Category: digital cameras


There are a large number of mobile phone providers to choose from, most pushing affordable pay as you go mobile phones, along with the pay monthly mobile packages. Most of the services are provided by industry leaders like Apple, Verizon, Sprint or ATT, although there have also been several newbie’s entering the marketplace recently.

A lot of these new mobile service providers are offering some really great deals, giving the public a less expensive option, which just about anyone can afford. With the sales of the pay as you go mobile phones increasing, along with the latest and greatest smart phones, cell phone sales are literally through the roof. In today’s world, people don’t simply use their phone to place calls and text, they use it as a GPS device, a web browser, to scan products and get prices, check email, play games and watch videos. Ultimately, our phones are playing a bigger part of our lives year after year, creating a money machine for the hottest mobile service providers.

With the huge amount of pay monthly mobile phones being offered, it’s important that you pick the phone you want first. What kind of features do you require? Some people just want the basics; a phone to call and text. This is an inexpensive option because you’ll have a variety of plans to choose from and can buy and inexpensive phone; no add ons needed here. There are still several old school cell phones options that are just as mobile as the new ones, such as flip phones or standard cellular that can perform the basic functions and come with standard applications, like as a note pad or calendar. The newer phones can get expensive fast, but several of the new service providers are offering innovative monthly pay mobile phones, with a huge variety of applications, and package options for every budget.

If you need a phone simply for emergency purposes or simple calls, without all the bells and whistles, you might want to get away from the pay monthly mobile plans and get a pay as you go mobile phone. The pay as you go mobile plans are popular because they don’t require a contract and you can easily purchase additional minutes on the go. You can pay for a few hundred minutes and maybe some texts, or no texts, depending on your preferences. There are even pay as you go mobile plans that offer unlimited texting and calls, but you typically will have a lower quality cell phone with fewer applications available.

Choosing a service provider, and even making the choice between a pay as you go mobile phone and a pay monthly mobile plan, can be a difficult decision. You need to first identify what kind of phone services and applications are important to you. You need to decide if you are willing to have a contract and pay monthly for at least a 2 year period, or if you want something that is easy to cancel. Once you know your preferences, do a little bit of research on the various providers, read reviews, then simply pick the one that has the qualities you want and for a price you can afford.

A quick look around any fine online camera store these days and one thing becomes immediately clear. That one thing is – you really don’t have to spend a fortune to get quality anymore.

ixus-1101

Canon has just released a new IXUS model, the 110 IS – which continues the Canon tradition of mid-range cameras chalked full of outstanding features. If any single range of cameras best sums up Canon’s ‘bang for buck’ philosophy, it must be the IXUS.

Take a look at some of the IXUS 110 IS features…

12.1 Megapixels

The number of megapixels determines the amount of sharp detail a digital camera can record. With more megapixels, you can print at larger sizes, plus crop and enlarge without sacrificing quality. IXUS cameras provide all the resolution you need for finely detailed, photo-quality prints with plenty of scope for post-shoot cropping.

4x Optical Zoom

Get the shot you want with a powerful 4x Optical Zoom and genuine Canon optics. Not only does the zoom get you up close quickly, but Canon optical technology ensures that your shots are bright, clear, and alive with true, vivid color.

Optical Image Stabilizer

Any slight shake while hand-holding a camera can cause blurred photos. Canon’s optical Image Stabilizer (IS) technology ensures crisp, clear images by detecting and correcting this camera shake. The camera is able to microscopically adjust its own lens with absolute accuracy up to 4,000 times every second, so the image you see is the image you capture.

Motion Detection

When the camera detects a face, Motion Detection Technology will now adaptively vary the shutter speed according to the speed of the face movement. The amount of camera shake is also taken into consideration and the aperture is set to obtain the optimum exposure for that perfect shutter speed.

