Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is in Software

Create EAN 13 in Software Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is

There are other features to look for in a digital camera Some automatically correct for the off-white coloring caused by some types of lighting One may have a remote control for those occasions when you feel like doing some spy photography Others may be particularly suited for burst mode taking several fast, consecutive shots to capture action Concentrate on the crucial choices we ve covered in this chapter, and don t get bogged down in details and features you may never use Don t pay for the ability to manually override automatic features if you know in your heart you re basically a lazy photographer who wants the work done for him All technical considerations aside, remember, too, that there is an emotional factor, not unlike the passion that takes over when you re shopping for a new car Some digital cameras may call out to you because of something intangible the color, the shape, the way it feels in your hands Trust your emotions What s important is how happy you ll be with a camera, not the number of megapixels it boasts Be prepared to go beyond whatever you ve budgeted, but only if you love the camera

And to help you follow the way of the camera, here are some Internet links to let you dig deeper into the innards of your digital camera If you want to avoid having

Kodak s guide to digital cameras and photography One of the most thorough sites on the Web, if you can stand the obligatory hype for Kodak products Be sure to check out the Digital Learning Center

Excellent all-around site with a collection of no nonsense tutorials on all aspects of digital photography

New York Institute of Photography, with new tips, essays, and tutorials each month on topics ranging from the history of art for photographers to photographing people of color

Good source of ultra-miniature digital cameras, some of which are not otherwise available in the US Excellent source of the latest news in digital photography

Monthly online magazine with hardware reviews and tutorials aimed at the beginner LVS Online Classes offers well-received six-week courses in digital photography and various image-editing programs

Plenty of reviews of digital cameras and printers Canon Camera Museum Online monthly magazine on digital photography that includes everything from how-to articles to exhibits of great photos

PDN (Photo District News) Online s articles are aimed at professional photographers As the name suggests, this online publication is heavy on reviews of equipment and software

Whether a professional, enthusiast, or holiday photographer, one of the things you plan to do with your digital camera is capture history in the making It may be personal history your kid s first birthday, a trip to the Grand Canyon, or an image of yourself you can look at 30 years from now and wonder why you ever wore those clothes But before you start capturing the present for the future, you have a more pressing obligation: saving the past for the future Somewhere in a closet, attic, garage or worst of all a damp, unventilated basement, there is a shoebox filled with photographs you shot years ago in the ancient, predigital eons Some may be photos shot by your parents, or their parents Every day that passes carries these photos closer to their total destruction These are chemical photos or, more exactly, the products of various chemical reactions That shoebox is still a cauldron of chemicals embedded in the surfaces of the negatives and prints Those chemicals reacting with one another, with the corrosive oxygen and moisture in the air, and heaven knows what other chemicals, from fertilizer to insecticides, that may be sharing that cramped storage space You have one chance to rescue those photos for the benefit of generations yet to come, and that chance is right now Not tomorrow Now Already, the photos have begun to fade, lose their color, darken, or, worst of all, bond surface to surface, beyond any hope of separation and salvage

Even if you ve been dutiful in preserving your stash of family photographs, this chapter still applies to you Unless you are storing the photographs the way the original copy of the US Constitution is kept in hermetically sealed cases filled with inert nitrogen, kept at a constant temperature and away from bleaching light this chapter is for you, too Now, if you are a person without a past, or at least a past in photographs, you can skip to 3, and there s no harm done Otherwise, listen up: Get a scanner!

Figure 2-1 The Library of Congress is preserving the visual past by converting into digital archives old photos, such as this daguerreotype taken by Platt Babbitt in 1879 This photo is an early example of a news photograph