HLI PhotoNotes Volume 1 Issue 9 December 2003

Published by Hankins-Lawrence Images, LLC of Bethesda, Maryland

http://www.hankinslawrenceimages.com

Table of Contents

1. Happy Holidays

2. Accessorize Your Digital Camera!

3. Subscription Information

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1. Happy Holidays

First of all – we’d like to welcome all of our new subscribers to HLI Photonotes. It’s wonderful to see the subscription list growing, and to see our articles appearing on various sites across the web.

Did you ever have one of those days where you wonder why you ever bought a computer? We’ve been having an awful lot of them lately.

It all started when Bill decided that what I really needed for Christmas was a new computer – and I decided to get him a new monitor. We figured, with a little switching around of parts, I could have a better monitor than I was using (his old one) and we could set up my old computer as a photo storage device.

Then things got a little crazy when there were problems with the order for my new computer (to make a long story short – a week after the Gateway was ordered – we cancelled the order and got a Dell – which arrived two days later) then Bill’s hard drive (where all the photos are stored) started to fail.

So Bill spent last Saturday putting a second hard drive into his system and transferring all the photo files to that disk (about 150 GB of files). Then he spent this weekend replacing his main drive and reinstalling all the hardware and software on his computer. Meanwhile, I’ve been getting everything installed on my new computer – and transferring all the data from my old computer to the new system.

We had the website and most of our photo files backed up, but we were behind on backing up our most recent files. Fortunately, we didn’t lose anything, but let us remind everyone – back up your files early and often!

If you’ve ever had to set up a new system, and moved all the info from one computer to another, you can imagine what it’s been like around the house this week as we both have been searching for all the original software disks, product registration codes, hardware drivers, and such that comes with setting up two systems at once.

Fortunately, we’ve got everything just about set up. We didn’t lose anything important from Bill’s hard drive – and he really likes his new LCD monitor. And I’m really enjoying not having my computer crash several times a day!

Hopefully, we’ll get out and do some photography of the Christmas lights next weekend.

In the meantime, Bill and I would like to wish all you a happy holiday season.

Patty

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2. Accessorize Your Digital Camera!

By Patty Hankins and Bill Lawrence

Are you getting or giving a digital camera for the holidays? Perhaps you’re planning on getting one in the after Christmas sales? Don’t forget, to get the best out of a digital camera, there are some other things you might want on your shopping list. We have listed a few things we think are essential below.

In camera storage – the “film” for your digital camera. There are a number of formats, though compact flash is probably the most popular (others include smart media cards, secure digital cards, and Sony memory sticks). Almost all digital cameras are sold with a storage card that is way too small for them – if you can fit a number of photos on the card that comes with the camera, there is a good chance you want to consider reducing the file compression. The more you files are compressed on your card, the lower the quality of your final images. Price per megabyte of storage varies by format of the card and by how large the card is, but plan on buying something reasonably large, and preferably at least one spare card. How big is large? Many camera manuals will tell you how many photos fit on different size cards, plan on something that you can afford, but will take more than you imagine you could possibly take in a session. We have three 1-gigabyte (1,024 megabyte) microdrives, which fit in most type-II compact flash compatible cameras, and an emergency 128-megabyte compact flash card (which also doubles as our digicam storage card) for our main cameras, and we are due to add to our storage supply soon. More is definitely better here – it is better to have too much storage rather than having to stop taking photos when your storage is full.

Spare batteries – Digital cameras are notorious battery hogs, especially digicams which use the LCD on the back as a viewfinder to take your photos. It is always a good idea to have a spare rechargeable battery around (if your camera uses them). If your camera uses AA batteries, look into a good set (or 2!) of NiMH rechargeable AA batteries.

A case – Large or small, depending on how much you carry, it’s nice to have something to protect and store the camera, and to carry around all the necessities like spare batteries.

A computer – Normally, this would be considered a little expensive to be a digital camera accessory, but the rest of our list requires one.

A CD or DVD writer – All those photos add up in the amount of space they take in your computer storage. Back them up to a CD or DVD. We recommend at least two copies, preferably stored in different places.

A card reader - Some come free with storage cards, others will cost you up to about $30. These devices allow you to insert your camera’s storage card into the reader, which is attached to your computer (we recommend getting one compatible with USB 2.0). You can then treat the card as another disk drive, and copy all your files to your hard disk or to CD. We have found this much easier than trying to link the camera directly to the computer.

Photo editing software – How powerful depends on your level of comfort, but you should at least have software for viewing, cropping, and making basic adjustments to your photos, such as lightening or changing the color balance.

A photo printer – A printer designed specifically for printing digital photos is optional, but if you plan on having prints of a good number of your digital photos, is much easier than going to your local Walmart or 1-hour photo place. There is a learning curve to doing this right, though, so if you haven’t done much photo printing, you will want to pay attention to the printer’s manual and look at its settings. “Why don’t my printed photos look like what’s on the screen?” is a very common question on the newsgroups (say . . . not a bad topic for a future article!). There are many good printers out there in reasonable price ranges, but we have found the Epson C82 to be a good entry-level printer that can act as both a good photo printer and a document printer.

You may also find information in these articles we’ve published previously to be of some help in getting started with your digital camera. They can be found in the newsletter archives at www.hankinslawrenceimages.com

Digital Photography: Avoid Too Much File Compression (Feb 03)

Digital Photography: File Size Matters (Jan 03)

Get the Noise Out of Your Digital Images: Neat Image (May 03)

Printing Your Digital Images: Q-Image Pro 2003 (Aug 03)

Software to Organize Your Images: BreezeBrowser (Apr 03)

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3. Subscription information

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

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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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