TIPS

Have you ever been on holiday somewhere and suddenly found that your shiny new digital camera is refusing to work as expected? I'm sure that some choice words may have been spoken that need not be repeated here. How would it be if I told you that you could protect most of your holiday pictures with a simple trick.

With any electronic device you always run the risk of the equipment failing when you least expect it. A very common cause of digital cameras refusing to work is a failed memory card. One of the simplest solutions is to make certain that when you travel, you carry at least two memory cards. Sounds simple but there is a further trick. When you start on your holiday, label one card with a marker as number 1 and the other as number 2. On the first day of your holiday use card number 1 and store card number 2 away from your camera. It might even be a good idea to leave card number 2 in your suitcase back at the hotel or some other safe place. On the second day put card number 1 away and use card number 2. On the third day go back to card number 1. Keep switching cards every day and you will end up spreading the pictures from your entire holiday across both cards. In this way if something unforseen happens to your camera or your memory card you will have at least half of your pictures from the entire time instead of only the first or last half of your trip. The important thing to remember is that you want to make certain that you don't simply keep the extra memory card in your camera's carrying case. You want it to be stored away somewhere else that is safe.

Using this method will safeguard at least some of your precious memories against theft, electronic malfunction, water damage or other nasties. It is well worth the cost of a second card, even if you don't plan on filling them both up.

Where did my pictures go? I'd love to have a nickel for every time I've heard that question!

The memory card in your digital camera is an electronic storage area for your images. The data stored on the card is just a bunch of 1's and 0's stored in various memory areas on the card. The camera takes the picture, processes the image into a digital code, and then transfers the information in that code to various empty memory locations on the card. In the process of storing the information, the camera writes a "table of contents" for the card known as the "File Allocation Table" or FAT. This is the place that your computer or digital camera will look to find the 1's and 0's that make up your image when it is retrieved for playback.

Sometimes, during the process of putting entries in the table and storing the information on the card, an interruption can occur. This can be from a low battery, an electrostatic shock, a malfunction in the camera, or just a glitch in the hardware of the card itself. The result is that the FAT is no longer consistent with the actual data on the memory card and the images that you have taken suddenly disappear. The good news is that the images may, and usually still do, exist on the memory card. This also applies to accidental erasure of images or inadvertant formatting of the memory card. The erasing of images simply removes them from the FAT which frees up the space that was reserved for the image. The erased image itself is still sitting in the same memory area waiting to be overwritten by a new image. Formatting the memory simply wipes out the FAT and the card is assumed to be completely empty. In reality the image data is still resident on the card.

We at Burlington Camera have the technology for recovering these "lost" images. The important thing to remember is that when you detect that there are missing images on a memory card, you should immediately stop using the card to avoid overwriting the images that you may want to recover.

So, heave a big sigh of relief and give Burlington Camera a call to get those pictures back that you thought were gone forever!

Ok, so now you have lots of amazing digital masterpieces stored in your digital camera. What do you do with them?

The least safe place for your pictures is sitting on your camera's memory card waiting to be accidentally deleted or lost through some malfunction. It is very important to move the images to your computer so that you can organize them and view them at a reasonable size and then store them safely!

All digital cameras should come with a USB computer connection cord that will allow you to connect the camera directly to the computer. What happens then is where the tricky parts can start.

When connected to the computer, most digital cameras will be automatically recognized by the computer as just another storage place for information. However certain brands require special software in order to make the camera recognizable by the computer. It isn't always necessary to install the software to connect your camera and this software not always needed in order to make the connection work.. Your instruction manual or your local camera store can help you determine whether that special software is required. The software enclosed with the camera is usually some version of an organizer that the camera company feels will make the job of categorizing your pictures simpler and it may even include some ability to edit your images.

Whether you choose to use the camera's included software or simply let your computer's operating system decide what to do, it is simply a matter of connecting the USB cord from the camera to the computer and then turning on the camera. The presence of a new device that contains pictures should cause the computer to start the necessary software or it may just ask you what you want to do with your pictures. You will usually be give the option to either view the images right on the camera or you can ask for the images to be copied to a particular location on the hard drive of your computer. If nothing happens when you connect your camera to your computer then your computer has likely been configured incorrectly or, at the very worst, the cable connections may be faulty. You will need the help of one of our technicians to get you past that issue.

