Wide-angle lenses can cause perspective distortion. The closer to the camera an object is, the larger it appears in comparison to the rest of the scene. This is important to keep in mind if you are shooting people.

Normal Lenses
A normal lens is any lens where the angle of view is about 50 degrees. This used to be the 50mm lens when on a 35mm camera. With the lens crop factor, this is now closer to the 35mm lens, which is equivalent to a 52.5mm lens..
The view through a normal lens is approximately the same as the view through your eyes, which is why it is called a normal view. When a scene is shot using a normal focal length, everything in the photo seems to be in correct perspective. This is a great lens for portraits and group shots because the view is very familiar and can add a real sense of intimacy.

Telephoto Lenses
Telephoto lenses get you closer to the subject. The longer the telephoto, the closer you can get. This is especially important when there is no other way to get closer to the subject. When you’re trying to get a photo of a lion at the zoo, it isn’t possible to just walk up closer, so a longer lens is needed. Using telephoto lenses is an absolute necessity when shooting sports, concerts, and wildlife because there is no way to physically get any closer to use normal lenses.
While most people think of telephoto lenses as a way to get closer to the subject, there are some other advantages to using a long lens. Long focal lengths combined with a shallow aperture can be used to isolate a subject from the background. Using a 200mm lens and a f/2.8, the background will be pleasantly out of focus, making the subject of your photo stand out.
Because the focal lengths of these lenses are longer than normal, the shutter speed needs to be increased to reduce camera shake.
In addition to the camera shake and shutter speed problems, a form of distortion also occurs when using a long focal length. Because subjects are far away, everything can seem to be compressed.

Macro Lenses
Macro lenses are specialty lenses that let you create extreme close-ups of your subject.

Tele-Converters
Tele-converters are specialized lenses that go between the camera and the lens that increase the focal length while reducing the maximum aperture of the lens. Teleconverters used to be very popular before zoom lens manufacturing started to produce affordable compact zoom lenses that matched the quality of the prime lenses.
If you do have the opportunity to shoot with a tele-converter, it is important to remember to either stabilize the lens with a tripod or use a shutter speed faster than the new focal length of the lens. Note that when you use a tele-converter, your images may not be as sharp as those shot without the converter.

See also:
Prime vs. Zoom Lenses

Zoom lenses
Modern zoom lenses have all but taken over the lens market. Why get a lens that has only one focal length when for a few dollars more (or sometimes less) you can get a single lens that covers a wide range of focal lengths? It is much more economical to purchase a single lens that can do the job of multiple lenses. The ability to cover a wide range of focal lengths makes zoom lenses very useful for today’s photographers. Instead of having to carry three or four different lenses, stopping to switch lenses every time you want a different focal length, the single zoom could be your answer. A lens like the 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 covers focal lengths from 18mm all the way to 250mm. This makes the lens a wide-angle lens, a normal lens, and a telephoto all at the same time depending on what focal length is used.
One downside is that most zooms have a range of maximum apertures, and none of them are as fast as a good prime lens. Other than the 70-200mm f/2.8 and the 24-70mm, which both have a constant maximum aperture of f/2.8, all the other Sony zoom lenses have a wide range of maximum apertures. This can be a problem especially in low-light situations or when you want a shallow depth of field.

See also:
Lens types

Overview:
Canon Vixia HF20 is a direct successor of last year’s Canon HF11, yet there are many differences between the two. Canon Vixia HF20 is equipped with a 32GB flash memory, but if you have some spare SD/SDHC memory cards, do not care for internal memory and want to save some money have a look at Canon HF200 which is identical to Canon Vixia HF20, but has no internal memory. The Canon Vixia HF20 and HF200 are overall decent performers, yet when compared to their predecessor.

Canon Vixia HF20 pros:
+ Simple design
+ Good color accuracy
+ 32GB internal flash memory
+ Very good connectivity
+ Vast array of scene modes and auto controls
+ Impeccable resolution

Canon Vixia HF20 cons:
- High noise levels
- Still images only up to 3.31 megapixels
- Poor location of HDMI and USB ports
- No full manual mode and no gain control
- Poor low light performance

The design:
Canon Vixia HF20 measures 70 x 62 x 125 mm and weighs 400 grams. The front of the camcorder features the Canon HD video lens, bult-in stereo microphone, flash for still photos, LED light and the secondary AF sensor. The back of the Canon Vixia HF20 houses the removable battery pack, Record on/off button, DC power port and component out jack. The right side features large and comfy hand strap, USB port, HDMI port behind the strap and the mode dial. The left side, as usual, has the LCD, plenty of controls and the playback speaker. On the top of Canon Vixia HF20 you can find the Canon proprietary accessory shoe, zoom toggle, and the power button, whereas on the bottom is the tripod mount along with the battery release switch.

