January 6, 2010
We all want to make the most of our wedding photos and a new service from totalPIX makes it very easy with their beautifully bound photobooks.
Like all the best ideas, the idea of a photobook is very simple. Until now if you wanted to compile your own wedding album you first needed to get your photos printed. Unless you have a very expensive photo-quality printer, this meant getting them printed professionally either online or at a local photography outlet. Then they had to be put in the album and any captions you wanted either hand written or printed out and then added to the pages.
With a totalPIX photobook, you simply download the totalPIX software which includes several wedding templates, drag and drop your photos onto the template, add your captions and then upload everything to totalPIX.
A couple of days later, so long as you are in the UK, your photobook will arrive through the post, carefully packaged in perfect condition.
As commercial litho and digital printers, totalPIX have the latest Kodak digital presses so that every single photo, however small, is printed as though it were part of a half million run mail order catalogue. In fact the look and quality of the internal pages of a photobook is quite similar to the best catalogues although of course the binding is attractive and durable as befits a wedding book that will last a lifetime.
Very often we have different types of wedding photos, there are the formal ones, with everyone demur and poised at the church or registry office and these make a wonderful souvenir of the day. But often there are more informal images we want to keep, perhaps of the party afterwards or just simply wonderful photos that capture a special moment or expression. With totalPIX photobooks, there’s no problem. Create a formal photobook of the day for that special momento and another more informal one that perhaps gives more of the atmosphere of the occasion. And what about a record of the stag and hen nights, or perhaps not!
The ability to add captions makes a photobook very personal. Add the names of guests, the date and venue, whatever is important to you.
Photobooks can be ordered in any quantity from one upwards, and once you have the finished photobook on your computer, so long as you do not delete it, you can re-send it to totalPIX at any time for extra copies for friends and relations.
A major feature of the totalPIX photobook service is its ease of use. If you can use a digital camera, you will find creating a photobook a doddle. The software includes a basic image cropping and manipulation tool if you do not have one already installed. As a precaution against a poor outcome, the software will only accept photos that have the quality and resolution to print well, after all the best press in the world cannot create an award winning image from a poor quality one.
For full details of totalPIX wedding photobooks, please visit us at www.totalpix.co.uk
Sally Kavanagh is a keen digital photographer and is an advisor to totalPIX
Comments Off
November 10, 2009
Did you ever get back a fresh batch of film, only to be disappointed in finding out that you got back wash-out boring images.
The problem is that you didn’t expose your film properly.
Whether we use a digital or film camera, we need to be able to calculate exposure properly. But first, we need to understand how the aperture and the shutter work together. We also need to know how film handles light, and the relationship between film light sensitivity and f/stops.
Lets take a quick look at the main elements.
Aperture and f/stops: the aperture is an opening in the centre of the lens through which light passes. The amount of light which passes through an aperture is indicated by f/stops. The lower the f/stop the more light that passes through the aperture. Opening up one full f/stop doubles the amount of light entering the camera. F/4 admits twice the light of f5.6.
Shutter: the shutter is a mechanical device that controls the length of time that light is allowed to act on the film. Each time you open the shutter by one, we double the light, when we close down the light by one we half the light. Opening the shutter at 1 second allows twice the light as that of a second.
ISO (ASA): stands for International Standards Organisation. The initials are used for film speed which rates light sensitivity. A film with an ISO number 100 is twice as light sensitive as a film with an ISO of 50. The faster the film, the more sensitive it is to light.
Most digital SLR have ISO settings built in to them. If you are taking a low light image with a digital camera use a slow ISO rating of 200 or upwards.
Getting the perfect exposure isn’t easy, but there are several different ways of making it easier.
Using a light meter: there are two types of light meters,
1. Reflected-light meter (the same that is built into your camera) works by pointing the meter at your subject.
2. Incident-light meter: instead of pointing the meter at your subject, you stand beside the subject and point the meter at the camera. The light that falls on your subject will also fall on your meter.
The most common way is to use the meter built into your camera. All modern day cameras have a reflected-light meter built in to them. But don’t point the camera directly at your subject from 10 meters. This will more than likely underexpose your image. Take the exposure reading up-close, then return to the starting position and take your image.
It doesn’t matter which metering system we use, if we don’t point them in the right direction our images will return too dark or too bright. The key is to know where to point the meter.
When I take a landscape image I normally take five or six different readings. I take an incident-light reading with my light meter to record the foreground and a reflected-light reading of the sky.
If you are unsure take three or four images at different exposure settings. Don’t let a perfect picture moment pass by without recording it flawlessly.
TJ Tierney. Award winning Irish Landscape Photographer. If you are looking for more tips visit: Photo tips. To view some of his images visit his on-line gallery: Pictures of Ireland
Comments Off
June 3, 2009
If you’re in a strange city and you want to spend a little time seeing the sights then nothing beats a scenic flight over the city. Not only are you up and out of the traffic and crush of people but you’re going to be seeing the city from an angle that most other people never see.
Be sure to take your camera with you when you go because there are always some great photo opportunities from up there in the sky. You don’t have to fight with people getting between you and the scene you want to shoot and you’re not going to get jostled by the crowds either.
Most cities have plenty of service providers who can take you on a scenic flight and you will have the options of fixed wing aircraft or helicopters. Unless you’re going to be flying in a very specialized fixed wing aircraft such as the Seeker you’re all-round vision is going to be limited and so will the areas that your aircraft can fly over.
Speed will also be a factor so you’ll be limited to what you can see out of a fairly small side window and just how fast you can focus and snap the photos you want.
That’s why a scenic flight in a helicopter is much better value. Here in Sydney fixed wing aircraft have very limited flight paths available to them but helicopters are far less restricted and a helicopter can take you right down the harbour, past the Bridge, the Opera House and on to Fort Denison.
Speed and visibility aren’t important factors either when you charter a helicopter for that scenic flight so have a look around in the cities that you’re traveling to and see what’s available. You will be surprised at just how cheap a scenic flight can be.
If you’re coming to Sydney and want to experience that flight down Sydney Harbour then the best helicopter charter in Sydney is Skyward Helicopters. They regularly show people the sights that this great city has to offer.
Comments Off