My choice for organizing pictures is the computer operating system's native organizer. In the Windows environment it is Windows Explorer and in the MAC world it is iPhoto. Both of these give you the ability to organize your pictures by moving them into folders that can be named according to events or holidays. You will also be able to view your images as thumbnails, full screen or even as a continuous slide show. The software that comes with the camera is also a good choice but some software packages have the tendency to "take over" all of the images tasks on your computer and this isn't always the best option. You will have to evaluate this and see what software you are most comfortable with.

Whatever you do, after getting your pictures into your computer, it is important to realize that the are still not completely safe. Computers have been known to "blow up" or otherwise fail at the most inconvenient times. You want to safeguard your images from loss by storing them on some kind of removeable media. The very safest method is to print the images at your local camera store because the printed image will have to be completely, physically destroyed in order to get rid of it. If you don't want to take the time to print them immediately, then the next safest storage media is the CD or DVD. If nothing else you should be storing your images out of the computer on a CD so that you can retrieve them in the event of a computer meltdown. If you are having difficulty figuring out how to make a CD or DVD on your own computer, your local camera store may be able to provide you with some instruction or they should provide the service of copying your images directly from the camera card to a CD/DVD for a small fee.

The technology that is incorporated into each and every DVD is pretty sophisticated and has undergone quite a bit of evolution over the past few years. The company that made the blank DVD that you have in your hand has really been lying to you. It isn't really blank. There are several tracks of information pre-encoded onto every DVD that provide information to the DVD player or DVD drive in your computer. This information includes data about the manufacturer, the type of DVD and the current level of technology that this particular piece of DVD media will support. Once the DVD is loaded into your computer, the DVD drive will read the pre-encoded tracks to find out how to set itself for playback and possible recording. This is one of the main reasons that certain types of DVD's or DVD's recorded in one computer will not play or record in another even though they say that they have a DVD drive installed. As the capability of DVD drives improves (speed, capacity, multi session, printable media surfaces, etc) the media has to keep pace with that new capability. The changes to the pre-encoded data can sometimes confuse the DVD drive to the point where it won't even recognize the media. Fortunately, many manufacturers of DVD drives allow for this evolution and provide what are called "firmware" updates. These are small internal hardware programs that are built right into the electronics of the DVD drive itself. Some of these updates can even be downloaded and installed by the end user.

The least safe place for your pictures is sitting on your camera's memory card waiting to be accidentally deleted or lost through some malfunction. It is very important to move the images to your computer so that you can organize them and view them at a reasonable size and then store them safely!

When it comes to the DVD player that is hooked up to your television, there is another layer of confusion added. Most recent DVD players will also read music CD's , MP3 files, and digital still images when they are written (or burned as the saying goes) onto CD media. The DVD player uses the same pre-encoded tracks to determine what type of media has been inserted. The difficulty arises when the pictures or other types of files are "burned" onto DVD media. The DVD player reads the pre-encoded tracks and discovers that DVD media has been inserted. The player then decides that this media must have a "movie" to play. It goes searching for movie files and doesn't find any. The player then decides that this is silly and refuses to do anything. The only way around this is to create a DVD playable "slide show" to view the images on the DVD player. This can be a time consuming project that requires special software in your computer. (We also offer this as a service to those less technically inclined).

Hopefully as technology improves the DVD players will become smart enough to check for image files as well. But don't be too hopeful because a new media type called Blu-ray has recently been introduced and we may have to go around this bush again. Ain't technology wonderful?

Choosing the right type of battery can make your digital camera experience a good one or a bad one. If your camera takes a proprietary Lithium rechargeable battery pack, then you don't have a lot of choice. You will likely have to purchase the battery that is made by the manufacturer. There are some replacement Lithium batteries that are made by other companies but you should check a couple of things.

First of all make certain that the replacement battery is the same power rating as the original. This doesn't have anything to do with the voltage. Voltage has to be correct or you don't have the right battery at all. It has more to do with the amount of power the battery provides. Battery power capacity is measured in milli-amp/hours which is often shown on the battery as "mAh". For example, your original battery may have a rating of 1100 mAh where the replacement might have only 700 mAh. This rating tells you how long the battery will run at a certain amount of power output. The higher the rating, the longer the battery will last per charge. It will also affect the time it takes to charge it up again, and it will also affect the price you pay for the battery.

Also, don't be surprised if your retailer hands you a Pentax battery for your Nikon camera or a Kodak battery for your Olympus camera. There is quite a bit of crossover in battery design from manufacturer to manufacturer. A good camera store should have this information at their fingertips.

If your digital camera takes AA penlight batteries, you have several choices. There are several formulations of AA batteries on the market today and each have advantages and disadvantages.

