Each month the NPD Group ranks America’s top-selling digital cameras based on unit sales. Here are the top-selling digital compacts for March 2008. Also, see our digital SLR rankings for March, or compare to February’s Top 5 digital compacts.

	Make/Model	Megapixel	Zoom	Est. Street
	1. Canon PowerShot SD750	7.1MP	3x	$175
	2. Kodak EasyShare V1003	10.1MP	3x	$170
	3. Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W55	7.2MP	3x	$159
	4. Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S700	7.2MP	3x	$125
	5. Canon PowerShot SD1000	7.1MP	3x	$155

Rankings for March 2008
Source: NPD Group

Each month the NPD Group ranks America’s top-selling digital cameras based on unit sales. Here are the top-selling digital SLRs for March 2008. Also, see our digital compact rankings for March, or compare to February’s Top 5 DSLRs.

	Make/Model	Megapixel	Est. Street
	1. Canon Digital Rebel XTi w/ 18-55mm lens	10.1MP	$600
	2. Nikon D40 w/ 18-55mm lens	6.1MP	$525
	3. Canon Digital Rebel XT w/ 18-55mm lens	8MP	$525
	4. Nikon D300 Body Only	12.3MP	$1700
	5. Nikon D60 w/ 18-55mm lens	10.2MP	$750

Rankings for March 2008
Source: NPD Group

Some of other people’s review to this lens are:

- ”Crisp, sharp,contrasty images extreamly easy to hand hold even at 400mm quick auto focus”

- ”Portability for such a long range zoom. I found it was extremely useful, even handheld in bird photo…”

( read more on Popphoto.com )

“The Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM Lens has an excellent focal length range that includes the longest focal length found in a Canon zoom lens. This long focal length and focal length range combine with very good image and build quality to make the 100-400 one of the most popular serious wildlife and sports lenses Canon sells. ”

( read more on The-Digital-Picture.com )

“I’ve had this lens for almost a year now and like some of the other reviews I’ve read, it is a tad on the soft side near it’s maximum aperature. I have captured some really superb wildlife shots with this lens on my 20D, but still can be a bear to handhold. Like one of the other reviews, I don’t like having to lug along a tripod unless I’m in the car and only walking a short distance. Even so, most of my bird pictures are taken in my yard, handheld. The focus is fast and nearly silent. The IS works great so long as you don’t shoot below it’s means. Meaning don’t try to shoot at too long of a shutter speed. — Bob Chance”

( read more on BetterPhoto.com )

“As a wildlife photographer without the means to purchase lenses costing more than $2000, I use the Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens more than any other and have been extremely happy with the results. The image stabilization makes it possible to hand hold it in many situations that usually require a tripod and still get sharp pictures. The zoom range offers real flexibility - a plus if you hate to change lenses or don’t have the time even to switch cameras. — Eden“

( read more on reviewcentre.com )

“This is a serious lens. It is big and heavy and takes fantastic pictures. The image stabilization gets you an extra stop when shooting handheld, in that it minimizes shake enough. I’ve taken some spectacular twilight shots using this feature. For serious work you will need a tripod or some other kind of support, because this thing gets heavy. Note that the photo on Amazon shows the lens in its shortest configuration… zoomed to 400mm, it is a bit longer than pictured. — Automatt“

( read more on Amazon.com )

Without taking that extra control, you end up with those typical flash snapshots: Sure, your subjects in the foreground are properly exposed, but more than likely the background fades to black. That’s never good. Whether you lose a dramatic sky or the interior of a room totally disappears, your subjects look like they’re hanging out in a cave.

The trick to overcoming this problem is to set your camera so you know the background will look the way you want it, then let your flash fill in the foreground — without overexposing your subject.

Sound hard? It isn’t, because of a little miracle setting on your flash called TTL. TTL stands for “through-the-lens,” and it means that the flash fires a pre-flash and uses that, along with information from the camera’s meter, to figure out how much light to put out. In other words, once you set the flash to TTL, you’re free to set your camera to manual and mess around with the ISO, shutter speed, and aperture until you get the background you love — the flash will take care of the subject in the foreground with no extra work from you. (One note for old-schoolers still hanging on to the flashes from your film days: It’s time to upgrade. Get yourself a dedicated flash that works with your camera model, and make sure it’s got TTL in its name.)

