PHOTOGRAPHY

Some Ideas on How to Make Money in Digital Photography

2009-11-25T18:00:00.001+08:00

As any seasoned photographer will tell you, making a living in photography is more about the business than it is about the art. Anybody with good or decent picture skills can make a good living from it. The trick is to use it as part of a good business plan. Real estate, car dealerships and product photography lend themselves as good ventures in this field.
Car dealerships are a good source of work. They all have a need for pictures, but dealers are good at selling cars not necessarily at taking pictures. Therefore, it should not be hard to sell this service. If you can develop a nice website to showcase the cars, it can provide recurring revenue by charging a monthly fee. Additionally, there are many individuals selling cars on eBay who need a good picture. Don't be surprised if you get recurring jobs as you become better known in the field.

Real estate also offers many opportunities if you are interested in architectural photography. I recall getting a job from an architect who had just finished a project. She was putting a portfolio together, and she needed good quality pictures. Another good strategy is to target those selling their homes. Most house hunter will do a search in the internet as opposed to drive around the various neighborhoods as it was once the case. Real estate brokers have their own websites and showcase their properties in much the same way as car dealerships.

Product photography requires more equipment such as light tent, flash lights, and special lenses. However, if you like to work in the comfort of a studio or the client's store, then this might be the business for you. There are literally hundreds of thousands of eBay listings placed every day. What do they all have in common? Yes, they all need pictures. Since the buyers will rely on them to make their purchase decisions, they need to be of good quality and present the product in detail.

There is no need to be Ansel Adams to make a good living with digital Photography. A good business sense is what often times makes the difference. Look around at all the pictures in the internet and ask yourself where they come from or even better how you can take them.

by Alexander Seiglie

Spy Equipment Accessories for Home Surveillance

2009-11-21T18:00:00.001+08:00

Spy equipment accessories may not seem very glamorous or exciting, but they are often necessary for the more efficient functioning of your surveillance or your counter-surveillance efforts. The fact of the matter is that there is more to spy equipment than just a neat gadget. There are accessories that are “behind the scenes” to make sure that everything runs smoothly, and that you have everything you truly need.

Most of the more useful spy equipment accessories are for cameras. These cameras are often surveillance cameras that can detect intruders and record vandals, helping you better protect your home. This equipment can help you keep your home safe, protecting your most valuable asset, and your valuables (human and otherwise) inside. The different options available to enhance camera performance can only aid your efforts to fortify your home.

One of the best spy equipment accessories for the camera is the illuminator. Illuminators come in various sizes and they are effective up to different ranges. These illuminators usually sit atop the camera, or somewhere nearby, to provide adequate light for the camera to pick up different people that come in its range. This is especially helpful at night, as most illuminators help the camera “see” in the dark what it otherwise would not have been able to distinguish.

Other helpful spy equipment accessories include camera housings. These housings for CCTV cameras protect them from the elements, helping them last longer and protecting your investment in better home security through premises surveillance. Some housing are even equipped with blowers and heaters. These keep the cameras from overheating during the summer and protect them from the bitter cold during the winter.

Other helpful spy equipment accessories include things like videotapes for recorders (long tapes that hold 9 or 10 hours of footage, as opposed to 6 hours) and power supplies and battery packs. Battery packs may even be rechargeable, making it that much easier to make sure your surveillance system always has adequate power to do the job. Additionally, plug and play cables of different lengths can add to the effectiveness of your spy equipment.

by: Shawn Davis

A Spy Camera on Your Body

2009-11-20T18:00:00.001+08:00

Are you afraid that you might miss something important? With a spy camera carefully concealed on your body, you can enter a room and observe with your eyes, and then look over everything else later, with the benefit of slow motion added in. A spy camera of this sort can come in very handy, and it is easy to use and virtually undetectable.

A spy camera that is placed on your body for surveillance purposes makes use of a transmitter that sends the images it captures back to a recorder of some sort. This can be a VCR or DVD, but increasingly sophisticated technology allows it to be sent to computers. This means that you can set your computer to record the images from your camera, and then you can look over them later, focusing on different parts of the images, and seeing things that maybe you failed to see the first time with the naked eye.

