Last Two Recipes from Lola
Last Five Tech Articles
ProcMail Installation and Configuration Guide
Welcome to our new "Tech" section!
Another book review from Packt Publishing
Beware of wordpress plugins
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) - Part One
9Feb/100
Nikon 24mm f/1.4G
Along with the Nikon 16-35mm f/4G VR lens, Nikon has also announced the new super-fast AF-S Nikkor 24mm f/1.4G ED prime lens. It is a replacement for one of the sharpest Nikon lenses ever produced - the discontinued Nikon 28mm f/1.4 lens. This new lens sets a new standard on contrast and sharpness, because it beats the older 28mm f/1.4 lens in all aspects.
Nikon 24mm f1.4G ED
8Feb/101
Nikon 16-35mm f/4G VR
Today Nikon announced a brand new FX lens - AF-S Nikkor 16-35mm f/4G ED VR, world's first ultra-wide angle zoom with Vibration Reduction technology. The lens is ultra-fast with AF-S silent-wave focus motor, has Nanon crystal coating against flare and is sealed against tough weather conditions. Unlike the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G lens, the new 16-35mm f/4.0 VR has a 77mm filter thread, which is great news for landscape photographers.
Nikon 16-35mm f4G ED VR
5Feb/102
How to Obtain Maximum Bokeh
In photography, the term bokeh represents the magical out-of-focus blur that makes it look like the subject is isolated from the background. It is visually appealing for us to see a photograph with a soft, creamy and beautiful background. It helps concentrate our eyes on a single area and creates a sense of depth and dimension on an otherwise flat-looking image.
Let me share a few tips on how you could obtain maximum bokeh from your camera setup.
1) Use a large aperture
Bokeh is not created by the camera - it is your lens and its optics that are responsible for rendering the out-of-focus areas. Therefore, the first thing you should do is set your lens aperture to its lowest value, also known as "maximum aperture". You can do this by changing your camera mode to "Aperture Priority" and setting the "f" number to the lowest value your camera will permit. On Nikon DSLR cameras, this is typically done by rotating the front dial towards the left (counter-clockwise).
4Feb/100
Understanding Metering and Metering Modes
Every modern DSLR has something called "Metering Mode", also known as "Camera Metering", "Exposure Metering" or simply "Metering". Knowing how metering works and what each of the metering modes does is important in photography, because it helps photographers control their exposure with minimum effort and take better pictures in unusual lighting situations. In this "understanding metering modes" article, I will explain what metering is, how it works and how you can use it for your digital photography.
When I got my first DSLR (Nikon D80), one of my frustrations was that some images would come out too bright or too dark. I had no idea how to fix it, until one day, when I learned about camera metering modes.
1) What is Metering?
Metering is how your camera determines what the correct shutter speed and aperture should be, depending on the amount of light that goes into the camera and the sensitivity of the sensor. Back in the old days of photography, cameras were not equipped with a light "meter", which is a sensor that measures the amount and intensity of light. Photographers had to use hand-held light meters to determine the optimal exposure. Obviously, because the work was shot on film, they could not preview or see the results immediately, which is why they religiously relied on those light meters.
Today, every DSLR has an integrated light meter that automatically measures the reflected light and determines the optimal exposure. The most common metering modes in digital cameras today are:
- Matrix Metering (Nikon), also known as Evaluative Metering (Canon)
- Center-weighted Metering
- Spot Metering (Nikon), also known as Partial Metering (Canon)
You can see the camera meter in action when you shoot in Manual Mode - look inside the viewfinder and you will see bars going left or right, with a zero in the middle, as illustrated below.
Metering shown in Nikon Viewfinder
Continue reading 'Understanding Metering and Metering Modes'
3Feb/102
Our new Technology Section
As you might have noticed, we now have a new "Tech" section on the top of the page. I decided to move my geeky articles over to a new section that I called "Technology Tips and Tricks" for now to separate them from photography articles.
In addition, we now have a new contributing member to our blog - my good old friend and technology geek Karim. I have known him for over 12 years and he is like a brother to me. He is very smart, super sharp and he is graduating from University of Colorado at Boulder with a Master's degree this spring!
Karim will be primarily writing in our Tech section and I will try to help him out with some of my work-related stuff as well :)
It took me some time to port things over to the new section and get rid of the old junk, which is why I have not had a chance to work on new articles. I will start catching up this weekend though, so stay tuned!
2Feb/102
Corporate Photography
There are two types of corporate photography - event photography and portrait photography. Event photography means taking pictures of employees and guests in corporate events such as conferences, birthday parties, Christmas parties, receptions and sales events. Corporate portrait photography means taking formal pictures of employees for websites, magazines and other various publications. In this article, I will provide some tips on how to photograph corporate events.
1Feb/102
Zone-tailed Hawk
I have been trying to get a good shot of a Zone-tailed Hawk for quite sometime now. For some reason, the ones I see are very shy and fly away as soon as they see me.
This guy took off right away, but flew over me for about 10 seconds before flying far away, so I was able to snap a couple of pictures of this beautiful bird:
31Jan/102
Best of 2009 – Landscapes (Part 3)
This is part three of the "Best of 2009 Landscapes" series. A couple of things that I wanted to mention here:
- The "Double Rainbow" image is a little soft, because it was still raining when I took the picture
- Although the composition is pretty much absent, I still went ahead and decided to post the "Fall" photograph as one of the best of 2009, because it has a special value to me. I took the image with a very long lens after an unsuccessful attempt to chase a bird and fired about 8 horizontal shots hand-held. I was sure that those images would end up in being deleted, but after I came home, I tried to stitch them together for the heck of it and ended up having this picture :)
And here are the images:
- Aged Colors 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Arches 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Crystallized Leaf 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Curved River 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Double Rainbow 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Fall 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Frozen Dunes 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Indian Writings 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Mammoth Hot Springs 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Water Explosion 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
Thumbnails:
30Jan/107
Where to Buy DSLR?
One of the questions that I get asked very often from my readers and friends, is "where should I buy a DSLR from?" While this might seem like a pretty straightforward answer to many of our readers, I still decided to write a quick article about where to buy DSLRs and lenses and why.
This is not about what DSLRs and lenses you should buy and why. If you are looking for detailed information on what DSLR you should choose and why, please read my comprehensive "How to Buy a DSLR Camera" guide. If you are looking for a comparison between point and shoot cameras and DSLRs, then I highly recommend reading Lola's detailed "DSLR vs Point and Shoot" article.
If you have already made up your mind on what DSLR camera and lens to buy but you are still wondering if you should purchase it online or in a local store, then keep reading, since I might be able to save you some money.
1) Where to buy a DSLR - Local Store or Online/Internet?
There are many different sources of where you could buy DSLR equipment, but I will talk about the two main ones:
- A local camera/electronics store
- An online Internet store
29Jan/102
How to Whiten Teeth in Photoshop
Who wouldn't want pearly white teeth gleaming through a beautiful smile! This is a quick and one of the most effective ways of whitening teeth in Photoshop. I've tried many different ways before, but once I adopted this particular method, I never went back to my old ways again.
Here is how I do it:
- Open the image in Photoshop. If you are in Lightroom, simply right-click the image and click "Edit In"->"Edit in Adobe Photoshop".
- Zoom in enough to make it easy to work with teeth by pressing CTRL +.
- We are going to be using the 'Magnetic Lasso' tool to achieve this task. It is located in the upper left corner, under the 'Crop' button.
