Hasta La Gadget!

I love this shot. It’s totally unattainable in “AUTO.” Your DSLR is crying for you to spin that dial and add some human intervention to the exposure process. With a little creativity you can use your DSLR to capture or create something that’s not normally visible to the naked eye using a long duration exposure.

In Matthew Fang’s “Super S.” (above) you’ll notice the headlight trails and other standing lights are overexposed. His decision was to run a long exposure, capture the detail in the naturally lit elements and not worry about the lights which have none. This 117.4 second exposure was captured at f/22 with a 14mm lens. With a wide lens and small aperture he got a huge depth-of-field which made focusing (often difficult in the dark) a lot less critical.

Most handheld pictures need fast shutter speeds otherwise the natural shakiness of your body will render shots blurry. You can fix a lot of things in photography. Blurry isn’t one of them.

Spring’s nearly here, and with it the promise of outdoors–biking, skateboarding, motorcycling, rollerdisco, or whatever your sport of choice. Consumers have turned in droves to portable, easy-to-use video cameras like the Flip, and they’ll no doubt like the forthcoming Kodak ZX1 and the Cobra DVC950. But if you like sports, you’re gonna love the VholdR.

Designed to by Twenty20 for hands-free recording of your favorite activity, the VholdR ($280 street) is a tiny black camcorder that mounts to your helmet, recording whatever you point your eyeballs at. A pair of laser beams help you target the camera correctly (they’re ideal for Predator impersonations, too), and one-button operation makes it easy to use with gloves on. Plus Twenty20 hosts a web community where you can post the day’s best clips and share tips with other users, all linked through Google Earth.

To test the VHoldR’s quality and ease of use, I set my friend Jesse up with the VHoldR for a week of intense motorcycling. After the jump, a full review, including a side-by-side comparison of video from the Pure Digital Flip.

Are the built-in flash units on your DSLR (or any camera) awful? I’ll let Canon, which includes them on its cameras, answer that:

“We’ve all seen it in snapshots we’ve either taken ourselves, or been shown by others: the pupils of your subject’s eyes are lit up in a devilish bright red color, unlike anything we’re used to seeing in real life. And of course, you never saw it in your camera’s viewfinder when you took the picture.”

Red-eye! It’s the bane of amateur photographers worldwide. The pros don’t have the problem, because they move the flash away from the lens so a bolt of light doesn’t illuminate the very red back of your eyeball. But red-eye is only one of the many bad features built into every on-camera flash.

Attention, venture capitalists: I’ve got a great idea for a site that revolves around a cheap geek who discovers great tech deals everyday. Now can I have $10.6 million in Series A funding puh-leeze?

1. Mac laptop users, if you’ve fallen in love with videoconferencing with your notebook’s built-in iSight camera, did you know you can present a much better image by using an external cam? Logitech makes the best webcams around, and Amazon is offering a great price on this top model. The QuickCam Vision Pro attaches to a notebook or sits flat, and has a Car Zeiss lens with a 2megapixel sensor. Get it for $109.70 with free shipping.

2. PC not running right? You can now grab a software bundle that includes TuneUp Utilities 2009 (with one-click maintenance) and Steganos Safe 11 (for securing your data) for 50 percent off. Get both together for $49.95.

3. Turn your vacation footage into something someone might actually enjoy watching. Magix Movie Edit Pro 15 is out, and you can get it for $79.99, a $10 savings off the regular price.

Got a DSLR? Still shooting in “AUTO?” Let me push you toward a more hands-on approach. More than likely spinning the dial off “AUTO” will get you better shots. This is part three of my three part series. Part one covered shutter speed. Part two was all about aperture. This third piece deals with ISO. The shot at the top of this entry wouldn’t have been possible had I not ramped the ISO way up!

Setting your camera correctly for a shot begins with making sure sufficient light passes through the lens to the sensor. Within reason you can control how much or how little light gets there with your aperture and shutter controls. Those are physical controls. The aperture relates to the size of the opening your light passes through, and the shutter speed controls how how long light can pass. ISO is a little more ethereal, because it’s a totally electronic parameter.