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A MEMBER OF THE ZATZ MAGAZINE NETWORK |
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May 28, 2004 |
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Mastering Digital Photography
This week's news |
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DO-IT-YOURSELF WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY SOLUTIONS GUIDE
Just because a couple doesn't have a lot of money doesn't mean they don't deserve quality, professional-looking wedding photos. This $19.95 ebook can potentially save you thousands of dollars on wedding photography.
Read Do-It-Yourself Wedding Photography and you'll learn everything you need to take exceptional wedding photos on a budget.
Buy this guide and you might be able to afford that dream honeymoon. |
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CONNECTED PHOTOGRAPHER BOOK OF THE MONTH
Mastering Digital Photography and Imaging
By David Gewirtz
We all remember book reports. As far back as grade school, we were assigned books and then given the task of writing a summary. You remember the formula. There was an introductory paragraph, where you'd introduce the book and provide a short summary of what the book's about. Here's an example:
Mastering Digital Photography and Imaging is a new Sybex book written by Peter K. Burian, who's known as the co-author of the National Geographic Photography Field Guide. This nicely produced book is intended to demystify the world of digital photography and imaging.
So far, this little book report is going just fine. I've introduced the book I'll be telling you about, and I've given you some very basic overview information.
Back in school, most book reports tended to be about fiction, so they'd want you to talk about plot and conflict. Since I'm reviewing a non-fiction book, the plot and conflict aren't about the characters. In this case, they're about the book itself.
Let's think of the book as the main character. If this book were a person, it'd be very handsome or beautiful. In fact, this is a beautifully produced book, with gorgeous pictures and excellent production value, produced on nice, quality paper. It's cleanly organized, covering topics including the camera, printing, imaging, image editing, scanning, and the like.
As the book report moved further into the book, we'd get a better look at the character. As with any good story, it's the inherent conflicts of character that make the story good. In our case, entire movies have been made about the sort of conflict we see here.
Our character is good looking, polite, and presents well. He's like William Hurt's Tom Grunick character in Broadcast News. He's handsome, but something of a lightweight, although he yearns to be more. It's the yearning to be more that presents the basic conflict. Of course, in the movie, the conflict was also very much about William Hurt's rivalry with talented, but not-so-good-looking Albert Brooks for the affections of Holly Hunter.
Fortunately, our book report doesn't have a romantic conflict to explain. Even so, there is an inherent conflict within Mastering Digital Photography and Imaging, one that doesn't do it service.
You see, nice as this book is, it's as much of a lightweight as William Hurt's character was. Like Tom Grunick, the book is quite likeable, and we do recommend it. However, like anchorman Tom, the book wants to be more. It wants to be about mastery.
Sadly, there is no mastery in Mastering Digital Photography and Imaging. This is an overview book. It will give you some great background information, but it will not give you gravitas. Important topics like metering, white balance, and bracketing get a mere one or two paragraphs. The book spends more time on the perennial debate of Windows vs. Macintosh than it does discussing lenses!
And that, like in all good book reports, brings us to the final part of the book report formula: the conclusion. Of course, where we differ as adults writing about products rather than children writing because of a classroom assignment is we have to make recommendations, recommendations that may invite you to spend your money or hang on to it.
So, let's start there. This book is listed at $29.95 in the U.S. Is it worth it? Quite simply: yes. It's a very nice book, especially for someone just starting out.
Our primary gripe is that the book's title is a misnomer. Were the title something like "Understanding Digital Photography and Imaging" or "Getting Started With Digital Photography and Imaging," we'd be able to give it a completely unreserved recommendation. This book, as it stands, has the wrong title. If you're looking for a book about mastering digital photography and imaging, don't buy this book. If you're looking for a gentle and very well-put-together overview on the topic, then this is a fine book for you.
