Digital Shutters

Photo: scrapbooking.com

Scrapbooking is as American as American quilt. Deeply rooted but rarely seen. Like American quilt, scrapbooking is a vanishing art among the young, especially in the big cities. But just like American quilt, the young ones appreciate a good scrapbook when they see one.

You may think teenagers nowadays do not bother to make scrapbooks anymore, and you may be right. They don’t want to make them, but they giggle when they see their baby pictures in there. They get a kick out of seeing how they looked as a little kid scared stiff left on a carnival ride alone. The grown ups too are having a blast each time someone points to their pictures in bell-bottom pants and psychedelic art when they were teenagers themselves.

As a treasure trove of memories, a scrapbook is a valuable part of the whole family inheritance. More than just being a photo album, a scrapbook is also a journal of important family events, a history book, if you will, of a family’s passage in time.

That is why it is important to include some notes in a scrapbook. It is a known fact that photos are routinely discarded by the third generation because they no longer recognize those characters in the old photos; such a waste, because photos, like vintage wine, become more valuable with time.

People steeped in the art of scrapbooking recommend writing a few notes, anything to say, whether tivial or grand, and you shouldn’t even mind how your grammar or spelling comes out, don’t worry, it’s a personal scrapbook and it comes out better that way. Words to go with the pictures make the photos relevant even after five generations.

Scrapbooking may be aided by today’s computer and the Internet, to make it easier to produce and share photos with relatives and friends, but the best scrapbook are still made with good old craftsmanship, with pen and paper and scissors and paste. Nothing beats the high resolution display of the written page, and the random access of pages that you can flip by hand.

And don’t worry about your teenagers not making a scrapbook today, make one for them. They’re just being too busy with their youth. In time, they will make one too for their own children.

scrapbooking, memories, family, photos, album

Kodak is highlighting a survey that essentially says a photograph is a gift from the heart. The company made a survey which indicates that gift recipients treasure and save personalized photo gifts. When somebody sends her personalized Christmas card with her photo, it is highly likely that the friend or relative who receives the photo card will keep and treasure it.

This sounds like a commercial ad for photo greeting cards; but if you look deeper, you’ll find that indeed people do treasure photographs like nothing else in the world. Haven’t you heard of the person who cried more for the loss of his family photos than his paintings, appliances, money and other things?

People treasure photographs because they create connections and preserve memories. In the Kodak survey, more than 90 percent believe that sharing experiences through photographs helps them bond with others. Mothers and fathers say it’s important to take photographs of their children to remind them later of their youth. This just proves that photographs are truly the gift that keeps on giving.

So, Kodak tries to highlight this fact when it offers you their products and services for personalized greeting cards. Kodak says more than half of consumers prefer receiving personalized photo greeting cards, with 84 percent saving those cards from family and friends.

kodak, photo, gift, memories

[Via: CameraTown.com]
[Site: KodakGallery.com]

We are indebted to the Nikon D40 for this turn of events. A day after the D40 came out as the cheapest Nikon DSLR, Canon announced a price cut for its newly-launched EOS Rebel XTi (400D) bringing its price to $600 for the body alone, and $700 with the 18-55mm kit lens.

This is a big price cut for Canon, a $300 mark-down from its announced prices when the EOS 400D debuted just 3 months ago.

In turn, the much older but feature-rich Rebel XT (EOS 350D) can now be seen sporting a price tag of about $600, at par with the simplified Nikon D40.

So, how do you express your gratitude to Nikon? I’d buy the D80 if I can afford it; heck, I’ll go straight up and get the Nikon D200 if I really had the money.

But since my budget is limited, I’ll settle for the highly successful EOS 350D instead. Remember that this model set a new benchmark for entry-level DSLRs when it broke into the scene in February 2005. Almost two years later, it’s still as desirable as ever, thanks to the emergence of the Nikon D40 (sigh).

Did Nikon anticipate this response from Canon, like how they had anticipated the EOS 400D and trumped it with the D80? Or was the D40 a bad move for Nikon knowing now that Canon would go down by a hefty $300 price reduction? What will be Nikon’s response to that?

The next few weeks leading up to Christmas will be interesting indeed.

nikon, canon, price, d40, eos, 350d, 400d

Now, now…ain’t this cute? Another kittified object of desire only from Hello Kitty. And only in pink.

Say hello to the Hello Kitty DC500 digital camera, with 5 megapixels of picture goodness in a cute little 1/1.8-inch CMOS sensor. There’s a pretty 2.0-inch LCD display on the back which could give you 2592 x 1952 pixels of resolution, enough for you to print a good 4×6 photo.

There’s 32MB of memory on board in case you want to shoot right out of the box; an SD slot will let you add as much memory as you want so you can also shoot VGA movies aside from photos.

At an inch thick, I say that’s just about right for a cuddly heft in my little girl’s little pink palm. Hmmm…do I see Christmas coming?

[Via: Engadget.com]

hello kitty, dc500, camera, pink, cuddly, megapixel

Nikon has confirmed rumors over the past couple of weeks by officially releasing Thursday its entry-level Nikon D40 digital SLR camera. It’s what I’d call a point-and-shoot DSLR, comfortable enough for novice photographers to use but powerful enough to offer SLR features.

Its price of $600 will make it affordable for serious amateurs on a budget. It comes bundled with an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor kit lens that’s also easy to use. Top it off with an optional $130 SB-400 Speedlite and you’re good to go, ready to take your place beside professional paparazzis.

The Nikon D40 is built on an ease-of-use philosophy: everything about it is meant to make it so much easier to use a DSLR, complexity is kept to a minimum, controls are easy to use, and menus are easy to understand.

