http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007

We often get asked which are the best flash memory cards to use for a digital camera. Many people automatically go for the popular SanDisk or Lexar brands. There are a host of other brands that are excellent products and can save you money. I use the Transcend and Ridata brands. A 8GB Transcend can cost you around $140 compared to a similar SanDisk of over $300.

Note that the write speeds of a Transcend 8GB 266X are less than one second slower than the SanDisk Extreme Ducati 8GB.

Match your Digital SLR to a particular disk in the chart. With compact digital cameras (not included in this database) you can estimate the SD card speeds by checking the camera that uses the SD card (such as the Nikon D80)

www.robgalbraith.com has updated the CF/SD Performance Database. It is a regularly-updated compilation of write and read speed test results designed to aid the serious and professional photographer in selecting camera storage media for a Canon or Nikon digital SLR.

-Keith Skelton

Here is a look at a new Ricoh compact camera designed for heavy outdoor use. It even conforms to US Department of Defense standards. (what ever those are). It has a 28-140mm lens and 10 mega-pixels. It looks like fun!

Check it out:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0804/08042201ricohg600.asp

http://www.ricoh.com/r_dc/g/g600/index.html

I usually wouldn't have much interest in Sigma camera products but the Sigma DP-1 looks very cool. The DP1 has a sensor around the size of those found in most DLSRs. It is the first compact sized camera with a SLR-sized image sensor. It is approximately seven to twelve times larger than the 1/1.8inch to 1/2.5inch image sensors used in ordinary compact digital cameras. It has a 14 megapixel sensor and a fixed 28mm lens.


"The image sensor has full-color capture with the full RGB in a single-pixel location. Just like film, each photodiode captures all the RGB data, so no final-stage demosaicing is required."

Look at the neat website:
www.sigma-dp1.com

-Keith

Helen Keller at the age of 19 months,(not quite 2 years old) was a happy, healthy child. She was already saying a few words.
Then she had a high fever which caused her to become deaf and blind. No longer could she see nor hear. She was the first deafblind person to graduate from college.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/05/helen.keller.ap/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller

A Photographer Best Known
For Her Looks & Lovers

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120459388956609155.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Most people are surprised when they first see the photograph of Lee Miller taking a bath in Hitler's bathtub. It's an outstanding photo but whats going on here? Who exactly is Lee Miller?

Check it out.

She would make for a interesting feature film.

I am a sucker for photographs of far away places. Especially when they are photographs of Asia. Here is a link to photographer Raul Gutierrez, his portfolio, and very cool blog. Check it out, - Keith

http://www.mexicanpictures.com/portfolio/
http://www.mexicanpictures.com/headingeast/

http://www.library.txstate.edu/swwc/wg/exhibits/Iturbide/index.html

If you are not familiar with Graciela Iturbide's photography, you will discover an excellent source for inspiration. Her work inspires me, especially since I have always loved Mexico and it's people. If you need to jump start your photography, try going to Mexico for a week. Maybe check out the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Bellas Artes in Mexico City! http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-frida18jun18,1,2583632.story

Graciela Iturbide:

The oldest of 13 children, Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico City in 1942. She studied filmmaking and scriptwriting at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México from 1969 to 1972. It was there she met photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and, after enrolling in his basic photography class, worked for a year and a half as his assistant. He remained her friend and mentor until his death.

Iturbide has since developed her own interpretive photographic language. Her familiarity with Mexican culture is central to her art, and she’s taken that knowledge all over the world, photographing in the southern United States, Peru, India, Cuba, Spain, Panama, Japan, Russia, Ecuador, and Argentina. From immersing herself in the indigenous populations of the Zapotec in Juchitán and the Seris of the Sonora desert, to photographing girl gangs in Los Angeles and landscapes and objects in Texas and India, Iturbide looks for “surprise in ordinary things that I could have found anywhere in the world. The unconscious obsession that we photographers have is that wherever we go we want to find the theme that we carry inside ourselves.”





http://www.library.txstate.edu/swwc/wg/exhibits/Iturbide/index.html

Check out these wonderful photographs by Don Hong-Oai, a Chinese landscape photographer. You can find a book of his for sale on Amazon for $2,000.00. This also links you to Photo Eye Gallery in Santa Fe. -Keith

http://www.photoeye.com/Gallery/forms/index.cfm?image=4&id=96098&imagePosition=4&Door=1&Portfolio=Portfolio1&Gallery=1

