Category: Digital Photography

Posted on

Digital Picture Frames

Another hot holiday gadget gift idea is a digital picture frame. I’ve been a digital photographer ever since the first Apple QuickTake camera back in 1994 (yes, I know it wasn’t a real camera by any comparisons today). However, unlike many digital photographers, I’m not really that interested in printing my photos. Sure I have a nice Epson Stylus Photo R1800 printer that does a phenomenal job and I do have some nice framed shots around the house, but I just don’t do a lot of printing on a regular basis. When I want to look at a photo, I look at it on my computer or on my iPhone.

 

I bought my first digital picture frame back in 1999 when Sony introduced a (gasp) $900 PHD-A55 CyberFrame digital picture frame. Although I paid less than sticker price it was still up there. It was one of the first of it’s kind in that you loaded your shots on a memory stick and you could do a slideshow right on the frame without any computer connected to it. The only other frame I remember at the time was Cieva and they were set on selling frames a service which would allow you to download your images to it over the internet. I just wanted to "own" the frame and put my pictures on it directly. The frame was small, but innovative. For example, just waving your hand in front of the frame would turn it on and start the show. At that price, you better believe that I still use it to this day. Other than a restriction on the JPEGs not being able to have resource forks (a Mac issue), the frame has always worked great and I still get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

Now fast forward to 2007-2008. The weekend after Thanksgiving I caught the Staples sale on the 11.3" Omnitech Digital Picture Frame for a mere $99. Now keep in mind that this is an off brand (read cheap) frame and there some really good ones out there that may cost you closer to $200-$300. However, at that price and size I couldn’t resist. My plan is to put one of these at my parents house (they don’t use computers) and simply swap out the memory card on each visit. This way they can enjoy my latest shots (and some old classics) without having to print a bunch of photos and store photo albums that fade.

 

So what don’t you get with a $99 (regular price $199) frame?

It only comes in one color, black. Other frames offer different color inserts to match your decor. Although this frame is large it’s LCD has a relatively low resolution of 800x480ppi (480×234 ppi on the 7" model). It’s got a 16×9 display and comes with a pretty dorky looking (1970’s feel) remote. No cross dissolves or animation of any kind. Also other frames will play the little movies that some still cameras can capture. However, it does have a USB port for either a computer or thumb drive. It has both SD and Compact Flash slots (other formats via adapters). This is a no frills frame. One of the oddest attributes about this particular frame is that if you display a portrait (tall) image it will be cropped off as opposed to scaled down (letter boxed). So you would need to crop/resize your photos first to the proper dimensions to display their best on this frame. For the price I paid and the intended use, I’m willing to put up with things minor inconveniences. However, if you are looking for a quality frame, with more features and with support, you might want to look elsewhere.

 

The Bottom Line

Digital Picture Frames have come way down in price. They allow you to enjoy your digital captures without having to print a bunch of prints. They are easy to use and once they are setup, you can easily load them up with additional or different shots whenever you like. There are some bargain choices out there and some really nice models. So compare and get the right one for you.

Posted on

Eye-Fi is cool but has limited uses

I first read about Eye-Fi Wi-Fi enabled SD card over a year ago and anxiously awaited its arrival. Eye-Fi is an SD card with built-in Wi-Fi capabilities for wirelessly transferring your shots from your SD based digital camera either to your computer or to an online photo service such as flickr, facebook, smugmug, shutterfly, kodak, etc. Although I requested to be on the beta program, I never got the call. So a year later I bought one of the 2GB cards to try out.

The card arrived and setup was very straight forward. You get a card reader with the card that you plug into the USB port of your Mac or PC to set it up. You configure the card with a web browser (although Safari on the Mac wasn’t supported). I used FireFox to get mine going. Once I got it setup (which only took a few minutes), I was snapping away and the images automatically downloaded to the designated folder on my computer. After the first batch I took some more and didn’t see a way to start the new picts transferring again. After a few minutes of scratching my head I just turned the camera off and on again and that started the transfer process. Since your camera doesn’t know anything about the Wi-Fi abilities of this card, there is no way to control the cards functions from the camera. It’s all automatic.

 

It works, but I question its usefulness?