There are different ways that a spy camera can be hidden on your body. Usually they look like regular objects. For instance, a camera can be hidden in a button, baseball cap, or a pair of sunglasses. They can even be in common objects that someone might carry, such as a pen, pager, cigarette pack, lighter, or book bag. Some of them are in the form of bore scopes that also serve the same purpose. In any case, the point of a spy camera is to be able to take images without others knowing what you are doing.

In addition to a spy camera hidden on your body, you might find it useful to wear a small listening device. This will only serve to augment the visuals you capture, and can even help you add context to what you are seeing. Additionally, it gives you the ability to listen again for things that you might have missed during your initial surveillance.

When you perform surveillance, it is important to make sure that all your bases are covered. This means that you should have a backup to your own eyes and ears. This is possible with a small listening device and a body worn spy camera.

by: Shawn Davis

Catch the Holiday Spirit with Digital Cameras

2009-11-19T18:00:00.001+08:00

It’s the time of the year when your family and friends spend their time together at home. It’s also the best time to get memories in print. But oftentimes people are frustrated to find out that the pictures they have taken don’t look too good when they get printed. So the best way you could perhaps do to minimize excessive outflow of money and effort is by using digital cameras.

Digital photography has opened up a lot of new and valuable opportunities to all. Here are a few reasons for you to go digital. First, you can always make sure that the shot you took is the one you like before leaving the scene and if it does not meet your expectation, you can always delete it and take another shot. Second, digital cameras allow you to easily and quickly retrieve images. You also have the option of having your photos printed at home at your own convenience. Digital cameras can also mount filters, auxiliary lenses and polarizers allowing you to meet any photographic challenge you might come across with.

These are just a few reasons to make you cross over the fence to digital photography. When you do decide to use digital camera there are a few things to consider in choosing the right one as there are a lot of choices when it comes to digital camera today. Most of these cameras only differ in use and price. If you are thinking of only using your camera to exchange snapshots with your friends, you do not need to spend a lot for the camera. Don’t forget to ask the seller if the camera you are buying can accept external power supply. Remember that cameras use power fast so you do not want to spend most of your time buying batteries and miss the opportunity of getting the shot that you want.

Buying your digital camera need not be a difficult task. To make things simple, just try to remember these factors when shopping for your camera – number of megapixels, user controls, battery life, zoom lens and exposure control. So get started with your shopping for the right digital camera today. After all, you would not want to miss grandpa crying beside the Christmas tree because of the gift you gave him or miss little Annie getting frantic because she finally got the Barbie doll she likes. Happy Holidays everyone!

by: Viojieley Gurrobat

Digital Photography Techniques

2009-10-10T08:51:00.000+08:00

Improve With These Tips

Since the advent of the digital camera many more aspiring photographers have become interested in developing their basic photography skills: learning some of the jargon associated with this new hobby is absolutely necessary if you intend to progress beyond the very basics of turn the camera on, take aim and press the shutter.

Digital photography techniques, such as 'dynamic range', 'depth of field', and 'field of view' can all help to improve the quality of your pictures. Our eyes are much cleverer at discerning different aspects of vision than even the most expensive camera that is available to date so, to obtain a finished photograph that resembles as closely as possible what our eyes see, manual changes have to be made by the photographer, depending on the degree of light available and the distance away the object being photographed is from the camera.

Establishing a precise focal point and then maintaining that area around that focal point in clear focus involves the photographer making a decisive decision about the depth of field: the decision to be made involves keeping close to realism or being rather compliant in terms of artistic portrayal.

When staying close to realism the photographer needs to decide between the length of exposure, the depth of field and the level of film grain whereas, multiple exposures can be implemented if the photographer decides to enjoy a variable amount of artistic flexibility. They end result is a photograph that exhibits multifaceted focal points that is loosely similar in the way our eyes interpret a scene when we give a view a fleeting glance that takes in both near and far objects simultaneously.

