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Canon Powershot G10 Review:

If you’re looking to take your photography skills to the next level, but aren’t ready for an SLR yet- the Canon Powershot G10 is your man.

While the Canon Rebel and Nikon D60 are popular and rather inexpensive, they are bulky and not user-friendly. That’s where the high-speed compact comes in.

Like the Nikon Coolpix P6000 and the Sigma DP1, the Canon Powershot G10 is packed with the good features. But the most important part of these three cameras is the sensor. Camera makers have figured out how to put an SLR sensor into a smaller package, which is important if you’re planning on using the photos on the internet, in print or blowing them up.

These larger sensors let in more light, which creates a better image with less “noise”. In addition to that you’ll have control of features like aperture, white balance, ISO settings and the ability to create RAW photos (which is what real photographers shoot). And produces the resolution to 14.7 megapixels

While the G9 was a good camera, the G10 has upgraded the handling and control refinements, has improved the LCD resolution, and has added a wider lens starting at 28mm. The updated lens, though wider at the wide end, is also shorter at the long end, and has less zoom range overall. It also retains the rangefinder styling and solid build quality, and reduces the amount of silver accents on the camera.

Canon PowerShot G10 features 14.7 Megapixels CCD sensor, 5x optical zoom (35mm film equivalent: 28-140mm), DIGIC 4 for better Face Detection, capability to shoot RAW just like a DSLR camera, ISO 80-1600, and a 3.0-inch TFT color LCD with wide viewing angle. The camera measures 4.30 x 3.06 x 1.81 in./109.1 x 77.7 x 45.9mm and weighs Approx. 12.3 oz./350g. The PowerShot G10 is available from October 2008

The Casio Exilim Ex-S10 is an Amazing Tech Products.com Award Winner. See the Amazing Tech Products Review:

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#Image Resolution up to 3748 x 2736
# 4X Digital Zoom
# Features YouTube Capture Mode, a best shot setting that allows users to shoot video at the optimum size and quality settings for YouTube.
# MPEG-4 H.264/AVC recording provides recording and playback of hi-res video at remarkably small file sizes
# Face recognition sets the focus, exposure and flash
# 36 Photo Best Shot Modes
# Built-in voice recoder
# 3 11/16 W x 2 1/8 H x 5/8 D
# Uses SD, SDHC and MMC memory cards
# Includes NP-60 Li-Ion battery and charger, AC power cord, USB and AV cables, strap and software

The race for mega pixels has started and there is no way to stop it. Every few months cameras with more pixels hit the market. The manufacturers want you to dump your old camera and buy the newest and greatest one after all aren’t 10 mega pixels better than just 8? Apparently the answer is not that simple.

As with many other things when it comes to mega pixels more is not necessarily better. There are many considerations when buying a camera and the number of mega pixels is just one of them.
One of the most important things to consider is usage. More mega pixels are good for people who plan to print photos (especially enlargements) or for people who need to zoom in and grab fine details from a big photo. If the main usage of the photos is watching them on your computer screen and maybe printing a few 4X6 prints than 2 mega pixels is more than enough (yes… just 2). Most screen resolutions are 1024X768 so even when viewing the photo in full screen mode you can only view 1024X768 < 1 mega pixels. A 2 mega pixels 4X6 photo print will have a DPI higher than 300 which is more than enough for a good quality print.

If you plan to use your photos for enlargements than a rule of thumb is to be able to print at least 300DPI resolution. The following is a table for different print sizes and the needed mega pixels for such print quality:

page 4X6 2MP
page 5X7 3MP
page 8X10 7MP
page 11X14 14MP
page 16X20 28MP
page 20X30 54MP

Another practical consideration is price and budget: Usually the more mega pixels the more expensive the camera is. Unless your budget is infinite when buying a camera you make a compromise between mega pixels and other features. For example is it better to spend money on more mega pixels or on better lenses? Or maybe instead of getting the latest number of mega pixels get an external flash for low light photography? When buying a camera try to predict what and how you will use it. In many cases a lower mega pixels sensor with better a lens will result in a much better photo than a high mega pixels with an inferior lens. Shop around and make sure that you get the best package in terms of mega pixels and other features.