Performance:
The Canon Vixia HF20 records HD video using the AVCHD coded at the maximum bitrate of 24Mbps. The camcorder has 5 video quality settings with the best recording in 1920 x 1080. The camcorder has a Shake Reduction system and Face detection which according to the manufacturer should detect up to 35 faces, but in fact it struggles with just a few. But when it locks on a face the Canon Vixia HF20 will trace it as long as its in the frame. The camcorder has a complete set of scene modes among which there are: Fireworks, Sunset, Night, Snow and so on. Canon Vixia HF20 has a 15x zoom which is not too bad for a consumer camcorder, yet as there are no numerical information on the screen it might be difficult to repeat the shot if need be. There is also the 300x digital zoom but as it decreases the video quality it is not recommended. Canon Vixia HF20’s built-in 32GB flash memory will allow you to store almost 3 hours of video in the best quality. The standard battery will work for about 100 minutes.

Video recording quality:
Canon Vixia HF20 reproduces color accurately in good lighting conditions and even in low light it scores quite good for such a small camcorder. When you add to it that the camcorder comes with a few Image Effects, such as Vivid, Natural, Soft Skin Detail and so on you can achieve really good results in this respect. However, the Canon Vixia HF20 produces too much noise both in bright light (although here, it is not as obvious) and in low light. The motion captured with this device looks good. The Canon Vixia HF20 has the best video resolution among consumer camcorders, maybe that is why it suffers from the noise.  The camcorder has Aperture adjustment tool, as well as a few white balance settings, but no gain adjustment is available.

Still images:
Canon Vixia HF20 is able to capture 3 megapixel photos which will give you 2304 x 1296 images. The overall image quality is not bad, yet the issue with noise visible in video recording remains true for still images. The images sometimes are undersharpened, but they are bright and with plenty of detail. However, every second new mobile phone offers 5 megapixel camera so I doubt if anyone would seriously consider buying a camcorder for its still image capability. Of course it is a good thing it’s there.

Menus / ease of use:
The menu structure in Canon Vixia HF20 is not the standard Canon. The manufacturer decided to change a few thins which make finding the desired option a challenging task. Especially the video recording newbies may find it surprising that there is no Easy mode in Canon Vixia HF20. In fact, it is there but it is called „Dual Shot”. When you are in this mode the camcorder blocks the access to most settings so you can focus on recording. If you, however, decide to use more advanced mored and do something manually you will most probably find the menu structure in Canon Vixia HF20 quite confusing. The settings are placed in an unpredictable manner and often divided into several tabs, or submenus so you might even need to make use of the manual.
All in all the Canon Vixia HF20 is a slightly disappointing, yet capable digital camcorder worth its price.
Selected Canon Vixia HF20 features and specifications:
High Definition
Television System    NTSC
Video Recording system    MPEG4-AVC / H.264
Image Sensor    1/4-inch CMOS, RGB Primary Colour Filter
Total Pixels    Approx. 3.89 Megapixels
Effective Pixels
Video: Approx. 2.99 Megapixels
(2304 x 1296) / Still Image: 16:9: Approx. 2.99 Megapixels
(2304 x 1296), 4:3 Approx. 3.31 Megapixels (2100 x 1575)
Maximum recording time
32GB internal Flash drive
LP (5 Mbps) 12 hours 15 minutes
SP (7 Mbps) 9 hours 35 minutes
XP+ (12 Mbps) 5 hours 45 minutes
FXP (17 Mbps) 4 hours 10 minutes – Allows 1920 x 1080 Full HD Recording
MXP (24 Mbps) 2 hours 55 minutes – Allows 1920 x 1080 Full HD Recording
Lens
Zoom Ratio 15x Optical / 300x Digital
Focal Length f=4.1- 61.5mm (35mm equivalent: 39.5 – 592.5mm)
Zoom Speed Variable / 3 Fixed Zoom Speeds
Max. F/Stop f/1.8-3.2
Focusing System    Instant AF, Face Priority AF, TTL (through the lens)
Manual Exposure    Yes
Programmed AE    AUTO, P, Av, Tv, Portrait, Sports, Night, Snow, Beach, Sunset, Spotlight, Fireworks
Max Shutter Speed    Movie: 1/2000, Still image: 1/500
Minimum Focusing Distance    10mm (wide) / 1m (tele)
White Balance    Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, Manual
Frame Rate    60i, 24p Progressive (records at 60i), 30p Progressive (records at 60i)
Minimum Illumination    0.4 lx (Night mode)
Image Stabilization    SuperRange Optical (lens shift)
Filter Diameter    37mm
Viewfinder    None
LCD Screen    2.7-inch Multi-Angle Vivid widescreen colour LCD (Approx. 211,000 dots)
Flash    Built-in
Recording Media    Internal Flash drive (32GB) or SDHC Memory Card
USB Terminal    USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
Video Terminal    component (output), composite (output)
Audio    Dolby Digital 2 channels (AC-3 2 ch)
Accessory Shoe    mini Advanced
Supplied Video Editing Software    Pixela ImageMixer 3SE
HDMI Terminal    HDMI Mini Connector (output), CEC and x.v. Colour
Microphone Terminal    3.5 mm stereo mini-jack
AV Mini Terminal/Headphone Terminal    3.5 mm 4 pole mini-jack (video/audio output only)

