If you have ever set foot in my apartment, or met me while I was taking photos, you'll certainly know one thing about me; I have a lot of cameras. I got caught up in the whole camera-collecting thing at about the same time as I became interested in photography. While they may seem to go hand in hand, I've begun to think that having so many cameras is detrimental to my progress as a photographer.

See, I've always been a gearhead. First it was cars, and believe me when I have a laundry list of strange and rare cars I want to own someday. I found photography as a hobby, and suddenly I was doing something where I could afford a lot of the gear. It started innocently, with cheap thrift store finds, but lately it's gotten out of hand. Don't believe me? I count 17 cameras that I can see from where I sit right now, in my living room.

Obviously they don't all get used too often, and that's a shame, because many of them really are nice cameras that could take wonderful photos. Many of them are more decorative than useful. And with so much choice, a photographer can bog down and not shoot much of anything, as I have been doing recently. Each camera has...

One surprise Pentax had up its sleeve is a lens that wasn't on the lens road map. Today, Pentax announced the new SMC-DA 18-250 F3.5-6.3 ED AL(IF) lens that will work with all Pentax DSLRs. That's a 28mm to 383mm equivalent in 35mm. It's a small little package with a big 14X zoom range, 16 lens elements, 7 aperture blades, and a 62mm filter diameter. Recommended retail price is $499. (Update: 1001NoisyCameras has clued us in that Pentax Japan says the lens will be shipping in late October and that they're making about 6,000 per month)

All-purpose superzooms have been getting smaller and smaller, and the current trend is for IF (internal focus mechanism) lenses that are under 1lb in weight and that have a terrific APS-C zoom range. It's true that the compromise is for softer corners and more distortion, but the small lens extension size means that there's less flash vignetting and the light weight means it's a good tourist lens. Tamron already has its 18mm-250mm lens on the market for about $499 (see the review at PopPhoto), but this new Pentax version boasts the SMC coating Pentax is famous for, and it doesn't need the Tamron's Manual/Autofocus switch (because Pentax has that on the camera body). Among the nice little design touches is the zoom lock clasp that features ribbing...

Mark Roberts has updated his Pentax equipment site with a slew of notes on lens compatibility information for Pentax DSLRs. Generally speaking, the manual for your camera will specify what lenses you can or shouldn't even try putting on your camera, but that's an incomplete list that focuses on recent lenses. So, Mark has started keeping notes on the methodology of how to figure out what is likely to work with various Pentax lens mounts. For example, you might know that Ricoh has certain lenses that can be used with Pentax DSLRs, but you might not know what world of pain you can cause your camera if you don't know what you're doing when you jam a Ricoh "program" lens into your baby. Thanks Mark!

Yes, I promise you… it’s a good thing!

Especially when they’re videos that help you learn stuff… Here’s a great video of Chase Jarvis‘ talk at the New York Photo Shelter get-together thingie… Now, I couldn’t quite make it, being travelling in India and all that, but the guys at Photoshelter, being the nice people that they are, did put out quite a few videos… Here’s my favourite, with links to some of the others. Let me know if you learned anything!

I did… Now check these out too.Panel Discussion between photographers and photo buyers/editors… info about copyright issues.

Catherine Talese - Photo editor, talks about the buyer’s perspective.

Intellectual Property… a discussion.

Ok, Watched the nice videos? Now get back out there and take some Photographs!

Last Updated: Review by PhotoReview.au (02 October’07)

Sigma 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 DC is exclusively designed for use with digital SLR cameras featuring APS-C size image sensor. It’s a Compact, Lightweight and Durable construction lens with diameter of 70mm (2.8″), length of 78.1mm (3.1″) and weight of 405g./14.3oz. The lens is featuring two Special Low Dispersion (SLD) glass elements and two hybrid aspherical lenses offer the utmost correction for all types of aberrations, new lens coating to reduce flare and ghost, which is a common problem of digital cameras and also creates an optimum color balance.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars | Latest Price Info

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Yes, I promise you... it's a good thing!

Especially when they're videos that help you learn stuff... Here's a great video of Chase Jarvis' talk at the New York Photo Shelter get-together thingie... Now, I couldn't quite make it, being travelling in India and all that, but the guys at Photoshelter, being the nice people that they are, did put out quite a few videos... Here's my favourite, with links to some of the others. Let me know if you learned anything!



I did... Now check these out too.

Panel Discussion between photographers and photo buyers/editors... info about copyright issues.

Catherine Talese - Photo editor, talks about the buyer's perspective.

Intellectual Property... a discussion.

Ok, Watched the nice videos? Now get back out there and take some Photographs!

This tutorial will show you how you can change the color in an infrared photo like this:

into this:

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Dane Sanders’ CutFrame TV features a number of awesome videos by Dane and other fantastic photographers. At Pictage Partner Conference in 2006, Jessica Claire made this short video demonstrating how she takes an image from “blah” to “wow” in Photoshop. I may have posted this previously…but it’s worth repeating!