High scene contrast always creates difficulties for photographers, whether
shooting film or digital. The difficulty stems from the difference between the
ways the film or sensor "sees" and how the human eye sees. Our eyes
are adaptive, and can resolve large variations in brightness by the way it scans
throughout the scene and the amazing reflex of automatically restricting and
dilating the pupil to adjust to bright and dark areas before us. While light
metering systems in cameras are impressive in the way they can read light, the
fact remains that at the moment of exposure the lens on a camera records a scene
at one fixed aperture, or opening. In most situations this is no problem, as
the meter averages light values and the bright and dark areas are distributed
through the recording medium properly. But high contrast presents a problem.
A
better solution is to use the --1 contrast setting. This
allows for smoother tonal gradations and addresses the need to
control the divergent light values in this backlit scene.
One look at the specs of this new Tamron zoom and you'll understand why
it's immediately attractive to anyone carrying around a digital SLR in
their day bag. Weighing in at around 15 oz and measuring just under 3x3.2",
the lens is quite the marvel of size for what it delivers in focal length and
aperture options. Indeed, if someone told me that a constant aperture, 17mm
wide lens would be this size a few years back I'd have thought they had
lost their optical marbles. To be fair, however, that 17mm is not really a 17mm
in 35mm equivalent, thus practical terms, and I wonder why lenses like this
are still labeled that way. This lens is only for APS-C sensors, which means
it has the "35mm equivalent" of a 27mm wide angle view and 80mm
tele.
Tamron's new 17-50mm zoom, available in Canon, Nikon, Konica
Minolta (read Sony), and Pentax (read Samsung) mounts is highly
portable and compact.
The Canon Digital Rebel line accomplished a number of things. It broke the $1000 DSLR price barrier, with room to spare, and as a result brought DSLR photography into the mainstream. What followed is history, with other makers bringing forth their "bargain" DSLR offerings, with the Rebel setting the bar. As is their wont, Canon followed up on the Rebel with other generations of this successful product, each one a modification that incorporated technology gotten from more current cameras and lessons learned from past Rebel products. The latest of these is the Canon Rebel XTi, a 10+ megapixel DSLR with a dust reduction system and simplified operating system.
The Panasonic DMC-L1 DSLR is Panasonic's first digital single lens reflex camera. Priced at just under $2000 with a Leica D Vario Elmarit f/2.8-3.5 14-50mm zoom lens (equivalent to 28-100mm in 35mm format) and 7+ megapixel sensor, it is a member of the Four/Thirds family. That allows you to use any lens from the Olympus and Sigma 4/3 mount offerings on the camera as well. It uses SD cards, and takes the newest SDHC cards with greater storage capacity. And the Leica lens uses Panasonic's OIS (optical image stabilization) that helps you get steady shots in two to three less stops of light than usual when shooting handheld. The body also has a Live View mode similar to the feature found in Olympus' recent DSLRs.
If you ever want a unique point of view try a "fisheye" lens. Like
looking through a door peephole (which in fact is a "fisheye" type)
this order of lens sacrifices linear correction in favor of a very wide angle
of view. Originally made for creating "full sky" images when pointed
straight up, they had long ago been adopted by photographers for creation of
decidedly different points of view, and, today, even doing QuickTime movies
to display the interior of a condo or vacation home.
There was time when those seeking super-wide lenses for APS-C size sensor cameras didn’t have much choice, but new light gathering systems that distribute light evenly from lens to sensor, as well as new optical formulas from camera makers and independent lens manufacturers, have changed that point of view. The latest in this welcome new class of glass is from Tamron, with their 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 offering. Priced at around $500 (street) and weighing in at about 14 oz., the Tamron 10-24mm is useable for cameras that require “motor in the lens” operation, such as the Nikon D40X, on which this lens was tested. The DiII designation tells you that this lens is for digital SLRs with APS-C sensors.
Nik Software and Shutterbug have teamed up to bring you a chance to use the wide variety of Nik software products and to enter one of the images you create in a contest that offers some very nice prizes. In my way of thinking the contest is the gravy; the real treat here is getting to use demo versions of software like Nik’s Viveza, Silver Efex Pro and Color Efex Pro on your images. Let’s see how all this works.
The Fujifilm Finepix 200 EXR (list: $599; street, under $500) sports a 12 megapixel sensor and a 14.3X optical zoom lens that is equivalent to 30.5-436mm (!) It takes stills and high-quality video and has a built in mic that delivers quality sound without much if any whirring from the camera. Having that much zoom capability means that you never will want on the tele side with this integral lens camera, and even 30mm is not bad on the wide side.
Looking like a small D-SLR with a moderate zoom lens, the S200EXR actually sports a 30.5-436mm optical zoom, an incredible range in a lens this small, though smaller sensor size is part of the reason they could attain the smaller size.
The Leica X1 looks like an analog camera. It has a compact body with a high quality finish and offers two setup dials on the top. If both dials are set to A-mode the camera will set aperture and shutter speed value automatically. If the photographer changes the aperture setting manually to a value between f2,8 and f16 the camera will work in aperture priority mode and set up shutter speed automatically. Similarly, a change of the shutter speed dial and setting the aperture-dial to A will switch the Leica X1 into “shutter speed priority mode. It’s a very efficient and easy system. The camera doesn’t offer any scene modes.
The X1 is Leica’s newest compact camera. It is based on an APS-C-sized image sensor and a lens system with fixed focal length with 36mm (35mm film equivalent). The camera has a small and compact body, offers easy handling and creates very crisp images.
Modotti, a new play by Wendy Beckett, traces the life and spirit of the times of Tina Modotti, photographer and political operative, during the first half of the twentieth century. The play explores the tension between a life in art and commitment to political change, and uses the relationship between Modotti and Edward Weston, her lover and photographic "mentor", as the device. Edward Weston (Jack Gwaltney) is portrayed as seeking abstraction and the idealization of form and light in his images, while Modotti (Alysia Reiner) speaks as the representative of using art as a political weapon to enhance and encourage social change, thus creating the "art/reality" conundrum that, among other matters physical and intellectual, drive the couple apart.