Other recently reviewed camcorders:
Sony HDR-CX12, Panasonic SDR-H60, Canon DC330, Samsung HMX-H105, JVC GZ-MG670, Sony Webbie MHS-CM1.

Overview:
Canon SD780 IS features 2.5 inch LCD display and a 12.1 megapixel sensor which is a lot for such a small digital camera. The camera is also able to record HD video up 1280×720 pixels at 30 fps. When you add to it that the Canon SD780 IS has a viewfinder and a bunch of manual settings the camera looks more and more interesting. So let’s have a closer look at its performance.

Canon SD780 IS pros:
+ Seemingly indestructible build quality and interesting styling
+ Bold, vibrant colors make outdoor shots ideal for from-camera printing
+ HD video capture
+ Smart Auto mode is effective and easy to use
+ Snappy, unflappable auto focus
+ Good image quality

Canon SD780 IS cons:
- A bit too noisy shots, even at low ISOs
- Occasional flash quirks in Smart Auto mode
- Images get muddy on the telephoto end

The design:
The Canon SD780 IS measures 3.43 x 2.15 x 0.72 in./87.0 x 54.5 x 18.4mm  and weighs 4.06 oz./115g. The camera is made of durable materials and will not crack too quickly, yet it might get scratched rather fast. The screen, until recently one of the biggest Canon disappointments, is quite fingerprint resistant and easy to clean, yet it seems it tends to get a few scratches too easily. The camera is small so all its buttons and controls are small as well. It means that photographers with bigger hands might have difficulties operating the Canon SD780 IS. Yet, all the buttons are very responsive and tactile. At the back of the camera, just above the screen you will see the tiny optical viewfinder – a rare feature in such small cameras.

Performance:
The Canon SD780 IS has a 2.5 LCD screen displaying 230,000 pixels. The screen works very well in bright daylight and shows accurate colors. The camera has a continuous mode which is not the fastest in this class of digital cameras, yet as it can shoot 1 photo per second until you run out of free space on your memory card it is quite useful. The Canon SD780 IS has two different modes of autofocus: Face detection and what Canon calls AiAF which is a combination of face detection and multi-area autofocus. The face detection itself works fine with a few faces and can even track them in a frame. The battery in Canon SD780 IS should suffice for about 200 shots, but it, of course, depends on how often you use flash. The flash recharges slowly and so you can take a photo with flash once every 10 seconds or so.

Image quality:
With photos reaching 12.1 megapixel there is always the issue with noise and it is not only an issue in Canon SD780 IS – that’s just the way it is. So when you put the noise issue aside where does it leave Canon SD780 IS? Well, the Canon camera produces very vibrant and crisp, sharp images. The exposure and white balance are very good and in fact the images are so good that they are ready for print without too much tampering with.

