RSSArchive for ◊ February, 2009 ◊
Oscar Fever 2009 – Take a look at the stars, as they descended upon the Kodak Theatre in all splendor on the night of February 22, 2009. Amidst tears and laughter, they came and conquered…
How often does it happen with you that when on a trip to an exotic place, you click amazing pictures of the scenery and want to share it immediately with your near and dear ones? For such photo enthusiasts, Sony’s Cyber-shot DSC-G3 digital camera is heaven sent.
The world’s first Wi-Fi digital camera with a web browser, it allows you to upload photos and videos to popular photo and video sharing sites like Shutterfly and Picasa, and YouTube, for which it has direct links. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-G3 Wi-Fi camera comes with complimentary AT&T Wi-Fi access to Sony’s Easy Upload Home Page,till the end of 2012 and gives you Wi-Fi access at a number of AT&T hotspots,including hotels, airports, and coffee shops, across the United States. You can even send email notifications from the sharing websites so that your loved ones know your latest postings. You can view the uploaded images on its high-resolution 3.5″ LCD screen. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-G3 Camera supports DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) guidelines, so that you can connect to other DLNA-compatible devices like Sony BRAVIA televisions and Sony VAIO PCs to view the photos in high-definition quality.
The Sony DSC-G3 10-megapixel Digital Camera is quite slim measuring just about three-fourths of an inch. It comes with a 4x optical zoom Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens and features the latest technology so that you can get the best pictures and save them for posterity. Some of its notable features are Sony’s Face Detection and Smile Shutter technology, Intelligent Scene Recognition and Sony’s Double Anti-blur feature, and anti-blink function. You can store and easily organize the high-resolution photos in its 4 GB internal memory.
Panasonic has announced a couple of new additions to its line of LUMIX FS-Series of digital cameras. So get ready to say hello the Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FS15 and Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FS7.
Both these cameras feature Intelligent Auto Mode (iA) found in earlier FS-Series models. These cameras have a newly-added independent iA button on top of the camera, so that it is easier to enter the iA mode without going into the menu.
Besides standard features like Mega O.I.S., Intelligent ISO Control, Intelligent Scene Selector, and Face Detection, these cameras have a few new functions. These include
AF Tracking: This feature allows you to “lock” the focus on a moving subject. Once this is done, then the camera automatically tracks the subject as it moves, keeping it in focus. You don’t have to hold the shutter button halfway down.
Intelligent Exposure: With this feature you can take natural-looking images by suppressing blocked shadows and blown highlights.
Another addition to these cameras is the Photo Frame mode that lets you add attractive borders around photos when you print them. It makes these pictures look like postcards in picture frames. Not just this. A new My Scene setting, which allows users to assign most frequently used Scene modes to the setting, is added to these cameras. With this one can access that scene instantly with a simple switch.
While the DMC-FS15 will come in silver, black and blue, the DMC-FS7 will be available in silver, black, blue, pink, and green. Both are expected to hit the stores in April 2009.
The Canon PowerShot S5 IS is an 8.0 megapixels compact digital camera. I really enjoy using it as it delivers a fantastic shooting experience every single time. I make sure that I carry this digital camera with me on every trip. From month-long vacations with the family to quick weekend getaways, my compact digital camera has accompanied me everywhere.
The Canon PowerShot S5 IS has a 12x optical zoom lens. There is absolutely no chance of ending up with blurred pictures due to shaking as it has Optical Image Stabilizer Technology. This helps to automatically detect and correct camera shake. If there are any red-eye effects in the image, the Red-eye Correction feature will take care of it. You may even manually correct it during playback. Its Face Detection Technology allows you to choose the perfect focus point when you take a snap of a group of people.
For superior images, increased camera efficiency, and extended battery life, the Canon PowerShot S5 IS has an exclusive DIGIC III Image Processor. Canon’s iSAPS Technology, along with the DIGIC III Image Processor, works to improve focus speed, accuracy, and exposure.
With this digital camera, you can take pictures in 22 Shooting Modes, including 9 Special Scene Modes to shoot under different conditions. For instance, the Portrait mode specifically focusses on the subject after blurring the background, whereas the Sports mode ensures accurate autofocussing on fast-moving subjects.
Printing out photos directly is a breeze. All I have to do is connect the PowerShot S5 to any compatible photo printer, press the Print/Share button, and the print is ready in seconds. An alternative is to plug the PowerShot camera into a Direct Photo Printer using the included USB interface cable.
I have already talked about a few digital camera and instant camera models in my previous posts, and I’m that sure many of you already have one of your own. But have you ever stopped and wondered what the first working model of a camera looked like? Well, let me take you through a brief history of this wonderful gadget in this post of mine.
The camera got its name from camera obscura, the predecessor of the modern day camera. It is a Latin term which means “dark chamber,” and it refers to the early mechanism of projecting images and using an entire room as a real-time imaging system. Camera obscura consisted of a darkened chamber or a box that allowed light into the box through a convex lens. The image of the object was then formed on a surface of paper or glass, which was placed at the focus of the lens. The credit of inventing this gadget goes to an Iraqi scientist, Ibn al-Haytham. He described it as early as the 11th century in his Book of Optics (1015-1021).
But the first camera that was both portable as well as practical for photography was built by Johann Zahn in 1685. It included more advanced technology and features like sliding boxes for focusing and the placement of a sensitized plate in front of the viewing screen to capture an image. The process for capturing an image underwent a lot of development and so did the plate. From copper plates and paper to finally the glass plate, which was used in the popular wet plate process.
Modern day cameras capture light on a photographic film or photographic plate, whereas digital cameras use a charge coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) to capture images, which can then be transferred and stored in the camera’s internal memory for later playback or processing.