Digital photography techniques overcome the natural drawback a camera has that our eyes can overcome, such as dynamic range. Whereas our eyes can adapt, with little problem, to changing light conditions, the photographer has to have sufficient knowledge of digital photography techniques to surmount this problem. Dynamic range accounts for discernment of details and making sense of shadows and contrasts which, by utilising a range of filters, can overcome dynamic range with evenly exposed images.

This prevents the finished photograph looking as if it has been overexposed. Field of view takes into account the wide panorama our eyes are naturally able to view in any single sight. However, the camera is dependent on lens aperture and, of course, the previously mentioned, depth of field and dynamic range.

In order for the photographer to obtain a similarly panoramic effect, other digital photography techniques need to be used - especially a technique known as digital panorama: it is also referred to as photo stitching as this better describes what it actually does. In order to obtain an enhance panorama, the photographer will aim the camera at a series of consecutive views.

A series of photos is obtained from which final picture is obtained. This is one of the more complicated digital photography techniques but the end result produces a picture that reveals better perspective and less lens distortion - essentially by matching up the individual pixels by blending the pixel seams.

The particular technique for matching up the pixels for a seamless finish is usually accomplished using software and involves isolating the vanishing point and the horizon alignment. This final stage only really requires the photographer to use the camera to take a series of still shots - the rest involves computer techniques of digital photography.

Article Source: Philip_Lim

5 Things You Can Do With Flash Memory

2009-10-02T15:56:00.000+08:00

Got flash memory cards? They aren’t only for your digital camera. Probably the coolest yet overlooked ways to use your flash memory card is as floppy drive replacement. Think about it, a flash memory card is really a form of storage disk.

Most notebook computers today don’t come with a floppy drive anymore. I’ve personally been in situations where I needed to share a file with someone and haven’t been able to because they handed me a floppy disk.

If you already own a card or a digital camera, chances are you already have the necessary equipment to read the card and transfer files to and from them. If you don’t it’s easy. Get yourself a flash memory card reader – they are so inexpensive these days you can even pick one up free after rebate if you watch the deals. Hookup it up to your computer and pop in the card. It will show up on your computer as a new drive. When you’re ready to save data to it, just drag and drop. It’s no different than a regular floppy or hard drive. Once you see in this light there is a whole bunch of things you can use your flash memory card for and here are 5 ideas for you.

1. Use as a greeting card. Hey there’s always an occasion around the corner. If you’re already thinking of sending a CD greeting card – use your flash memory card instead. With the large storage sizes you can afford to have multimedia in your ecards too and when that person gets tired of it, the card itself is a gift for their computing convenience. As if that wasn’t enough, you can probably get by with less postage too.

2. Use as media storage. One of the best things about flash memory cards is how much its small physical size can pack in. With memory sizes up to several Gigabytes, you could use it to store your media like video clips, picture clips, audio files and just about any downloadable content. Its small size also makes it highly portable without taking up valuable space on your notebook computer hard drive.

3. Sharing files or transferring files from one computer to another. If you need to do this often, here’s a quick tip. Carry with you a USB card reader. Many of them are very compact and no heavier than your cell phone. Doing this has advantages over carrying a flash memory drive. Flash memory cards are smaller and a tiny catalog of cards can offer you much more memory than a flash drive. Better carry two things than a bunch of drives.

4. Build yourself an ebook library. Are you a book worm? One tiny flash memory card can store a lot of ebooks since most text based files are smaller than media files. You can store whole libraries of ebooks in various topics either on one card or dedicate one for each topic you are interested in. Again, they are easy to share and very portable – you’ll never run out of reading material again even when on the road.

5. Run small software from it. Yes, there are tiny software that don’t need to be installed and can run from the card itself. This is particularly helpful when you’re using someone else’s computer. Now you can carry your software with you too.

Now that you know – gather up those flash memory cards and start using them. Just because your new camera isn’t compatible with it doesn’t mean you should let it go to waste and the best part is, you won’t have to worry about obsolete cards anymore.

by: Lynn Chan

Digital Photography, For Better or Worse

2009-10-02T15:34:00.000+08:00

Do you remember the first digital cameras you saw? Did you even stop to contemplate the photography process and the changes that would occur due to a new method? Probably not. Not until the widespread use of digital cameras has the process of digital photography been a topic of any interest. Now, we all are buying digital cameras, and must learn the ABC’s of digital photography.

