If you wear glasses, you may find that using the viewfinder on you digital camera is difficult. They lenses in the view finder are made to focus at a certain point, and often glasses may interfere with this.
One thing you can try is to adjust the diopter on the eyepiece to match the prescription for your eyewear. Adjustinging the diopter will adjust the focus of the view finder so that when you look through the view finder, the image is in focus without the aid of your eyeglasses. If the diopter adjustment is not enough, some camera manufacturers also sell an diopter accessory for further adjustment.
If you do not use glasses but find that the focus is off on your camera when using the autofocus mode, but the images are in focus when you review them later, or when using manual focus the image in your viewfinder is in focus, but out of focus when you review them later, check your diopter to be sure that it has not been modified. To do this, I press my focus spot selector to light up the focus indicators in the view finder, then adjust the diopter until they are sharp.
Maintaining all facets of your equipment will help ensure your images are everything you want them to be.
Until next time, happy shooting.
From the Orlando Sentinel:
The United States is starting to look like a slowpoke on the Internet. Examples abound of countries that have faster and cheaper broadband connections, and more of their population connected to them.
What’s less clear is how badly the country that gave birth to the Internet is doing, and whether the government needs to step in and do something about it. The Bush administration has tried to foster broadband adoption with a hands-off approach. If that’s seen as a failure by the next administration, the policy may change.
One of the big things in the IT industry these days is virtualization. In general terms, this is using an existing computer to run multiple operating systems at the same time. On my computer I can install special software, and then run Windows, Linux, and sometimes even MacOS in a “window”. This “window” let’s you see the boot screen, the loading process, and then when the operating system has started, you use it as if it were on your main computer. This is a great way to test new operating systems, run applications that you use rarely but require a different operating system, or just to play around.
VMware and Microsoft both have virtualization products. I’ve tried them both, and they both have their strengths and weaknesses. They used to cost money, but now both of them offer free server products, and Microsoft has a free personal product. If you wanted to try an alternative, then you could try VirtualBox from innotek.
innotek VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is now the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software.
I’ve installed this on my home computer, and it runs great. So far I have setup a Windows 2000 virtual machine and it runs great. The Windows 98 machine is a little sluggish, but that is probably because Windows 98 didn’t run very well. The software seems to have all of the features of the bigger commercial products. You can modify which drives you use, how you want the networking setup, and more.
This isn’t a great screenshot (I had to keep it small in order to have it fit in the blog and in the newsletter), but the top left corner shows the main Virtual Box windows. The black “DOS” screen, is a virtual machine booting from my Windows 98 setup CD. The window on the right that is showing the WindowsUpdate screen is a Windows 2000 virtual machine.
Regular reader Pat sent me a newsletter that linked to a Mashable posting on RSS (news feeds) resources:
Never again will mankind have to look for RSS info in more than one place…ok, we’re kidding, but we’ve aimed to create a near comprehensive list of all the RSS readers, tools, browser plugins, tips, hacks and directories available on the web. We hope you find it useful (we built it because we needed it), and feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.
It is quite a complete list. If you are interested in any area of RSS (creating, reading, organizing, etc), then you should definitely check this out.
I have talked about depth of field and using aperture to minimize or maximize depth of field in the past. Today I will talk about Automatic Depth of Field function some camera’s have and depth of field preview.
Automatic Depth of Field (A-Dep or DEP) is creative mode on some camera’s that will help you select the best aperture to get everything in your frame in focus. To use A-DEP, turn the dial on your camera to A-DEP, and compose your image. The camera will then evaluate your frame, set your aperture and focus on a point where everything from front to back will be in focus by setting the focus to the hyperfocal distance. As it is an automatic setting, it tends to be hit and miss at time. When using this setting, be sure to have everything you want in focus to fall within your camera’s focus points as this is what the camera uses to determine what needs to be in focus. On older cameras (DEP) you were able to focus on the point nearest to you that you wanted in focus the press the shutter 1/2 way. Next, focus on the point (without changing the zoom setting) further from you and press the shutter 1/2 way. Finally, recompose your photo and press the shutter all the way. The camera will then focus at the correct spot to get the near and far points in focus.
If you want a more manual approach, using your depth of field preview button will help you determine how your given aperture will affect your image. Once your image is composed, press your depth of field preview button to stop down the lens. This will force your diaphragm blades to close and you will be able to see how the depth of field will be represented when you take the photo. Because you are closing the diaphragm blades, the image will go darker in your viewfinder as you let less light into the lens. This is normal and will not alter your image.
Until next time, happy shooting.
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