Which brand?

This, of course, is the big question that you really want an answer to and you know that nobody is going to give you one. If you ask anyone who already has a camera most will support the brand of the camera they have unless they have had some trouble with it, even then people are very forgiving. I think the reason for this is that people think that, if they have made the wrong choice it is because they have somehow failed, and they are not going to admit their failure.

Back in the 1980s I had a camera shop in England and at the time a lot of people, who already owned an SLR, were buying compact cameras 'for the wife'. They would ask me which brand was the best and, if I didn't already know, I would discreetly try to find out which brand of SLR they owned, then I would recommend the same brand of compact camera.

Trying to sell them another brand was like telling them they had made a wrong choice when buying their old camera and was likely to lose me a sale. So I'd better have a really good reason for not recommending the Canon, Olympus, Nikon, Pentax or whatever and I didn't have one. All of the well known brands produce similar cameras at similar prices and, by and large, you get what you pay for.

I will stick my neck out a little bit here and say that in my humble opinion the manufacturers who make the best film cameras the Japanese Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta and the German Contax and Leica seem to make the best digital cameras.

I would not be too happy to put my trust in brands whose traditional expertise is in other fields when there are such good cameras available from the traditional sources. I will probably get a lot of hate mail from people who have bought Sony cameras or Hewlett Packard and are perfectly happy with them.

If I wanted a printer Hewlett Packard would be top of my list and I am a huge fan of Sony video and TV equipment but my first choice for a digital SLR would be one of the names mentioned above.

New Enormous and Pretty fast Zoom of Sigma

Pre-PMA 2008: As part of Sigma's bumper lens launch, it has announced what might be the ultimate wildlife lens. Sigma claims the APO 200-500 f.2.8 is the world's first lens to offer an f/2.8 aperture at 500mm focal length. It comes with an "attachment" to give users a handy 400-1000mm f/5.6 option. The lens (which is cosmetically reminiscent of a piece of military hardware) weighs nearly 16kg and uses a dedicated Li-ion battery to provide power for focusing and zooming. It will be available in Sigma, Canon and Nikon mounts.

The Sigma Corporation is please to announce the new APO 200-500mm F2.8/400-1000mm F5.6 EX DG

Lens.

• The world’s first ultra telephoto zoom lens that offers a fast aperture of F2.8 at the 500mm focal length.
• The dedicated “Attachment” ensures autofocusing at the 1000mm focal length.
• SLD and three ELD glass elements provide high image quality from the maximum large aperture
• Supplied with ø72mm filter holder at the rear

This lens is the world’s first ultra telephoto zoom lens that offers a fast aperture of F2.8 at the 500mm focal length and F5.6 at the 1000mm. It covers widely used focal lengths from 200mm to 500mm and as a large aperture of F2.8 throughout the entire zoom range. This lens can be used to create amazing image expression with various types of photography such as astrophotography, portraits, wildlife, sports. SLD (Special Low Dispersion) glass and three ELD (Extraordinary Low Dispersion) glass elements provide excellent correction for all type of aberrations.

The super multi-layer lens coating reduces flare and ghosting and provides high image quality from the extremely large aperture. The lens hood, designed exclusively for this lens, blocks out extraneous light. A 72mm filter can be inserted at the rear of the lens, and a circular polarizing filter can be used in situ thanks to the ingenious internal rotation mechanism. The dedicated Li-ion battery BP-21 is used to power the zooming and AF operation. This battery is built in the lens barrel. For the convenience of the photographer, focusing distances and focal lengths can be viewed on the lens`s built-in LCD panel.

source: coolestgadgets

Photographic cameras

The camera or camera obscura is the image-forming device, and photographic film or a siliconimage sensor is the sensing medium. The respective recording medium can be the film itself, or a digital electronic or magnetic memory. electronic

Photographers control the camera and lens to "expose" the light recording material (such as film) to the required amount of light to form a "latent image" (on film) or "raw file" (in digital cameras) which, after appropriate processing, is converted to a usable image. Modern digital cameras replace film with an electronic image sensor based on light-sensitive electronics such as charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The resulting digital image is stored electronically, but can be reproduced on paper or film.

The controls usually include but are not limited to the following:

* Focus of the lens
* Aperture of the lens – adjustment of the iris, measured as f-number, which controls the amount of light entering the lens. Aperture also has an effect on focus and depth of field, namely, the smaller the opening [aperture], the less light but the greater the depth of field--that is, the greater the range within which objects appear to be sharply focused.
* Shutter speed – adjustment of the speed (often expressed either as fractions of seconds or as an angle, with mechanical shutters) of the shutter to control the amount of time during which the imaging medium is exposed to light for each exposure. Shutter speed may be used to control the amount of light striking the image plane; 'faster' shutter speeds (that is, those of shorter duration) decrease both the amount of light and the amount of image blurring from subject motion or camera motion.
* White balance – on digital cameras, electronic compensation for the color temperaturefilm stock. In addition to using white balance to register natural coloration of the image, photographers may employ white balance to aesthetic end, for example white balancing to a blue object in order to obtain a warm color temperature. associated with a given set of lighting conditions, ensuring that white light is registered as such on the imaging chip and therefore that the colors in the frame will appear natural. On mechanical, film-based cameras, this function is served by the operator's choice of
* Metering – measurement of exposure at a midtone so that highlights and shadows are exposed according to the photographer's wishes. Many modern cameras feature this ability, though it is traditionally accomplished with the use of a separate light metering device.
* ISO speed – traditionally used to set the film speed of the selected film on film cameras, ISO speeds are employed on modern digital cameras as an indication of the system's gain from light to numerical output and to control the automatic exposure system. A correct combination of ISO speed, aperture, and shutter speed leads to an image that is neither too dark nor too light.
* Auto-focus point – on some cameras, the selection of a point in the imaging frame upon which the auto-focus system will attempt to focus. Many Single-lens reflex cameras (SLR) feature multiple auto-focus points in the viewfinder.

Many other elements of the imaging device itself may have a pronounced effect on the quality and/or aesthetic effect of a given photograph; among them are:

* Focal length and type of lens (telephoto, macro, wide angle, fisheye, or zoom)
* Filters or scrims placed between the subject and the light recording material, either in front of or behind the lens
* Inherent sensitivity of the medium to light intensity and color/wavelengths.
* The nature of the light recording material, for example its resolution as measured in pixels or grains of silver halide.

Camera and photography equipment

• Camera
• Color chart
• Digital camera
• Digital single-lens reflex camera
• Dry box
• Film
• Film base
• Film format
• Film holder
• Film scanner
• Film stock
• Filter
• Flash
• Gray card
• Lenses for SLR and DSLR cameras
• Monopod
• Movie projector
• Photographic film
• Photographic lens
• Rangefinder camera
• Single-lens reflex camera
• Slide projector
• Still camera
• Toy camera
• Tripod
• View camera
• Zone plate
• List of photographic equipment makers