Face Detection Technology

Canon’s Face Detection Technology ensures superb people shots by automatically detecting subjects in the frame and setting the correct focus, flash level and exposure. With Blink Detection technology turned on the camera will show a warning that a person in the photo had their eyes closed. This displays for three seconds whilst reviewing the shot right after shooting.

Summary

From a huge 12mp lens to integrated optical stabilizers, face detection and wide-screen movie capability, the IXUS from Canon contains everything possible the average camera toting tourist or home movie aficionado could want – all in one small and sleek package.

Available in no less than four different colours, the CANON IXUS IS 110 is now available from all good camera retailers.

SOURCE: Canon.co.uk | WarehouseExpress.com IXUS page

Remember the cloth that came with your glasses? The grey micro-fibre one, the one you used 4-5 times then somehow lost. It worked so well. Remember that cloth? Sure you do. How about the cloth that came with your camera? That one was incredible – never a smudge. Gone now. Great while you had it though.

Did you get one with your mobile phone?

Me too (no, I don’t know where mine is either).

Where did they all go?

The concept is wonderfully simple; find yourself a perfect cloth material for safely and effectively cleaning optical glass, sew it into a pouch to keep it in good condition and attach a clip for you to fix it to something so you can always find it when you need it. At the top of the storage pouch is a plastic clip, allowing you to attach your Spudz cloth onto your chosen optical product, making it always easily accessible. How brilliant is that?

spudz4
Spudz are available in a range of colour designs and sizes. What makes Spudz so convenient is the design. Unlike other lens cloths, the Spudz lens cloth stays attached to the inside of the storage pouch. The snap hook also provides an easy way to clip it to a keychain or camera bag and keep it available at all times.

Many photographers have already found Spudz to be an essential part of every photo shoot. Spudz will clean finger prints, moisture and dust particles from lenses gently because of the special Micro-Fibre cloth inside.
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The latest addition to the Spudz range is a cleaning cloth that is also 18% grey so cleaning your lens and calibrating your camera have never been easier.

Ideal for a number of uses, and finally available in the UK, Spudz are selling as fast as the brilliant concept behind them suggests they should. Find yours at fine online camera retailers.

It is no surprise that professional photographers and snap-happy amateurs require the highest quality, longest life batteries possible. If you are an aficionado of the hobby, or it happens to be your profession – that’s exactly what you get with the Canon LP-E6 Battery Pack.

lp-e6-battery-21This battery pack is a must have for heavy shooters. For those familiar with Canon’s very popular EOS 5D Mark II and its long-running BP-511 series battery, on the surface this battery pack may look the same – but the new lithium-ion LP-E6 battery pack is approximately 30% more powerful than the previous BP-511A – with 1800 milliamp-hours capacity, vs. 1390 mAh for the previous-generation BP-511A.

Far from just a more powerful power supply, this new battery teams up with the EOS 5D Mark II camera in new ways to give photographers a precise outlook on remaining strength of a battery, as well as managing multiple batteries.

It’s a fact that today’s digital SLR users almost always have at least one, and often multiple, spare battery packs for their cameras. But with more than one battery pack, it can sometimes be hard to keep track of whether all batteries are being used fairly evenly (in other words, that one or more aren’t languishing at the bottom of your camera bag), and to have an idea of when you’ve last charged each one.

Using the battery pack with the Mark II, you can actually “register” or memorize each LP-E6 battery pack you own, and keep track of up to six separate batteries right on the camera’s LCD screen. Each LP-E6 battery pack has a microchip with a unique, 8-character serial number. You don’t see this number on the outside of the battery, as it is embedded in the battery’s information source but once the battery pack is installed in the camera, you can register it using a menu command.

lp-e6-batteryThe Battery Information displays the information which is extremely useful to the working photographer on location. At a glance, he or she can immediately tell how much remaining battery power is available, and furthermore get information to assist in managing this and other LP-E6 battery packs:

1. Charge Remaining: Special circuits and a memory chip in the battery communicate the precise percentage of charge remaining in the battery, in 1% increments.