- AA alkaline (not rechargeable - least expensive - least amount of pictures - use in an emergency)

- AA NiMH ( rechargeable - more expensive - average amount of pictures - must be used regularly)

- AA Lithium ( NOT rechargeable - most expensive - most amount of pictures - ok to use very intermittantly)

If you are going to use your digital camera on a regular basis (at least once a week) then rechargeable AA batteries make good sense. The important thing to remember about rechargeable batteries is that they need regular use. With intermittant use they will lose their ability to hold a charge. If your typical use of the camera is only once every month or so, or you leave you camera sitting without use for several months at a time, the Lithium AA battery is your best bet. Even though they are disposable, non-rechargeable batteries, they will hold their remaining capacity for up to 10 years. This is great for the intermittant user. You can also keep a set of these in your camera case as emergency batteries when your rechargeables are out of juice.

Indoor action photos can be really frustrating unless you know a few things about your camera.

The first thing you need to realize is that the little flash built in to most point and shoot style digital cameras (or film cameras for that matter) is not particularly powerful. The flash has a maximum reach of about 3 to 4 meters (about 10 to 12 feet for us old fogies). So, unless you are the referee, you probably won't be able to get that close to the action on your local rink and most of your pictures will be too dark because the flash is not powerful enough to light up the 20 meters across the rink.

The second thing to note is that if you don't use flash, the relatively low light level in the arena will cause the shutter on your camera to remain open too long (trying to gather enough light to produce a picture) and it will create a blur of any moving object instead of a clear image. By the way, don't confuse the blurred effect with an out of focus picture. They are completely different.

So what is a proud parent supposed to do?

The simplest way to improve the action stopping ability of your digital camera is to set the ISO to the highest setting possible. This setting is typically hidden in the on-screen menu of your camera and it may also be labelled "sensitivity". Raising the ISO (or sensistivity) causes the camera to require less light to produce a picture and thereby allows the shutter to fire at a higher speed. Depending on how high the ISO setting will go you may be able to completely eliminate the blur caused by low light, action situations. Another side benefit of a higher ISO setting is that, should you (or the automatic setting on your camera) decide to use flash, your built in flash will actually reach further than it would at a lower ISO setting.

However all things come at a price. (No, I'm not going to charge you for reading this..)

When the ISO setting is raised, there is a resulting increase in the amount of noise in the image. This is the same thing we dealt with in the film days when we referred to the "graininess" of the old 400, 800 and 1600 speed films. However it is better by far to have a grainy, non-blurred Johnny than a smooth, clear blur that is unrecognizable. The great thing about a digital camera is that you are not stuck with taking the entire film at the high ISO setting. You can simply set it for one or two images and then set it back to "auto" for your normal picture taking. You can even try several different ISO settings until you come up with the best balance of graininess and blur stopping.

Ultimately, the best way to stop any kind of action indoor is with a flash, but it will need to be much more powerful that the little one that is built into the body of the camera. If you are one of the fortunate ones that have a camera with an external flash shoe, you can purchase a more powerful external flash that could potentially reach across the full width of the arena without having to raise the ISO at all. Your local independent camera store (more shameless self promotion...) can help you choose which one might be right for your needs.

By the way, the above information also applies to any low light situation you might encounter such as a graduation ceremony, a school play or just a night around the campfire. If you are having trouble locating the ISO setting option, take some time and drop in and one of our staff would be happy to show you how to do it.

How many of us have taken a picture like this?  Your attention should be drawn to your favourite feline, but the background is so distracting it loses something.

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What we’re really looking for is this.

This is a beautiful shot!  You’d never know it, but that’s the Detroit skyline in the background.  It’s so blurry you can’t tell and it lends a real artistic flair to the photo.

So how do we go about achieving this photographic miracle?  We use the magic of depth-of-field control.  Every lens in every camera focuses at one particular distance depending on where you turn the focusing ring. This puts the main subject in focus but the foreground (closer objects) and the background (objects further away) may or may not be in focus.  In order to get the background in or out of focus we have to adjust the aperture of the lens.

When a lens is set to a very large opening like f1.8 it will cause the background to be completely out of focus.  Only the main subject at the focus point is in focus.

As you move to smaller and smaller apertures, the background will come in to focus.

It’s really that simple!  Here’s another example.

