Digital Focus
August 17th, 2004
proudly presented by
PC World
Technology Advice You Can Trust
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Photography expert Dave Johnson's tips will enhance your digital
camera, printer, and image editing expertise with recommendations on
digital challenges from shooting techniques to digital publishing,
answers to reader questions, and a photo contest.
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August 17th, 2004
In This Issue:
- Feature Story: Capturing the Magic of a Waterfall
- Dave's Favorites: Pocket DVD Studio Plays Your Movies on a PDA
- Q&A: A Better Way to Get Pictures Out of Word
- Contest: Submit Your Best Photo, Become Famous, and Win a Prize
- Newsletter Trivia: Reading Back Issues, Helping Friends Subscribe
* Feature: Capturing the Magic of a Waterfall *
Summer is almost over, and many of us are grabbing some weekends in
the great outdoors before the school year once again sends our kids
back to the excitement of the Three R's. How many times have you
hauled your digital camera along on a hiking or camping trip, hoping
to photograph a waterfall the way you see it on the pages of National
Geographic? For me, the answer is "all the time." This week, let's see
how you can coax your digital camera into capturing a classic
waterfall on one of your weekend adventures.
Slow It Down
Thankfully, there's nothing particularly difficult or mysterious about
capturing a flowing waterfall like this one:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/194938/21421679/722249/0/
To capture a picture like that, do what I did: Just set the camera on
a tripod, frame the shot, and then take the picture with the camera
set to a slow shutter speed.
The easiest way to control your camera's shutter speed is via the
Shutter Priority control, usually indicated by the letter S in your
camera's settings. When set to Shutter Priority, you can raise or
lower the shutter speed, and the camera automatically sets the
aperture to the right size for you.
And indeed, shutter speed is key for this kind of picture. If you take
the shot with the camera set to automatic, it'll try capturing the
image with the fastest possible shutter speed--probably about 1/500
second. A fast shutter speed freezes the action, so you see a crisply
defined flow of water with spray and bubbles caught in the act of
dancing about the head of the fall. But freezing the action is rarely
what you want with a waterfall. You want to slow the shutter speed,
allowing the water to blur, which imparts the sense of motion in the
flowing water that contributes to the charm of our sample shot.
How Slow Is Slow?
The good news is that you can get serviceable waterfall photos even
without a tripod. That's because you can get a decent amount of motion
blur from the water with a shutter speed of 1/30 or 1/15--and that's
fast enough to steady by hand, if you brace yourself or have a very
steady hand. It certainly helps to have something to steady yourself
against like a tree or fence, but it isn't mandatory.
Of course, the slower you can set the shutter, the blurrier your water
will become. So a picture taken at 1/2 second will look dreamier and
more poetic than one taken at 1/30. Take an assortment at different
shutter speeds; digital "film" is cheap.
Gaming the System
Sometimes, there's so much light available that you simply can't slow
down the shutter far enough. If you're trying to shoot mid-day, for
instance, your camera might refuse to let you set the shutter any
slower than 1/30 second, because lower speeds would overexpose the
picture. What to do?
One obvious solution is to come back later. If you can shoot near
sunset, when the sun has gone behind hills or trees, you'll be able to
shoot far more slowly because the camera needs more light to take
pictures at that time of day.
If you insist on shooting mid-day, try changing the direction that you
are shooting. Be sure the sun is behind the camera, not in front of
it. Don't forget to check the camera's ISO setting. If it's set to a
high value or to Automatic, manually set the ISO to the lowest number
the camera supports. That makes the sensor less sensitive to light and
possibly able to support a longer shutter speed.
You can also screw, snap, or tape a neutral density filter onto the
front of your camera. Neutral density filters are sold at most camera
shops. They block light from entering the camera without altering the
color or tone of the light. They make the scene darker, allowing a
longer shutter speed. Since many digital cameras don't have screw
threads for filters, you can buy an oversized filter and tape it onto
the front of the camera.
And don't be afraid to overexpose your picture a little. If your
camera warns that there's too much light, take the picture anyway.
Often, you can overexpose a picture by one or perhaps even two stops
and still get good results.
Practice at Home
Finally, we don't encounter cool-looking waterfalls every day. It pays
to be prepared when we find one out in the real world. So do what I
do: practice at home. You can simulate a waterfall in your own
kitchen. Check out the pictures below, which I shot this very morning
in my sink. The first one features my camera in automatic mode (the
shutter speed was 1/650 second). I then set the shutter speed to 1/30
second and tried again. Notice the picturesque way that the water
rolls off my dirty dishes.
Fast shutter:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/194938/21421679/722250/0/
Slow shutter:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/194938/21421679/722251/0/
Take a few of these sorts of images, and you'll be ready for a real
waterfall.
* Dave's Favorites: Pocket DVD Studio Plays Your Movies on a PDA *
In recent years, my trusty little PDA has become a practical way to
show off my favorite digital pictures. I've sworn off wallet photos
entirely, in fact. When someone says something foolish, like "Do you
have any pictures of your kids?" I simply pull my Palm Tungsten T3 out
of my pocket and offer them a veritable slide show of recent photos.