Menus / ease of use:
Canon SD780 IS is a simple compact point and shot digital camera so you should not expect too extensive menus with multiple submenus. The controls on the camera’s body take care of the most frequently used features and those rarely used are to be found in the menus. The menu structure is quite simple and you should not need too much time to find your way through it. All in all the Canon SD780 IS is a very good performer for a reasonable price.

Selected Canon SD780 IS features and specifications:

Other recently reviewed digital cameras:
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77, Canon PowerShot G10, Canon PowerShot SX10 IS, Samsung TL34HD, Nikon Coolpix S610 and Nikon Coolpix S610c, Olympus 570UZ, Sony Cyber-Shot T500, Pentax K2000, Nikon Coolpix P6000, Canon EOS-50D, Nikon Coolpix S600, Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150.

Overview:
Sony Ericsson C903 has all the goodies you might need in a phone: good quality digital camera, music and video player, accelerometer for screen auto rotation, excellent connectivity and smart dialing. Moreover, as you can see in the photos below it is stylish and looks very solid.

Sony Ericsson C903 pros:
+ Excellent connectivity
+ Built-in GPS with A-GPS support, Wayfinder Navigator software, geotagging
+ Scratch resistant 2.4″ 256K-color TFT display
+ 5 MP AF camera with dual LED flash, geo-tagging,
+ Face and smile detection, active lens cover
+ Backlit D-pad shortcuts in camera mode
+ Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
+ Bluetooth (with A2DP), USB v2.0
+ FM radio with RDS and enhanced TrackID, YouTube client
+ Threaded conversations in messaging
+ Smart dialing

Sony Ericsson C903 cons:
- The glossy surface is a fingerprint nightmare
- No cover for the USB port
- No office document viewer
- Camera key has almost no feedback at full press

The design:
Sony Ericsson C903 measures 97 x 49 x 16 mm and weighs 96 grams so it is quite pocketable. It is made of glossy black plastic so it might be a fingerprint magnet, but still is looks very attractive. The front of the phone is dominated by the 2.4” screen displaying 256-K color. The image is bright, vivid and clearly visible in direct sunlight. Above the screen is the ambient light sensor and the earpiece. Below the display you will see only a few buttons as the rest of them is on the alphanumeric keyboard which you have to slide. On the right side of the phone there is the volume rocker, as well as the two step shutter key for the camera. The left side of the Sony Ericsson C903 houses only the Fast Port. The top of the phone is completely bare, whereas the bottom houses the lanyard eyelet. On the back you will find the camera lens and a LED flash. All in all, the Sony Ericsson C903 is a very solid phone and should not fall apart after a few days of heavy usage.

Performance:
The battery in the Sony Ericsson C903 is quite powerful and according to the manufacturer it should last for about 400 hours in standby mode. The scratch resistant screen working in QVGA resolution does a very good job both in bright light and in low lighting conditions. The User Interface in the Sony Ericsson C903 is similar to the standard Sony Ericsson interface, but with a few new icons and themes.
The phonebook in Sony Ericsson C903 can store up to 1000 contacts and up to 7000 numbers and although the name and the surname are entered into one field you can enter either of them to find the number. This seems to be the usual Sony Ericsson style as even the newer phones, like Sony Ericsson T707 do it in the same way. You can also group your contacts and assign them ringtones and add photos. If you add a birthday into one of the fields the phone will remind you of it in advance. The call log works well, but what personally dislike about the Sony Ericsson phones is that if you get a few missed calls from one person the phone will show you details only about the last one.

One new interesting feature in the Sony Ericsson C903 in the messaging system is the conversation style layout of your messages. It not only looks nice and makes it easier to follow what was sent where, but it is also automatically updates so if you get a message while reading the last one it will instantly get displayed. Apart from that the phone comes with quite a rich T9 dictionary and when you get to the 160 character limit you get informed that your message will be divided.
The Sony Ericsson C903 may work in the flight mode, but it requires a SIM card and a restart.