OK, now what? I have this wireless SD card that can transfer the images to my computer or directly to a photo service. This sounds cool and I’m sure some will love this idea. However, here are the issues I have with this card. Like I said, it works as advertised! However, here’s the thing, rarely would I ever want my shots transferred to an online service without first reviewing/editing them. Secondly, even if I opt to have them transfer to my computer, the process is not speedy and drains the camera’s battery more. It takes several seconds for each shot to download over 802.11g/b. Even a USB2 card reader is MUCH FASTER (and doesn’t require the camera’s battery power)! The next problem is that there is no way to use this card where you might have public Wi-Fi access that requires you to accept usage terms via a web page first. So while this card is cool and works, what would it save you from doing? I guess if you want direct upload to a photo site from your camera without having to go through your computer first, then this is your answer. And a good answer at that. However, for me it has limited appeal in it’s current format. Perhaps if they come out with a Compact Flash version that operates at 802.11n speeds, I’ll want to take another look.

The 2GB Eye-Fi SD card goes for $99. Post a comment on how you would use this card!

Posted on

Nikon D300 + N2 di-GPS = FUN!

I have really been enjoying my New Nikon D300 camera and there really isn’t anything that I don’t like about it. It’s FAST, takes incredible shots and has all the bells and whistles that I’ve always wanted. Although the Nikon D300 doesn’t have a GPS unit built-in, it does now feature direct support for one and there is even a GPS menu on the camera itself. I bought the N2 di-GPS which works directly with select Nikon & Fuji DSLRs. It arrived this week and it wasn’t until yesterday during lunch that I got a chance to take it out for a spin. The first thing I said to myself when I opened the box was, “wow, this is much smaller than I imagined!” It’s not much bigger than a pack of gum. Very lightweight and easy to travel with. Although it’s designed to sit on the hot-shoe, it’s doesn’t have to. The integrated mount will also attach to the camera strap. There is no battery in it as it gets its power directly from the camera via the cable that attaches to the D300’s 10 pin remote terminal.

GPS menu built-in to the New Nikon D300 and D3

 

Once you connect the cable, there is only one switch on the device and it switches from OFF, to Auto, to ON. Do I need to explain OFF? Didn’t think so. In the Auto position the GPS unit will turn on and off with the camera. This will probably yield the best battery life. However, each time the unit is turned on with the camera in this mode it will have to potentially acquire the satellite signal again. In the ON position, it stays on and connected to the GPS satellites regardless if the camera is on or not. Of course this will ultimately drain the camera’s battery faster. I recommend the ON position if you are shooting, then moving then shooting again. If you’re going to use it off and on throughout the day, then Auto is probably best. From a cold start it took about 15-20 seconds to acquire a GPS signal. There is a clear indicator right on top that flashes red when it is searching and stays solid red when it has locked on (Sony could learn from this!).

After connecting the N2 di-GPS and turning it on I was ready to shoot. The beauty of this unit is that the GPS information (longitude and latitude) is inserted right into the metadata of each shot as you take them. No need for post processing when you return to your computer. Since I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom I can take advantage of this data instantly by clicking the little GPS button in the metadata panel which will automatically take me to the location that I was shooting in on Google Maps.

 

I took this shot at the New Partridge Creek Mall here in Michigan.

 

When I look at the image above in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, I can see the GPS coordinates in the metadata panel

When I click the little arrow to the right of the GPS coordinates, Lightroom takes me to my browser and automatically loads those coordinates in Google Maps for me (you can click the image above for the same experience).

The interesting thing here is that apparently this map hasn’t been updated yet because it doesn’t show the mall on the satellite view 🙂 The mall was just completed and opened in October 2007.

I found the accuracy to be decent, but not great. What I mean by this is that it seems to take few moments to update once you’ve moved. I took some shots just walking around my yard and when I got back to the computer, although I had moved, a couple of the shots were still showing the coordinates from shots taken a few moments earlier. One shot showed that I was in my neighbor’s yard.

 

Here’s a shot I took in my backyard. OK, I’m kidding, this was taken at the Partridge Creek Mall. Normally I would have stepped back to get the whole tree, but there were two security guards waiting to tackle me if I even thought of pointing my camera at a store display (which is frowned upon at most malls).