But what about video? Can we show home movies on our PDAs, too?
You bet. Modern Palm and Pocket PC devices are certainly speedy enough
for video. But it's not always easy to get movies onto the PDA to
begin with. That's why I like Pocket-DVD Studio, which comes in both
Palm OS and Pocket PC versions. This $32 application can take
DVDs--both commercial movies and videos you've burned onto DVD
yourself--and transform them into files optimized for your favorite
PDA. You can choose screen sizes from 160 by 160 for really old
devices all the way up to 480 by 320 for the latest generation. And
though you can fit a 3-hour movie on a 512MB Secure Digital card, the
audio and video quality are quite adequate.
I've used Pocket-DVD Studio to make Palm-sized copies of personal
videos to show off to friends when I travel, and I've also used it to
transfer commercial DVDs to my Palm for lengthy plane flights. The
Seattle-to-Chicago hop is far more fun when you have a few episodes of
Fox's short-lived series "The Tick" on your PDA.
Download a free trial from PQDVD.com:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/194938/21421679/722252/0/
* Q&A: A Better Way to Get Pictures Out of Word *
Recently, you explained how to get a picture out of Microsoft Word,
but there's another way that works quite well. Just save it as a Web
page.
--Jerry Mayeroff, Chicago
You're right, Jerry: This method works amazingly well.
The next time someone e-mails you a Word document with pictures in it,
you can extract full-quality versions of those images without having
to resort to any tricky screen captures or exporting operations. Just
create a new folder somewhere on your computer (the desktop works
fine). Open the Word document and choose File, Save As from the menu.
Choose to save the file as a Web page and select the folder you just
created as the save location. After you save it, open the folder and
you'll find two versions of all the pictures in the file--smaller
document-sized images, and full-sized JPEGs.
* Hot Pic of the Week *
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite
reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and
technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize
valued at between $10 and $100.
A gentle reminder, folks: We disqualify some really wonderful pictures
every week because the submissions don't follow the rules. Be sure to
include everything we ask for in your e-mail message, including a
description of your picture and your complete contact information, or
your entry is wasted!
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format at a
resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Our e-mail address is:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If
necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of
your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo
along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't
forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before
entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and
regs at:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/194938/21421679/95/0/
This Week's Hot Pic: "Weathered Door," by Sandy Kronberger, Carlton,
Minnesota
About this week's Hot Pic, Sandy says: "This is a photo of a shed near
our cabin in northern Minnesota. Since the outhouse is scheduled for
remodeling this summer, I had to capture the fantastic weathering
effects caused by years of weather extremes. You can't buy these
effects in a bottle!"
Sandy has only had her digital camera for about a year but says she
has already amassed over 5000 pictures--enough to force her to add a
second hard disk to her PC. She captured this picture with a Sony
DSC-S75 and enhanced the contrast slightly using Corel Photo Paint 10.
To view the photo, go to:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/194938/21421679/722253/0/
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* See Dave Johnson's previous Digital Focus Features at:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/194938/21421679/237289/0/
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=====================================================================
Top News From PC World
* Microsoft Updates Works
Works 8 adds utilities to productivity suite that delivers all the
basics.
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* Newest Ad-Aware Exposes Some Users
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* Check out all of today's news...
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Editors' Picks
Free Utilities: Lean and Mean Office Apps
For those of us who don't use 90% of the features in Microsoft Office,
here are some lean and mean alternatives.
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PureText v2.0
Strip unwanted code and formatting from text you're
cutting-and-pasting.
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ATNotes v9.41
Create Post-it style reminders on your desktop.
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NoteTab Light v4.95
Replace your plain old NotePad with this feature-laden alternative.
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KeyNote v1.6.5
Free personal information manager for notes, to-do items, contacts,
and passwords.
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OpenOffice.org v1.1.1
OpenOffice.org apps include a word processor, a spreadsheet, a
database, and drawing and presentation programs.
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AceMoney Lite
Track your spending habits, manage budgets, and track the performance
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For a full list of this week's Editors' Picks, go to:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/194938/21421679/722237/0/
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* Reviews *
* First PCI Express Graphics Cards Arrive
Cards based on the new bus perform well, but early tests offer no
clear reason to upgrade just yet.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/194938/21421679/722243/0/
Check the latest prices on Video Cards:
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* Top 10 Digital Cameras over $500
A powerful 8-megapixel camera from Canon leads a trio of newcomers
onto this month's chart.
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/194938/21421679/722244/0/
Check the latest prices on Cameras:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/194938/21421679/681/0/
* Pick Your Backup Software
Dantz's Retrospect Professional does it all, but the interface takes
time to master. We also liked the budget Argentum Backup 2.1, for its
straightforward approach to backup.
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Check the latest prices on Utilities:
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See all Reviews:
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