Multimedia:
Sony Ericsson C903 comes with a Music Player v3.0 and support for the majority of popular media files. Also, there are a few equalizes presets and the Mega Bass system. When you’re playing some music the thumbnail of the album art gets displayed which makes the nice-looking media player even more visually appealing. The sound quality is really good for a non-Walkman phone.
The video player can, of course, work in the landscape mode and supports rewinding and fast forwarding. The phone also comes with a pre-installed Youtube client.
The Sony Ericsson C903 comes with a 5 megapixel camera which takes photos in up to 2592 x 1944 pixels. The camera has plenty of features such as spot metering, macro mode, BestPic, face detection and smile shutter. Moreover you get a few manual settings thanks to which the images taken with the Sony Ericsson C903 are really good, although not as good as those taken with the Sony Ericsson C905. The images are vivid and sharp and only sometimes there is too much noise.
The photo gallery is fast and thanks to The built-in accelerometer is rotates automatically. From the photo gallery you can set a photo as a wallpaper, send it to a friend, or put it on the startup screen. Thanks to the built-in GPS receiver the Sony Ericsson C903 puts coordinated in the photos.

Menus / ease of use:
The standard home screen looks as usual: 4 x 3 icon grid. You can of course customize it using different settings or themes. The overall menu structure in Sony Ericsson C903 is very simple and easy to remember. There is nothing revolutionary in the menus, but the phone has a nice feature which allows you to put WalkMate right on your home screen. The application is useful for training and although it is designed for sport-oriented people it is a nice touch. Selected Sony Ericsson C903 features and specifications:

Other recently reviewed mobile phones:

Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani, LG KS360, LG KF900 Prada, LG KP500 Cookie, Sony Ericsson W902, BlackBerry Curve 8900, Sony Ericsson W595, Sony Ericsson W995, BlackBerry 9500 Storm.

Overview:
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 is capable of shooting 14.7 megapixel photos and capturing HD video with mono sound. The camera has a selection of auto modes and plenty of manual settings for less amateur photographers. When you add to it the above average battery life and good image quality it shows that Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 is a strong performer.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 pros:
+ Good built quality
+ Elegant, stylish, compact, feature rich
+ Excellent Leica zoom
+ Excellent image quality
+ Manual exposure controls
+ Good battery life

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 cons:
- No optical viewfinder
- Noisy images
- Weird compass switch

The design:
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 measures 3.8 x 0.97 x 2.1 inches and weighs 5.3 ounces. It has a metal body with plastic buttons and knobs all of which make a very good impression of above-average durability. As usual with the most recent compact digital cameras the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 has no optical viewfinder. The buttons might seem a bit small for people with bigger hand but as they are well placed they are easy to access and generally you can operate the camera using only one hand. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 has a 2.7” LCD screen displaying 230,000 pixels. The screen shows bright colors and automatically adjusts its brightness in dark areas. Moreover, it is clearly visible in direct sunlight.

Performance:
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 has a very powerful battery which according to the manufacturer should take over 300 photos and it indeed does that. The shutter lag is hardly noticeable in bright light, but when you have to make use of the built-in flash it might take some time for the flash to recharge. So, all in all the camera has about average speeds. You can of course try to speed it up for instance by using three point high speed autofocus instead of 11 point standard AF. The zoom on has 18 steps and is fast and smooth. As I mentioned before the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 is capable of taking 14.7 megapixel hoots, but it can also record movies (and you can use zoom while recording) in 1280 x 720 at 30 fps until you run out of space on your memory card.

Image quality:
The overall image quality in Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 is very good. The camera produces sharp hoots with good contrast and a large amount of details. As you get a wide array of white balance settings the colors are always reproduced very well. Yet, as is always the case with such big photos there is often too much noise in higher ISO. What I liked about the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150, though, is the fact that is has very little barrel distortion, or chromatic aberration. Yet another similar pint-and-shot came is Panasonic Lumix ZS3 with 10x zoom lens and many other interesting features.

Menus / ease of use:
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 has a quite simple menu structure which you should have no difficulties mastering in no time. It has a selection of auto modes and some manual settings for more advanced users. Generally, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 is a very decent point-and-shoot digital camera worth its price.

Selected Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 features and specifications:

Other recently reviewed digital cameras:

Canon PowerShot G10, Canon PowerShot SX10 IS, Samsung TL34HD, Olympus 570UZ, Sony Cyber-Shot T500, Pentax K2000, Nikon Coolpix P6000, Canon EOS-50D,  Nikon Coolpix S600.

Should you have any difficulties with the terms used in this review, have a look at the glossary of photographic terms.

