Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

Point-and-Shoots to Suit Your Personality

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Maria Sharapova and her Canon Powershot Diamond Collection

Camera manufacturers design point-and-shoot cameras for the specific needs and wants of consumers the same way that they target their DSLRs to different professional markets. While we as photographers will always sing the praises of how awesome our DSLRs are, the general population will opt for a “nice” point-and-shoot. We know many of these people and they make come to us asking camera questions. Here’s a round up of cameras for the different personalities in your life. If they’re a student, link them over to my post on Back-To-School digital cameras.

Author’s Note: The camera’s above are a special series of Canon Powershots that Maria Sharapova designed with Canon. They were available in a contest.

[Read more…]

 

Sony 28-75mm f/2.8 SAM Lens

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Sony 28-75mm f/2.8 SAM Lens

Along with the introduction of the A850 DSLR, Sony has introduced the 28-75mm SAM lens.  At around $800, the new 28-75mm becomes a more cost effective option over the Sony Zeiss 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.   The SAM moniker in the new lens stands for Smooth Autofocus Motor.  The 28-75mm lens consists of 14 elements in 16 groups, which includes 4 aspherical elements.  Filter thread size is 67mm.

On Sony’s crop-sensor cameras, which includes everything but the A850 and A900, the 28-75mm focal length produces an angle of view equivalent to roughly 42-113mm on a full frame camera.

The Sony 28-75mm f/2.8 SAM lens should be available in November 2009 for about $800.  Check availability on Amazon.com.

Sony DT 30mm f/2.8 Macro Lens

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Sony DT 30mm f/2.8 Macro Lens

The Sony DT 30mm f/2.8 Macro lens is designed for Sony crop-sensor lineup and introduced with the Sony A500 and A550.  The DT 30mm macro lens has a minimum focusing distance of 0.129mm, which enables the camera to produce 1:1 ratio in recording images.

The Sony DT 30mm f/2.8 Macro will carry an initial retail price around $200.  Check availability on Amazon.com.

Sony Twilight Football Photo Contest Winner

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First, I want to give a special thanks to everyone who participated in the Sony Twilight Football Photo Contest.  If you haven’t seen all the great photos, check out the 20 Sony Twilight Photo Contest Finalists.  Additionally, a big thanks to Sony for making Photography Bay a part of the contest and sending a Photography Bay reader on this cool photographic journey.

And the winner is . . . [Read more…]

20 Sony Twilight Photo Contest Finalists

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Remember the Sony Twilight Contest?  It ended yesterday.

I have selected the 20 finalists from the entrants who submitted their photos to the contest.  They are listed below in no particular order.  Sony will now choose one of these images as the winner from Photography Bay’s portion of the contest and the photographer and a guest will be traveling to 1 of 7 awesome locations to shoot with Sony’s new gear at a Twilight football match.

Hong Kong at Twilight
1. Hong Kong at Twilight by zpowderhound

Burning Fever
2. Burning Fever by Bchild33

One more trick
3. One more trick by hungrig4leben [Read more…]

Great Telephoto Zoom Lenses

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Sigma 200-500mm f/2.8

Now that you’ve read about 50mm lenses, lenses to help you learn and how camera lenses are made, the time has come to check out what telephoto lenses are possibly best for your system. Every photographer should have at least one just in the case the situation arises where you need a longer piece of glass to get that shot. Of course, some systems do telephoto zooming better than others. If you want to switch from one system to another system you’ll learn that some systems may give you the actual results you want in a different package. As a paparazzo in training, I’m learning this first hand.

Here’s a list of those great lenses are your system. [Read more…]

Sony Twilight Football Contest

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As the hour of twilight moves across the world during the course of a day, it ignites a series of 7 games of football (ahem, “soccer” for us Americans) played during twilight set up in the most beautiful and spectacular photographic locations.

One day, 7 global locations, 7 amazing games of twilight football.

Twilight Football is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Photography Bay readers to travel to an incredible location, and capture amazing images of football in the beauty of twilight. [Read more…]

Changing Camera Systems: The Pros and Cons – Part I

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Canon 5D Mark II

With camera manufacturers in stiff competition with one another, if you pay attention to what features they work hardest on you’ll begin to realize that they also tailor their products to certain segments of the buyers and that many of them pride some features well over others in order to get sales. Recently, I was in search of a new camera system and if you are too, check out this brief list of the pros and cons of each system. This list includes the most popular systems: Nikon, Canon and Sony. The next list will include the rest (which in some ways give the top three a run for their money.) [Read more…]

The Best Lenses To Help You Learn

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Many photographers start out timid and not wanting to do what they have to in order to unleash their true creativity. Once you start shooting though, and you start to become braver, bolder and more confident in your craft. Your lenses are really what teach you to do your job. Even when you become advanced, semi-pro and pro there are always certain lenses that you can go back to in order to learn more about what you can do with your creativity and vision: and they’re not always 50mm’s either!

For that, here are some of the best lenses to learn with no matter what experience you have: [Read more…]

Laptops for Photographers of All Sorts

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You’re in the market for a new laptop to supplement your photographic tendencies. Depending on your job, you may have different needs and wants to suit your demands. I used the PCMag Network for some pointers and tips in addition to my own hands-on experiences, here are some of the best for you depending on what your needs may be.

macbook

Macbook

The smallest of the bunch, it well suits and compliments the needs of a photojournalist in need of a light laptop to accompany his/her light DSLR. The screen is very nice and can help you edit your photos to get the very best usage of your colors during the editing process. At around 13″, it perfectly compliments my Olympus E-510 and will be a welcome companion to your Canon T1i or Nikon D90. With two USB 2.0 ports, mini-DVI and Firewire 400 it will surely keep up with the needs of everyday shooting, writing and editing while allowing you to travel light. It fits perfectly into a messenger bag. Your hard drive space may go quicker than you like though, so keep an external with you too. These days, the Macbook starts at $999. [Read more…]