To conclude when shopping for a camera it is best not to be a victim of the mega pixels race. Although it is generally a good thing to have a high number of pixels there are many other factors that influence the quality of the photos taken and the choice of the right camera for you. Lenses, battery life, light sensitivity, sensor technology used, external flash and many other features are not less important as the number of mega pixels. When shopping for a camera make sure that you consider the whole package and not use the number of mega pixels as a “quality” indicator for your buy.

Why in the world would you need a waterproof digital camera? No, you don’t have to be a scuba diver to have this need. You could need one because you like to sail or enjoy taking pictures outdoors. Even the rain can harm some types of digital cameras. So, if you enjoy taking pictures you may want to look into options for a waterproof camera.

The options range from waterproof casings to waterproof and weather resistant digital cameras. A waterproof casing is basically a housing unit you can buy for your existing camera and use when the conditions require it. These units can be purchased for most cameras as they are manufactured by many of the larger camera companies including, Canon, Olympus and Sony. If scuba diving were your thing, you can purchase a waterproof casing that is capable of being submersed 130 feet.

If you don’t want to add the casing to your existing camera and have an ongoing need for a waterproof digital camera there are many options on the market today. Again, Canon, Olympus, Sony and Pentax all offer a waterproof camera. These cameras have all of the bells and whistles of non waterproof models from flash to movie making capabilities. It is better to purchase a package deal that includes a memory card, editing software, and USB connection.

There are many factors to consider with deciding on purchasing a waterproof casing or waterproof camera, not the least of which is price. How much you are able to spend will determine the resolution you are able to obtain. Low resolutions cameras around two megapixels are suitable for printing 5×7 photos and email while it is recommend you have at least a four megapixel camera for larger prints. Only professionals who will be doing editing really have then need for a camera over 5 megapixels.

An important characteristic to keep in mind when purchasing a waterproof camera is ease of use. Personally, I want something that I can take right out of the box, point and shoot. The more hassle and setup involved the more likely I am to say “forget it.” Some cameras also take a long time to warm up and start. If you are going to the trouble of purchasing a waterproof camera in the first place, you are likely shooting in wet conditions and will want something that starts fast. Another feature to check out is the LCD display. Make sure you can easily view this in all lighting conditions from low light to sunlight.

Now get out there and start taking some photos with your new waterproof camera.

A digital camera is nothing without all the other accessories that allows it to perform superbly. The memory card is the most important addition you can make to a digital camera, but a soft camera case is also very handy to have around as it will protect your camera from damage.

1. Camera Cases

A soft camera case costs $10 to 20 but it can protect your camera from damage caused by dropping or careless handling. Those who travel a lot should buy a strong camera bag for further protection.

2. Cleaning Kit

A cleaning kit is a great investment for your digital camera. You should never clean any optics of your camera using your shirt, fingers, water or breath. The kit, that costs a few dollars, includes a small blower brush, a soft cloth, a small plastic bottle containing the lens cleaning solution and a number of lens cleaning tissues.

3. Tripod

Another accessory is a tripod, that is needed to prevent camera shake especially when the shutter speed drops below 1/60 second at a wide angle shot. Some digital cameras are equipped with an LCD monitor, that flashes a blinking light as a warning when the shutter speed is likely to cause a camera shake. A tripod is necessary when you are too close to the object in macro photography.

4. Batteries

It is also advisable to buy a spare set of rechargeable batteries. This saves you the embarrassment of getting stuck with drained out batteries during the middle of a photo shoot. Rechargeable batteries last longer, and save you the bother of hunting for battery stores in desolate places.

5. Battery Charger

Batteries from the store will typically only last 30 minutes inside a digital camera - you will need NiMH batteries if you want to be able to take more pictures. These batteries carry a higher charge. Never attempt to charge NiMH batteries in a charger that wasn’t designed for NiMH batteries - you could ruin your batteries - or worse - start a fire and burn your house down.

