Table of Contents

1. Welcome & Introduction

2. Digital Photography: File Size Matters

3. Gadget Corner: Bubble level

4. Subscription Information

 1. Welcome and Introduction

 Welcome to the first issue of HLI PhotoNotes – an electronic newsletter published by Patty Hankins & Bill Lawrence of Hankins-Lawrence Images, LLC.  – on the web at http://www.hankinslawrenceimages.com .  We expect to publish the newsletter on a monthly basis, usually in the middle of the month.

 With this newsletter, we hope to provide you with tips to help you take better photographs, techniques for digital photography and the digital darkroom, information about software and photo gadgets that may make your life easier, websites of interest and anything else we think you might be interested in.

 Hankins-Lawrence Images is a photography company owned by Patty & Bill. We live in Bethesda, Maryland, and have been taking photographs – both on land and underwater for several years. In the past year, we decided to start a business focusing on landscape & nature photography, primarily in the Washington, DC area. We moved almost entirely to using digital cameras in recent years, only Patty’s underwater camera uses film.

 We also do some photo restoration, and expect to start a newsletter on that topic in the coming months. Bill has had a website on digital restoration of images called the Virtual Vintage Image on the web for a couple of years now. Currently, it can be found at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wflawrence/index.htm  We’ll be moving it soon – and will let you know where it’s new home is in our next newsletter.

 In our other lives, Bill is a health services researcher and Patty is on the board of a national women’s organization. We both enjoy photography and scuba diving (with our underwater cameras). Patty is also an avid genealogist.

 We hope you enjoy HLI PhotoNotes and find the information we provide useful

2. Digital Photography: File Size Matters

by Patty Hankins & Bill Lawrence

 Are you just starting out using a digital camera? Did you just get your first digital camera over the holidays? Are you unsure of how to take the best photographs with it? Here’s one tip that may help end up with better results – set the file size setting on your camera to the largest file size possible.

 With most digital cameras, you have a choice of what size files you want to save your images as. The larger the files – the fewer files you can fit on your storage media (compact flash, smart media, etc). So the temptation is to set you files as small as possible, so you can fit more images on your camera before you download. For example, on my Nikon Coolpix 775 (set on minimal compression) with a 128 MB compact flash – I can fit 780 of the smallest file size on the card, 318 of the medium size and only 133 of the largest size. The largest images on my Coolpix are 1600 X 1200 pixels – or a 650-700 KB JPEG file. The smallest images are 640 X 480 pixels – or about 130 KB JPEG file.

 The reason you want larger files is that it gives you more options down the road in editing and printing your images. If you need to crop out parts of your image – you’ll end up with a smaller file. And the size of your file, determines how large of a print you can make.

 With the large files on the Coolpix 775 – I’ve printed images as large as 11 X 14 inches. This happened to be an image that filled the frame – so I didn’t have to do any cropping. If I had tried to print larger than 11 X 14 – the image wouldn’t have looked very good. Usually, even with some cropping of the image, the 650 KB JPEG files from the Coolpix can easily be printed  in an 8 X 10 size.

 The small files from the Coolpix 775 are a completely different story. A full frame image of one of these files will look good only up to about a 4 X 6 inch print. If we do any cropping of the file, it’s hard to get a good print any larger than 3 X 5 inches.

 So imagine you take a fantastic photograph that you really want to hang on your walls.  Let’s also assume you have to do a little cropping to get the framing of the image just right. If you’ve set your camera to create the largest files possible – you will likely have a lovely 8 X 10 inch print to frame and hang on your walls. If you’ve set your camera on the smallest file size – that same picture will only be 3 X 5 inches. Which would you rather display on your walls.

 So remember – set your digital camera to create the largest files it can make. You’ll be much happier with the prints you can create if you have bigger files.  The downside is you will need to download your photos more frequently, but even with our Coolpix 775 at its highest resolution, we can get almost as many photos as 4 36-exposure rolls of film.

 Coming next month – File Compression

 An issue closely related to file size is how much (or how little) file compression should you use on your camera. Too much compression is what causes all those jaggedy lines in digital images.

3. Gadget Corner – The Bubble Level

by Patty Hankins & Bill Lawrence

Do you have a problem taking photographs that are straight and level? Are the buildings and trees in your images on a slant? If you have this problem (and most of us do at least some of the time) then using a bubble level can help eliminate the problem.

The bubble level is a small device used to level the camera, allowing you to avoid taking crooked pictures.  The most common type is a small double level which fits into the flash shoe on the camera. The two levels let you use the bubble level when taking photos in either portrait or landscape orientation.

We’ve found the level to be most useful when your camera is mounted on a tripod. It’s very easy to end up with crooked pictures when you use a tripod. We’ve found the level especially valuable when taking natural landscape photos, as there is rarely a perfectly horizontal or vertical edge to line up the shot.

A hot-shoe mount bubble level like the one above will run you about $30-40.  We really recommend the double level like this rather than the circular bubble level, especially if you use a tripod.

We have photos of our bubble levels and examples of crooked and straightened photos on our website in the newsletter section here.

4. Subscription information

This newsletter is only sent to people who have requested to be on the HLI PhotoNotes newsletter list. If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter, please send an email with subscribe in the subject to

hl_images@earthlink.net

If you would like to be removed from the mailing list, please send an email with unsubscribe in the subject to

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Please feel free to forward the newsletter to others you think might be interested in reading it.

Reprint policy

Reprint permission granted in part or whole when the following credit appears: "Reprinted with permission from "HLI PhotoNotes. (Copyright, 2003, Patty Hankins & Bill Lawrence, Hankins-Lawrence Images, LLC) To subscribe to the free newsletter HLI PhotoNotes, visit http://www.hankinslawrenceimages.com 

All contents © 2003 Hankins-Lawrence Images, LLC . All rights reserved worldwide.

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