DSLR – Pentax Body

This post is the final part in our Backing Up and Saving Your Images series. See previous posts on Backing up and Saving Your Images – External Hard Drives – Online Storage Sites and Software Solutions.

That crushing, sickening and agonising feeling of realising your memory card has corrupted or for whatever reason you’ve lost some of your most important or sentimental images, can stay with you for some time. It’s that combination of frustration and disappointment that takes its toll; perhaps knowing you can’t go back and reshoot what has already happened. Even directing your anger at your equipment can seem futile. But wait, lament no more, for there are solutions! Despite what people may think there are ways to retrieve files, even after they have been deleted or subject to technology failure.

Deleted files and formatted cards

Accidentally deleting images or formatting the card before the current frames have been downloaded are both common reasons for loss. However even when a card has been formatted in-camera the majority of the photos will still be able to be located. Success can depend upon the camera brand, with Canon and Nikon yielding the strongest rates of recovery. A quick trawl though the internet will present a list of companies which specialise in the retrieval of images from memory cards or data banks. For example Flashguardian (www.flashguardian.com)  charge up to £60 for the successful recovery of images from memory cards in capacities of 1GB or larger and offer reduced prices for smaller capacity cards, whereas the charge for recovering data from a hard drive can cost between £200 and £500 depending on the size of the device and the nature of the problem. DiskDoctors is another recovery company, that charges anywhere between £177 to £1500 depending on the size and brief of the problem, however the company offers a free analysis service to pinpoint a quotation and assess whether the issue can be rectified. To take advantage of this particular service, photographers should post the storage device or memory card along with a completed shipping form (available at www.diskdoctorsdatarecovery.co.uk/shipping-form.asp) to a local DiskDoctors lab for physical analysis. The company claims that photographers will receive an analysis report along with a quote in less than eight business hours once the item has been received.

Online and Software Recovery systems

There are an abundance of software and online solutions if you’d rather recover your files with a DIY approach.  DataRescue (www.datarescue.com) for example provides an app called PhotoRescue, which for only $29 checks your memory card, external hard drive or computer for deleted images, displaying a lengthy list of all the work you’ve binned. CardRecovery (www.cardrecovery.com) is another software option fronted by WinRecovery Software. Retailing at $39.95 CardRecovery performs a read-only operation on offending memory cards, and retrieves any lost pictures and video files to a folder on hard drive.

Computer crashes

One of the most common cases of data loss is due to a system failure. To recover files in these situation photographers will simply need to generate a copy of the information held on the machine which is accomplishable by using a CD that contains a bootable computer operating system. The user can then move the images to the system disk, which can then be backed up with the file manager or authoring software. If you are unsure of how to do this yourself, take your machine to a local computer shop that offers a restoration service.

Lesson learnt

Unfortunately there are some cases when files simply cannot be recovered, whether it’s because the memory card was a fake or because the camera used permanently deletes making recovery impossible. If nothing else, we can take the experience as a costly lesson never to be repeated. Prevention is said to be better than the cure, so to stop it happening again invest in a solid external hard drive and subscribe to an established online storage provider. Never delete files in-camera, wait until you have uploaded to them your computer, backed them to an external data bank or online storage provider, and then and only then format the card. Only use memory cards from a reputable brand and purchase them using a trusted website or at a high-street store.

To minimise the risk of losing photographs, we’ve compiled a cheat-sheet of tips to ensure your images are safe and secure.

1. Size doesn’t matter: Don’t keep all your photos on one high capacity memory card, instead use several lower capacity cards so there is less chance of losing everything if one card breaks or is lost.
2. Reputation is everything: Stick to reputable memory card brands and only buy from trusted sites and stores, as there are a large quantity of ‘fakes’ circulating online that don’t work.
3. Don’t forget a spare: Taking a spare card out with you on a photo session will ensure you don’t miss a thing, should the memory card you are using falter.
4. Don’t believe everything you see:  Just because the image thumbnail looks ok, it doesn’t mean that the file isn’t corrupt. Thumbnails are embedded in the files for fast preview and do not necessarily reflect the state of the full picture. Open several frames, or particular favourites to ensure they are ok.
5. Be patient: Don’t turn off your camera when it is reading and writing to the memory card and don’t rip the memory card out of the card reader before it finishes uploading files to your machine. Doing so could result in lost or corrupt files.
6. Safety first: Store memory cards in a safe and secure place. Protect them from moisture, dust, dirt, animals and young children.
7. Don’t delete: Refrain from deleting files in-camera. Instead wait until you have successfully transferred the images to your computer and backed up your files before deleting the ones on the card.
8. Once bitten, twice shy: If an image card is faulty – bin it, or better yet get a refund! Never use or write to a card where data has been lost before – it will happen again.
9. Back up: Keep your images on several external hard drives and/or with an online storage provider.
10. Watch out for nasties: Protect your machine with an up-to-date firewall and install sensible antivirus software. Never ignore those updates!

Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips.

Recovering lost or deleted files – Backing Up & Saving Your Images: Part 4

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It’s a new week and I’ve got a new set of tips to improve your photography. This week’s tips focus on planning and decision making while taking your shots…. Eventually it will feel like second nature and you won’t even be aware of the process, until then… keep these tips in mind.

1. Daydream

Yes, that’s right keep dreaming about your shot. Pre-Visualize in your mind what it will look like and walk through the steps you need to take to get it. This is a shot I thought about for several weeks before finally setting it up and taking it. With only one camera, I often feel like I’m constantly juggling lenses!

2. Use wide lens

Try to use wide lenses for landscape shots when you want to create an impact of size. You can use a wide range of lenses to shoot landscapes but the vistas are amazing if you shoot with the widest lens possible because they give you a bigger angle of view.

3. Sharpen Your Subjects

Keep your main subjects sharp. Sharp details in the image truly draw the viewers’ eyes towards the subject. Use your tripod in low light conditions to make sharp pictures. Try to make use of the new sharpening effect in Adobe Camera RAW. It does a great job and has improved from previous versions.

4. Keep it Clean

A background makes or breaks your shot so be sure to think carefully about the how you place your subject. Keep the background clean, simple and clutter free. Think about where the viewer should be focused….

5. You Can’t Have Too Many Clouds

Use fluffy white clouds on a blue sky to produce dramatic skies. Is it overcast with too many clouds to see the sky? The sky is now a giant soft box. This is the time to shoot portraits or waterfalls and streams with a motion blur effect.

6. Behind Every Great Shot is the Sun

Stand with the sun at your back and the light of the sun falling on your subject. Unless you are making artistic pictures always try to keep the sun behind you.

7. Light Trails

Enhance your dawn and night urban shots with light trails. Use vehicles or any other moving lights to add interest, mood, and drama. Light trails almost always makes the shot interesting (learn: how to shoot light trails).

8. Silhouettes

The key is an uncluttered, lit background. Simply place your subject in the foreground so that you have clean, sharp lines and go for it. Play with placement and angles to make awesome silhouettes (learn: how to shoot Silhouettes).

9. Top to Bottom

Look straight up. Look straight down. Now examine everything in between. There are great shots from every vantage point, including an unexpected angle. Sometimes we focus so much on the obvious shot that we miss something special just a heartbeat away.

10. And finally… It’s a Camera not a Machine Gun

Unless you are taking action shots or a time lapse series, try to reduce the number of shots. Don’t just fire away hoping for something good to appear during editing. Think, move, and adjust your framing before you click the shutter. You’ll develop better instincts and save hours of time editing those hundreds of extra images.

Check out these links to follow the whole series

• 10 Quick, Easy and Intuitive Tips to Improve your Photography
• 10 Landscape Composition Tips Illustrated with Pictures from Eastern Washington
• 10 More Quick Composition Tips Illustrated
• 10 Quick Tips for Photographing Antelope Canyons 

Amar Ramesh is an emerging photographer from Redmond WA, USA….Photography, to him is a passion with infinite opportunities and he loves to share the lessons and tips that he learned with others….Please visit his Facebook Page for more….He is also in Flickr|Twitter|Portfolio.

Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips.

10 Quick and Easy Tips to improve your Photography

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I fondly remember earlier digicams like the Coolpix 5400 way back in 2003, complete with 5.1 million pixels, a 4x zoom lens and a vari-angle LCD viewfinder. Dirt cheap at AUD1599!

In terms of the Coolpix 5400, the new Nikon Coolpix P100 is definitely retro style-wise, with a severe kick up the tech specs posterior! It’s also an excellent example of a fixed lens mega zoom camera that does much of what a DSLR can do.

These shots show the range of the amazing 26x optic that relates to a 35 SLR focal length of 26-678mm. Capture to a CMOS 10.3 megapixel sensor can lead to a maximum image size of 3648×2736 pixels or a print dimension of 31×23cm. For what it’s worth, the CMOS sensor is shifted to perform vibration reduction.

What makes the camera doubly fascinating is its ability to shoot a run of six full-sized shots at ‘Normal’ quality (a peg down from Fine quality) and 10fps. Alternatively, the P100 can pull in 200 full-sized shots at 2.8 fps. Yet another option is the Sport Continuous mode, for continuous shooting of 25 1600×1200 pixel shots at 25 fps or 60 1280×960 pixels shots at 120 fps. Got me!