The process goes like this:

1. Set your camera to manual.

2. Set your camera’s meter to evaluative mode.

3. Set your white balance to Flash, and choose an ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. (Every camera has a maximum speed that its shutter can match — a.k.a. sync — with the flash. You can set your camera slower, but no faster, than the sync speed. If you’re not sure what yours is, look it up or just use 1/125 sec to be safe.) Don’t know where to start? Try using the program, shutter- or aperture-priority modes as your guide, then dial the mode back to manual.

4. Take a picture of the background. If you like it, you’re all set. If not, change the shutter speed or aperture until you get something that looks good to you.

5. Turn on the flash. Most likely, your flash defaults to TTL. If not, find the mode button and keep hitting it until TTL comes up.

6. Fire away. Your camera’s evaluative meter will find the foreground subject, the flash will expose for it, and your background will appear just as you planned it.

Since every situation calls for slightly different settings, here are three case studies to help you out. Each photographer made decisions that worked for the scene, and each produced outstanding results.
The leap

With a tripod-mounted camera and a flash in the hot-shoe, photographer Danny Ngan got our opening picture — of himself! Look at his right hand, and you can see the remote that’s triggering his shutter.

Ngan knew he wanted to freeze the action and minimize blur, so he started by setting his Nikon D70 to manual and choosing the fastest shutter speed, 1/250 sec, that would sync with his camera-mounted Nikon Speedlight SB-600.

With the camera set at a low angle, he tried several apertures until he got an exposure of the sky that looked good to him. He made sure the camera’s lightmeter was set to Matrix (Nikon’s term for evaluative metering) so that when he fired the camera, the meter would detect him as the subject and the flash would light him accordingly.

Then he leapt.

Try This Shot: (1) Set your tripod low to the ground, mount the camera, and put the flash in the hot-shoe. (2) Set your meter to evaluative. (3) Set ISO to 200, shutter speed to 1/125 sec, and aperture to f/5.6. (4) Use a remote trigger to take a shot, and check your LCD. Adjust the aperture to get an exposure you like. (5) Turn on your flash and set it to TTL. (6) Jump!

This article wrote by Debbie Grossman on popphoto.com, i like this article. Thank you Debbie!

HDRSoft has released the stable version of the popular High Dynamic Range Imaging program Photomatix Pro 3.0. Among notable new features are a Workflow Shortcuts palette and two ghosts removal algorithms. The program is available for $99.00 direct from HDRSoft and a free trial version is available. There is no upgrade charge for license holders for 2.x versions of Photomatix Pro.

A Standalone application. Merges differently exposed photos into one image with details in both highlights and shadows:

› Exposure blending
› Creation of 32-bit HDR images
› Tone Mapping tool 
› Automation with easy-to-use Batch Processing
See more new features of this version on HDRSoft site

Before and After

Before we get started, lets take a look at the result comparably. As you’ll see we’re taking a great photo and making it really punchy by getting it really contrasty and changing the colour palette.

Step 1:

So here’s our photo. It’s a great shot from iStockPhoto of someone tearing up a wave. Even without any photoshopping it’s already looking pretty good, but it lacks oomph.

Step 2:

Our first step is to up the contrast, you can do this by going to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast. I’ve upped the contrast by 20 and upped the brightness to stop the photo from getting too dark.

Step 3:

Next we duplicate the layer and press SHIFT-CTRL-U to desaturate the copy to Black and White.

Step 4:

Set the Black and White layer to Overlay and 60%. This gives us a nicely adjusted photo.

Step 5:

Now with a large, soft brush, create a new layer and paint some black on the edges as shown. When you’re done, set that layer to Overlay and 50% or thereabouts. We do this just to make the centre of the image have a slightly higher contrast to the edges, which helps make it pop.

