Wedding Photography

Saving Money on Wedding Photography
by: Mike Lindsey
Weddings are momentous occasions to all people involved; especially the families of the bride and groom. One very important aspect of a wedding is to commemorate the event with beautiful pictures so that the day never really disappears.

Hiring professional photographers is usually the preferred way for couples to capture the moments of their wedding forever.

Professional photographers can charge an obscene amount of money for their services at times, but there are a few ways that you can save money on photography at your wedding.

Here are some of things that you can do to save some of your money for the honeymoon instead. Let’s take a look at what you can do.

1. Place disposable cameras on tables at your reception and let your guests capture special moments for you.

2. Ask a friend or family member to take special photos of the ceremony for you or videotape it

3. Check at colleges and universities who are studying photography and hire a student to do it. You can get professional looking photos for a fraction of the price.

4. Have your photographs taken before the wedding by having your wedding party to gather together at a professional photographer’s shop

5. Have your photos taken before the ceremony and keep the negatives yourself so that you can develop them later and make prints

During one of the most important days in your life, pictures and videos can make the day last forever. The above mentioned tips can also make sure that you will not go broke in the process.

When it comes to the disposable cameras, you can often find cameras that are decorated with wedding themes. If you can’t, you can have the bridal party decorate them instead.

Using digital cameras can limit the amount of pictures that you have to take while making them easy to reproduce. Digital camera technology can make even an amateur take professional looking pictures. You can even use the prints to create thank you cards later that are personalized that show the guests and/or the bridal party.

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For more tips and ideas on planning your wedding, check out The Ultimate Online Guide to Wedding Planning

HOW TO FIND THE BEST DIGITAL CAMERA

HOW TO FIND THE BEST DIGITAL CAMERA

It seems that every month, if not every week, different manufacturers are coming up with the latest digital cameras to entice potential clients. And it’s just not working for us!

After spending sizeable amount of time at the mall figuring out which is the best digital camera for us, we finally have enough money to buy for that eye-popping, 7 mega pixel, 10x digital zoom, potable, candy colored, up to 512MB expandable memory of super hi-speed SD memory card and not to mention very portable, (that will be the envy of almost everyone we know). We march to the mall armed with our life savings and lotsa pride in ourselves, when we pass by a new display - an eight mega pixel, up to 1G expandable memory, with built it mic and stereo surround, video playback capable, with 22 scenic modes kind-of-camera. And we sigh because the producer of this amazing gadget claims that this is the best digital camera yet out in the market. And so as we always want to have the best, armed with our life savings and a few credit cards, we buy the “best digital camera.” But then again, that doesn’t last too long, after two months or so, there’s another “best digital camera.”

And so it confuses us. What makes a digital camera, the best digital camera?

Well, there are certain factors to consider when looking for the “best digital camera” for us.

MEGAPIXELS. One of the most important features of digital camera to make it into the best digital camera category is its mega pixel property. The higher the mega pixels the better the actual photograph will come out. A mega pixel is equivalent to one million pixels. The resolution of your image is based upon the mega pixel property of your camera. This means that as you enlarge the picture, you would get more detail and less blurry colors.

LCD SIZE. The best digital camera will always have a large LCD to help you frame your subject without having to squint to the viewfinder. This is also helpful when reviewing your images, some cameras enable touch up and editing features with its LCD. A 1.5-inch display is average, a 2-inch LCD display is good, but the best LCD size would be 2.5 inches or higher.

ZOOM. Most digital cameras have both digital and optical zoom. A higher optical zoom is always better than a higher digital zoom. Digital cameras are usually furnished with optical of between 3x to 10x. The better the optical zoom, the higher it climbs up to the best digital camera category.

MEMORY CARD. Always make sure that your memory card is the right one for your digital camera. There are different types of memory card like the xD, SD, Flash card and the likes. And these types of memory cards go with certain types of digital cameras. of course memory storage is also up there in choosing the best digital cameras. Choose the size of memory that you need, if you’re a photo junkie, you might need more than 32MB. Memory cards can go up to 1G.

The key point to find the best digital camera is to find one that will best fit you and your lifestyle. Don’t just buy the latest or the one that claims they are the best digital cameras out in the market. You wouldn’t want to buy a DSLR and use it with your home activities or family outing and have to lug it around?! Or you don’t want to buy the latest point and shoot camera when you’re serious about being a professional photographer. (Of course, you can use this for starters, but if you’re not a novice photographer anymore, you wouldn’t want to get this kind of camera.)

Actually, the best digital camera is the one that you will enjoy and use. Not the type that you’ll just leave rotting in its box or after a few weeks of usage or so, up there in the attic.
It seems that every month, if not every week, different manufacturers are coming up with the latest digital cameras to entice potential clients. And it’s just not working for us!

After spending sizeable amount of time at the mall figuring out which is the best digital camera for us, we finally have enough money to buy for that eye-popping, 7 mega pixel, 10x digital zoom, potable, candy colored, up to 512MB expandable memory of super hi-speed SD memory card and not to mention very portable, (that will be the envy of almost everyone we know). We march to the mall armed with our life savings and lotsa pride in ourselves, when we pass by a new display - an eight mega pixel, up to 1G expandable memory, with built it mic and stereo surround, video playback capable, with 22 scenic modes kind-of-camera. And we sigh because the producer of this amazing gadget claims that this is the best digital camera yet out in the market. And so as we always want to have the best, armed with our life savings and a few credit cards, we buy the “best digital camera.” But then again, that doesn’t last too long, after two months or so, there’s another “best digital camera.”