Don Hong-Oai Statement

Don Hong-Oai studied with the famous 104-year-old master, Long Chin-San in Taiwan. Here he learned to work in a Chinese "pictorial" style, using several negatives to compose a picture and perfecting his landscape work. He was honored by Kodak, Ilford and at Fotokina in West Germany and is a member of the International Federation of Photographic Art in Switzerland and the Chinatown Photographic Society. Only in the last few years has his unique and purely Chinese style of printmaking been "discovered" by a wider public and he has been busy in his small darkroom making his prints for collectors across the U.S. and elsewhere.



http://www.photoeye.com/Gallery/forms/index.cfm?image=4&id=96098&imagePosition=4&Door=1&Portfolio=Portfolio1&Gallery=1

A few months ago I was shooting an assignment with a brand new CF memory card and all 150 photos were totally corrupted. It wasn't very smart of me to shoot a job without first testing the card. I'd never had a problem with memory cards before and the photos were looking fine when viewed on the camera's LCD screen. When I downloaded the pictures to my computer, all the photos looked like a broken TV screen. PHOTORESCUE to the rescue. This software found and saved all the photos.(though it took a few hours) There is a new 3.0 version coming out soon and will be available for both MAC and Windows. You can download PHOTO RESCUE here: http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/index.htm There have a free trial or it can be purchased for $29.00!

I have been using Noise Ninja http://www.picturecode.com/ for over a year and it's $80.00 price tag has been well worth it. It is a noise reduction software that works either as a Photoshop plugin or as a stand alone software. It is much more useful than the Photoshop CS2 noise reducer.

I have also recently discovered Convert to B&W Pro, and Photokit Sharpener. They individually sell for $99.00. Convert to B&W Pro http://www.theimagingfactory.com/ is the best Black&White converter I have seen. It emulates different color filters you might use when shooting BW and also has a Polycontrast filter type slider. This is a great digital software for those that have used yellow, red, orange filters when shooting BW film.

Photokit Sharpener http://www.pixelgenius.com/sharpener/info.html is a powerful tool that takes much of the guess work out of sharpening digital photos. Sharpening is the single most misunderstood aspect of digital image processing. Part of the problem may lie in the fact that digital sharpening has nothing to do with sharpness per se. The word sharpening is used, but it really has to do with edge contrast, not resolution. This software allows you to set sharpening that is specific to image size, print or web output. I will be using the control of Photokit Sharpener before the Photoshop unsharpen filter.

All three softwares are download-able for a trial use.

Adobe and Apple have both come out with updated versions of their photo software. Both are geared toward the advanced amateur and professional photographer. Adobe Lightroom is still in Beta test and can be downloaded for free at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/ - Apple Aperture has been out for awhile and an updated 1.5 version can be bought at http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wo/0.RSLID?mco=A26D46FB&nplm=MA715Z%2FA Aperture is available for MAC and Universal while Lightroom is available for both MAC and Windows.

Both softwares include RAW work flows, photo management, printing, and non-destructive image processing and publishing. Image processing includes controls such as sharpening, color balance, exposure control, and cropping. The software is not made to manipulate photos like in Photoshop, but are designed to get the best out of your RAW photographs in their true form. You can export a photo to Photoshop if extensive manipulation controls are needed later. But, I believe that this type of software application will eliminate most photo needs for Photoshop.

Here is an article discussion of both. http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/09/27/apertureanalysis/index.php

I have not tried this device but it looks like something that might be worthwhile for traveling photographers. Check out this site:: http://www.livingroom.org.au/photolog/accessories/delkin_portable_burnaway.php

and this site: http://www.delkin.com/products/burnaway/index.html

Here is a group of photos surrounding the Lebanon/Israel/Gaza war that you generally won't see in the newspapers. These are extremely powerful photographs and that is the only reason I include this link in our site. You may want to stay away from this if you are sensitive to war photography. http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0608/feature_intro.html

Good news on digital memory flash cards! The prices keep dropping and the flash cards are getting larger and faster. Pretec has today announced the highest capacity SD card to date, their new 8 GB SD-HC. http://www.dpreview.com/news/0609/06090101pretec8gbsdhc.asp There is also a company called Transcend http://www.transcendusa.com/ that makes good memory flash cards. They make a 8GB 120x card that is rated high by robgalbraith.com http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007 I use a 4GB Compact Flash card made by Transcend. It works great and cost about $100. There 8 GB cost just over $200. They also make an "Industrial strength" card. I ordered online direct from the company.

