Digital Photography Week? Yes, but Motorola's Droid is on our minds, too! 'Still' cameras that take great video. The Best Free Panomamic Stitching Tool. Favorite Digital Photography Gadgets, 7 Great Digital Cameras For Black Friday, Better Night, Low Light Photography!
Droid Sound vs. Dead Drive!
We should have a Motorola Droid review next week, but, for now, Veronica talks modding her iPhone with the evil Droid robot sound! (Patrick has another trashed hard drive, but this time it's -not- the drive's fault!)
Fave Photo Gadgets... and a few quick digital photography tips!
Memory cards and rechargable batteries are cheap, especially if you've ever missed a photo 'cause you ran out of juice, or space on a CF card! We list the lens cleaning tools we use, too, remind every new DSLR owner to buy a UV Filter to protect their expensive camera lens, RTFM before the big shoot, and more!
Pocket Tripods!
Any tripod (or monopod!) can help you take better photos, especially at night. Carrying a full sized top o' the line floating head tripod around is a pain. That's why we've got gadgets like the Joby Gorillapod and Pedco's UltraPod and UltraClamp in our bags!
Cases
Protecting your pricey digital camera is a good idea. Roger favors a small bag from Lowe Pro for his PowerShot. Patrick's Rebel is stored in a re-purposed Timbuk2 bag that works like a proper camera holster bag. Need a hard case? Try a Pelican or Otter Box!
Free Software: Microsoft Image Composite Editor
Sometimes, just one photo doesn't capture the whole scene. Microsoft's Image Composite Editor is new favorite tool for stitching together multiple photos into a seamless panorama. Just select your series of photos and drag them into the application. You can specify whether you're standing still rotating the camera, like on a tripod, or whether you're moving side to side, as if in a hallway. You can fix warps, adjust curvature, choose your center point... and it'll even automatically crop your results to the biggest possible rectangle! And it's FREEEEEEE!
Black Friday: 7 Great Cameras For Your Money!
Patrick's usual digital camera buying advice is just go buy a PowerShot... or the A-Series, Canon's less expensive line of digital cameras. That said, there are a ton of cameras that offer great value, like Fujifilm's FinePix F200EXR, $250, and Nikon's D90, $1100. Want to see the rest of our choices, including a great cheap camera? Watch the video!
Looking for solid camera reviews? Check out the hands on reviews at Cnet and DPReview.com.
Better Low Light Photography!
Night shots are tough, whether you're indoors at the office, out at a club, or trying to photograph the stars, or our beloved Golden Gate Bridge at night. Our resident nocturnal photographer, Roger Chang, joins us with a heaping pile of digital imaging tips for when it's dark out... or the light just sucks!
Website Of The Week: Social Status Generator
If you're tired of putting all that effort into coming up with witty and pithy things to say on Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, Identica, Plurk (wait, is that still even around?) then it's time for you to check out the Social Status Generator! There really isn't that much to it. You pick a word from the tag cloud, and then the Social Status Generator pulls a random update from the ether... check it out!
Free Photo Editing Tools ... a Question Via DimDim
Christie is looking for some free digital image editing tools. Patrick's a huge fan of Paint.Net on Windows. Thinking Open Source? The GIMP is popular, and has been ported to Mac and Windows. (tho a lot of folks have problems with it.)
It's not free, but Pixelmator is a tool both Patrick and Veronica regularly use on OS X.
AlternativeTo.net is a great source for free alternatives to paid software... try searching there, too, Christie!
We took this question via DimDim, an excellent free, easy, open source web conferencing tool. They're a Tekzilla sponsor. You can get a free trial -and help support Tekzilla- by signing up for the free service at DimDim.com/tekzilla!
Point and Shoot to DSLR???
Ted's moving from a point and shoot to a pricier DSLR. What should he be looking for? We've got answers in the video!
Shooting Movies On A Digital Camera... or a Flip?
Todd writes, "I'm in the market for a new compact digital camera, but I'd also like to shoot some video with it. Have the video capabilities of these digital cameras approached the performance and convenience of a pocket video camcorder, say, like the Flip?"
Many inexpensive digital still cameras will take better video than the $150 standard definition Flip Mino. It's the MinoHD and Ultra HD that are a bit tougher to beat.
Want to find out our camera picks for shooting HD video? Watch the video!
-Rome