At least that I replied and counting…

“Do you want to come to the beach with us and take some photos”, OK I’ll walk with you I said, after all my appointment was only ten minutes from where they were headed.

We arrived just five minutes or so after getting off the number 47 Bus in Alanby St, opposite the Carmal Market.

“Will you take our photo please”, and before I could make some excuse that I didn’t have any film in my camera, one of them produced from her cleavage a Canon digital, point and shoot type camera and handed it to me. I thought to myself, lucky Canon.

Come on they said, “We’ve never had our picture taken by a pro British Photographer visiting from London. Which made me realise how much my mouth must have been “babbling” as I had seem to have told them most of my life story in ten minutes.

I said to myself, serves you right for “blabbing”, now I will have to compose the picture correctly, consider the angle of light, remember to turn flash on to eliminate shadows under the eyes, not to mention the shadows under the cleavage, (concentrate Rog on the task in hand), and some exposure control.

By the way this is how you should treat every picture taking experience, carefully composing your image in the frame, for example placing your subject off center in the frame and including foreground interest and making sure that you don’t have a lamp post growing out of the top of somebody’s head.

The thing about using a Canon camera is that it’s all laid out so logically and weather you are using the top of the range pro digital or film camera or the simple point and shoot digital camera, the images are always grate.

They striped down to their bikinis, which seem to me to get briefer year by year, or was it me getting older year by year! Then my previous fashion experience kicked in and I found myself directing a ‘mini’ fashion shoot without all the personal I use to have in tow while on assignments in the past, including showing my two models how to pose for the camera. Well I must say they were delighted and we had even managed to attract a crowed of people, much to their delight as well.

One guy who was watching asked me how much I would charge to shoot pictures of his teenage daughter on his camera and hearing his American accent, I told him $100.00. He agreed and ten minutes later I picked up a hundred bucks before I heading off for my appointment, only arriving ten minutes late which in Israel is considered the correct time for an appointment.

The girls were taking pictures of me working while I was shooting this guys daughter and they contacted me a few days later when they had been to the lab to have their memory card downloaded to make prints of their photo shoot. They couldn’t thank me enough and I had only detoured out of my way some twenty minutes and picked up 100 bucks in the bargain. I’m sure there is a moral to this story somewhere and if I think of one I’ll let you know, unless you come up with one first!

Are you getting your shooting experience? You know one of the most important things in becoming a good photographer, like a pilot, is getting you flying hours. Practice makes perfect and without practice there would be no population!

Roger started his career in the early sixties at the tender age of 15 as an apprentice in a large London Ad/Fashion Studio.
A few years late he became one of London’s youngest most successful Ad/Fashion photographers, with many clients asking for his services.
In the seventies he became freelance and took most of his clients with him. He retired recently but still carries out selective assignments. He also runs several websites, one of them is: PhotoRog.com

Roger also teaches and helps photographers and beginners with advice from his vast experiences in Ad/Fashion photography.
To learn more about your photography go here: Pro SECRETS of Money Making PHOTOGRAPHY

For Pick-up or Mail-order

As the online digital photo revolution evolves we see changes happening so rapidly that it is hard to keep up. We now have the option of uploading our pictures to a professional photo developer who can print crystal clear digital photos. Locations are popping up everywhere that will do this photo printing and are in your area. They are sometimes difficult to find and are sometimes where you would least expect them.

The days of printing from home are over

We have all been disappointed with our personal photo printers and have long since given up printing them ourselves. We have waited for a long time just looking at our photos on computer screens, palm pilots and cell phones. Now with faster internet connections sweeping the country it is easy and fast to upload our photos to a professional developer for processing and printing that is of very high quality.

Easy uploading

By putting your photos on your computer the usual way, with a USB cable or plugging your memory card directly to your computer, you can have your photos ready for uploading. Uploading is simple. from the website where you are doing the uploading you simply browse to the files where all of your photos are saved and select them one by one or as a group depending on the site that will print your photos.

Pick-up at the location is available everywhere

Picking your photos up at the location is available everywhere. The beauty of this is that 1 hour developing has now paved the way for people to want their photos quickly. With many photo processors digital photos can be available for pick-up in less than 1 hour.

If you don’t want to leave the house mail delivery is easy and reliable

For those of you who are pressed for time running to the location to get photos is not an option no matter how fast they are printed and made ready for you. Prints can be mailed to you in a timely manner and is often FREE. This is a great option and the cost is even better. It is like printing your pictures to your mailbox.

To view our list of recommended sources for digital photo printing online, visit this page: Photo Mugs.

Everything you see is the result of selective reflection of various colors from the visible spectrum of light as they leave an object and enter the human eye for interpretation. Whether the format used as film or digital imaging the end result is a “picture”, which is first captured by a device and then transferred to a piece of paper, plastic or a combination of the two. Some forty-five or so years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency determined the chemicals used to create pictures caused problems with our soils and streams. The EPA began controlling the make up of chemicals used in the manufacturing of photographic materials. The same is true for various ink jet papers that now saturate the retail market place.

