Technology Toolkit

With every new class of digital photography that I start giving courses to, a large proportion of the students bring cameras that are not well suited for them. Most of them simply bought cameras that the salesman suggested they should have. In the end, many of them discover their expensive blunder. Thus it is best to assess the camera in terms of your needs before making a purchase. Some of issues that must be considered before selecting a camera are discussed below:

(I) Picture-taking readiness

The amount of time a camera takes before it is ready to take a picture is a crucial issue. The faster a camera is, the less missed opportunities there will be. The lag times between turning on the camera and taking the picture are as follows:

a. Time to turn on camera: most commercial cameras take between 1 and 5 seconds; the average is 3 seconds.
b. Time-taken to focus the camera: between 1 and 3 seconds
c. Shutter lag time: time between pushing the button and the photo being taken: between 1 and 3 seconds

Thus, cameras can take anything between 3 seconds and 11 seconds to take a picture. Often, this is enough for the moment to pass. Imagine missing the exact moment your child blew his candles at his birthday just because the camera took 3 seconds just to focus. Of course, some may argue that they will always be leaving their camera on, but there is still a lag time between your decision to take a picture and the picture being actually taken. In cheap cameras, this can be up to 9 seconds, sufficient to miss out on important events that would unfortunately not come back.

(II) Manual white balance setting

It is important that the camera enables you to set the white balance manually and not just automatically as this feature may not be as effective as the ad states. Nearly 60% of cameras do not allow manual adjustment.

(III) Different Exposure Modes

Exposure modes refer to the way the camera takes a light reading. Cheap cameras often take an overall reading which does not allow you to take pictures in all light conditions. You should look whether the camera has a spot, center-weighted or matrix light metering system that will enable you to take good pictures whatever the light conditions prevailing.

Finally, many people buy cameras with different features, for example taking videos. Often such cameras can do many things but none of them well, a jack of all trades and master of none! It is better to buy a camera for its primary function: taking still photographs.
So much can be obtained from a digital camera. It only requires some effort to understand how it functions and learning how to take pictures from it appropriately. It must be remembered that nobody looks a second time at a bad picture! Thus, if you want quality pictures that you and your family will cherish all your lives, take some time and effort with your digital camera.

The popularity of computers has never been greater. They are perhaps the most democratic technology based product ever produced. In the decades since the first rooms sized computers they have gradually become more and more powerful and also smaller. They are now an integral part of almost every task we undertake as well as being a must have item in the home.

Computers have freed people from many work and social constraints and made it possible for the man or woman on the street to try there hand at almost anything. Software, in particular, simulation packages, offer consumers a chance to experience all sorts of occupations and careers from the comfort of their homes from golf to flying a plane it seems that nothing is impossible.

The computer has also enabled the enthusiastic amateur to get better at their chosen interest and possibly progress to the level of professional. A new generation of designers, writers, artists and musicians have emerged from this democratisation of technology and the tools they use have also changed during the process. Music has perhaps been effected the most with DJ equipment now bearing only a superficial resemblance to years ago.

Dj equipment has always been very basic. All you need to start is some music and the equipment to play it to a room full of people but the advances in audio and computer technology in recent years has meant that the possibilities of what you can do with that as your starting position has altered greatly. DJ equipment today has more computer power behind it than the first manned space missions to the moon!

The essential item of DJ equipment that no prospective DJ can do without is now and has always been the turntable. But where the older models were heavy and unreliable the newest models are designed with the 21st century in mind.

Modern turntables are packed with features that would have been unheard of years ago, purely because they were not needed, USB ports, digital recoding features to transfer vinyl to CD or MP3 player and different versions of software and it doesn’t stop there. Many turntables can be powered by connecting them up with a laptop, making them extremely portable.

If you’re one of the few DJs that are not a fan of vinyl there is still DJ equipment that will be of interest to you. There are now decks that completely remove the turntable from the equation and have docking ports for more than one iPod or MP3 player. It unlikely that these will completely take over from the traditional form of turntable but it’s definitely a sign of what the future may have in store.

The principle of having music and somewhere to play it is unlikely to change but the way it is deliverd and the DJ equipment that delivers it will definitely look almost alien to us in the future. More like something from Star Wars than a discoteque.

As new generation discover that they can hone their DJing skills at home on a simple PC then it is likely we will see many more changes to DJ equipment in the coming years. One idea that has been suggested is that, using wireless technology, a DJ could set his set over the airwaves to different venues.

With ideas like this doing the rounds it’s highly likely that DJ equipment in the future will increasingly become more akin to a laptop computer and less like a turntable.

I recently bought a USB data storage device. No great surprise there. People use them every day. But I was astonished at the range of devices on offer and the capacity that was available to me for such a small price. I’m a regular computer user but I wouldn’t describe myself as a geek, that is, I don’t browse magazines and catalogues looking at hardware and I don’t really understand how computers work, I just know that they do work, and that’s enough for me. But I after buying my USB data storage device I did understand why some people are so fascinated by such things.

I’m old enough to remember a time when there were no home computers, just. When I was about 8 Atari launched the Video Computer System. I remember being at a cousin’s house one Christmas and being in thrall to the sight of a small line being hit by a dot on the TV screen over and over; simple pleasures indeed.