This shot was taken maybe 50-60′ from the Apple store shot above.

 

Bottom Line

If you want to do some geotagging and map all the places that you shoot and you have one of the supported cameras, you can’t go wrong with this GPS unit. It’s painlessly simple to use and integrates beautifully. The N2 di-GPS goes for $238+$45 S&H. So it’s not cheap (neither are the cameras it supports), but if having GPS data automatically inserted into your images is your thing, this is the one for you.

Supports Nikon D3*, D300*, D2XS, D2X, D2HS & D200, Fujifilm S5 Pro.
*Nikon added new GPS function to D3 and D300. The new function resolved the battery drain issue. The new option in the menu let the user to select the metering system to stay on or auto off when GPS data is received to reduce the power consummation.

Also see my review on the NEW di-GPS Pro!



Posted on

Nikon D300 Review – first impressions

I picked up my new Nikon D300 last Wednesday from the good folks over at Adray Camera (who assured me that I would be one of the first kids on the block to get one, Thanks Kevin!). It was great having the holiday weekend to put it through some initial tests. I’m coming into this new camera body from a Nikon D80 and my main motivation for upgrading (the D80 is great camera) was to be able to shoot at higher ISO settings with less visible noise. In brief, the new Nikon D300 does just that. Now for those of you who currently have D200’s there’s probably not as much of a need to upgrade to the D300.

The first thing I noticed was how smooth the camera operated and especially the 51 point focus system is killer. This camera also has several more ways to customize it compared to my D80. It took me a while to figure out where the options were located for some of the things that I had setup on my D80. For example, something as simple as turning on the image review (after you take a shot, the LCD displays the last shot you took for a few moments), took me several minutes to find. Everything I wanted to set was there, it was just that some of these options were buried and had obscure names. I like to think that I should be able to pickup a new Nikon (now that I’m on my 3rd one) and be able to set it up the way I want without having to refer to the manual. Sadly, that was not the case this time. One setting I gave up on was the setting that allows you to use the Command Dial to quickly thumb through your shots. I just couldn’t figure out what Nikon would call this feature or where it was located in the menus. So I called my buddy Scott Kelby who shoots with a Nikon D200 (his D300 is on the way too) and he walked me through to the right menu which was Custom Settings Menu -> Controls -> Customize command dials -> Menus and playback = ON. Maybe that seems straight forward to some, but my brain just never saw that as being the option I was looking for.

 

On to the noise tests

Once I got all my settings set I moved on to the noise testing which again was my main motivation for upgrading. I want to be able to shoot in lower light situations at a higher ISO setting with less Christmas tree like noise. My first round of tests was to use natural light coming from a nearby window to shoot a floral arrangement on a black Westcott background. I was very happy with my results!

I shot the flower above at a full range of ISO settings and I’m happy to report that shooting at ISO 800 was extremely acceptable. I could even go higher before starting to cringe.

Zoomed in 1:1 in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom on a shot at ISO 800

 

zoomed in 1:1 in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom on a shot at ISO 1600

 

Here’s a link to 4 of my shots (39MB download) at ISO 200, 800, 1600 & 3200 shot in Camera RAW and then converted to Adobe .DNG format using Lightroom.

 

The higher the ISO setting the more noise/grain you’ll see. However, compared to my D80 this is a night and day improvement. The other thing that I’m totally addicted to is the speed of this puppy. While the D3 would probably be better suited for sports photography, this camera would be a great second choice at less than half the price of the D3.

 

My setup

Nikon D300 (shooting in RAW)

Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens

shot at f/4.5 in Aperture Priority mode

Westcott reversible background

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.3 running on Mac OS X 10.5.1 Leopard

 

Bottom Line

While I’ve only had this camera for a few days, I’m very happy. I’ve also ordered a di GPS unit that attaches directly to it. Look for that review here. The Nikon D300 goes for $1,799.95. If you would like to read a full review and see all the specs, check out these two: dpreview and Steve’s Digicams should have one up soon.

 

Hey, I’m selling my Nikon D80 gear! Check it out here on eBay

.

Posted on

The fastest card!