Unlike traditional photography, the advent of digital utilizes “pixels” to control color content, clarity and the quality of the picture. Each photo is composed of hundreds of pixels. These pixels are small square pieces of color, that when put together produce the image captured on the camera. Think of pixels as pieces of a puzzle. Each piece of the puzzle contains a small portion of the color and object, that when locked together form the much bigger whole. Digital photography offers the professional photographer a much broader scope of options than traditional methods. Adjustments can be made to just a small portion of a photo rather than having to change the entire background, subject color, or other complete coloring of an object in the photograph.

Digital photography is not new, but it is new to the average consumer. Professionals have been reaping the benefits of digital photos for several years. It is only since the explosive growth of computers, however, that digital photography has become a realistic method of photography for just about everyone. Now, John Q. Public can use his digital camera and upload his pictures onto the computer. It is here that any real benefit of digital photography, from a personal standpoint, ends. For most of the pictures we take of our family and friends, we don’t need professional quality photos. We just like the ease and convenience of taking the picture, uploading and printing in a matter of minutes. The use of digital photography today is for the most part, a replacement of the old Polaroid of the 70s.

There is some irony here. Isn’t it just par for the natural course of things? Something as beneficial and complex as digital photography is simply the everyday answer to the Polaroid. The real benefits of digital photography are lost on the general public. Digital photography allows us to dissect a picture. Much like investigators can dissect the pieces of a murder case, we can investigate the pieces of a picture. Once again, the real benefit is realized and appreciated only by the professional photographer, not your next door neighbor.

The last piece of required equipment when making digital photos would be the software necessary to view the pictures and make adjustments to the pixels. Usually, this software will accompany the digital camera when purchased, and quick install instructions make it possible to complete the software upload in a matter of minutes. User friendly “buttons” have eliminated the need for most of us to even understand how to break apart pixels to adjust color and contract, we simply move an arrow up or down to make the adjustment.

Digital photography is helping to revolutionize the way we view our pictures and the way we are able to capture the most breathtaking images. But, what does that really matter, if all you need is an up-to-date version of a Polaroid?

by: Frederic Madore

Learn Digital Photography

2009-07-28T22:17:00.000+08:00

Top Seven Tips for Beginners

The first thing that any budding photographer needs to learn are the fundamentals of photography starting with the basics. Get these under your belt quickly and you have already won half the battle. So, what needs to happen to get you going as a beginner with your first digital camera? Let's take a look at my top seven.

1. Equipment

It's not all about equipment. Don't go rushing out to buy expensive equipment without knowing what you need. A keen sales person will sell you as far as your wallet or credit card will take you. Wait until you know what you need and what you like and match these desires with the right equipment.

2. Decide on the type of shots you'd like to shoot

A good idea is to browse the internet photo galleries, look in magazines or visit your local library to get an idea of what type of photo you really like. Try it out with your camera and see if you are able to, or, want to persevere until you can. Once you've made a list plan to go out and shoot on a regular basis. It's practise that makes perfect. Stick to it until you master your genre. Only then start looking for the equipment to match your area of interest.

3. Decide on a structured learning plan

Find out what you'd like to learn and what you need to learn in order to shoot the type of photos that interest you. For example, macro and nature photography is a more specialised art form and there are a number of techniques and skills to learn, as well as equipment you'll need to buy. Research it on the internet, read books and if possible take a course on macro or close up photography.

4. Take photos often

If you are not regularly shooting images you are not going to grow in your skills and abilities. Set yourself assignments based on what you are studying. Of course, in a structured course you will be given assignments. A photo a day keeps the creativity flowing and helps you to keep motivated. I did an assignment once taking a 100 photos of the same subject from a host of different angles. It gave my photography an unexpected boost.

