Lastolite
Lastolite Lighting Control | Lastolite Backgrounds | Lastolite reflectors |Lastolite Skylite | Triflector Mark II | Posing Tubs | Baby Poser |
Umbrellas and softboxes | Cubelite and ephotomaker | Lastolite Accessories | Collapsible backgrounds |Curtain Backgrounds | Chromakey Background |
Paper Roll Backgrounds | Background Support Systems | Scroll Backgrounds | Studio Props | Cromatek 75 Filter systems | Cromatek 100 Filter Systems |
Matte Box and proshades | 75 Adaptor Rings | Softeners, Diffusers and Vignetters | 75 Graduated Filters | Polariser | Colour Star and closeup filters |
75 Filter Kits |Cromatek 75 Accessories | Compact Holder and Proshade | 100 Adaptor rings | Polarizers and Conversion filters | Colour and Correction |
Cromatek 100 Graduated Filters | Sunset, Star and closeup filters | Diffuser, soft and stocking | Cromatek 100 Accessories |
Tamrac | Tamrac SLR and Computer bags | SLR Zoomsters | Tamrac Photo and Computer backpacks | Tamrac Video Holdalls |
Strongboxes | Tamrac Accessories | Delkin Devices |Delkin Batteries | Camcorder batteries | Batteries for Casio, Kodak. Kyocera, Leica |
Digital Camera Batteries | Fuji Batteries | Batteries for Olympus and Panasonic | Sony Batteries | Nikon Batteries | Canon batteries |
Delkin Picture Vision | Delkin Archival Gold | Delkin Burnaway | Card Adaptors | Card Readers | Memory Cards | Unicolor Grey Card | inpro optics| international festival of the sea |
| Marine Binoculars | Spotting Scope | Waterproof Binoculars |
Spa Photo offers mail order Cromatek filters, Lastolite photographic
studio reflectors and backgrounds, Elinchrom flash and lighting,
Smart Media Cards, Compact Flash Cards, XD Cards, IBM Microdrives,
Multi Media Cards, SD Cards, B+W filters, photographic filters.
What Camera Should I Buy?
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Fundamentally, all cameras are the same and, given identical film
and settings, a cheap camera will take the same photograph as
an expensive camera. More money doesn't directly buy your more
quality but more control over the image.
A camera is a box with a hole in it. You can make one out of a
shoe box with a window of transparent paper on one side and a
small hole in the opposite side. Physics teachers call this a
'pinhole camera.' Adding more controls, mainly to do with the
lens, produces different types of cameras.
Disposable Camera. These one-time use cameras are easy to carry
and take surprisingly good shots. They are great for people shots
at parties.
Compact Camera. Perfect for snapshots. I like a small, pocket-sized
camera with a flash (for people's faces), a self-timer (to include
myself in the shot), a wide-angle lens (28mm for impact), and
a panoramic mode (looks cool!). I don't like the zoom lenses,
as they increase the size and weight of the camera. The downside
to not having a zoom is that you're limited to the lens provided.
SLR. The choice of amateur and professional travel photographers.
The Single Lens Reflex feature -- which allows the viewfinder
to look through the main lens instead of its own fixed lens --
allows you to remove and replace the lens. Interchangeable lenses
give you more creative control of your shot. You can make a super-wide
shot with a 'short' lens, or enlarge a very distant object with
a 'long' lens. My favorite lens sizes are 28, 35, 50, 135, and
300mm. You can also control the aperture (the size of the hole)
which allows you to decide what is, and what is not, in focus.
The downside to the SLR is that you now have more equipment to
buy and carry.
Medium- and Large-Format. These are bigger versions of the SLR
camera which allow you to use larger (and thus higher resolution)
film. Mainly used by stock photographers, the equipment is large
and heavy and, therefore, inconvenient for basic travel purposes.
Look for a camera with the simplest layout of the features you
need and, as with the stock market, only invest in what you understand.
Digital cameras are very straightforward in use and you don't
need to be a great computer expert to get good results.
You should give some consideration to a few points before you
make your final choice, however.
First off, what computer are you going to use for downloading
images. If you have a PC it's compatible with just about every
digital camera, but if you have a Mac or an iMac you should check
with us before ordering.
What are you going to do with your images?
If you want to print them at fairly large size - over about 6x4",
you should consider a megapixel or 2 megapixel camera, as this
will provide sufficient information for your printer to give good
results. If you are taking pictures specifically for use on the
computer screen, either for presentation purposes or for web sites,
you don't really need more than 800 x 600 pixels resolution, as
this is as much as most computer screens can display. But, if
you choose a higher resolution, you do have the opportunity to
crop picture sections, giving you the effect of a zoom lens.
Do you need a zoom lens to bring distant subject closer. If so,
an optical zoom will give better results than a digital zoom, because the latter actually reduces your resolution (the
number of pixels (dots) that make up your image.
Will you use the camera a lot? If so, consider buying some rechargeable
batteries, as battery use can be heavy, especially while you are
connected to the computer for download.
Consider buying a card reader or a Smart Media Flashpath adaptor,
avoids using the camera for downloading images. It's quicker than
the camera cable and does not drain the batteries.
Think about buying a spare storage card or two. Then, when you
have a lot of images to take, you don't have to rush home to download
pictures - just swap the card over.
If you think moving pictures would be handy, too, you could buy
a digital camcorder, so that you can shoot digital stills and
videos, according to your need at the moment.