Step 6:

Now with this method, you should be adjusting to compensate for your specific image. In this photo of the surfer, there is some extra noise in the bottom left. I think they are bubbles or wash or something, it’s not important, to us they are just unwanted noise. So with a large, fat, black brush gently paint over that area. Having some parts of the photo be quite flat and clear makes the other parts seem more visually interesting, so this again helps give the photo more punch.

Step 7:

Now the colouring of the image is quite bright, so we create a new layer on top, fill it with black and set the blending mode to Colour. Then we change the opacity to just 30%, this effectively desaturates the image a little, but by adjusting opacity we can control this easily and without doing anything permanent.

Step 8:

Now we could stop here, but I want to get some greenish ocean colours in there too. For this purpose I downloaded an image from Arsenal’s Freebie Section under Watercolours. It has a perfect ocean-y colour pallet and some texture to boot. So we paste this into a layer above all the others and set it to Colour Burn and 20%. I wish I had some good explanation of why I used Colour Burn, but the truth is I just played around with all the blending modes until I found one that looked nice!

Step 9:

And here’s our finished image!

Now with a technique like this, remember to use judgement as to how far to go with the photo. In this case I’ve gone pretty far because its a tutorial, but you could always tone this back by copying the original photo on top and setting it to say 30% opacity so that it mixes in with the photoshopped version.

You can download this tutorial from collis site

The Pentax SMC DA* 200mm f/2.8 ED [IF] SDM is a long awaited lens in the Pentax community. The DA* 200mm f/2.8 is part of Pentax’ professional grade lens lineup and, correspondingly, it is a beautifully crafted lens. The outer body is obviously made of metal and the broad, rubberized focus ring operates very smooth. The lens is also sealed against dust and moisture and The Pentax Super Protect (SP) coating on the front element has been optimized to repel dust, water and grease. Thanks to an IF (internal focusing) design the front element does not rotate and the physical size of the lens remains constant regardless of the focus setting. The deep lens hood features a removable “window” which provides access to the filter area so it’s possible to use a polarizer even with attached hood - a simple and smart solution.

Specifications:
- Optical construction, 9 elements in 8 groups inc. 2x ED elements
- Number of aperture blades, 9
- min. focus distance, 1.2m (max. magnification ratio 1:5)
- Dimensions, 83×134mm
- Weight, 825g
- Filter size, 77mm (non-rotating)
- Hood, Barrel shaped (supplied)
- Other features, ultrasonic AF motor with quick-shift. SP-coating.

Its a good lens with low distortion, low vignetting, really sharpness lens. Check it review in photozone.

It different with its old versatile EF16-35mm f/2.8L USM, this Mark II type is really great and full frame Lens from Canon. The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II USM Lens is what I consider one of the most important lenses in Canon’s lineup.

The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Autofocus Lens is a high performance, water-resistant, and ultra wide-angle L-series lens. The optical design has been improved to offer better edge-to-edge image quality. Compatible with all EOS SLRs past and present, it uses three high-precision aspherical lens elements and two Ultra Low Dispersion (UD) lens elements to minimize lateral chromatic aberration and to produce superb image quality with excellent resolution and contrast.

While most Canon L Lenses have 8-blade diaphragms, the ultra-wide L zooms including the Canon EF 17-40 L Lens, Canon EF 16-35 L Lens and Canon EF 16-35 L II Lens diaphragms contain only 7 blades. The circular shape of the 16-35 L II’s blades help create desirable round-shaped OOF (Out Of Focus) highlights and an attractive background blur. Of course, a lens this wide is not the best for creating a blurred background.

Unfortunately, It need a 82mm filter thread (77mm is standard). If brick walls are your thing, like all ultrawide zooms, there is plenty of distortion at 16mm. Shoot at 21mm and it goes away. Bigger and heavier than the previous big and heavy 16-35mm. But It still isn’t that bad, and is a few ounces (100g) less than 70-200mm f/4 L IS.

Here to find full specification at Canon site.