5. Learn your camera's settings

Getting to know your camera is paramount if you want to learn to take great photos and the best way to do this is by reading your manual. Like I should be telling you this. I am the last one who reads a manual. But, if you do it in a structured way you'll be amazed at how quickly you get to know your camera. The way I did it was to go through the manual highlighting everything I already knew about it. Then I went back through the manual reading up on each section I didn't know, practising as I went along. Once I got to know it I was amazed at how much more I could do with my camera. The key is to experiment.

6. Keep your camera with you

Take every opportunity to get a great shot. Whenever you see something that would make a great photo, shoot it. I have often wished that I had taken my camera with me and got an amazing shot. If you don't have it with you, you won't get the shot

7. Buy a tripod

Besides my camera, my tripod is the most important piece of kit in my equipment bag. There are shots you can only get if your camera is steady. The sharpness of your shots will improve dramatically. If the pros use them then why not the amateurs?

As you begin your photography journey, work at learning in a structured way so that the fundamentals of photography become second nature. Photography should be fun but your learning process needs to be serious. Happy shooting

by Wayne G Turner

A Guide To Buying A Digital Camera Equipment

2009-06-27T17:32:00.000+08:00

How to Buy Digital Camera Equipment

There are so many digital cameras that it can be confusing trying to buy digital camera equipment. Here are some tips to help you decide which the best choice is for you and buy digital camera equipment that you will get the best results with:

• The first step before you buy digital camera equipment is to set a basic budget on how much money you want to spend. You do need to be realistic about the fact you won't be able to get the best of every feature, as you may have to make tradeoffs when you actually buy digital camera equipment.

• Your experience level has to have a big influence in your decision to buy digital camera equipment. There is no point in buying too much buy digital camera equipment than you can actually use. For a novice you should buy digital camera equipment that is point and shoot so that you don’t have to worry about manually changing any settings. Digital zoom is not as important a part in the process of choosing to buy digital camera equipment as you may first think. Basically it just means that the camera crops the picture and gives you the center piece of it. You do not need to buy digital camera equipment that does this as you can do it better yourself after you take the picture. You can usually move closer to the subject anyway and to buy digital camera equipment that includes an optical zoom can add a lot of unnecessary cost and weight to the camera. Of course, expert photographers will want to buy digital camera equipment that gives them more manual control over the exposure process.

• Next you need to consider what you will use your camera to capture before you set out to buy digital camera equipment. A fast shutter speed is necessary for moving subjects. You can also buy digital camera equipment that has special features to enable you to take multiple pictures in quick succession for high-action pictures.

• There are a number of helpful websites that give reviews on photographic products to help you decide on the best camera for your needs before you buy digital camera equipment. Of course, you can also ask friends and family about their digital camera choices. Price comparison websites are also essential to help you to buy digital camera equipment at the best possible prices. Remember that when you buy digital camera equipment there are often a list of extras that you may want to purchase, including batteries and memory cards.

Don't be tempted to go for a trendy-looking, colorful camera if you really want to buy a less cool looking one that does more of what you want. Make sure that you have got as many of the features that you wanted to have in the first place and haven't compromised too much on them for the sake of a few extra dollars. It is important to ensure that you buy digital camera equipment that you are happy with and enables you to take the photographs that you want.

by: Steve Gargin

Freelance Photography

2009-06-27T17:19:00.000+08:00

How to Begin Your Career

Photography is a vast world. There are many different types of photography and many different kinds of people that enjoy it. It’s a hobby that be relatively inexpensive or one that you can invest a lot of money on. Photos are so special because they give us memories of times and places and events in our lives. We can hold onto these memories forever with a photograph.

As much as people love photos, many people love taking them even more. Whether it’s a mother who takes photos at every of her children’s moments in life (first smile, first step, first spaghetti meal) or maybe it’s the father who never forgets his camera for a football or basketball game, or maybe it’s the young girl who loves nature hikes with her camera; these people are not exceptions. They all have an eye for those special moments and they all appreciate the camera’s ability to capture that moment and freeze it in time forever.

What is Freelance Photography?