2. Shots Taken: At a glance, you can see how many times the shutter has fired using this particular battery, since it was last charged-up. (Please note – this display will never show the total number of times the camera’s shutter itself has fired; it only displays the number of shots taken on this battery charge).

3. Battery Performance: It’s a fact that rechargeable batteries have a finite number of charge-discharge-charge cycles they can go through, after which they can begin to lose their ability to hold a charge. While the LP-E6 should allow photographers hundreds of charge-discharge cycles, it’s useful for the working photographer to know whether a battery pack is nearing the end of its useful life after several years of use. The Battery Performance indicator does just that, with a 4-stage icon.

With 30% added life over previous versions and ‘smart’ features that separate it from the competition, it is not hard to recommend the Canon LP-E6 Battery Pack, available from WarehouseExpress.com and other fine retailers.

SOURCE: WarehouseExpress.com | Canon

legria-hf-s100Until recently, one quick glance at any movie and you could instantly tell whether or not it had been shot with a ‘professional’ camera, or a store bought camera. A fact made more obvious by the Hi-Definition (HDTV) capabilities of all modern television sets.

But thanks to technological innovation, what was once a truism of the film world happily is no longer the case. Until recently, amateur filmmakers had to grin and bear the fact that the equipment they used would never achieve the same quality, or ‘look’, of the big boys in Hollywood. To achieve the ‘pro look’ on your home movies you had two choices, either spend huge money on a professional grade video camera (which more than a few did), or accept the fact that, as a mere mortal with pockets that do not reach into the many thousands, you simply did the best you could with the equipment at your disposal.

Then, Canon’s Legria HF S100 came onto the market, and the rules of the game changed overnight.

Canon’s Legria HF S100 combines the latest in Hi-Definition technology and User Creativity with the convenience of SD Memory for unlimited expansion. All the expected features are there from 25p Cinema Mode to Custom Key and Dual Shot to Video Snapshot. The Canon Legria HF S100 High Definition Camcorder is the perfect camera for enthusiasts looking for a step up without the professional budgets.

As with many of its products, with the S100 Canon has exclusivity and patents on many of its components and features that make it not only a product leader, but a true innovator as well.

Let’s take a closer look at a few of these:

Canon Exclusive: 1/2.6-inch, 8.59-megapixel Full HD CMOS Image Sensor

The S100 captures 1920 x 1080 High Definition video through its Canon designed and manufactured 1/2.6-inch, 8.59-megapixel HD CMOS image sensor, similar to the CMOS image sensors made famous in Canon’s EOS Series Digital SLR cameras.

The HF S100′s powerful CMOS image sensor provides high color resolution and advanced color reproduction for brilliant results. It is also unique in featuring Canon’s proprietary noise reduction technologies for crisp, sharp images. Low noise technology also means that even in dimly lit scenes, the signal from each pixel is as pure as possible, with minimal noise or other aberrations. It’s the ideal sensor for HD.

1920 x 1080 Full HD Recording

1920x10801The Canon HF S100 not only captures images in Full HD, but records and outputs at 1920 x 1080 as well, so you get Full HD from lens to screen. Your memories are preserved in stunning clarity, and ready for playback on your HDTV. With the advanced codec in the HF S100, you can also record at the highest AVCHD bitrate of 24Mbps.

Canon Exclusive: SuperRange Optical Image Stabilization

The high-resolution images of HD video demand a steady hand. It’s easier to get those clear, steady images with the HF S100, thanks to Canon’s innovative SuperRange Optical Image Stabilization. It combines gyro- and image-sensors to give image stabilization through a wider range of camera motions. Some image stabilization systems correct one type of camera motion or vibration better than another. But Canon’s SuperRange OIS corrects for a wide range of camcorder motion: the fast vibration you’d experience while recording from a moving car; the medium-speed motion of hand-held recording; and the slower motion of body sway. No matter what you’re recording and how you’re recording it, the HF S100′s stabilization design corrects camcorder shake instantly.