OUR RATING: 3 of 5
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David Gewirtz is the Editor-in-Chief of the ZATZ magazines and the author of The Flexible Enterprise and Lotus Notes Revealed! He can be reached via email at address@hidden. You can see David's photographic artwork at his personal Web site, http://www.Gewirtz.com.
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CONNECTED PHOTOGRAPHER NEWS CENTER
This week's news
Want to get the very latest photography news? The Connected Photographer News Center is updated every day with news of product releases, industry info, tips, techniques, and pointers to great photography resources on the Web. Here's this week's news:
PhotoRescue updated
PhotoRescue, the photo recovery application, has been updated to v2.0.0 Build 657 for both Mac OS X and Windows. Included in the upgrade are both the Wizard and Expert versions.
World's Fastest Memory Card
Pretec Electronics is demonstrating the world's first USB card reader supporting MMC 4.0 4-bit mode, which can possibly reach the access speed of up to 26MB/s, the highest speed flash memory card reader in the world today.
PicsToBits ActionDex 1.0
PicsToBits announced the release of ActionDex 1.0, a new tool to organize and manage Photoshop actions. ActionDex can also generate and associate a preview image with actions for easy visualization of what each action does.
nik Color Efex Pro 2.0
nik multimedia has released version 2.0 of Color Efex Pro. nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 filters have all been updated to include more functionality and better features, along with more filters and effects, such as 16-bit functionality, Cross Possessing filters (both C41 to E6 and E6 to C41), and more.
LumaPix::FotoFusion version 3.0
LumaPix is pleased to announce the immediate availability of LumaPix::FotoFusion version 3.0, their photo layering, compositing and scrapbooking software.
Simple Star PhotoShow Deluxe 3.0
Simple Star announced the release of PhotoShow Deluxe 3.0. PhotoShow Deluxe 3.0 allows users to quickly organize and edit their photos, create and share musical shows with their digital photos and music and print pictures with ease.
Dark Energy camera project
If approved, the Dark Energy Survey would measure the history of the expansion rate of the universe more precisely than ever before, using the largest camera ever built with Charge Coupled Devices (CCD). The 500 megapixel Dark Energy Camera would be placed on an existing 4-meter telescope located in north-central Chile at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.
Nikkor 200 mm F2.0, Nikkor SLR teleconverter
Nikon today announced the new 200 mm F2.0 AF-S VR G lens, a prime telephoto lens with Vibration Reduction capability. Nikon Europe is announced the AF-S Teleconverter TC-17E II, the first teleconverter to offer a 1.7x lens focal length magnification, but with exposure compensation kept to just 1.5 stops. Information on both can be found in this press release on Digital Photography Review.
iRiver H300 portable player
Japanese electronics manufacturer iRiver has announced the new H300 series portable music and photo player will be available in two sizes, the 20 GB H320 and the 40 GB H340. The difference with this unit is that it can act as a USB 2.0 host, allowing you to connect any mass storage device (such as a digital camera or card reader) directly and have the unit transfer directly.
Adaptive Equalization plug-In revision
Reindeer Graphics has announced the first major revision to its Adaptive Equalization plug-in, which can greatly enhance local contrast in images, has been updated to include a larger preview and an improved blending function.
CodedColor PhotoStudio 3.4 English
1STEIN is now offering an English version of their image management software CodedColor PhotoStudio 3.4. Digital photography enthusiasts will find a wide range of functions for importing, viewing, managing, enhancing, sharing, publishing and reproducing photos all in a single application.
Reallusion FaceFilter Studio
Reallusion announced the release of FaceFilter Studio, a simple and powerful application that allows you to change facial features in any digital photo and apply instant repair to common photo problems. With FaceFilter Studio's facial improvement technology, you can enhance expressions, reduce oily gloss, neutralize heavy shadow, remove facial blemishes, wrinkles and red-eye, enhance skin tone and automatically correct color in digital photos.
New OLED display materials
Eastman Kodak Company is introducing new high-performance materials for the manufacture of OLED displays and demonstrating active matrix organic light emitting diode (AM OLED) display panels in new sizes and formats, expanding the range of potential uses for the technology.
