Photography and photographic imaging at its very best, brought to you by The Design & Publishing Center and
Doug Clifford of the ACE Camera Indexes! Please enjoy.

Feature: Dennis Curtin: "Digital Photography Short Course" Workshops: Shooting Chrome Setting up an In-House Digital Photography Studio Doug's Coffee Break: The Online Photo Art Auction Politically Correct Photography: What Do You Think? Feature: "Swimming with Sharks" ...could this be happening? Doug's Welcome

A message from Doug Clifford... Digital Camera Bandwagon Gathers Steam The word "digital" is one of the hottest buzzwords today. Adding "digital" to any product means cutting-edge, and often bleeding-edge technology. This is certainly the case with cameras. While high end digital camera solutions (Phase-One, MegaVision, and Leaf ) have been around for several years, the market has been small and the price very high. __ At first, the only digital still cameras available for consumers were shaped like eyeballs, sat on top of your computer and produced, for the most part, mediocre images. Nerd toys. In the last twelve months things have changed dramatically. The photographic product spotlight has shifted dramatically away from traditional film-based cameras to digital cameras aimed at consumers. There are two technologies currently being sold. Cameras which capture images using CCD chips, and those which use CMOS chips. The plethora of manufacturers jumping on the digital camera bandwagon include Apple, Agfa, Canon, Casio, Chinon, Epson, Fujifilm, Fujix, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Kodak, Konica, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, Polaroid, Ricoh, Samsung, Sony, Sound Vision, Toshiba, Vivitar, Yashica and more. __ Some of the players, you will note, have never made a camera until now, and have names associated with the computer industry. Can more than 20 camera brands survive ? Will there be a shake-down in the next couple of years? You can bet on it. __ Before making the digital camera plunge, you need to begin educating yourself about what digital photography means. Evaluate whether a digital camera would be a useful addition to your business or vocation. Learn what to expect in terms of image quality, and how to get the most from images taken with a digital camera. By becoming an educated consumer, you’ll be able to separate the fluff from the facts in product advertising and more likely you’ll be a satisfied buyer. We have just the ticket for you. Short Course in Digital Photography Dennis Curtin wrote me recently about his online book, commenting modestly "It's not yet complete, but then is anything ever complete on the web?" We were unprepared for the thoroughness of Curtin's Short Course in Digital Photography. His twelve logically progressing chapters cover almost everything you need to know and should be considered must reading for anyone planning on taking the plunge into digital imaging. Curtin comes with impressive credentials; he's the former editor-in-chief of Prentice Hall International and has authored more than 100 computer software and darkroom photography books (Check amazon.com for a list of titles available.) __ In 1972 Curtin became acquainted with Ansel Adams, hoping he could persuade Adams to become the editor for a series of photographic textbooks; he later became instrumental in bringing Adams over to Little, Brown and Company's New York Graphic Society imprint. It's all detailed in his Ansel Adams and Me. & FOTOgraphic will be excerpting portions of Curtin’s digital photography course over the next couple of issues. Here’s Part One. You can read the entire book online at his web site and even tour some digital camera sites. Are You Using a Digital Still Camera? In the coming months we hope to talk about specific digital camera models. Meanwhile we’d like to hear from readers who are already using a digital still camera. Tell us what model you have, how you are using it, and share your experiences with the readers of &FOTOgraphic. Drop me a line. Mike Berceanu, creator of our "Sharks" feature last month had some internet problems during April. If you tried unsuccessfully to visit his web site, Mike has solved the problem by getting his own domain www.berceanu.com.au It's a must visit! Berceanu will return in coming months with more how-to articles on digital imaging. Until next month, Doug Clifford Let’s hear your comments and suggestions about future photo topics. Don’t vegetate, communicate! Drop me a line with your thoughts and ideas. (Doug Clifford is the webmaster for the ACE Indexes, an annotated directory of North American photo commerce web sites, expanding soon to include Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia.)

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