In the picture at the top you can see that the ball in the foreground and the ball in the background are out of focus because of the large, open aperture.  In the bottom picture you can see that both the foreground and background balls are in focus along with the ball in the middle.  In both pictures the lens was focused on the middle ball.  The magic of depth of field control allows us to selectively include a deeper (or shallower) field of focus, also known as “depth of field”.

The other way to control depth of field is to use different focal length lenses.  A telephoto lens makes everything bigger in your picture, including any discrepancy in focus.   So if you are focused on a bird that’s 50 feet away and the tree behind is 55 feet away then the tree is in the focus error zone and will be out of focus since that 5 feet of error has also been made “bigger” by the telephoto lens.  On the other side of the equation, a wide angle lens makes everything smaller so more stuff fits into the frame.  The focus error zone also becomes less significant as well so the tree in the background appears to be more in focus.  

The picture on the left was shot with a telephoto lens and you can see that the background is somewhat blurry.  The picture on the right was shot with a wide angle lens and the background is relatively sharp.  The two lenses lend a different look to other aspects of the pictures as well but we’re just discussing depth of field at the moment.

Any questions?   Feel free to comment!   Take a moment and post some of your best shots to our Flickr Photo of the Month pool!  https://www.flickr.com/groups/2767948@N25/

Almost every day, a customer will come into Burlington Camera and show me a photograph they’ve taken on their smartphone or on a small point-and-shoot camera and ask “how big can I make this image before it looks distorted?”

How big can I make this picture before it looks distorted?

The short answer: How good your picture’s resolution looks depends on how you’re going to view it.

Often, I’ll load my customer’s picture into the computer and say, “This looks great at this size, doesn’t it?” and they invariably respond “Oh yeah, that looks wonderful!”

Then, I’ll zoom in; the more I zoom, the fuzzier and more pixelated the picture becomes. My next question is “Well, there’s your photo blown up to 24×36, what do you think of that?” Generally, the photo will be quite pixelated at this point, and the customer agrees that it looks terrible.

Then I ask, “How terrible would this look if you were looking at it from ten feet away? You need to back up a little bit.”

From that distance, the photo looks amazing again. The main point here?

The resolution of a picture doesn’t tell you how good its going to look when its displayed on the wall.

You have to take into consideration a number of important factors:

Where are you standing when you look at this print?

How far away from this print are you going to be?

Where will the picture hang in your room?

What kind of lighting will illuminate the picture?

And how close are you going to be able to get to this picture? Is it sitting behind the couch? 

Will it be hanging on the wall of the alcove where you can’t get close to it?

Each of pixels on the Jumbotron display board can be up to 1 inch in diameter. That gives the board a resolution of 1 dpi (dot per inch) and it looks horrible if you stand right in front of it. View it from the other side of the stadium, and it looks absolutely fabulous. The same goes with your HD tv. From normal viewing distance, it looks amazing and sharp. Move up close, and it’s considerably more pixelated.

Summary

So, a 4”x6” print of the picture on your smartphone will look fantastic. That same print at poster size (24”x36”) will look atrocious close up. If you put it up on a wall and stand back 15 feet, it will look great.

Make sense?

There’s no question that having more resolution will make a clearer picture, but you’d be surprised how good your picture can look as framed art hanging on your wall.

How many of us have an old Single Lens Reflex (SLR) film camera gathering dust in a closet?  It really seems a shame to have that wonderful old equipment we paid so much money for sitting unused and unloved.  Now, you could brush off the dust, grab a roll of film (yes, film and processing is still available) and get those creative juices flowing again but we’ve become so used to the instantaneous nature of digital photography that we get impatient with having to wait.  But don’t throw out the old stuff just yet!

Why Can’t I Use My Old Lenses On My New Digital Camera?

One of the difficulties with using older lenses on some newer cameras is the compatibility of the lens mount.  A few manufacturers completely changed the design of the lens mount so older lenses won’t even fit the newer bodies. The good news is many of the older Nikon and Pentax lenses can be mounted and used on newer Nikons and Pentaxes without much difficulty at all. You’ll have to focus and set your aperture manually but that’s half the fun!

I Bought a Lens Mount, Why Do My Pictures Look Terrible?