Before you buy any digital camera, you must think beforehand how you would use your camera as well as what you will do with the pictures. If you intend to buy it, you require balancing number of competing features and parameters. Obviously, your target will be to have a camera that provides you with shooting controls and image quality of your choice in a package that is quite comfortable and easy to use. Also, your ultimate decision will be based on your affordability of the particular camera. So, you can consider some of these buying decision parameters before reaching any final decision.

Making a Budget before Buying a Digital Camera

Before making your decision of buying a digital camera, it is essential that you make a budget. Setting of the budget is important, no matter whether you wish to buy the camera online or from the market. Similar to the buying of any other big item like computer, car or house, you will also get thousands of options of digital camera. It is obvious that you do not want to get stuck with those cameras that you cannot afford. Certainly, high-end camera would offer you the best zoom, more mega pixels, which are not necessarily meant for good images and some other extra features. But you need to remain careful as they cost you more than your affordability.

Especially, if you are just a beginner in the field of digital photography, then it is advised that you must not spend on buying high-end digital SLR or prosumer cameras. You can definitely have some cheaper but powerful compact digital cameras, which are easy to hold and will not add to your luggage during travel. It is the best options to become familiar with the basics of these digital cameras and thereafter only, spend your money to have high-end digital cameras.

Consider Optical Zoom

Some people would disagree but it is the fact that instead of giving too much preference to digital zoo, it must be the optical zoom that needs to be considered.

Actually, the function of digital zooming is to perform an interpolation or computer based guesswork of an image in an effort to extend the perceived zoom distance. It may result in “fuzzy” images or the images may have less clarity. However, the optical zoom performs the function of actual “zoom-in” and “zoom-out “on your subject.

It is okay that higher optical zoom camera will enable you to have a good variety of images, but it will be expensive. This is the reason that lower priced cameras would advertise their digital zoom capabilities more than the optical zoom.

Two Things to Remember

If you are planning to buy a digital camera, then you have number of choices including image quality and zoom capability. However, there are two more things that are must to consider, before buying a digital camera. These are:

Media Type: You will find numerous media types for cameras like Compact Flash, Secure Media and so on. If you have been using a Compact Flash cards earlier then obviously, you will not like to buy a camera that would use some different kind of memory, except in the case that it is providing you with some outstanding features that would compensate your loss.

Battery Type: If at present you are using rechargeable batteries, then you will have to see before buying the camera whether the new one would support the same type of battery or not. However, you may think of having one such camera that has its own custom battery provided that it offers you with double of the mega pixels, a wider zoom lens and better quality photographs.

Small is not necessarily Underpowered- There are certain advantages of buying a small digital camera. First of all, you can easily carry them with you wherever you go. Besides their features like light weight, less conspicuous, they are no more underpowered digital cameras.

It is true that they may not have features similar to digital SLRs or high-end prosumer digital cameras, but still they cannot be underestimated. Their mega pixels are matching and at times even better than their high-priced contemporaries are.

Many of us look for digital cameras that can perform the tasks that we need while being priced at reasonable rates. The various digital cameras can be found in the high end market to the mid range and also cheap digital cameras. When you are looking for the digital camera that you need for your photographs you will find many different types of cheap digital cameras that you can buy.

These different cheap cameras can be bought from a variety of camera stores. The price range from some of these cameras can start at about $30 and go as high as $500. The various cameras that can you find in this cheap digital camera market also have well known brands like Nikon, Minolta, JVC, Kodak and Fuji.

While these cheap digital cameras will lack some of the features that can be found in the high end digital cameras they can deliver good photographs. You will need to look at these cheap digital cameras to see if they have the various items that you require.

These features can be the various shooting modes that you will get from your digital camera. Underwater, foliage, indoor, portrait, automatic are just a few of the shooting modes that you can look for when you are selecting your cheap digital camera. Some cheap digital cameras will feature interesting effects like that of panorama stitching.

This facility allows you to take three different photographs. You can them merge these distinct photographs together to create a fantastic picture. The amount of megapixels may not be that important for everyone but they do allow you to receive sharp and well defined pictures.