Shortly after that I did get my first computer, a Sinclair Spectrum 48k. 48K! It was one of the most incredible things I’d ever owned. I felt like Luke Skywalker sitting in the cockpit of an X-Wing Fighter every time I sat in from of it. It was the future at my fingertips. 48k seemed like the most powerful thing imaginable and I wasn’t alone. So imagine my surprise when I found, twenty five years later while looking for my first USB stick, that I could buy a data storage device with over 150,000 times the capacity of that Spectrum computer.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised, it was 25 years after all. But I couldn’t help think about how far things had come in such a short space of time. It got me thinking about my first home PC, not too long ago, just 10 years. It was a homemade effort, my uncle made it for me, it was considerably bigger than the spectrum and weighed as much as a TV (and that’s without the monitor). But it was good for the time even and with a 4GB hard drive I was able to store unlimited data . . . or so I thought.

4GB wouldn’t go far nowadays of course, I have nearly 140GB of music and the same again of video on my current computer, maybe that’s just the data I’ve accumulated over the years but I suspect that if I started with a clean slate today I could easily fill the same space in just a short time. As the capacity of data storage has become greater the amount of data to fill that space has also increased. And the ease with which we can get the data onto our machines is, well, child’s play.

As I have already said I’m not a computer geek but I do use the computer a lot, particularly for music and films, in fact I have two computers, a desktop and a laptop, which is why I found myself looking for a USB data storage device. I wanted to move data between the two machines without having to burn a CD each time, which was beginning to prove costly and wasteful.

So I decided that I’d buy something that could get a file on it the size of a film, about 1GB. Surely that would be enough. But when I looked into it I was drawn in by the spec, the offers and the sheer size of some of the data storage devices that were on offer. I looked, in some cases, like the more I could get on one of these devices the smaller it became physically.

So I opted for 8GB satisfied that unlike my Spectrum and first PC technology wouldn’t move forward so much in the next few years that I’d need to buy something bigger any time soon. HA! No sooner had I bought it than I got an email for an offer on a 64GB data storage device.

The camera is one of the gadgets that seemingly everyone will use at some point. It is ideal for capturing those moments in time that are simply magical, be it a stunning vista or a night out with friends. But buying a camera requires careful deliberation and consideration, for those without technical savvy it can be extremely difficult. Hopefully the following article will help consumers make the right decisions over which cameras to choose as well as the key considerations that should be made.

The first question to ask yourself is whether to go digital or non-digital. While many may see the film camera as defunct they are still used by many photographers, both amateur and professional. Ultimately however it boils down to time; film takes far longer to develop and for those who wish to place their images on the computer a digital camera is the most advisable choice. Digital image recording also makes the development of photographs far cheaper.

After this vital decision has been made there are other questions you should ask yourself when finding the ideal camera for your needs. The following questions are included as a checklist of considerations that should lead to the right camera choice.

As a photographer what are your goals? An amateur who simply wants to record family and friends will not need an all singing, all dancing camera whereas someone who fancies themselves as a semi-professional will have better results with an SLR variety of camera.

For those people wishing to print their images in large sizes a digital camera with a high resolution is the best choice. The more megapixels, the larger the image can be printed, if photos are going to be regular size or posted onto the internet, resolution is not as important. This should be reflected in your purchase.

If the camera is to be taken travelling the amount of storage space should be a major concern. For example some cameras can only utilise 2 GB or less memory cards. If the camera will need to hold many images a larger capacity to utilise 4 and 8 GB cards is a more sensible option.

It is also worth considering how the images will be taken and what the subject matter of the images will be. For instance if many photos are to be taken of small items, such as flowers, insects, coins or even stamps then a camera with a macro option is suitable. Additionally it is worth considering the distance photographs will be taken from. While it sometimes possible to get up close to subjects this is not always the case, for recording images at distance a camera with an optical zoom lens is essential.

Whether images will be recorded in low light level situations, such as concerts or indoors and whether the targets will be moving at speed should also form part of the decision making process if the right camera for your needs will be found.

Once these considerations have been made it is possible to find the right piece of photographic equipment. By taking this detailed approach that accounts for a number of different factors the correct decision can be made. The final consideration is the money you have to spend, once this is combined with the previous questions it should be possible to find a camera that matches you criteria and falls into a suitable price range.

Many people wonder what all the hype surrounding video games is. I can assure you it is exactly what it is made out to be by the media, advertisements, kids etc. I have personally found video games to be extremely relaxing as well as a great pass time.

Many people are slow to start gaming because of the learning curve and because of the price tag. Well good news for you! The most popular gaming system is the xbox 360 and that is available for less than a few hundred dollars! In fact, now getting a cheap xbox 360 is one of the easiest things to do thanks to the internet. I have personally been able to get an xbox 360 as well as a nintendo wii for both my kids as well as for myself!

The variety available today greatly surpasses that which was available in the past decade. Because gaming has become so popular, new games and new consoles are being made at the same rate new movies are made. I personally prefer to buy a console as opposed to purchasing computer games because you will never need to upgrade your console. If you choose to buy computer games you will find yourself stuck in a place where you continuously need to sink more time and money into your computer until it can compete with others online.

I have also found the learning curve for consoles to be much less steep since you don’t have to be 100% familiarized with the large keyboard and all of the buttons it has. In contrast, an xbox 360 controller only has 8 keys and less than 1/10th of all the keys involved in computer games.

Also, computer games sometimes involve more than that, they force you to use different combinations of keys to achieve a desired effect! I have also found that the really good games are released for a variety of systems but seem to gain much more users in the console section, especially when it comes to the xbox 360. This is a great thing because when you are playing online, also known as xbox 360 live, you will have many more people to play with and in all probability you will have a lot more fun. The more to play with, the more fun you will have and the longer you will like the game.

The longer you like each game the less you spend on buying new xbox 360 games! As you can see I’ve cracked the code for how to start gaming on the cheap and also have a really good time.