Photo: Dave Etchells/Imaging Resource

But this is certainly not a dumb-down camera, says Dave Etchells of Imaging Resource. “The D40 is clearly all Nikon; its heritage is apparent throughout,� he says, adding that its novice-friendly features make this camera destined for greatness.

DPReview’s Phil Askey notes that the D40 follows on from the D50 but at a significantly lower price point and with a subtly different feature set. He also likes that fact that Nikon did not chase megapixels this time but concentrated on what makes a good camera: a decent viewfinder, short shutter lag and very short viewfinder blackout.

The hands-on previews are positive. Now, let’s wait for some production units to roll out for in-depth analysis of the D40’s image quality and actual user experience, including how its battery holds up.

Stay tuned.

nikon, d40, dslr, sb-400, speedlite, point-and-shoot, affordable

The Photoshop Guys are a jolly bunch trying to project a good-for-tv riotous image, but watch what they say, or in this case, what their guest says; it could mean money for you.

If you’re an aspiring wedding or portrait photographer, or simply an amateur who wants to know how the pros do it, you’d do well to catch David Ziser share his lighting expertise on Photoshop TV.

In the show, David demonstrates the use of a Quantum flash/receiver setup to illustrate his loop lighting pattern. What this does, he said, is put a highlight next to a shadow to add detail, depth, dimension and color saturation resulting in a dramatic improvement to the scene.

You’ll love watching David at work; it’s like catching dollar bills each time he speaks. Go catch him on Episode 55 of Photoshop TV while it is current and viewable for free; after that, it goes into archive and you’ll have to pay to watch it.

Photoshop TV is brought to you by the Photoshop Guys of the NAPP, National Association of Photoshop Professionals.

Go, see PhotoshopTV.com.

photoshop, tv, david ziser, lighting, photography, portrait, wedding, quantum

Can you make a statement with the color yellow? Can you express a passion with the color yellow? Can you take a picture with the color yellow in it and express a special story?

If you’re a photographer in Asia or the Middle East who can share your passion with the color yellow, there is a “Yellow to Me” Photo Contest 2006 that you can win.

Nikon and the National Geographic, who share the color yellow between them, are sponsors of this contest which runs up to December 24, 2006. Professional or amateur photographers may join, as long as they can express a story or capture a special moment with the color yellow in their photo. Go ahead, submit as many entries as you wish. You just might strike gold, who knows.

The “Yellow to Me� Grand Award and the Passionate Expression Award will include brand new Nikon D80s (two of ‘em) complete with the AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED lens, battery and speedlight plus a few more goodies from National Geographic.

The others will get a Nikon Coolpix S10, S8 and L5 compact digital cameras. Winners will be announced on February 5, 2007.

[Visit: NGCasia.com]

nikon, national geographic, photo, contest, yellow, d80

Its looks may not dazzle the eyes outright, but if you look closely enough you’ll find understated elegance in the design of Samsung X11 notebook.

The Samsung X11 is powered by a Core 2 Duo Processor 1.66GHz or 1.83GHz under the hood, and it ranks up there with the likes of Compaq Presario V3000 and HP Pavilion dv2000 as entertainment portables. But CNET Asia says the X11 might drop a notch in terms of features compared with both the HP and Compaq notebooks.

The Samsung notebook’s main selling point, however, is its exceptional thinness and lightness for a 14.1-inch mobile, according to CNET Asia’s Darius Chang. Its magnesium-alloy body weighs in at only 2.17 kg, with its 33 x 339.5 x 257.6 mm dimensions.

So if style and portability are important to you, the X11 is the way to go. With 1.66GHz and 512MB of RAM, the X11 costs $1,270. With 1.83GHz C2D processor and 1GB of RAM, it’s $1,460; both come with Windows XP Home.

And if you’re the germaphobe type, it might comfort you to know that there’s even an X11C model that has silver-nano techonolgy embedded in the palm rest and keyboard, which prevents bateria buildup for a more hygenic computing experience. (That sounds like Singapore, all right.)

[Via: CNETasia.com]

samsung, x11, notebook, core2 duo, silver nano, germs, singapore

We may look at digital photo frames as pretty photo viewers that can adorn our table tops at home displaying pictures of family and friends.

But in Hong Kong, the digital photo frame is also marketed as a useful business tool, calling the DPF an advertisement player. The business-minded Hong Konger finds its bright 7-inch TFT LCD screen a perfect canvas to display commercials because it can play MP4 movies, MP3 music and digital photos.

The AD700 accepts digitized inputs from Compact Flash (CF) cards, USB flash drives and hard disk drives. Very simple to use and virtually maintenance-free, this DPF can display in 16:9 or 4:3 video and photo formats on top of supermarket shelves, table-tops, showcases, cars, taxis and virtually anywhere else with business potential.

It even boasts of a theft-protection device, effectively preventing the player and CF card from being stolen.

[Site: AmberDigital.com.hk]

amber digital, ad700, digital, photo, frame, dpf, video, audio, mp3, mp4

Samsung has previewed its new DMB (digital media broadcast) TV to the public. Its name, or rather number designation, is LMD-10A51W. They have to think fast of a prettier name if they really want to push this thing with their intended women market.

That’s right. It’s for women, although at first glance, we just can’t discern any gender bias on this one. Why, I want one too. Since when did TV become for women only?

The LMD-10A51W DMB TV has a 10-inch LCD screen, perfect for viewing that afternoon soap (Oh, so that’s why it’s for women. But I love soap, too). The really cool feature of this DMB TV is that you can connect an external hard disk to this and it becomes a PMP on which you can view your photos and videos.

[Via: AkihabaraNews]

samsung, dmb, tv, LMD-10A51W, PMP, photo, video