3 standouts from CES

The world's biggest tech show, CES 2012, wrapped up a few weeks ago after displaying all the newest tablets, TV's and cameras to a huge crowd hungry for the latest gadget news. It's kinda like being Tim the Tool Man Taylor at a Binford Tools convention – but for tech geeks. One day I hope to make the trip in person, but for now I'll have to be content to monitor it from the wings on the internet. This column is a little short to cover all the exciting products unveiled – but I wanted to focus on the cameras that caught my eye.

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Errol Morris Speaks to The Guardian About Truth in Photography

Here is a great interview with legendary documentary film maker Errol Morris that he recently did with the British Newspaper, The Guardian. 

He speaks about truth in photography, and how he believes all photography is posed in someway:

A photograph decontextualizes everything...you see this swatch of two deminsial reality that has been torn out of the fabric of the world. The only way we can know what we're looking at  - is to investigate.

Taking Better Pictures With Your Cellphone

There is a growing online community of photographers that are using their cellphones as their primary camera. All cellphones from iPhones to Androids are including better and better cameras in their new handsets. So what can you do to make your photos stand out from the crowd?

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The Photographer's Ephemeris

About 12 years ago when I was really starting to get into photography, I set out to Long Island in Digby county Nova Scotia to get a shot of the famous “Balancing Rock”. If you have never been there before, it’s a little bit of a trek. I headed up to Digby, then took the car ferry to Long Island. After that I made a long hike in to get to the rock, which is a fair distance from the road, schlepping my camera, lens, tripod and film (I’m dating myself here). I arrived at the rock just before sunset, and climbed down the hill to the base of the balancing rock before us. Problem was: it was in complete shadow from nearby cliff face. All of the wonderful pictures I had seen before of the rock bathed in beautiful golden light had obviously been taken at sunrise.

It’s then that I realized: planning is everything in landscape photography.

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Panasonic Lumix GF1 Review

 Last year a new series of cameras has emerged that combines the size of point shoot cameras with the ability to change lenses like a traditional SLR (single lens reflex) camera.

Little has changed in camera design since the SLR camera was invented back in 1949. Last year Olympus and Panasonic teamed up to produce several cameras based on the same lens mount, called the Micro Four Thirds system.

I think maybe they could have come up with a better name for the system, but I guess it was the engineers turn to do the naming. Name aside, the system is interesting.

By removing the mirror in a traditional SLR camera, you can dramatically reduce the size of the camera but keep all the benefits of interchangeable lenses. It also has a much larger sensor then most point and shoot digital cameras, which gives you much better image quality and usability in lower light. You can also look directly through the lens via live view on the LCD screen, or through a viewfinder attachment that you can buy separately.

I thought I would see what all the buzz was about and I decided to test out a Panasonic Lumix GF1 kit with a 20mm f1.7 'pancake' lens (pancake because of its ultra thin design, and 1.7 means it has a large aperture to let in lots of light). Thanks to the folks at Henrys in Bayers Lake for letting me give it a test drive for a few days.

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