In case you want to take good photographs (as opposed to just being a camera geek), you'll be well served to read Alain Briot's series - "Aesthetics and Photography" on the Luminous Landscape. The webpage there doesn't really list the articles in the correct order, (I have no idea why!), so I'll list them in sequence (and by conceptual grouping) here -

The Basics
1) How to See Photographically
2) How to Compose a Photograph

The Technique
3) How to Choose the Best Lens For a Specific Composition
4) How to Find the Best Light for a Specific Photograph
5) How to Select the Best “film” for a Specific Image with both Film and Digital Capture
6) How to determine the best exposure for a specific photograph with film and digital capture

The Operational
7) How to Decide Which Photographs Are Keepers and Which Ones Are Not
8) How to Create a Portfolio of your Work

The Unteachable
9) How to Establish a Personal Photographic Style
10) Being an Artist

There are more of Alain Briot's columns (Briot's View) here, and his own website can be found here. I'd previously linked to an article by Ken Rockwell - How to Make Great Photographs or "Everything You Really Needed to Learn About Photography That They Didn't Teach You at Brooks", that stems from the same philosophy. Read that here.

For camera geekery (I wouldn't deny my own guilt, of course...), there's DPReviews. :)

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Arts~ ~Photo~

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... sweet makes me puke! Read the June 5 Sunday Morning Photographer to see where you are (if...). While you are at it, read the one about Modes too. That's a good one.

Meanwhile, I've been using the VGA camera on my PM-225 quasi-regularly. I *might* start some sort of a photoblog once I get the connection software.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Photo~

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Got the first roll of my photos back. Most of them are crap. Some do look somwhat like I wanted them to, but need reshooting.
Will work for Perfection.

Meanwhile - Mandatory reading for anyone who wants more than just to take snaps.
and
Understand some of the Master's work at SFMOMA's online exihibit.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Photo~
Edited on: Thursday, April 08, 2004 4:13 PM
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Nikon FM3A - $465 on ebay. [review]
Nikon Nikkor 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 AF Zoom lens - $190 on ebay.[review]
Nikon Series E AI-s 50mm f/1.8 lens - $60 on ebay. [review]
Nikon Series E AI-s 28mm f/2.8 lens - $46 on ebay. [was pointing to the wrong review... this one is a simple 5 element 5 group design, unlike the 8 element 8 groups design of the Nikkor...and consequently costs only a third as much!]

Finally getting my own SLR camera - Priceless.

Cost of Priceless on ebay - less than half of retail. :D

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Photo~
Edited on: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 5:09 PM
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Apparently, now I'm firmly on the SLR path now, having won a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AIS for 51precious dollars! Also bidding on a couple of other lenses, and maybe an FM3A itself...
So much for the 256 mb CF II card I bought a while back... I guess I'll buy a reader/writer and use it as a USB flash drive now...

In Passing: an egaging interview with Strobe Talbot

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~Photo~ ~World~

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Read all about it...

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Photo~

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... how about a Nikon FM3A with a bunch of Phoenix or Vivitar lenses for now?

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Photo~
Edited on: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 6:51 PM
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An article on clichés in photography, and the response it generates...
Mike Johnston writes very interesting Sunday Morning articles on photography on the Luminous Landscape website.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Photo~

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DPRview just released its complete review of the new Sony DSC-F828. On the good side, they like most everything about the camera. On the bad, the image quality, as many had feared, is quite poor. Hence the F828 gets a (barely) recommended rating! This puts me in a great dilemma, as I've been waiting for F828 to be available for quite a while. It's a shame that the only major problems with this camera chromatic aberration and image noise, are related to the hardware and hence there is probably little that Sony can do - in terms improving the image processing algorithms - that will solve these problems and not introduce other artifacts.
On the other hand, quite a number of people who've purchased it seem to be happy with it, and are posting a large number of pictures on the net. I suppose I'll wait to see if Sony upgrades the firmware to reduce noise and CA, and go through the pictures people are posting. Also, post capture processing in Photoshop or other image processing tools should be helpful, although that'll eat up more time....

The other cameras under consideration are Minolta's Dimage A1[Recommended] and Canon's EOS 300D [Highly Recommended], but both have their own limitations - A1 is 5 megapixels, and the image processing introduces a lot of artefacts, and EOS 300D is - a) costly - when you include the cost of lenses & b) a hobbled version of EOS 10D (QUITE expensive)

Other F828 reviews - DCResource, Imaging Resource [a preview, as of now] Luminous-Landscape [verdict: A flawed jewel!] etc....

...UPDATE: The final comment from the 'flawed jewel' review: "So, should you wait for the F838 and some of the needed fixes. Hell no — you'd be missing out on one of the most enjoyable digital cameras yet available. There's always going to be something new on the horizon." However, I think I'll wait till April to buy(?) mine. Knowing me, if I bought it right now, I'd likely abandon my research and go off clicking... ;-)

In Passing: I don't know how many people have heard of Google's New Alerts service. It's quite a handy tool if you want to keep on top of developments about some particular thing [provided said developments are reported in the '4,500 news sources' Google looks at, of course!] That's how I've been getting to know whenever somebody posts a complete review of the F828. Also, as I've just come to know, there's a Google News India which focuses on news important to India. Interesting...

- Chinmay

Categories - ~GeekStuff~ ~Photo~
Edited on: Sunday, January 11, 2004 9:02 PM
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Much to the chagrin of my regular and loyal readership [the same numbering around 3], the blog has been silent for a week and a day now, so this is the time to put things right. As you might have noticed, I was busy stirring a storm in a few e-cups for the past week. After that, I suppose I was just plain lazy.
Don't have much to write even now, since I spend most of my time looking at F828 on sony's website [not sure the link will work, they prbably have session ID], and dreaming about the moment when I will first hold it in my hand ;-).
But in any case, I'm back, and will post more or less regularly henceforth. Meanwhile, I've just added one more short paragraph to the story.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Me~ ~Photo~ ~ThisBlog~
Edited on: Sunday, January 11, 2004 9:05 PM
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