Nissin Di622 Speedlite: A Powerful “Budget” Flash

I was in the market for a new flash unit as my old Vivitar had conked out on me and I didn’t want to spend money having it repaired for the nth time. Budget was a bit of an issue so I was looking for a flash unit that produces good results but would not burn a hole in my pocket. Surfing the ‘Net for deals, I found a used (3 weeks old) Nissin Di622 Speedlite flash being sold at half the price so I went for it – and I tell you, I am not disappointed with what I have.

So ya thought your camera was a submarine, eh?

Gawrsh. Has it been four months since I wrote something here? Man, such a long time. Thanks for all the good folks who gave their time in visiting my blog. Much appreciated. Anyways, thought I’d write something today and my inspiration was from a text message from a niece of mine who’s fiance thought his DSLR could swim, er, dive the depths of the South China Sea. Sort of a what-to-do-after-your-camera-takes-a-dive thingy.

Questions Asked, Questions Answered

Ever since I started this simple blog of mine, I started getting questions from friends of mine who (kindly) read what this poor schlub writes and from a sprinkling of good folks who either just wandered into this blog by accident or are just bored and want to pass time by reading what I write. Anyways, I thought it might be a good idea to get some of the common questions I get and post those here with my answers. Mind you though, I ain’t no photography expert. Far from it. I’m just a shcmuck who likes to read and gets lucky sometimes so that I get rewarded by a good photo or two, so what the answers you read here are all just my personal opinions.

Canon Powershot SX10 IS: Kwanon comes roaring back

There was a time when Canon was just an outsider looking in with regards to digital ultrazoom cameras. Hey, why should they bother right? They got a nice DSLR line-up. Besides, the tried and tested S5 IS is still out on the market.Then one day, Canon woke up from the stupor they are in and realized that their S5 IS with a 12x zoom is loosing out on ultrazoomers that had ranges of 15x or more. So, they decided to whip up some technical magic and came up with the Canon SX 10 IS. I recently got hold of the Canon SX10 IS when my boss figuratively threw one at me with the order to give it a whirl. Although I had a ton of work to do, I had to grudgingly agree. Well, if you would believe that.

Canon EF-S 55-250mm IS: Good Lens for People with a Tight Budget

Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS

Santa came early for me this December when my brother-in-law gave me a nifty holiday gift: a Canon EF-S 55-250mm F/4-5.6 IS lens. I was surprised because this gift came in two months early as I was supposed to get it in February 2009. Good thing – I recently sold my much loved EF 100-400 f/5.6 AFD because I needed the cash to get something for the wife. Now, I got a new telephoto zoom to play with.

Sony DSC H50 Review

Sony DSC H50. Image courtesy of http://www.pcmag.com/

My company was in the market for a new camera and they asked one of our suppliers to deliver a Sony DCS H50 for us. I got to play around with the camera. While it was too bad that I wasn’t able to download the photos I took (don’t ask, long story), I managed to scribble enough thoughts and comments so that I can write this review.

More on Light

As I had blabbered about on a previous blog entry, photography depends much on light. Without light, there’s practically no means to photograph an interesting subject. While we can photography in pitch darkness using infrared or night vision photography, light is still involved as these techniques try to enhance whatever light the camera or sensor can capture. So for this blog entry, I thought i’d share some more info on light. Mind you though that what you’d read below are not from my original ideas: what ‘ll be reading have been passed on to me by kind people who were kind enough to sit down with a schlub like me and explain patiently information that I need to know and learn.

Filtration

Filters (image courtesy of http://www.thefind.com/)

The light you get in certain shooting situations might not be the kind or type of light you want. Sometimes the light is too harsh (during mid-day) or sometimes too dull (over-cast days). While the most obvious solution is to reposition yourself in relation to the light source, there are times that this solution won’t work. You then try to reposition your subject in relation to the direction of the light source to get quality out of what’s given to you on a photo-op. However, there are times that this trick won’t work either. Fortunately, there are a tools you can use to alter the quality and color of light that you get by using a simple accessory called a filter.

Kit, pro-sumer and professional glass – what’s the difference?

Nikkor/Nikon 18-55mm kit lens (image courtesy of ndreview.com http://www.ndreview.com/)

I was chatting with a buddy of mine this morning and he asked me to explain to him (in terms he would understand) the difference between a kit lens, a pro-sumer lens and a professional lens – and so I did. Apparently, he liked my explanation so he asked me if I could enter my explanation as a blog entry here in my so-so blog. Having not written an article for a couple of weeks now, his suggestion is not a bad idea.

Getting Hand-holding Right

Photo courtesy of John Luther Garcia

Our hands are the most accessible appendage that we have to steady our cameras while we shoot. Hmm…pretty dumb statement as we can’t use our feet. Anyways, we can’t bring tripods most of the times on shoot as there would be instances that we’d just be shooting casually. Since most of us shoot casually, it would be good if we can get hand-holding technique right.