Diffusers
Diffusers are light modifiers which go between the light and the subject to soften the light that passes through. Diffusers might be a bit complicated to set up as they have to be placed between the light source and the subject of the photo. When used outside in natural light, this usually means that they need to be positioned above the subject in order to diffuse sunlight. Think of a diffuser as an artificial cloud which you may have complete control over. In general, the material of the diffuser should let roughly 50 percent of the light through, yet this is a matter of taste. Since direct sunlight, or any direct light, creates harsh lights for portraits, if you can’t avoid taking photos in the midday sun, you should try to use a diffuser of some kind. In a pinch, you can use any light-colored, thin material such as a white bed sheet. When shooting indoors, the bright sunlight coming through a window may be softened by hanging a white sheet in front of the window. The output from studio lights might be modified using diffusers such as a softbox or umbrella in front of the flash head.
A softbox is a large light diffuser that softens the light of a studio flash, and although these cost more than umbrellas, they do a better job keeping the light exactly where you want it. A softbox connects to a flash head using a speed ring, usually sold separately from both the softbox and the strobe. Softboxes come in a variety of sizes and shapes, from a small square to a large octagon.

An umbrella is a light modifier which connects in front of a studio light and looks just like an umbrella used to protect you from the rain. The umbrella is positioned so that the light is aimed through the umbrella. The light is then aimed 180 degrees from the subject letting the light reflect back from the inside of the umbrella toward the subject. Although this method is cheaper and easier than having a softbox, it doesn’t have the same level of control—but it is still better than nothing at all.

Reflectors
A reflector does exactly what its name implies: It reflects the light onto your subject and fills out the shadows to create a more even light on the subject. The bigger the reflector, the more light is reflected onto the subject. Reflectors work best when the original light source is very strong.
Different reflector surfaces create different light, and using the right reflector for the right job is important. Although very shiny material is highly reflective, it is very hard to control and does not reflect evenly. A plain white reflector has a much softer effect, and the spread of light is more even. When gold is added to the reflector’s color, the reflected light is warmer and has the properties more associated with the natural light available during the golden hour. When silver is added to the reflector, the light has a harsher quality.

Reflectors come in a variety of sizes, but what really makes them useful for location work is that most types are collapsible. The reflector material is sewn around a sprung steel hoop, which keeps the reflective material taut, but still allows for the reflector to be folded and stored in a much smaller space. Many reflectors come with multiple covers as well, so that the color can be changed when needed.
To add more light to the shadow portions of the subject, the reflector needs to be positioned directly opposite the main light source and aimed toward the subject. The biggest challenge in using reflectors is positioning them in the right place and still being able to take the photograph. Some reflectors now come with a handgrip to help keep the reflector steady. If it isn’t going to interfere with the composition, you can even have the subject hold the reflector for you.
One great use for a reflector is to minimize shadows under a subject’s eyes. When a person is lit from above by natural or artificial light, shadows can form under the eyes, which is not a very pleasing look. Positioning a white or silver/white reflector in front of the subject, aiming up at the face, reflects some of the light back up at the subject and fills in those shadows.

Have a look at other articles describing the influence of lighting conditions on photography:
The Color of Light, The Diffusion of Light, The Intensity of Light, Light Direction, Light types, Photography and light.

Introduction:
The market is already full of touch operated devices and yet the competition is getting more and more intense with new phones appearing almost every day. The BlackBerry 9500 Storm offers 3.25” screen comparable in quality to that found on the pioneering iPhone. The phone also features a fast processor, GPS receiver, 3.5m stereo audio jack and document editor right out of the box.

BlackBerry 9500 Storm pros:
+ 624 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM
+ 3.15 MP autofocus camera, LED flash
+ 1 GB internal storage
+ 3.25″ 65K-color capacitive touchscreen working in 360 x 480 pixel resolution
+ Hot-swappable microSD card slot, ships with an 8GB card
+ Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and 2100 MHz 3G with HSDPA support
+ Built-in GPS and BlackBerry maps preloaded
+ Great build quality

BlackBerry 9500 Storm cons:
- Bigger than most touchscreen phones
- Interface not as quick as competitors
- No Wi-fi
- No FM radio
- No email support without BlackBerry Internet Service account
- Mediocre camera
- No Flash support

The design:
BlackBerry 9500 Storm measures 112.5 x 62.2 x 12 mm and weighs 155 grams so it is rather biggish and may be tiring when you make longer phone calls. Maybe the phone is not easy to fit in a pocket but with the 3.25-inch screen it is quite understandable.the phone is made of high quality, glossy plastics and has simple great looks. The front of the BlackBerry 9500 Storm is, of course, dominated by the 3.25” touchscreen below which you will find call and end keys. The right side of the phone houses the volume keys as well as the 3.5m standard audio jack, whereas the left side features the microUSB port and a convenience port. The top of BlackBerry 9500 Storm will show you only two keys – one for locking the screen and the other for muting the phone. The back features the 3.2 megapixel camera lens together with a LED flash and a loudspeaker.