I was ready to declare the PNY Technologies card the winner in my recent Compact Flash Card Speed Tests when my buddy Scott Kelby reminded me that it’s not only about how fast the card reads data, but also how fast the card writes data. So this lead me to do some more testing.

For those of you who haven’t been following along, this all began with my recent purchase of the CFExpressPro+ PCIe ExpressCard to CompactFlash Memory Card Adapter 2.5Gbps. This ExpressCard Compact Flash Card Reader boasts the ability to operate at the ExpressCard slot’s true PCIe speeds. My first tests with Lexar Pro media yielded horrible results in that I either have a bad card or their write acceleration is just not compatible with this reader. So I went out and bought some different cards. I bought a couple of SanDisk’s Extreme III and IV cards and I bought the PNY Technologies Optimal PRO and Optima PRO UDMA cards. These cards were rated at 133x and 266x by their respective manufacturers. I was shocked that the PNY cards were much faster than the SanDisk cards on READING my 1.1GB test folder. Like I said, I was ready to declare PNY the winner until I ran some WRITE tests. The results put SanDisk back on top. Using the Sychnrotech ExpressCard PCIe Reader, here’s what I got:

Card Read 1.1GB Write 1.1 GB
PNY Technologies Optima Pro 133x 2GB Card 40.9 seconds 56.9 seconds
PNY Technologies Optima Pro UDMA 266x 2GB Card 35.7 seconds 45.2 seconds
SanDisk Extreme III 133x 2GB Card 70.8 seconds 71.1 seconds
SanDisk Extreme IV 266x 2GB Card 41.6 seconds 29.4 seconds

 

While the PNY card did win the Read tests hands down, what really matters to a digital photographer the most (besides reliability) is the speed at which images can be written to the card and the SanDisk Extreme IV edges out the PNY card by 18% margin!

Also no matter how you slice it having the Synchrotech ExpressCard Memory Adapter ($65) blows away USB card readers. In all of my tests the fastest time I could achieve with my USB card reader was just over 2 minutes whereas with the ExpressCard adapter I achieved 35.7 seconds and 41.6 second read times. If you’re a pro digital photographer and have a notebook with an ExpressCard slot, this is a must purchase. Time is money.


 

 

Posted on

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.3, Camera RAW 4.3, Photoshop CS3 updates

The Adobe Photoshop engineering team has been quite busy over the past few weeks (months) and has just released a slew of updates:

 

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.3

This is the update you’ve been waiting for if you are on or going to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or if you were in the market for one of the hot new DSLR Cameras. Not only do we get improved Leopard compatibility but we also get native camera RAW support for the following cameras:

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III
Canon PowerShot G9
Nikon D3
Nikon D300 <- OK sign me up!
Olympus E-3
Olympus SP-560 UZ
Panasonic  DMC-L10

Adobe is first to market (again) with support for the RAW format of the Nikon D3 and D300! The applications also now support the sRAW format produced by the Canon 1D Mk III, 1Ds Mk III, and 40D.

Also Adobe has released a Preview of the Lightroom Export SDK (available on http://labs.adobe.com). This will allow developers to create some really cool workflows. Think direct export to Flickr, Smugmug, FTP Hosts, etc.

 

Adobe Camera RAW 4.3 and the DNG Converter 4.3

If Lightroom is not your thing, but you are a Photoshop CS3 user then you’ll get the same camera RAW support as Lightroom in these updates.

 

Adobe Photoshop CS3 10.0.1& Bridge CS3 2.1.1

The most significant fixes in the Photoshop 10.0.1 update include the following:

A crash that could occur when Microsoft Intellipoint software is installed has been fixed.

  • The speed of moving objects contained within multiple layer sets has been improved.
  • The speed of closing large documents has been improved.
  • Converting images to CMYK using certain profiles no longer results in black files.
  • A crash that could occur when saving a 4-bit BMP file with 16 or fewer colors has been fixed.
  • The Save for Web feature now includes an option to “Include XMP” (metadata) in the settings menu within the main Save for Web interface, making the existing capability easier to access.
  • When using Save For Web with “Include XMP” enabled, all XMP data is now included in the optimized file.
  • A problem that could cause the incorrect printer to appear within the print dialog box has been corrected.
  • Images no longer print with odd-sized margins on various Epson printers, or print smaller and off-centered.
  • Printer settings in Windows® are saved with a document while that document is open. If a document has not had Page Setup settings applied to it, the document will get the previous page setup used during the current session of Photoshop.
  • Photoshop now turns off Windows ICM (system color management) when “Photoshop Manages Colors.”
  • Print color matching has been improved.
  • A problem that caused certain laser printers to show distortions when printing to a nonsquare resolution has been fixed.
  • Images saved as DICOM and reopened in Photoshop CS3 are no longer corrupted on PowerPC® based Mac computers.

