New Tech...

I recently read an article on camera technology.
http://www.ephotozine.com/article/scientists-create-new-camera-technology-12991

To briefly sum up this article (in case you don't have time to read it) its about a new way cameras would take pictures. The article is a little "detail specific" at the beginning of so I will direct you to the most important section. Skip down  to the Press Release... It basically tells you exactly what you need to know. Now you can take high quality images while taking high quality video at the same time!!! I know my dad would love this.

This article interested me for two reasons.
1) There is the side of me that is intrigued in business and economics. So the way in which the mass production of this could make HQ images to consumers cheaper... is pretty sweet.
2) I AM THE CONSUMER!!! Of course I don't make enough money to buy all of the top end camera equipment, but this would make HQ images much more in my reach.

Overall pretty interesting article to read. And because the article was published so long ago, maybe the technology is closer to us than we think ;)

RAW is wonderful!

Here is an interesting video on using RAW format vs. JPEG format on National Geographic's Website.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/specials/photography-specials/photo-tips/settings-photo-tips.html
This was a pretty short video but great because it is straight to the point. I recently decided to switch to pictures in RAW format. If anybody wants to keep their photos crisp and clean I suggest doing so as well. I have immediately noticed a difference in quality. There are many good points that Mark Thiessen brings up.
RAW files are as he calls "digital negatives" which is the reason for the increase in quality. Rather than compressing the file, it is saved at the size it is taken. He refers to your ability to adjust exposure, saturation, contrast, white balance as a second thought. This is one of my favorites because I don't have to worry about the white balance on the fly.
There are some drawbacks however. And I'm afraid they are some he didn't mention in this clip. The first I noticed was not the lack of space on an SD card but the inability for my computer to the files. You have to (at least for windows) update your software. Similarly for PSE7 you need to download the plug-in Camera RAW. Once you figure this out, the images are great in Photoshop, however viewing them is a problem on even my desktop. A computer must have at least 4GB of RAM to be able to view these seemliness otherwise your memory will be to little.
Other than that... Great short clip. I do highly recommend shooting in RAW.

Interesting Articles

http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles1110/ab1110-1.html
http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles1210/ab1210-1.html
http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0910/ab0910-1.html
http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles1010/ab1010-1.html

These articles were particularly interesting to me. Not because I didn't know what these composition styles were or because I learned anything new. However, I found these articles interesting because they reinforced some concepts that I have already been doing. Whether I had been performing them consciously or subconsciously these articles helped clear a few things up.
I may have already known about the rule of thirds, or the hyper-focal point in an image, I may have even known about thin sky and thin horizons, but never knew they were what is called "compositions". These articles helped me realize that there are reasons that pictures look good. I always took what I thought looked the best and hadn't know that there were rules behind them.
I also found the article on snapshots interesting. Although I had an idea of what they were, it was good for the writer to spell out exactly what a snapshot is. Nobody likes to compose every image and it can be fun to take snapshots from time to time. I just like to throw my camera on auto and snap away.

Hi, my name is Matt Richardson. I chose this image to pick an image for this blog for a few reasons, but first I'll give you some details about it. I took this picture on my Nikon d3100, I was using a 55mm~200mm telephoto lens (160mm zoom). This was taken at the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, just up the hill from Golden Gate Bridge. This particular pic was taken with a lot of glare, so I used a high shutter speed and a medium f-stop (f9 and 1/200s shutter speed).
Now that that is out of the way, I chose this image because I like the perspective looking down the line. I took another few looking head on, from above and from below and I think this was the best. This camera was new to me and this is where I started to figure out the focusing. The other reason I chose this image was the experience I had taking it. I was with my dad on a beautiful day. This little guy was just so photogenic. I was only a few arm lengths away from him and he was looking at the camera, basically posing for me. Anyways, a lot of fun if you ever want to try it...
-Matt R.
RMC