My cat as just brought us a most lovely present (I think not), a young fledgling starling, but bloody cats, she as been sat on the table for the last weeks watching and squeaking at the birds in the garden, today she got out and did what cats do, killed.

I will try and keep her in until the rest ahave flown the nest, but she gets out through the fan light window and with the weather being so warm I can't have the windows closed all the time. Oh and she does ahve a bell on her colllar, but but gets her prey.

Amur LeopardCanon 350D f5.6 @ 1/500sec 100-400mm Canon IS zoom lens

The perceived wisdom that if you’re after the best quality output from your digital files then you should be recording your images as RAW files. As I said in my previous post RAW is not an acronym but in fact is a good description of the file itself.  

It is a simply just what it says a RAW file has no parameters applied to it. These files have a huge amount of flexibility and when processing you can alter these parameters without losing the original data. If you shoot RAW you are recording a file with a huge amount of potential, whereas a JPEG has far less flexibility, unfortunately a RAW file must be processed.  

RAW files allow to change the parameters such as brightness, white balance, picture style, hue saturation and sharpness, while you can alter the individual red, green and blue colour channels.  

If your camera has the ability then I recommend that you shoot in RAW format, unfortunately these are larger files then JPEG so you are able to store less on your memory cards, but it is worth it. The cost of memory cards has drastically fallen over the last few years, so have a few spare in your bag.  

In the next article, I will explain the digital work flow.

Siberian Tiger
Canon 350D f5 @ 1/400sec: Canon 100 – 400mm IS zoom lens

This article will either be useful to you or be no benefit whatsoever. The taking of the picture is normally the easy part you point the camera at what you want to take a picture a picture off and press the button and you have a perfect image (we hope).

But have you ever considered the format of the file, probably not, that is unless you a more advanced photographer, many people are just concerned with talking the picture and seeing what results we have achieved when we down load it our computers.

However, there a number of formats that is available to us;

JPEG of JPG: Every one of us will be familiar with this format it what every camera and every piece of software recognises, developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group hence the term JPEG. The format uses what is know as a ‘lossy’ compression method. Every time you open and save the image some information is lost. Don’t worry normal viewing will not degrade the image. However, if you keep editing the image eventually it will degrade to such an extent that that it will not able to be used.

Tagged Image File Format (TIFF): This is the most universally recognised image format, most the of big printing companies, magazines and stock agencies require their images in this format. It’s a lossless format in that no matter how times the file is worked it will not degrade. Unfortunately the file sizes are massive compared with JPEG, a 8megapixel shot in JPEG may be 2 or 3 MB depending on the compression, however the same image in TIFF could 25MB or larger a bit of difference don’t you think.

RAW: RAW doesn’t really stand for anything, it’s unique to each camera manufacturer and only the top end cameras will be able to operate this format, when you take a picture in JPEG the camera will apply some processing to the image i.e. white balance. However in RAW no processing takes place, when the image is down loaded it must be processed and then converted the manufacturer will provide the necessary software for this, or there are software packages on the market that will do this.

As I said at the beginning the majority of people do need to worry about these formats just keeping shooting in JPEG as you have always done. I actually shot in RAW format; in my next article I will explain

Cardiff and Portsmouth will contest the final of the FA Cup this afternoon. It a bit of a shock that these teams made it to the final (nothing against either Cardiff or Portsmouth), I would have thought that pubs and clubs would rather have one of the top teams in the final as they will bring in more punters.

I doubt very much that the local pubs around here will be full, however if one of the big four would have made then it would be different story. But that’s not the case so good luck to both teams; I’ll still be watching it’s about the only game I still watch any more.

Saturday, normally I would be getting ready to venture into town and have look around, this Saturday I don’t need a thing and after my asthma episode early in the week, I am making sure that I fully recovered before work on Monday.

Beside next week is Bank Holiday weekend and we are off to Yorkshire to visit my dad, hopefully it will be a nice weekend, I have my fingers crossed already.

As promised I will try and write a few articles on photography, but they might have to wait until tomorrow to be posted.

Rabbit

It's Friday evening and the weekend has begun, I haven't anything planned thius weekend, am just planning on resting this weekend and fully recover from my asthma so am ok to return to work on Monday.

Rabbit

Burma state TV has released more details on the cyclone that hit the country nearly two weeks ago, the offical death toll has now jumped to 78,000 with 56,000 still missing. The Red Cross and UN have estimated the death to be over 100,000.

Mean whle in China some 5 million people have been made homeless after the earth quake last week, the offical death toll is now at 22,000 but is expected to rise to over 50,000.

