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Tag : camera

How to Photograph Lunar Eclipse

A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth comes between the Moon and the Sun, blocking sunrays, and the moon comes to pass the Earth’s shadow. This phenomenon happens in the middle of the month on the lunar calendar when the moon is at its fullest. The year 2011 witnessed four solar eclipses and one lunar eclipses, today being the second.
Kuwait meteorologists Al-Saadoun told KUNA, the eclipse would start with moon rise at 4:45 p.m. and last till 8:00 p.m. It is not a central eclipse and we would see some sunlight on the bottom side, and this would be the last eclipse this year. (Source: KUNA)

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Knowledge Base 2

Understanding Exposure with Aperture, Shutter speed & ISO

Photography means an art or process of producing pictures by the action of light. To get a good sharp picture, three main elements which needs to be considered are Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO.
Exposure = Aperture + Shutter Speed + ISO
Generally DSLR beginners let their cameras in Auto mode to determine exposure. The camera won’t always get it right and you may end with undesired (underexposed or overexposed) picture.

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Knowledge Base 0

Photographer arrested

Police arrested a Photographer for taking photos of the Indian Embassy in Kuwait. The photographer sensed police presence and tried to escape the place, however police chased him and arrested. Police seized a camera containing photos of the embassy in different angles. The photographer has been referred to state security.

Kuwait bans taking photography of any sensitive areas in the country and photography is prohibited in all embassy premises in the country.

Source: IIK (http://www.indiansinkuwait.com/ShowArticle.aspx?ID=12924&SECTION=0)

Please Note: In Kuwait photography is not officially forbidden, Security officials are sensitive about photographs taken of government buildings, military installations, and other public facilities including few malls and hypermarket. In general these place will caution with boards mentioning “Photography not allowed/Prohibited”. Photography of these subjects may result in seizure of photographic equipment by security authorities. Please note most Kuwaiti’s object to having their picture taken, you should ask permission before taking photographs. Always respect the law of the land.

The only issue here in Kuwait is most of the times Photographers are treated as criminals, No Official Photography Club where Individuals/Group (at least for expats) can register, Non-Issuance of Photographer ID (even with discretion)

News 0

Fractalius – A Photoshop Plug-in

As the title suggests “Fractalius” is a Redfield Photoshop plugin. This plug-in creates unusual eccentric artworks in a single step. The effects are based on extraction of so-called hidden fractal texture of an image. You can also simulate various types of exotic lighting’s and high realistic pencil sketches.

Now this plugin is quite easy to install and the end result is quite electrifying. Here’s a detailed tutorial

Make sure you have Adobe Photoshop installed. You can download this plugin from here, select Fractalius plug-in V1.75 (32/64) bit and download the executable file. This is a demo version with all functionality, except that you shall have the word “DEMO” printed all over the filtered image. If you like you an purchase the Pro-Edition.

Once downloaded, install this plugin and it does all the necessary setup.

Step 1: Open you image in Photoshop in the normal way, you can now use the plugin. Make a Duplicate of the original image (hide this layer) and work on the new image. Go to the Filter menu, in the bottom drop-down list you will find Redfield, click on Fractalius Demo. The Redfield Plug-in dialog box is open, in the centre of the dialog box you have preview of the image and on the left side you have various setting. In the bottom left you have 2 Buttons, Green- To Apply and Red – To Cancel.

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Knowledge Base 0

Nikon Lenses iPhone App

I recently downloaded the Nikon Lenses app on my iPhone. The iphone App supports iOS 3.0 or later and is compatible with iphone, iPod Touch and iPad. This app is a guide to Nikon’s current lineup of F-Mount lenses used by both Nikon’s digital and film SLR cameras.You can either view all the lenses at a glance or you can further view in a selected category and sort in terms of Aperture, Focal Length and ESP (Estimated Retail Price). Each lens has a detail page which provides links to the Nikon web page detailing the lens, reviews of the lens from third parties (if available – brand new lenses might not have reviews yet) and where to rent the lens (available United States only).

I personally like the application being a Nikon fan. The app is available free and they do update to keep up with the new line of Nikon lenses. The latest version 1.4 has Retina Display support – higher resolution images of lens and includes information on AF-S DX Micro NIKKOR 40mm f/2.8G.