Direct to SDHC Memory Recording

As major manufacturers push headlong in the direction of truly solid-state digital recording of not only standard definition video but the very latest high definition formats, too, we’re seeing an ever-increasing tide 32gb1 of models that offer recording to memory cards (such as SDHC and Memory Stick) and also to flash memory that’s actually hard-wired in to the camcorders themselves. If you’ve been studying the market for any length of time you’ll be aware that it is rapidly killing off other traditional recording media such as DVD and tape; even HDD (hard disc drive) is singing its swansong as a recording/playback medium. If you’re keen to acquire a camcorder which is more future-proof than others, the Legria HF S100 records directly to high capacity SDHC memory cards – a 32GB card can store over 12 hours of HD movies at the most efficient setting.

So for the aspiring Spielberg’s out there, your time has finally come. If you fancy having the ‘pro look’ on your home movies at an affordable starting price of less than £1100, these features and many more come standard on the Canon Legria HF S100 AVCHD Camcorder. Order yours online today!

SOURCE: Canon | WarehouseExpress.com

Flash Mishaps:

3 tips to get the most out of your inbuilt flash:

1)    Unless you are within 2-3 metres distance of your subject, don’t use it. Just boost your ISO and you will get better results.

2)    Slow sync flash is often used in low light situations, where the shutter’s decreased speed means the camera will capture more of the natural light in the shot. This will result in a blurred effect when there is motion in the shot.

3)    You can also diffuse or re-direct your flash using scotch tape or a white card above the camera. This is a great DIY technique to add a personalised touch to your photos.

Here’s the next digital camera tip as a follow-up on our first ‘picture perfect’ post -

Tip #2 – Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB):

If you are trying to get the perfect exposure in a photograph, most digital photographers will take their time, change the settings a few times and review after. But with a changing environment, the AEB is a very useful setting – this automatically takes 3 photos in 3 different exposures so you can choose a keeper.

Inspired by the Digital Photography School’s 21 Settings, Techniques and Rules All New Camera Owners Should Know”, I thought it’d be nice to share some of their digital camera functionality tips, along with some of my own, on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

Tip #1 – Aperture/Shutter:

Simply put, adjusting the aperture will adjust the focal sharpness of your photo. So, a narrow arperture with a slow shutter speed will increase the sharpness while a wide aperture and fast shutter speed will decrease sharpness – a beautiful technique for singling out a specific object in your photo.

The shutter speed itself can have a dramatic impact the way a moving object is captured – by slowing down the shutter speed; the motion will be more fully captured.

CAMERA!

The vital component to our cinema experiences. If you’ve been debating the option of annual cinema tickets or a new digital camera for your loved ones for Christmas (we know you have.. come on.. who wouldn’t?) Then look no further.. you can get both without a hint of hesitation.

All of Samsung’s NV digital cameras come with a free 2-4-1 cinema pass, valid for one year, until the 31st of December. That’s a great deal considering Orange is does the same deal only once a week, and this is valid every day of the week in these cinemas nationwide.

The NV Series cameras come loaded with features, and all range from about £100-£200, depending on whether you’re the point-and-shoot type or the technologically-enhanced-features type.

Check out the NV Series on the Samsung Camera site for details of each model.

the NV9 boasts 10.2 megapixels, 5x optical zoom and a large lcd screen - along with its multimedia functionality this camera is really impressive.

The NV9 boasts 10.2 megapixels, 5x optical zoom and a large lcd screen - along with its multimedia functionality this camera is really impressive.

Skyros is an amazing new invention from Siddharth Kambe & Dipti Hanako Kamb, and offers aerial photographs by being launched into the air, stabilising, and then on return to its base takes photos of the scenery — the results can then be reviewed and the process can be repeated.
It can also be used as a regular camera – so the 2 in 1 feature makes it worth the purchase. Find it at Yanko Design.