Ok, but what if I have a whole series of superb Canon, Contax, Olympus, Leica, or any one of a myriad of other brands that I want to use?  The real problem with putting a Contax lens on a Nikon camera is that the lens mount doesn’t fit and requires an adaptor.  This adaptor makes them fit but unfortunately, because the mounts are so different, the adaptor has to have some thickness in order to make it work.  This thickness introduces extra space between the lens mount and the sensor which is just like using the extension tubes we use in close-up photography.  These extension tubes are a great way to get extremely close but your lens can no longer focus at a distance.  You need to remove the extension tube to focus far away.  Many of the lens mount adaptors available today have an extra internal lens that compensates for the “extension tube effect” and allows the foreign mounted lens to focus at long distances.  Unfortunately, the introduction of that extra lens turns your wonderful Contax Zeiss optic into something not much better than a Coke bottle.  There are different qualities of adaptors but they can run into the hundreds of dollars for a really good one.

What Kind of Camera Should I Buy If I Want to Use My Old Lenses?

The best option for using legacy glass is to make certain you purchase the most flexible camera system which are the newer mirrorless system cameras.  In a traditional film SLR and in most digital SLR’s there is a mirror and “reflex” prism system that allows the operator to view through the lens when looking into the viewfinder.  When the picture is taken, the mirror jumps up out of the way and the image is projected on to the film (or the sensor).  This technology has been around since the 1950’s and has worked well up to now.  With the advent of digital imaging the need for a mirrored viewing system has been superceded by the “live view” function used by the newer mirrorless cameras.  One of the side benefits of the mirrorless cameras is, since there is no longer any need to provide space for the mirror and its associated mechanism, the distance between the mounting flange for the lens and the imaging sensor is very short.  This allows an adaptor to be created that doesn’t need an “extension tube effect” compensating lens element.  Now we can take almost any lens manufactured in the last fifty years and mount it to our shiny new digital body and it will do everything it was intended to do and more.  The best thing about this is the adaptors are relatively inexpensive.  Usually around $40.00 to $90.00 depending on the camera and lens combination.

The last consideration in using legacy glass has to do with the coatings on the glass elements in the lens itself.  All the pieces of glass in a lens are coated with different types of materials to keep reflections of light inside the lens down to a minimum and to make certain that all the wavelengths of light focus at the same point on the film plane.  This is what makes for high quality lenses.  The better the coatings and glass, the sharper and clearer the pictures are. In the good old days of film, light was only coming from one direction – in the front of the lens but when you put a shiny, glass coated digital sensor in place of the film you are introducing another source of reflection that didn’t exist with film.  These older lenses are not expecting to see light reflections coming from that direction so in certain conditions these lenses will actually not be as sharp as one would expect.

Is it all about sharpness?  Absolutely not.  Some of these older lenses have some beautiful soft effects that will really enhance the look of some images.  The older lenses also tend to have aperture mechanisms that are actually round instead of polygonal which makes for interesting edge transitions in the out of focus area of your photos.

All this needs to be tested with your particular lens on your particular camera since it varies from lens to lens, body to body, and definitely from situation to situation.  Your local camera store should have these adaptors in stock so you can do some tests and start using your treasured glass again.

Rich Gibson – Burlington Camera Inc.

It’s official:  Burlington Camera has a blog.

Why Can’t I Use My Old Lenses On My New Digital Camera?

It’s been quite a journey from our humble beginnings. We started with three or four cameras on a card table in the front hall of our family home. Dad was a meter reader for Burlington’s Public Utilities and Mom stayed at home with the kids and took names for Dad to call in the evening. Every one of the family had a part in making the business run.  Even the youngest of us took turns emptying the ashtrays (smoking was allowed in businesses in those days) and washing the floors.  The store gradually grew to cover every floor of the old house.  The family moved to another home in northern Burlington and the business stayed  in the old building.  We’d  run upstairs and down to retrieve products and replenish the shelves but the business continued to grow because we treated everyone fairly, kept our prices competitive and provided great service.

In 1977, we built the current building in the back yard and over one weekend we moved all the inventory and counters to the new building.   By Monday morning we were ready to go.  The business continued to flourish. A couple of years later Dad retired and Don and Brian (the two oldest sons) took over the business.  In 2007, Don and Brian retired and the business was taken over by the much younger siblings Richard and Joan, along with Brian’s daughter Heather.  We weathered the storms of the incoming digital age and the recession of 2008 and we’re the destination for everything vintage photographic.

We’re proud of our heritage in the photography world and we’re proud to be  one of the oldest continuously-operating photography businesses in Ontario (maybe even Canada).   We focus on vintage photography and equipment but   we still put a lot of time and effort into staying current with the latest trends in the digital world.  We’re looking forward to sharing some of our experience and expertise with you!

Let us know what you think and feel free to request topics you think we should cover.

Rich Gibson – Burlington Camera