Scottish Wildcat
(Canon 350D – f5.6 @ 1/1600sec: Sigma 50 – 500mm zoom lens)    

I am intending to post more articles on photography, but it will take me a little time to draft them, hopefully you find interesting and informative and maybe you might even learn something.  They say photography is an art, I have never considered myself an artist, I just love photography and nature and the two come together so well. Along with the articles I will post some of favourite shots. If you enjoy photography and you are not already a member, please join the photography group, we have some great photographs posted there, you can gain tips and inspiration from other member.

If you haven’t already got a digital camera (where have you been- sorry couldn’t help that) or you are thinking of buying a new camera. You really need to decide what you intend to with the camera, if it’s just for taking on holiday or taking pictures of the kids playing in the garden then you won’t need a digital SLR, but what other options are available.

The first thing that the majority of people will look at is the resolution of the camera. This is the numbers of pixels on the sensor and will determine what size an image may be printed at. A senor with 3,027 x 2,048 will have a resolution of 6 megapixels. Printed at 300dpi this will produce a print of 10 x 6” (25 x 15cm), which for normal family pictures is perfectly adequate. However, if you are planning on selling your images then this may not be good enough; we will discuss this in a later post.

So we have decided that a resolution of 6 megapixels is fine, but what’s the next thing we need to consider. Do you want flexibility, by this I mean a camera that’s small light weight and can easily fit into your pocket? With a compact camera you don’t have to worry about shutter speed or aperture all you do is point and shot, the camera will take care of all the settings. If this what you require than a compact will be perfectly adequate, the cost of camera might range from around £30 upwards but the results are good enough to put in the family album and you can enjoy them for years to come.

However, you may want to go down the route of the semi pro camera, these are very much like the digital SLR but you don’t have to change the lens, which can be a good thing but it does limit the camera somewhat, however the results can be just as good as a digital SLR. You can alter some of the setting, shutter speed, aperture and even the ISO settings. So it does feel like a digital SLR.

A digital SLR is the choice of professional or dedicated amateurs more expensive than semi professional cameras but do generally produce better results, these have an interchangeable lens. The choice of lens will depend on what you intend to shot, wildlife need a longer zoom lens 400mm or 500mm focal length, while landscape will need a wide angle lens. Of course the semi pro cameras do have zooms and wide angle settings but these are limited and do not produce as good as result as a digital SLR. If your considering a digital SLR, you really do need to consider what you intend to shoot, lens are expensive, I own a Sigma 50 – 500mm zoom lens, it produces great results but is very expensive, at about £700 it’s a very big outlay, and it very heavy you don’t want to carry it around for very long.

There are numerous magazines on the market that will help you decide make of camera to buy, but for family shots and the like go for the compact, if you want more control over your pictures than a semi pro type camera will suffice. If you to do even more or sell your pictures then maybe you are looking at a digital SLR.

But what ever you opt for enjoy yourself; photography is great fun and the images you take will remind in years to come the joy and happiness you have had through the years. Remember the saying a picture paints a thousand words.

Digital technology has come in leaps and bounds over the last decade; this can dramatically be seen in photography. Sales of digital cameras have soared and few people would argue that photographers are living in dynamic and interesting times.

The first digital camera appeared in 1984, produced by Kodak it had a sensor that produced a 1.4 megapixel image, then in 1991 the first professional camera was produced a 1.3 megapixel sensor was housed in a Nikon camera body.

Since the mid 1990’s the manufacture and sale digital cameras started to increase, with Sony, Kodak and Casio all producing digital cameras. But the market was still lead by film. It was probably canon who did more than any other company to lead the way in the digital age, it produced EOS 1D, aimed at photojournalist it had a 4 megapixel camera. Then came the10D with a 6 megapixel senor, and then the 300D came on the market, it was the first DSLR to sell for under a $1000, a major break through in the digital age.

I bought my first digital camera in 1999, a SonyCyber shot, it had a sensor that produced an image of 2.1 megapixels, I still have it and it still produces reasonable images.

In this decade the sensors for camera have progressed at an unbelievable rate, my mobile phone has a sensor that will produce an image with a resolution of 5 megapixels.

Film camera are on there last legs, I do still shot on film. I picked up a Canon EOS500 for a fiver on Ebay and it producers great pictures, and I can even get the pictures scanned on to disc when they are developed. But in the main only professionals use film and then only in medium and large format cameras.

Cameras with sensors up to 12 megapixels are available with very little outlay, no matter what type of camera you use, a DSLR or a compact digital camera the quality of images that they can take are breathtaking.

In the next article we will consider the type of camera that best for the individual.