The Adobe® Bridge CS3 2.1.1 update includes the following fixes and enhancements:

  • A new preference to enable High Quality Preview has been added to Bridge’s Preferences > Advanced panel. When enabled, the preference addresses the problem of a soft or blurry preview appearing in the Preview panel and in Slideshow mode.
  • Data loss that could result from replacing a folder with another folder by the same name has been prevented.
  • Issues that could cause Bridge to crash (for example, when encountering a PDF or AI file) have been corrected.
  • A problem that could cause Bridge to lock up when using arrows to navigate has been fixed.
  • XMP data is now handled correctly when added to CR2 files.
  • A problem that could cause the Loupe tool not to be available after exiting from Slideshow mode has been corrected.
  • Rapid clicks to select multiple files are no longer interpreted as a double-click, so unintended opening of multiple files is now reduced.

All of the updates above are available for download from adobe.com and should be available through the Adobe Updater.

 


Posted on

What a difference a card makes

On Friday, I did a review of the NEW Synchrotech ExpressCard PCIe Card Reader for ExpressCard slots found on MacBook Pros and other various PC laptops. Although the reader performed better than my USB reader in my initial tests, I was disappointed in the apparent lack of speed in the Lexar Professional media. So over the weekend I went out and bought two different CompactFlash cards. I bought the SanDisk (my usual preferred brand) Extreme III 2.0GB card and just for comparison I bought a PNY Optima Pro 2GB Compact Flash. Both cards are rated at 133x.

Using the same exact test folder from Friday of just over 1GB of images I began my tests with the new cards. The results were STUNNING! In my first test with the SanDisk Extreme III card in the Synchrotech reader was almost TWICE AS FAST as my USB reader. However, what was even more shocking was the results I got with the PNY card. I had always seen this brand card, but never tried it before. It seems that most of the pros I know either use SanDisk or Lexar. However, after my tests on Saturday I may be buying a few more PNY cards. Why? Because it was the FASTEST card I’ve tried yet. It copied the same data about 30 seconds faster than the SanDisk card! Now keep in mind that both of these brands come in even faster speeds. SanDisk makes an Extreme IV and PNY makes a UDMA 266x speed card. So the speed increase could even be more dramatic with the ExpressCard reader while over USB there would be no difference because the cards tested are already faster than the USB reader can do. I plan to get the faster versions of each card and do more tests.

In all of my tests the USB 2.0 reader seems to top about at just over 2 minutes to copy over 1.1GB of data from all of the cards I’ve tried. However, the Synchrotech ExpressCard Reader really started to rock with the SanDisk and PNY cards copying the same data in 1:10 and 40.9 seconds respectively.

 

Copying 1.1GB of data from each card Synchrotech ExpressCard Reader SanDisk USB2 12-in-1 Reader
SanDisk Extreme III 2.0GB Card
1:10.8
2:02.01
PNY Technologies Optima Pro 2.0GB Card
40.9
2.03.01
Best results in GREEN.    

 

In this world of Faster, Faster, Faster, the Synchrotech ExpressCard Reader ($65) will become a permanent addition to my camera/computer bag. If you have a notebook with an ExpressCard slot, I highly recommend this reader. It kicks the crap out of USB 2.0 readers. I also recommend that you give the PNY Optioma Pro CompactFlash cards a spin too.