Pretec 12 GB CF
Pretec announced their new range of high capacity Compact Flash cards. These new cards will be available as 3 GB, 4 GB, 6 GB and 12 GB.
Updates to C1 PRO, SE and LE
Phase One is gearing up to release new versions of its C1 RAW photo conversion suite. On May 27, the company will release v3.5 of C1 PRO and SE for Mac OS X and Windows, and LE for Windows only.
Sony 40 GB portable photo storage
Sony Japan announced their new portable storage device aimed squarely at high megapixel digital still cameras. The HDD Photo Storage HDPS-M1 has a 40 GB hard disk built-in, Memory Stick and Compact Flash slots, a Lithium-Ion battery, a one-button Copy function and USB 2.0 connectivity.
Triscape FxFoto 2.0
Triscape announced the release of FxFoto 1.2, with new features that include intuitive timeline navigation, a host of new photo enhancement and creativity tools, and improved tools for publishing slide shows on web sites using the FxFoto Viewer Plug-In.
Alera DVD/CD repair tool
Alera Technologies announced its revolutionary DVD/CD Disc Repair Plus, a complete disc repair kit including a motorized system with buffing, cleaning and repair wheels, and specialized liquid solutions for the disc restoration processes.
Flash memory price drop
Samsung Electronics and Toshiba, two companies that dominate the lucrative market for memory chips used in digital cameras and music players are cutting prices to fire demand and undermine emerging rivals.
Digital Photomicrographic System
Nikon unveiled a digital color cooled camera head, the DS-5Mc, and the DS-U1 camera control unit, featuring superior microscope control, digital viewing and capture of images in standard and low-light applications including brightfield, fluorescence and darkfield to the Nikon Digital Sight Imaging System.
SanDisk 6-in-1 PC card adapter
SanDisk introduced the first 6-in-1 PC Card Adapter, giving notebook computer users the largest number of card formats for moving files to and from flash memory devices such as digital cameras, PDAs, MP3 players and mobile phones.
Kodak Easyshare LS743 review
Megapixel.net offers their review of the Kodak Easyshare LS743 four megapixel digital camera that offers 2.8x zoom.
In-camera red-eye solution
Pixology announced the launch of Embedded Pixology IRISS, an automatic solution for removing red-eye instantaneously, at the point of source, as the image is taken in the digital camera.
Adaptive technology for digital cameras
Quicksilver's ACM is the only software-programmable, real-time adaptive integrated circuit that offers high performance, low power consumption, low cost, and architecture flexibility in a single chip.
Kodak wins TIPA awards
The Technical Image Press Association (TIPA), a non-profit making organization, with 30 active members, representing photography magazines in 12 countries in Europe, recently selected three Kodak products as winners of TIPA Awards. The prize-winning products are a Digital Photo Printer and two Black-and-White films, judged best in their respective categories.
Graphicxtras.com Brushes Collection
The brushes collection, for Photoshop CS, 7, 6 and elements, now includes nearly 9000 brushes of mixed designs. The new brushes consist of gel pens, markers, felt pens, pencil sketches and other brush types.
Six megapixel Panasonic cameras
Ability Enterprise, a digital camera manufacturer in Taiwan, is reported by qualified foreign institutional investors to be undertaking OEM production of a MegaPixel digital camera with MPEG4 support for Panasonic, according to local Chinese-language newspaper Economic Daily News. This piece on Digitimes.com has more information.
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Copyright © 2003, ZATZ:Pure Internet Publishing, a unit of Component Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.
Connected Photographer Magazine is an independent publication of ZATZ:Pure Internet Publishing, a unit of Component Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved. Connected Photographer, Computing Unplugged, the ZATZ name, and the ZATZ logo are trademarks or service marks of ZATZ:Pure Internet Publishing, a unit of Component Enterprises. All other brands and product names are trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective holders.
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