Since this is important for accurate and detailed photographs you should look for this information as you are gong through the various types of cheap digital cameras that are available. You can use various photography magazines and digital camera buyer’s guides to help you select the type of digital camera that is within your budget.

You should have a clear idea of the various requirements that you need from your digital camera. This way you can choose the digital camera that has many types of shooting modes, evaluative metering and how well the optical lens will work.

Since there are many different models of digital cameras you will need to know the various features and requirements that you need for taking a picture. Once you know these parameters you can start your hunt for the right type of cheap digital camera. With so many different brands and models of cheap digital cameras in the market you are sure to find your ideal digital camera.

Canon is a world leader in imaging products and solutions for the digital home and office. Amazing image quality and outstanding performance are just two of the many benefits photographers, from beginners to professionals, will experience with a Canon EOS digital camera.

Canon’s high-end PowerShot digital cameras incorporate the creative performance of a professional digital SLR camera and the compact convenience of a point-and-shoot. Canon’s point-and-shoot PowerShot digital cameras are easy to use and boast an array of helpful shooting modes, creative features and advanced functions in an incredibly portable package.

For the Canon accessories, Canon designs optical systems to meet various applications by combining lenses. The design/application of the aspherical lens, fluorite lens and UD lens, and the development of the Vari-Angle Prism form bases for our image-related devices. Some Canon EF lenses incorporate an image stabiliser to prevent camera shake from spoiling the shot. This is particularly useful on close-ups or at slow shutter speeds, in situations where a tripod camera cannot be used.

Canon has been wholly involved in ultraprecision technologies applied in the lens and mirrors of cameras and business machines, automatic focusing mechanisms for cameras.

Now let’s see an example of a compact camera: The PowerShot A710 IS packs a powerful image stabilized 6x optical zoom lens into a remarkably compact space. A real-image optical viewfinder helps with quick composition and framing accuracy. A choice of 20 shooting modes include a full creative zone for manual control and 10 Special Scene modes for tricky lighting conditions, including Snow, Beach and Underwater. My Colors allows dramatic colour effects to be applied to images and movies. High-speed ISO 800 allows you to shoot correctly exposed images in low light conditions without using a flash. ISO 800 also enables shooting at higher shutter speeds, reducing the risk of image blur. A complete range of optional accessories includes wide and tele-converter lenses, a close-up lens and slave flash. A waterproof case allows for underwater shooting at depths of up to 40 metres.

The Canon digital cameras are developed over a DIGIC III Image Processor, the newest models having Face Detection Technology for superior image quality, fast operation and low power consumption. On a dSLR camera, the combined technology of the new CMOS sensor, DIGIC II, and a large buffer system, work together to obtain 4-frame per second Large JPEG continuous shooting. Let’s take for example the EOS-1Ds Mark II’s 2.0″:230,000 pixels LCD is ideal for checking focus and composition and its 10x zoom magnifies details to ensure you have the shot you want; as well as simultaneously shooting RAW and JPEG, there’s also the option to select sRGB or Adobe RGB colour space;white balance (WB) bias is correctable by +/-9 levels for both blue/amber and magenta/green bias and WB bracketing is supported up to +/-3 levels.

All these 40 years of Canon technology resulted in a high quality products designed to satisfy every costumer’s choice. I admire the flexibility and large range of manual functions on all Canon’s digital
cameras, as well as the multitude of scene modes and on-camera effects. But, the real main achievement of Canon Corporation is the appreciation and awards for the best image quality.

The Canon Corporation has an astounding product line of Canon digital camera devices, and compact photo printers that will fit the most discriminatory shopper. Within the Canon digital camera product line are categories of digital cameras that will fit the need of every consumer throughout the world.

The High-End Canon digital camera line features the Power Shot digital camera that is available in three styles, Power Shot G7, Power Shot S3 IS, and the Power Shot S80.
The features of these three high-end Canon digital camera models include still image recording on the Power Shot S80 and Power Shot Se IS models, with still image capabilities and motion picture and monaural capabilities on the Power Shot G7.