Posted on

True Express Card PCIe Speed for Photographers

As our images continue to grow with 10-12MP cameras becoming the norm in the pro world of digital photography, it has become even more important than ever to be able to download our images as fast as we can. When Apple introduced the MacBook Pro, they made one important change that had the photography community grumbling for months. They eliminated the PC Card slot that we had all become accustom to in favor of the new (smaller) ExpressCard|34 slot. The excuse was, "this is where the industry is going" and Apple likes to be on the cutting edge (most of the time). The biggest problem with this slot is that it’s not as wide as a Compact Flash card and therefore any adapters would require the card actually pert rude out of the side of the notebook.

As time went on ExpressCard adapters started to show up for all the various card formats. However, the one thing that these adapters had in common is that most, if not all of them operated at USB 2.0 speeds. Where was the promise of the super fast ExpressCard slot? So when I saw the CFExpressPro+ PCIe ExpressCard to CompactFlash Memory Card Adapter 2.5Gbps I was intrigued! This was the first adapter I had seen that promised to operate at the native PCIe speeds of the slot. So I ordered one.

The adapter arrived the day after I had upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and although I know better to install drivers that don’t specifically say that they are compatible with the OS I’m running, I did it anyway and that was a mistake. Come to find out that Leopard already includes the driver for this card. There was no graceful way to revert back from what I had done (although the manufacturer tried really hard to help me get back to a state before their driver), so it was Archive and Install Time of Leopard to get the native driver back. NOTE: If you’re on Leopard DO NOT install the drivers that come with the adapter!

I started my tests with a Lexar Professional CompactFlash 133x Speed 4GB card and the results were shockingly bad! I thought that there must still be a problem with the driver and the manufacturer went off to try to solve the problem. In my initial tests the card copied the data about ten times faster using my old SanDisk USB 12-in-1 reader. So today I decided to try a different approach. I used a different MacBook Pro that still had Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4.10) on it and installed their driver and the results WERE THE SAME! The problem seems to be with the Write Acceleration (or some other factor) that Lexar uses on this particular card. I tried a test of 2.72GB of data and the USB card reader copied the data in 6 minutes 8 seconds. I stopped the ExpressCard copy after 6 minutes because the Finder reported that there was still 49 minutes left!

When I reported these findings to the folks at Synchrotech, they asked me "which card" was I using? I told them, but this question prompted me to think that the issue may be with the Lexar card itself. This lead me to conduct more tests with my older (slower) SanDisk card which gave me results more in line of what I was expecting.

 

Speed Test Results

 

  ExpressCard USB 12-in-1
SanDisk Card/Leopard Driver (1GB of data) 1:58.0 2:22.7
SanDisk Card/Synchrotech Driver in Tiger (1GB of Data) 1:55.9 2:26.1
Lexar Card/Synchrotech Driver in Tiger (2.72GB of Data) Too Long! 6:08.3

 

Testing environment:

Both MacBook Pros are 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duos with 3GB of RAM. One running Mac OS 10.4.10 and the other running Mac OS 10.5. Both with 5400 rpm internal drives.

 

The Bottom Line

The Synchrotech ExpressCard PCIe adapter goes for $65 and seems to have about a 21% speed increase over my USB 2 Card Reader. However, the one thing that has to be ironed out is compatibility with the very popular Lexar Pro Compact Flash cards with Write Acceleration. I do plan to do another test as soon as I can get my hands on a FAST SanDisk card or a newer Lexar card. And I expect the speed difference with a high speed card to be even greater over USB. So stay tuned…

Posted on

My 2007 Holiday Gadget Gift Guide is here!

It’s that time of year already! I’ve just completed my annual "Terry White’s 2007 Holiday Gadget Gift Guide". That’s right it’s my guide to help you with you holiday shopping for the gadget lover (freak) on your list. The way this thing started was last year towards the holiday season all my friends started asking me and emailing about what my picks were in various categories and of course the answers were the same. So I decided to compile a list and just email it to the folks that asked. Then I followed my buddy Scott Kelby’s lead and decided to formalize the process with my very own interactive PDF.

The guide is broken out by product category and lists my picks from the lowest dollar amount to the highest. So there are products in just about every price range. The guide is interactive with links to each of the products (just click on the product shot or price) on sites that I trust to make online purchases from and have dealt with in the past. Each of the products are either products that I use or products that come highly recommended by friends whose opinions I trust.

So check it out today!

 

PS. As you might have guessed the entire guide was built in Adobe InDesign CS3 and Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional.