LATEST ADDITIONS

I learned photography in the film days, and when the huge change to digital came along, I changed not only my gear but the way I see. I used to have to see in terms of very specific criteria of what would work within the ISO range of my film and what the film could record in terms of light and shadow. Low ISOs meant I couldn’t get enough depth of field, or a tripod was needed, or I had to light something because there wasn’t enough information in pictures that had incredible shadow detail. High ISOs often meant an unacceptable level of grain and bad color rendition. As a result I passed up a lot of situations that got my attention but were beyond the capability of my film to capture.

The versatile new Sony α NEX-5T compact system camera combines a stylish, ultra-compact design and the creative capabilities of interchangeable lenses with large-sensor image quality, speedy Auto Focus (AF) and the convenience of NFC (Near Field Communication) one-touch for easier Wi-Fi connectivity.

Here are a few ABCs of web design to keep in mind when working on your site. A) Add something new each week. This is doubly important for blogs because search engines look for regular activity; the more and regular activity there is, the higher it will move the site in rankings when people look for photographers. B) Bigger is not necessarily better. Large file sizes cause a page to load slowly and, as I mentioned before in this column, the longer it takes, the more likely a person visiting the site will bail. Big file sizes also means it takes longer for a search engine spider to crawl your site. C) Colors should be simple, avoiding a strong graphic or photographic background. What works in print doesn’t always look good on a backlit monitor. A site’s focus should be on your photographs, not its design.<

Canon U.S.A., Inc. has introduced the new EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM telephoto zoom lens. Created to be the perfect companion lens for the EOS 70D, EOS Rebel SL1 and EOS Rebel T5i Digital SLR cameras, the EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM lens expands Canon’s line of Stepping Motor (STM) lenses to six models – the EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM, the EF 40mm f/2.8 STM, EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM, EF-M 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM, EF-M 22mm f/2.0 and the new EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM lens. Canon’s Stepping Motor lenses allow for the capture of high-quality still and video images and reduce motor noise from the lens so cameras, such as the new EOS 70D, will capture the sound of the video scene being recorded without the interruption of noise by the focusing motors.