Nikon Coolpix P100 Features

No doubt thanks to a big slice of buffer memory the camera’s movie capture potential is also gob-smacking: it shoots MPEG4 video in the Full HD resolution of 1920×1080 progressive pixels, triggered by a rear-mounted button. This button is circled by a tiny lever that offers the option to shoot in HD or HS.

What’s HS? High speed or slow motion, which means it captures video at rates of 60 fps (1280×720), 120 fps (640×480) and 240 fps (320×240).

What appealed to me immediately was the vari-angle LCD screen that can be tilted 82 degrees downward and 90 degrees upward for shooting from a variety of angles. Added to this is an electronic turret finder.

Another delight was the CMOS sensor with its ‘backside illumination structure’; as I moved from a shaded area to a sunlit one the screen automatically boosted in brightness. Great!

I was surprised to find a High Dynamic Range (HDR) function built in; this is a mode where a run of shots are taken with widely varied exposures, then the shots are merged to create an image with optimise exposure in both the highlight and shadow areas. The camera must be completely still during the shooting phase. This is also used in Advanced Night Landscape mode to capture an ideally exposed night scene.

ISO Tests

The P100 was a surprisingly good performer in ISO tests.

ISO 160 and running well.

Reaching ISO 800 we see only a little noise while definition is still good.

At ISO 1600 definition is still good while noise is still minimal.

At ISO 3200 definition is lower but noise is still low. Well handled!

Distortion

With the zoom set to wide there was some sign of barrel distortion, while the tele end showed no problems.

Startup Time

The P100 took two seconds from power up to first shot; follow-on shots came in at a second each.

Comment

A very impressive camera with picture making controls that will impress the educated photographer, although I was surprised that there was only JPEG capture in stills. It does however have a degree of complication that could scare the wits of a beginner.

Quality: about average. The long end of the zoom presents problems in outdoor shooting with atmospheric haze and the need for a firm tripod.

Why you would buy it: you want a long zoom range; you want a very competent camera without a DSLR’s complexity.

Why you wouldn’t: you want a simple, pocketable point-and-shooter; you want RAW capture.

Nikon Coolpix P100 Specifications

Image Sensor: 10.3 million effective pixels.
Metering: Auto, Program AE, shutter and aperture priority, manual.
Sensor Size: 11mm CMOS.
Lens: Nikkor f2.8-5.5/4.6-120mm (26-678 as 35 SLR equivalent).
Shutter Speed: 8 to 1/8000 second.
Continuous Shooting: 2.8, 10 fps at full image size.
Memory: SD card plus 43MB internal memory.
Image Sizes (pixels): 3648×2736, 3648×2432, 3584×2016, 3264×2448, 2736×2736, 2592×1944, 2048×1536, 1600×1200, 1280×960, 640×480.
Movies: 1920×1080, 1280×720, 640×480, 320×240 at 15, 60, 120, 240 fps.
LCD viewfinders: Turret 0.6cm (230,000 pixels), 7.5cm (460,000 pixels).
File Formats: JPEG, WAV, MPEG4.
ISO Sensitivity: Auto, 160 to 3200.
Interface: USB 2.0, HDMI, AV.
Power: Rechargeable lithium ion battery, DC input.
Dimensions: 114.4×82.7×98.6 WHDmm.
Weight: 481 g (inc battery and card).
Price: Get a price on the Nikon Coolpix P100 on Amazon

Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips.

Nikon Coolpix P100 [Review]

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I was blown away the first time I saw Jon Cornforth’s images.  Even more so because many of the images were taken in my native Washington State.  While we have many talented photographers in our fine state, I was also impressed with how personable Jon was on Twitter and when I subsequently emailed him to ask if he’d like to be interviewed for DPS.  His images have been featured on covers of Backpacker, Outdoor Photographer, Alaska Airlines Magazine and he has won numerous awards for his stunning photography.  I wanted to interview Jon to see what insights he had to help those considering following his footsteps into the awe inspiring world of nature photography.

1. By the look of your site, would it be safe to classify you as a nature photography, primarily?

For better or for worse, I shoot only landscapes that are untouched by man or wild animals in their natural environment.  So yes, I call myself a nature photographer.

2. How did you get your start in photography?  What lead you to it?

I bought my first SLR ten years ago to take on mountaineering trip as well as an extended backpacking holiday through Southeast Asia.  I have always been very connected to the outdoors, from growing up sailing to backpacking & rock-climbing in college.  I became hooked on photography once I started shooting with a real camera rather than disposable or point & shoot cameras.