All of these models of High-End Canon digital camera models have the 4x digital zoom feature. The total pixel counts of these three high-end Canon digital camera models range from 8.3 megapixels to 10.40 megapixels.

There are 19 Canon Point-and-Shoot digital camera styles available in the Canon digital camera line. The most recent additions to the Canon digital camera Point and Shoot product line are the Power Shot SD900, Power Shot SD800, IS, Power Shot SD40, Power Shot A710 IS, Power Shot A640 and the Power Shot A630.

The features of these Point-and-Shoot models of Canon digital camera devices differ slightly, with a total pixel count that ranges from 7.1 to 10.40 megapixels, with the latest Canon digital camera models varying on the capability of still image recording not being available on 2 models, the Power Shot A710 IS and the Power Shot A640. These models offer still image recording as Normal, Fine and SuperFine instead.

Canon Corporation also offers a superb collection of Digital EOS Canon digital cameras. They are the EOS-1Ds Mark II Digital, EOS-1D Mark II N Digital, EOS 5D Digital, EOS 30D Digital, Digital Rebel Xii, and the Digital Reb XT. The newest addition to the Canon digital camera EOS line is the Digital Rebel XTi.

Some of the features in these Canon digital camera models are 16.7 megapixels, full frame CMOS sensors, DIGIC II Image Processor, fast and responsive EOS class performance, and improved image display. This is a professional level image photography tool line.

Because Canon Corporation cares about the quality and performance of their products, Canon digital camera photography equipment is constantly being reviewed by their well-qualified staff of photographic engineers for safety updates and taking an active stance in solving performance issues to provide their customers with a high-quality photographic experience.

This is a second article addressing SLR film photography Special Effects techniques that can be accomplished “through the lens”, being immediately immortalized on the film and ultimately the negative.

It requires no special instructions to the developing agent, whether your local photography shop or mail in developing service. Your prints will be developed with perfect exposure.

The Impressionist Effect, like the Ghosting Effect detailed in Part 1, , is accomplished by using your SLR’s multiple exposure feature, with a simpler procedure than outlined in your SLR user manual. The Impressionist Effect is more like photo art, ideal for still life or landscape photography, where all is motionless. This effect works particularly well for photographing flowers but would create an equally impactful and artistic photograph of any still life shot that exhibits lots of different colors; like brightly painted houses, fishing boats or toys.

You only take two exposures on the same film frame, one in-focus and the second out-of-focus. This will give your photograph that Monet-style look. The key is that nothing within the frame moves between the first and second shot.

The simple steps to execute the Impressionist Effect are:

1. Stabilize the camera using - a tripod is best, a stable surface is a second option. You might even want to use a remote shutter release cable to avoid any camera jitter.
2. Set number of multiple exposures on your SLR to ‘2′;
3. For the roll of film in your SLR, determine the film speed (S);
4. Reset the camera film speed (Yes, you can override the setting) to (2 × S) or, if not an exact match, set it to the absolute closest speed ((2 × S) ± adjustment);
5. Turn OFF the camera’s LENS Automatic Focus feature (located on the Lens itself);
6. Take your first shot with the frame in sharp focus;
7. Take the second shot with the frame completely out of focus (Yes, turn your lens to extreme out of focus.

REMEMBER: Check and reset the SLR film speed and number of exposures to their original settings before continuing with your next shot. Some SLRs will automatically reset the number of exposures back to ‘1′ before advancing the film to the next frame. It’s always better to verify this.

All of the SLR Film Special Effects for the Impressionist Effect, detailed in this and the previous Ghosting Effect article, require no special instructions for developing your film. Normal developing at the rated film speed will ensure the picture is properly exposed and developed.

This truly artistic photograph will have you considering a number of display options - maybe an 8” x 10” enlargement, or alternatively, a 4” x 6” print in an 8” x 10” double mat – accentuating the Impressionists Art with the classic beauty of a pewter frame. What a thoughtful gift idea for someone special or that special occasion.