What if you love photography so much you wish you could do it for a living? I mean, you actually get paid for your photographs! But you work solely for yourself, selling each photo or series of photos individually. You don’t have a boss. You work sometimes on assignment and you may sell to magazines. That is freelance photography.

Freelance photography may be your entire career or it may start out as something you do in your spare time but begin making money from it. It’s just like freelance writing in this sense that many people turn it into a career and enjoy the freedom of working essentially for themselves on their own time and making money doing something they love doing anyway.

How to Build a Portfolio

To start getting jobs as a freelance photographer, you need a portfolio. A portfolio will show samples of your work. Even if you have never had photographs published or publicly displayed, you can start a portfolio of your best work and then add onto it if you win photography contests or start receiving paid work.

How to Get Jobs

As we mentioned, building a portfolio is the first step in submitting your work for pay but when it comes right down to it, it’s the quality of the photo that will determine if you get paid for it. Some people have more of a natural talent for taking great pictures than others but it is a skill that anyone can learn. There are schools dedicated to the art of photography and you can even get a degree in it. If you are just getting started, you can look into classes provided by your local community center or community college. Some cities have photography groups that meet to share photos and tips. There are also many groups online dedicated to photography and freelance photography.

You need to view as many famous photographs as possible. Take a look at what is getting published and compare it to your own photos. This allows you to compare and learn from other’s work. It takes more than just point and shoot to get a great photo. You need to learn about focus, lighting, colors and backgrounds and much more.

Once you start learning about photography and creating a portfolio, you can start submitting your photos to contests and magazines. Get a list of photography markets and start submitting to ones that accept your type of photos. Don’t expect to make it to the big times right away. Few people actually achieve this but you can start small and eventually make your way into a nice living from freelance photography.

by: ASA Photography

Choosing Your First Digital Camera

2009-06-27T00:16:00.000+08:00

Digital cameras are no longer a luxury these days, with high resolution mega pixels and sophisticated features coming within a very appealing price range. And thanks to many comprehensive digital camera reviews, it’s easy to pick the most sought after features and qualities and still stay within a budget.

Most people turn to digital photography because they like the ease of printing and sharing the photos on the web. Business owners choose the digital quality for their product catalogues or brochures, students employ digital cameras for their projects and with digital cameras in most recent cell phones, even a child can take a snap and publish it instantly on the web. And thanks to the newest lens and zooming qualities, you don’t have to be a seasoned pro to shoot close-to-professional images with modern digital cameras.

You can hardly find a digital camera today with resolution lower than 2 megapixels – two million color dots per picture. This is a decent quality for most uses, including printing the photos for the home or school use. The higher the megapixel rate, the bigger photos you can print without sacrificing the quality. However, if you are not a professional photographer or a graphic professional who deals with upscale images all the time, you don’t really need a digital camera that produces more than 8-megapixel camera – and these rarely become available for less than $1000. Plus, if you seek to print large detailed photos, make sure you have a high-quality printer that can reproduces all the tiny details that make a difference.

When you pick a digital camera, you should also pay attention to the zoom number. Digital cameras have two different kinds of zoom. Digital zoom enlarges all pixels digitally, while optical zoom enlarges the image with the lens magnification. Since you can always enlarge the image later, on the computer using the Photoshop or other image manipulation program, you would be better to concentrate on higher optical zoom rate. The average optical zoom for midlevel digital cameras is 2 to 4x.

There are a few other options to consider: whether a digital camera uses a rechargeable batteries (zoom and LCD screen consume a lot of energy); whether the digital camera has a standard flash memory (you may need to buy a few more flash memory cards in future), and if the menus are easy to understand. If you travel a lot, you may want a digital camera that is lightweight and compact.

Even if you decide to pick the least expensive digital camera to serve your basic photography needs, you will still enjoy all the benefits of digital photography: no film rolls to buy, no wasted photos to dispose of and best of all, no waiting time to get them printed. New models of digital cameras are constantly launched, and the older ones are becoming less expensive day by day. Know your priorities, check the most recent digital camera reviews, and there should be a digital camera to perfectly suit your needs