The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L USM Lens could also make a reasonable walk-around lens if your needs are typically for a wide angle lens - especially on a 1.6x FOVCF body. The short focal length range limits this lens’ usefulness as a 1-lens-does-it-all general purpose lens. But, this lens performs excellently as part of a kit.

The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II USM Lens - not inexpensive, but highly recommended.

First time, Adobe Bridge was just a glorified file browser and Camera Raw a neat alternative to the RAW processing software that came with your camera. But, now if you have Photoshop CS3 and you don’t delve into these programs added, you’re wasting your top-dollar investment.

I have some favorites RAW image editing tips using Camera Raw on Adobe Bridge. It’s so good and you may not even need to open Photoshop. Some of this great stuff wasn’t here when CS3 first launched, so before you start, go to Help > Updates to ensure you have the latest versions.

Adobe Bridge also can copying your images from your memory card into individual folders, and back them up while it’s at it: go to File > Get Photos From Camera.

Here are some of my favorites tips on Camera RAW Adobe Bridge:

Clarity slider in Basic panel Find the new Clarity slider on the Basic panel, and crank it up. Essentially, it adds midtone contrast to make your image pop all the more.

Sharpening in RAW Your best bet used to be to sharpen in Photoshop. Now, with Camera Raw’s excellent sliders, and the fact that the sharpening is done to the luminance data (essentially helping you avoid sharpening noise), you may want to use Camera Raw’s sharpening tool on your JPEGs and TIFFs, too.

Click on the Detail tab (symbolized by two small triangles). Then, to harness the full power of sharpening, zoom in to 100% or more.

The Alt key on a PC or (the Option key on a Mac) is your best friend when you’re using all of these sliders. Hold it down when you move the Amount slider to hide the color and see what happens to your luminance data as it gets sharpened.

As with Photoshop’s Smart Sharpen and Unsharp Mask tools, the higher the radius, the more pixels on either side of an edge get sharpened. Hold down Alt (Option) to see that effect in action.

Similarly, hold down Alt (Option) to see what happens when you move the new Detail slider left to prevent haloes, or move the new Masking slider back and forth to determine how much detail within the edges gets sharpened. (The screengrab shows Masking at work.)

Healing in Raw Sometime we probably have a little dust on our camera sensor or lens. Without Photoshop, we can fix it on RAW image. Grab the Retouch tool from the toolbar at the top of the screen, and click on your bad spot to surround it with the red circle. Use the Radius slider to make sure it is encompassed. Then find a good area and drag the tethered green circle over a patch that Camera Raw can use to heal your dust spot. Of course, this works on blemishes, too. And, if need be, you can switch the function type to "Clone."

Zoom and Compare in Bridge One of the most frustrating tasks in the old Bridge was trying to compare two images. But now you can select and compare as many as you want just by holding down Shift and clicking the first and last of a set with your mouse. Or, to select a few at a time, click on them while holding down Control (Command on a Mac). Then, to examine a detail for sharpness or facial expression, click on one or all of the images to bring up the magnifier.

Stack them into a group In order to avoid an enormously crowded Bridge window, pile all of those shots into a stack. Just select them and go to Stacks > Group as Stack.

Once they’re stacked, a small number will show up in the upper-left corner of the stack telling you how many are present. Click it to show or hide the group. Then, to see them all in the Preview window, click the edge of the bottom image in the pile. To see only the front one, click the bottom of the pile again.

Buy Adobe Photoshop CS3  complete with Adobe bridge or Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Design Standard full with tutorial

Each month the NPD Group ranks America’s top-selling digital cameras based on unit sales. Here are the top-selling digital compacts for February 2008. Also, see our digital SLR rankings for February, or compare to January’s Top 5 digital compacts.

	Make/Model	Megapixel	Zoom	Est. Street
	1. Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W55	7.2MP	3x	$159
	2. Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S700	7.2MP	3x	$125
	3. Canon PowerShot SD750	7.1MP	3x	$175
	4. Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W80	7.2MP	3x	$200
	5. Canon PowerShot SD1000	7.1MP	3x	$155

Rankings for February 2008
Source: NPD Group