American crazy fotographer Wayne Martin Belger and his cameras.
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I’ve been following Newsweek photographer Vincent Laforet’s blog for a week or so.

One post that will be particularly interesting is: Preparing for the Olympics

© Vincent Laforet

Earlier in the week I posted that Nikon have released their new Nikon D90 DSLR, a camera which they are proudly publicizing is the first DSLR to shoot with HD Video.

In the comments on that post the main theme being discussed is whether video belongs on a DSLR.

We’ve long seen video on point and shoot cameras (and I see a lot of people shooting video that way when I’m out and about) but does video belong on a DSLR?

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Nikon have just announced their newest DSLR – the Nikon D90.

The Nikon D90 builds on the success of previous Nikon DSLRs and breaks a little ground of its own as the first DSLR to incorporate shooting HD movie clips.

Using Auto Exposure and Auto Focus that is featured in Nikon’s pro model DSLRs the Nikon D90 has a 12.3 megapixel sensor, ISO range of between 100 to 6400, 3 inch LCD screen (920,000 pixels with 170 degree viewing), Live View mode (for framing shots with the LCD) and a lot of other great features.

The Nikon D90 shoots movies (a first for DSLRs) at 24 frames per second and at a resolution of 1280×720 pixels (16:9), 640×424 (3:2), and 320×216 (3:2).

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Welcome to the fourth lesson in Photography – A Basic Course on the Camera. In this series, we cover all the basics of camera design and use. We talk about the ‘exposure triangle’: shutter speed, aperture and ISO. We talk about focus, depth of field and sharpness, as well as how lenses work, what focal lengths mean and how they put light on the sensor. We also look at the camera itself, how it works, what all the options mean and how they affect your photos.

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Looking for some advice on the best digital camera accessories for beginners? Today guest poster Clark Griffiths examines this topic.

So you have the camera you have the lens/lenses but for some reason you are still not satisfied with your work. Many beginning photographers have this problem at one point or another. For me this took place very early on.

There are several accessories out there that will greatly improve your photography if used right.

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Today I’m pleased to present an introduction to High Dynamic Range Imaging (or HDR PHotography) that has kindly been written by Jason.

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When I first started writing about digital cameras the main question i was asked by readers was ‘Which Camera should I buy?‘ Usually they were in the market for a point, fairly entry level point and shoot digital camera.

However these days with the increase in people buying DSLR cameras (they are so much cheaper and more people are feeling comfortable enough with digital now that they want to take it to the next level) the biggest question that I’m now asked is ‘Which Lens Should I buy for my DSLR?‘
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In the ‘good old days’, when we had finished the day’s photography, we would disappear into the darkroom and spend hours breathing in the fumes of nasty, smelly chemicals in the pursuit of our art, now we have Adobe Photoshop.

Photoshop is the greatest programme known to man, well photographers anyway. Computers were invented just to run Photoshop. Every picture on this website has had some work done on it in Photoshop, even if it was just to get the size right.

This section of the site consists of a few tutorials for the absolute beginner covering such essentials as making your pictures the right size, getting the contrast right and getting the colour right.

These tutorials are not meant as an instruction book for using Photoshop they are designed to help you make better, more informed choices in your editing, whatever software you may use.

Photographing fireworks presents some technical challenges, it needs quite a different approach to most other subjects but follow these few steps carefully and you will be successful. What are we photographing? Basically we are photographing streaks of light that develop over a period of time against a black background. The great thing about a black background is that it makes no impression on the film, or sensor in the case of a digital camera. So we can leave the shutter open as long as we like, the black will still be black.

So, in short, the way to photography fireworks is to set the camera to manual exposure, set the aperture to a suitable
f-stop and the shutter to b or bulb. Open the shutter just before the firework bursts and close it after it’s finished. Easy!

Tripod

The first thing we need is a sturdy tripod. The alternative methods of support that I mentioned in the photographing buildings tutorial won’t cut it here. Here we are talking about seriously long shutter times of several seconds so nothing but a good sturdy tripod will do. The second piece of kit that would be very useful is a remote shutter release so you don’t have to touch the camera at all. In the old days this was a cheap piece of kit called a cable release but nowadays it is more likely to be an electronic gizmo with a higher price tag. I, personally, don’t use one but that’s because I’m a cheapskate.

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