3. At what point did you go pro?  In other words, when did it become your major source of income?  And what decisions did you have to confront on that path?

Fortunately, I was not addicted to a high income or a particular career path when I naively decided to make photography my career.  My wife was supportive of my initial ambitions, but it took several years until I started making any money at it.  After 9 years as a professional photographer, I now make a modest living.

4. On your blog you mention making a switch from traditional gallery showings and sales to gaining more sales online.  Can you fill in some of the gaps about how that came about for you?

I found initial success working with several art galleries in Washington & Hawaii, as well as selling prints at prominent juried art festivals.  Those sales started to dry up for me a few years ago as the housing market declined.  I was also advised early on by several pros that I became friends with that stock agency income was evaporating, so the only way to make any money licensing images was by doing it myself.  I realized that I needed to adapt to the new reality, so I built my website to be search engine optimized (SEO).  I have also started taking clients on photography tours.  I have zero interest in taking 6-12 photographers to popular National Park viewpoints, so most of my tours are on a custom/private basis.

5. What have become your biggest marketing tools in the last two years?

Admittedly, social networking has been a huge benefit for my business.  I was caught off-guard by it and it certainly does not come naturally to most people.  I started using Twitter 18 months ago, adapted my previous blog to a custom WordPress site 14 months ago, then reluctantly joined Facebook 12 months ago, Flickr 10 months ago, and only recently started using YouTube.  I can not definitively state that when I do X online that I then make Y amount of money, but overall my social networking has helped my reputation grow into a highly regarded and recognized natural history photographer.

6. What advice would you give to our readers looking to follow your path and make a living selling photos?

Do not even begin to think that you can quit a high earning job and make a comparable amount of money shooting nature photography.  There is a reason that a lot of photographers are retired.  You need to be able to pay your bills.  I am very careful about how I spend money on my trips.  I hardly ever pay for a hotel, but instead camp wherever I travel.  I recently flew to Iceland and spent 15 days shooting, but only spent $1921 including my airfare, but that was still a big indulgence for me.  I have a small boat in Alaska that is a major investment, but it has allowed me to shoot things that otherwise would have been impossible.  Ultimately, you have to treat your photography as a business in order to make a living.

——–

I want to thank Jon for taking the time in-between trips to Alaska to answer my questions.  More of his fine work can be spied on his site, Cornforth Images, and he can be followed on Twitter as @cornforthimages.  And if you’re intersted in traveling with Jon and learning a thing or two, he’s heading back to Alaska in early September then off to Patagonia in January.

Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips.

An Interview With Professional Nature Photographer Jon Cornforth

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I have been meaning to consolidate my lenses and get rid of old film bodies. I have a bunch of nice used Pentaxes from c. 1980 to 1990-ish, K1000, ME, ME Super, KM. Two I bought, one I "inherited," another I was given. All were ones I used then, not things I’ve collected since.

But the fact is I won’t go back to them, and thought I might roll the money into some more nice primes for the DSLRs than the K, M, and A ones I have (which I got/used with those bodies). So, I’ve been trying to pay attention to the review prices, get a feel. The other day I saw a poster mention selling to KEH, a place I was unfamiliar with. I looked up some prices there for their used purchase prices and was shocked. Many of their prices suggested for the grades of lenses/bodies I have were much more than I thought. Are those accurate reflections of what they pay for working items in the conditions listed? It would be awfully convenient to mail everything to them. But also, if the marketplace yields similar prices, it might be more sporting to pass it along to other forum members directly instead.

I would like to know how KEH operates and also any pointers about getting rid of multiple bodies/lenses.
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Having been a film boy many moons ago but only recently jumped into digital SLRs recently, ive been getting up to speed with all the recent developments etc.

Ive also picked up a heap of (mostly) used lenses including the FA31 ltd, FA77ltd, FA50/1.4, DFA 100 Macro, DA*16-50, DA*50-135, DA 18-250 & Sigma 10-20.

Coming from a film background, I was never a pixel peeper, but with the new levels of resolution i also want to make sure that all of these lenses are in good nick and doing what they should do, especially with some of the QA issues regularly discussed with the 16-50 and 10-20 as examples.

So Ive downloaded and printed some focus charts and instructions, but does anyone have any other tips about what to look out for or other ‘real world’ things to put em through their paces? Can any back focus/front focus be adjusted in-body with my K7 if anything is picked up?

I really dont want to do this more than once or have to send anything off for adjustment (especially as they arent in warranty here) – i’d rather just know they work fine and get on with taking photos rather than endlessly analysing the results!
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