May 2012

Welcome to DPS 10-04, April/May, 2012: New tips on using Photoshop CS6, Think Tank Airport TakeOff bag review, new book on Nikon CLS Flash reviewed.

Regular readers will know that I love getting canvases printed by Canvas on Demand. They do a great job, and provide awesome customer service. However, they're not cheap, so I periodically get asked about a less expensive alternative for when ultimate quality isn't needed. I've finally found one, Easy Canvas, who is running a large Memorial Day sale, with discounts and 2 for 1 pricing. I did a test print and din't get the same tonal range as with COD, but their prices are meaningfully lower and the quality is certainly very acceptable. [NOTE: I don't have any financial relationship with either company]. For the curious, I don't print canvases much myself because...

The idea of a point and shoot that can take great telephoto images is really appealing. But over the years I’ve been underwhelmed by their performance. I’m a much bigger fan of no compromise models like the Canon S100, which offer excellent images over a limited zoom range than of the super-zooms I’ve reviews, like the Canon SX240. But kind words about the new Canon PowerShot SX260 HS by my friend and former editor Michael Miller convinced me to take another look. The Canon PowerShot SX260 competes directly with the new Nikon Coolpix S9300, so I decided to do a real hands-on field test of both of them. Of course I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so we’ve decided to go all the way, pitting the SX260 and S9300 (unfairly) against a Nikon D7000 paired with the Sigma DSLR super-zoom lens the Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-f/6.3 HSM lens, and against the full-frame Nikon D700 with Nikon’s flagship 200-400mm f/4 VR pro lens. So for the next month here at Cardinal Photo we’ll be shooting with all four cameras and taking careful notes…

Having just returned from two weeks of really fun and very productive photography on some of the best private ranches in south Texas, I’ve had a lot of time to think and rethink about the design of the bird blinds we used, and some of the others we saw in use. In this case I’m not talking about the physical blind structures where we, the photographers, sit. That part of the blinds has continued to evolve for the better over the six plus years I’ve been shooting there. They are more comfortable and better positioned than ever. No, in this case I’m talking about the part of the blind where the real action is, the “stage” where birds and mammals hopefully appear and are photographed…