I've also used cards made by RiDATA. They seem very reliable though they are not as fast as the Transcend. A 4GB 80x goes for about $75.00.

Another product that sounds interesting is the Giottos Rocket Air http://www.2filter.com/prices/products/rocket.html This is funky tech approach to keeping your high-tech digital camera equipment dust free. Never use caned air or touch your sensor to clean off the annoying dust!

There is a new Nikon 10.2 MP that is replacing the D-70. It has quite a few improvments. Take a look: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0608/06080903nikond80withpreview.asp

There are many great informative web sites out there but here are a few that are excellent! The Digital Journalist
http://digitaljournalist.org/ ,World Press Photo
http://www.worldpressphoto.nl/ , photo.net
http://www.photo.net/, luminous-landscape.com/, http://www.dpreview.com/, http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/index.asp , http://www.weather-photography.com/index.php , http://spaceweather.com/, http://savvytraveler.publicradio.org/before/index.shtml

On Nikon's web site you can easily download the latest firmware and software for your camera. Go to http://nikonusa.com/template.php?goingto=dtc_home or NikonUSA.com. There is a recent firmware upgrade for the D-70. Firmware updates usually add a few features to the camera's functions that were not initially included. This fall there will be important firmware updates for the D2X and the D200. See http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-7895-8407. Canon also issues firmware updates from time to time. You can check if your model is up to date at http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=SupportIndexAct

If you want to have a little fun with a simple "lens", check out a LensBaby. http://www.lensbabies.com/ They are fairly simple to use and inexpensive. However, I found them to be gimmicky after a while. Brian and I have a few examples on our Las Vegas photo pages:

Creative sparks
Want a fun little lens that will add a creative spark to your repertoire?

We’d like to introduce you to Lensbabies™ selective focus SLR camera lenses. Lensbabies bring one area of your photo into sharp focus, with that “sweet spot” surrounded by graduated blur. You can move the sweet spot to any part of your photo by bending the flexible lens tubing.

We offer two versions of the Lensbaby lens. The Original Lensbaby™ has the impressionistic look of Holga™ cameras, but with an SLR camera's convenience and creative control. Lensbaby 2.0™ offers a much sharper sweet spot of focus with minimal diffusion, even at its new, f/2.0 aperture setting. Lensbabies are available for Canon EF, Nikon F, and all other SLR camera bodies.

Here is a trial version of Advanced Nikon Capture 4 for those that use Nikon RAW/NEF. It seems to work much better than the older Capture 4 software. http://www.capturenx.com/

"Supercharge your workflow with the next generation of high-quality image editing and processing. Utilizing U PointTM technology, Advanced Nikon Capture 4 delivers you powerful tools to help you fully realize the potential of your photographic imagination.
The new Capture NX software releases not only the power of Nikon's Electronic Format (NEF) files; for the first time it makes JPEG and TIFF processing and editing elegant and easy enough for any photographer to implement. There are no complicated procedures - Nikon's new interface provides intuitive access to all of the tools you need. Make you photographic possibilities endless and realize the power of your imagination with Capture NX." http://www.capturenx.com/

I use the Canon S80 for my "snap shots". However, it produces a good enough image to use for certain professional imaging. What is great about this camera is that it has 8MP but fits in a shirt pocket. However, the controls are very sensitive and easy to change accidentally. Here are some details:
Wide-angle 28-100mm (35mm equivalent) 3.6x Optical Zoom Lens
8.0 Megapixel CCD and UA Lens Technology for Superior Image Quality
Full photographic control
21 shooting modes
2.5-inch Wide viewing angle LCD screen
DIGIC II Processor
USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
Newly-designed easy-to-use interface
High Resolution (1024 x 768 pixel) XGA Movie Mode http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons80/