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.

It has been reported that soldiers are supplying criminal gangs with guns and ammunition. Eighteen army servicemen have been dealt with either summarily or by army courts martial for theft of military equipment in the last three years, four of which involved the theft of firearms. Among them was marine John Hickman, jailed last year for seven-and-a-half years for stealing a Browning 9mm pistol from the naval base in Faslane, on the Clyde.

There is no evidence to suggest that any guns used in UK crimes were smuggled into the UK by HM Forces personnel from the operational theatres of Afghanistan and Iraq.

A statement issued by the MoD said "The MoD takes the loss of any service weapon very seriously. We work very closely with both the civil police and with HMRC to prevent the smuggling of weapons from operational theatres.

"Any allegations of this activity are investigated rigorously by the appropriate authorities and, should suspects be identified, they would be tried in a court of law and sentenced accordingly."

MoD records showed the number of weapons stolen from the services has risen from six in 2005 to 16 last year. The number lost rose from three to 21 in the same period.

What a difference between the two major disasters that have taken place in Asia over the last two weeks. The earthquake in China may have claimed the lives of up to 50,000 people. This once secretive society has now let in the worlds press and the whole world can see the rescue operation. China is a large a powerful nation and does not require aid; Britain has sent some specialist organisations that have fast experience in searching for survivors and bodies in earthquake struck areas.

On the other hand we have Burma, it been nearly two weeks now since the cyclone struck and very little information has come out, the Military Government has not let aid agencies into the area and very little food aid has been allowed in, what little food has been flown has been confiscated by the Government. The world does not know what is going on in Burma but from the sketchy reports that have come out it does not look good. We can only hope that the Government of Burma comes to its senses very quickly to prevent this disaster becoming very much worse.

Although I am feeling better am still not back to normal, so I remain off work and idoors at home, wish is not a bad thing looking outside at the weather. I think I will do a little reading, amd do a few posts on here.

Rabbit