Photography

Hardware

Tips

Photographs

Favorites of 2002

An experiment: Australia photos and narration

A bloggerized Gallery of Recent Photos

Paris, June 2002

Photos from the new D40

Guatemala

Photos from the D510

Photos from the 320L

Conceptual photos

Natural Art (Art au Naturel)

Links

Digital Photo Review

photonet

Kodak Learning Center

Recent experiments

Late 2001 photos.

Self portraits pulled from the Sony digital videocam. What a great way to grab candid shots. Take a minute of video and chose the best frame from among hundreds!

First photo from the Olympus D-510. Point-and-shoot. I hadn't read the directions yet. Amazing detail.

Pole montage. L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art has been exhibiting the first retrospective of David Hockney's photographs. This is my first imitation.

L.A. story. South of the Convention Center and Museum of Contemporary Art.

Hardware

Olympus D40Z, $550 from JandR Electronics. Purchased June 2002.

Specs
4 megapixel
2.8x zoom
9.5 oz
3.4 x 2.7 x 1.7 in

Samples

I'm enjoying this a lot more than my previous cameras. Amazing control and resolution.

SONY DCR-PC9 Digital Handycam® Camcorder $1299 less rebate at JandR Electronics. Purchased 2000.

(This is a direct descendent of the PC5 digital video cam I use.) Shoot video on minitapes or stills on Sony memory sticks. 10x1 optical zoom. Carl Zeiss lense. Color LCD monitor with touch-screen controls. Firewire port. Internal VCR. Remote control. This full-featured videocam is tiny.

The still shots this camera records on a Sony Memory Stick are too grainy for my taste. Also, .650 megapixel is too low a resolution to permit any cropping. Great video but that's its function.

128 MB SmartMedia card (SANDISK SDDSM128), $100 at JandR. This is optional, since the Olympus cameras come with an 8 MB or 16 MB SmartMedia card but a 128 MB card lets me shoot 300+ photos at a time.

Where to buy

First, I pour over the awesome reviews at Digital Photo Review. Then I invariably end up at J and R Electronics. For a slightly higher price than the fly-by-night vendors, they are reliable, fast, and honest.

J and R. Where I buy cameras, videocams, computers, software, music, Swiss Army knives, office equipment, and small appliances.

Why JandR? Unbeatable prices. No sales tax (except in New York). They take stuff back with no hassles. Their selection is wide. They are an authorized dealer for Sony and Apple. They answer their phone. Their website is informative. Buy something from JandR via the search engine above and eventually they will send Jay a small cut.

Former Hardware

OLYMPUS Camedia D-510 Zoom Digital Camera. About $400 from JandR Electronics. Purchased 2001.

A 2.1 megapixel digital camera with 3x zoom lens (equivalent to 35mm - 105mm on a 35mm camera). 1.8" TFT color LCD monitor. Built-in flash. Great auto-focus. Download photos directly to your computer's USB port. Takes photos in the dark! Fits in a pocket.

NEW. 2/02. The price has dropped $100. The D-510 is now $299 at JandR.

Whoops! Dropped this one on the sidewalk in Chicago. Shutter button was damaged. Olympus wants $143 to fix it. I'm going to move up to 4 megapixels.

Olympus D 320-L
Purchased June 1999 as a birthday gift to myself. $399. Mailorder. The camera is a lightweight 9 ounces, and compact with 5" (W) x 2.6" (H) x 1.8" (D). The protective lens barrier slides open with one hand, simultaneously turning on the camera. This clever design blocks the viewfinder when closed, so there's no question if the camera is turned on. The camera also has a large 2-inch smudge-resistant LCD screen although using it drains the batteries quickly. Specs 1024x768 High Quality Image All glass aspherical F2.8 autofocus lens Video out 3 levels of compression Exposure Controls Auto Flash with "red-eye" reduction, force fill flash, auto low-light and back-light mode,and force-off SmartMediaTM Removable Media.

Canon A-1 35mm SLR. Purchased 1982 from 47th Street Photo. Austin has commandeered the Canon for his use. It's a great camera. f1.4 lens.