Staff

On The Cover
In this issue we bring you a range of camera, lighting, and even pro-graphics-level monitor tests as well as an insider’s look at eBooks for photographers. And in keeping with our respect for and legacy coverage of camera classics, a look at a collector’s camera “bookshelf” and an exclusive report from Tokyo on prices garnered at one of the biggest user/collectible shows in Japan.

Our Picture This! assignment this month was “Deep Depth of Field,” creating compositions that rely on focus being sharp from near to far using all the tools of the deep focus kit—wide-angle lenses, closeness of camera to foreground subject, and as narrow an aperture as the lens and light could support. Readers responded with nature, scenic, urban, and abstract images, all made using some or all of the techniques described. There is something that is completely “photographic” about this technique, as the eye cannot “see” this without the aid of photography—it flicks around the real world from point to point quickly enough, of course, but there’s no set moment—except the photographic one—that makes all sharp from the nearest blade of grass to the farthest mountain.

The light wasn’t right on the day John Conn saw the scene, so he came back the next day at a time when the shadows would work in his favor. Then he waited. The geometry of the legs of a trousered figure striding by was distracting. “I really wanted a woman because they usually dress in lighter, more colorful clothing,” John says, “and I needed a more solid form, with more of a flow. And she had to be the right height, too.” His next opportunity was a bicyclist…who veered away from the perfect spot, spoiling the alignment. Then a woman came by and John took the photograph you see here.

Helping to navigate the complexities of digital SLR cameras is QuickPro, LLC,
a company that started creating SLR camera DVD tutorials (http://www.quickprocameraguides.com/)
three years ago. Today, QuickPro is announcing that it's now producing new DVD
Camera Guide titles every month, the latest being tutorials for the popular
Nikon D60 and Canon XSi, featuring interactive camera tours.

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