You can check their site here or search for Nikon Lenses on iTunes App store

Knowledge Base / News 0

Photolenders… Photo Gears on Rent

While browsing through Chuknum blog over the weekend, I read on this new website called “Photo Lenders“. As this site is launched by a talented Kuwaiti photographer Khalid Al-Abdulghafoor, I’m sure as a photographer he would understand the photography need of such a site here in Kuwait. I really feel this would do wonders to lot many amateur photographers like me and also serve the professionals since photography gears are quite expensive and you definitely would love to try a particular glass (lens) before buying. There are times when you may need a particular glass just to serve a temporary purpose (a friends wedding over the weekend, or if you love to take a macro shot).

Renting out camera and photo gears is a common concept atleast in India, US and Canada. Having spent some time on Photo Lenders, I realised they have plenty of Canon lenses. The choice on Nikon lenses are few, but then they have the popular Nikon 24-70 mm f/2.8 ED; Nikon 105 mm f/2D and more. The Nikon Telephoto lens 70-200 mm f/2.8 ED VR II is coming soon and I definitely would love to try before I think of buying the beast. I have no clue if they rent camera since nothing is mentioned on the site, but they have other accessories which you want to check.

I would definitely recommend to browse www.photolenders.com and find your interesting gears and accessories. You can also connect them on Facebook and find out their latest news.

My best wishes to Mr. Khalid for the website and his creative idea.

News 4

Samsung ES30

The Samsung ES30 sold like hot cakes when X-Cite had a promotional offer for KD. 19.900 (exclusive of memory card). My office colleagues brought a few couple of these cameras using the X-Cite Express Delivery Service. Watching the bug around the office, I decided to make a small review of the camera.

The Samsung ES30 is a compact entry level digital camera. I guess the popularity is because of the low price and with its weight (approx.140 gms). It can easily slip into a shirt pocket. The camera boosts a CCD sensor with 12.21 megapixels and 5x optical (35mm film equivalent: 27 – 135mm) wide angel zoom lens. The Minimum aperture wide is f3.5 and Minimum aperture telephoto is f5.9. The camera has a surprising 3 inch TFT LCD screen; the screen can be viewed clearly even on bright sunlight. The camera support includes built in Program AE selection, Smile and Blink detection for portrait photography, macro support up to 5cm away from the subject, JPEG file format, 640×480 pixel VGA movie resolutions @ 30 fps and ISO rating from Auto to 1600 for low light photography. It supports Video out, Mono Internal speaker and Microphone, USB 2.0 Hi-speed and SD/SDHC memory card. Memory card supports 4GB on SD and 8GB on SDHC.
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Reviews 0

Nikon receives 2 TIPA Awards 2011

TOKYO-Nikon Corporation is pleased to announce that two of its products are recipients of the prestigious TIPA Awards 2011 for photographic and imaging products. The Nikon D7000 digital-SLR camera was selected for the Best D-SLR Advanced award and the COOLPIX P300 for the Best General Compact Camera award.

The best photographic and imaging products in a number of categories, announced between April 1, 2010 and March 31, 2011, were selected for the TIPA Awards 2011 through voting by editors from member camera and imaging magazines from nine European countries, Australia, Canada, China, the United States of America and South Africa.
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Shooting RAW vs JPEG

RAW is often a properitary format of a camera make. Raw is generally like a digital negative which holds all data captured by camera sensor, thus providing functional flexibilty to adjust exposure, white balance, noise reduction, brightness, clarity, blacks, curves, output resolution etc. RAW isn’t a picture unless it is processed. There are plenty of software available with additional capabitlities which helps in processing these data. There are both free and priced version of software available, you can choose depending on your usuage and ease of understanding. The most popular ones are Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, in Adobe you may need to add RAW plugins if they are not installed by default. Gimp and Raw Therapee are couple of free RAW image processing applications. RAW takes bit more time to read and write data and also consumes more spaces in the camera’s flash card.

JPEG are universal. All operating system will have a default application to open JPEG. The camera itself does the conversion before saving the image to camera’s flash memory. The image takes less space and easier to handle for email attachment and web display. JPEG are lossless format, each time the file is saved the data is compressed with some data being lost in the process, thereby considerable loss of color range, color sharpness and saturation. Most DSLR’s enables you to choose the JPEG file size (Small [S], Medium [M] and Large [L]). Adobe Photoshop enables you to open JPEG image with RAW plugins, though minor adjustments can be achieved, the result of JPEG processing is still limited when compared to RAW

Knowledge Base 0

Furjan Al Emarat Photography Contest 2011

The largest photographic campaign within the United Arab Emirates encouraging professional and talented photographers to take pictures, collect and document all forms of life in the cities, villages and different parts of the UAE. Monetary prizes awarded in 1 main category and 5 sub-categories. For more information: 050 100 0323.

Check their Facebook

Events & Activities 0

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