And so it confuses us. What makes a digital camera, the best digital camera?

Well, there are certain factors to consider when looking for the “best digital camera” for us.

MEGAPIXELS. One of the most important features of digital camera to make it into the best digital camera category is its mega pixel property. The higher the mega pixels the better the actual photograph will come out. A mega pixel is equivalent to one million pixels. The resolution of your image is based upon the mega pixel property of your camera. This means that as you enlarge the picture, you would get more detail and less blurry colors.

LCD SIZE. The best digital camera will always have a large LCD to help you frame your subject without having to squint to the viewfinder. This is also helpful when reviewing your images, some cameras enable touch up and editing features with its LCD. A 1.5-inch display is average, a 2-inch LCD display is good, but the best LCD size would be 2.5 inches or higher.

ZOOM. Most digital cameras have both digital and optical zoom. A higher optical zoom is always better than a higher digital zoom. Digital cameras are usually furnished with optical of between 3x to 10x. The better the optical zoom, the higher it climbs up to the best digital camera category.

MEMORY CARD. Always make sure that your memory card is the right one for your digital camera. There are different types of memory card like the xD, SD, Flash card and the likes. And these types of memory cards go with certain types of digital cameras. of course memory storage is also up there in choosing the best digital cameras. Choose the size of memory that you need, if you’re a photo junkie, you might need more than 32MB. Memory cards can go up to 1G.

The key point to find the best digital camera is to find one that will best fit you and your lifestyle. Don’t just buy the latest or the one that claims they are the best digital cameras out in the market. You wouldn’t want to buy a DSLR and use it with your home activities or family outing and have to lug it around?! Or you don’t want to buy the latest point and shoot camera when you’re serious about being a professional photographer. (Of course, you can use this for starters, but if you’re not a novice photographer anymore, you wouldn’t want to get this kind of camera.)

Actually, the best digital camera is the one that you will enjoy and use. Not the type that you’ll just leave rotting in its box or after a few weeks of usage or so, up there in the attic.

Canon-Powershot

Canon-Powershot-A80 Review

Last month we bought the Canon Powershot A80 online for about $325 including shipping after looking at digital cameras for about a month. It had all the features we were looking for in our price range and the stylish gleaming metal case didn’t hurt either. We looked at a few other cameras, notably the Fujifilm FinePix S7000, but settled on the Powershot and we are glad that we did.

The Canon Powershot A80 is a 4-megapixel compact digital still camera with a high quality, swiveling, flip-out LCD; built-in flash and a 3x Optical / 3.6x Digital /11x Combined Zoom. It has a Shutter Speed of 15 - 1/2,000 seconds, and a variety of shooting modes and photo effects built in. It stores photos on a Type I compact flash (CF) Card and is powered by non-proprietary AA batteries

The camera can be used in a simple point and click manner that is trivial for novice users but is expandable with optional lens adapter’s and full manual control. Its ready to use after a very short power up, the zoom lever is very smooth, and the menuing system is easy to use. Photoshop found the camera’s USB connection right away and we were downloadig photos within minutes of plugging it in.

On the downside it does have a noticeable shutter lag and it does not do a great job capturing video, small quibbles that do not detract from the overall usefulness and quality of the camera.

Even though the Powershot A80 is a joy to use, the real value is the photo quality. Indoor and outdoor photos are exposed well and have excellent saturation. Our biggest problem with previous digital cameras was jpeg artifacting - with the Canon A80 this is not even an issue. Family and friends raved about the quality of the photos that we posted online and with very few exceptions we have been exceedingly happy with the image quality of the photos taken with Powershot A80. We’ve used it in every type of lighting situation imaginable and have come away impressed in every single instance. The strong flash is a big plus in low light situations.

In conclusion we think that the Canon Powershot A80 is an excellent value for the money. Forget the numerous features - it’s worth the money for the picture quality alone. If you are in the market for a small digital camera priced under $500, you could do a lot worse than this Canon Powershot A80.

This article was originally posted on IMSlack.com and was written by James Kendall of Copacetix Digital Creation.

Black and White is Beautiful

Black and White is Beautiful

Think about Laurel and Hardy for a moment, or Charlie Chaplin, and even Harold Lloyd. All true examples of early cinema genius. Today’s DVDs offer the opportunity of not only watching these classics in their pure black and white format but also in the DVD provides a colorized version. Essentially though the colorized version never quite looks right, even though it’s meant to look more modern and more realistic to latter day cinema.

The point is this; these films were meant to be black and white because that was the level of technology of its day. But when you stand back and look at these films you can see that because the ‘life’ colour is stripped away they have in a sense become timeless and when viewed there is always something a bit special and different about them.

The same is true of a black and white painting, poster or photograph. A black and white photograph of an old wrinkly woman sitting by her doorstep is timeless, powerful and extremely though provoking. A picture of an old building or a city view in black and white has the same affect. Without colour you tend to look more closely at the subject and see a level of detail and arguably emotion that you may never spot with full colour. As mentioned before depending on the subject a black and white piece of art is essentially timeless.

Nostalgia is time and again the word expressed when these images are viewed. This is why so many people opt for black and white art within the home. A happy home with a touch of nostalgia is a magic recipe.

Michael Edwards owns BlackAndWhitePoster.com which offers a vast range of black and white posters and prints. Other galleries include sepia, vintage and surreal. You can find out more at: http://www.blackandwhiteposter.com

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