The kind of light, ultra violet, that causes skin cancer and destruction of the ozone layer is also considered the best solution to controlling the harmful effects of these “color” chemicals as they accumulate in landfills. Given enough “natural light” heat and time, the breakdown of color simpler and safer chemical compounds makes for a cleaner environment.

Unfortunately, the color photograph on the wall that looks so wonderful today has limited life span. The more light it gets the faster it will self-destruct. Some prints gradually begin to take on a red cast others turn green. As various chemicals in the printed picture break down, the viewer sees only the reflection of colors that remain. There is no stopping of this process of deterioration.

Before the color photograph, as we know it was invented, photographers used a silver process, true black and white, or a sepia process, silver and sulfer, in combination with oil paints to achieve “natural color”. Because the prints made were essentially metal with added oil color, the stability of the image is now considered permanent and archival in quality. Due to the color in oil pigments not deteriorating with exposure to light the viewer can expect these images to last many times longer than ones created using contemporary technology.

Today there are studios that reproduce old and new photographs of lasting quality using the time tested methods of archival printing and oil tinting. Because of the labor-intensive nature of this type of work it requires a higher cost. In today’s marketplace, many prefer quantity and low costs to quality and permanence. Unfortunately, the vast majorities of color image collectors really don’t know the difference between archival prints and color imaging and don’t understand the process of color deterioration. The retailers and manufacturers of color products offer little education voluntarily on the subject as their profits are best reflected in volume sales. Little consideration is given to the customer base, that views archival preservation as essential in photographs.

When shopping photo processes and vendors, ask questions about how the product you are about to buy. Will it last? How is it made and what are the guarantees and limitations? Ask how long they keep negatives and always try to archive your images.

William Heroy – Owner of Old Photo Specialists – Founded in 1973

If you would like more information:

Visit Our Website
http://www.oldphotospecialists.com OR email us at oldphotospecialists@triad.rr.com

Old Photo Specialists is a highly specialized restoration studio. We provide a variety of services including original restoration, digital restoration, archival black and white and sepia tone printing, hand oil tinting, oils on canvas and a large variety of photography services. We educate our clients on how to take care of, preserve, and archive their precious family photos.

Write to Our Studio
Old Photo Specialist
909 N. Elm St.
Greensboro, NC 27401
(336) 271-6960

With a little knowledge and some practice digital photography is a snap. There’s no film to buy or process so it saves time and money. Shots can be viewed immediately and deleted or saved as desired. Plus digital cameras give a photographer flexibility and options unheard of until recently.

Keys to Better Photography

Camera technology has improved dramatically in recent years. Even so, it’s unlikely the camera will ever be able to perceive and capture images exactly as the human eye sees them. The eye can discern a much wider range of colors and range of dark to light. It is also able to instantly focus on objects at any distance and has a broad field of view.

The photographer’s objective is to faithfully reproduce a live three dimensional scene as a two dimensional image. Basic understanding of the differences and how to compensate is the difference between an average photo and one that is truly outstanding. Fortunately digital cameras and associated software make these adjustments easier than ever.

Color Gamut and Dynamic Range

Most digital cameras allow white balance adjustment, eliminating red, blue or green casts and making the photo more natural. For example, if a scene is primarily water and clear blue sky the camera’s logic may mistakenly introduce too much red trying to balance the color temperature. Solutions include selecting an appropriate scene mode or manually adjusting white balance.

Even sophisticated cameras have limited ability capturing a full range of lights and darks. Under or over exposing a shot is one way to correct this. For best results the photographer must decide which elements of the scene to emphasize. For instance, a dark or shaded interior shot looking through a large archway into a brightly lit exterior can be under exposed to reveal detail in the shaded area. Another solution is to take multiple shots, each one adjusted for part of the scene, then superimposing them for the final image.

Depth of Field and Field of View

Depth of field is simply the range of sharp focus at any given distance from the camera. The closer the photographer is to the primary subject, the shorter this range is. This can be desirable if the objective is to emphasize a person or object while leaving the rest of the scene less defined. Ways to extend depth of field include moving the camera further away from the subject or using a smaller aperture (higher F-stop).

Most digital cameras have an optical zoom feature allowing the photographer to choose a wider or narrower field of view. In some cases though, a wide angle shot will distort perspective or cause a loss of desired detail. This can be overcome by taking multiple photos in a panoramic array and using software to combine them into a single image. This allows the photographer to capture more detail in each shot. The photo software then adjusts perspective when the pictures are merged, digitally creating a more pleasing and life-like photo than a single wide angle shot would have provided.

Digital cameras information from A to Z: camera types & features, how they work, accessories, photo printers, comparisons and more - plus digital photo processing tips and info at A-Z Digital Cameras.com, Your Complete A-Z Resource for Digital Cameras, Accessories and Information.

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