Performance:
The voice clarity and reception are fine in BlackBerry 9500 Storm and as the phone comes with Li-Ion 1400 mAh battery it is sure to last quite a time. The display in BlackBerry 9500 Storm makes use of the capacitive technology which assures seamless and very responsive (but not too responsive) operation. The display itself is of very high quality. It shows vibrant colors with excellent contrast and brightness levels both in dim places and direct sunlight. You get three different text input methods in BlackBerry 9500 Storm: the virtual QWERTY keyboard, BlackBery SureType keypad and the regular multitap. All three are very convenient and pleasant to use with buttons large enough to minimize possible mistakes. Th.e phone handles all the most common message types, yet out of the box the the e-mail client supports only BlackBerry Internet Service.

Multimedia:
The music player in BlackBerry 9500 Storm is surprisingly good. You can sort your music library by artist, genre, or album and you can search by gradual typing. The album art is displayed and you get a few equalizer presets to choose from. The sound quality is very good, the dynamic range distortion is fine and the stereo crosstalk is superb. The video player, which may work in the landscape mode, provides neither DIvX nor XviD support out of the box which is a pity with such a large screen.
The image gallery is quite standard with zooming and panning. The former gets a bit slow sometimes but the latter works fine. The overall quality of images taken with the BlackBerry 9500 Storm is, unfortunately, not too good and very comparable to BlackBerry Bold 9000. It all starts with bad camera interface and goes on not a bit better. The entire screen works as a viewfinder but a you always have a tab with controls displayed you cannot see the entire frame that is going to be captured. The noise level in acceptable but because of advanced noise reduction system applied the images lack detail. Also the dynamic range is far from good and the only thing that works in BlackBerry 9500 Storm’ camera is color reproduction.

The BlackBerry 9500 Storm comes with a document editor right out of the box, but with no PDF support (not even viewer). Moreover, you get a nice web browser which displays pages fast and allows you to find the necessary information easily.

Menus / ease of use:
The home screen in BlackBerry 9500 Storm shows 8 large icons with shortcuts to most often used applications and features. The menu structure in BlackBerry 9500 Storm may be somewhat confusing at first and it for sure if far from iPhone’s simplicity. The phonebook is very capable and practically unlimited, but its look leaves a lot to be desired. Finding contacts is easy as the phone finds all the contacts containing the typed letters. The menu structure in BlackBerry 9500 Storm is not to bad and even if at the first glance you might experience some difficulties you should quickly learn your way through it. It is only too bad that certain submenus look as it they came from ten years ago.
Selected BlackBerry 9500 Storm features and specifications:
• 2G Network – GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
• 3G Network, HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100
• 3.25-Inch TFT touchscreen – 65K colors/360 x 480 pixels
• Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
• MP3 & Polyphonic Ringtones
• Vibration
• 3.5 mm stereo headset jack
• 624 MHz CPU
• 128 MB RAM
• 1 GB memory plus microSDHC, microSD (TransFlash) up to 8 GB
• EDGE Class 10, 236.8 kbps
• 3G HSDPA
• GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
• Bluetooth v2.0
• USB v2.0
• WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g
• BlackBerry Operating System
• Instant Messaging, MMS, Email & SMS
• HTML Browser
• 3.2 MP Camera 2048×1536 pixels, flash, video and autofocus
• MP3,WMA,AAC+ Media player
• DivX, WMV, XviD, 3gp Video player
• BlackBerry maps
• A-GPS function
• DataViz document viewer – editor
• Built-in GPS
• Calculator, Voice dial, Voice memo, Built-in handsfree, Organizer
• Java
Other recently reviewed mobile phones:

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Samsung M7500 Emporio Armani, LG KF900 Prada, LG KP500 Cookie, Sony Ericsson W902, BlackBerry Curve 8900, Sony Ericsson W595, Sony Ericsson W995.

Studio lights
Studio lights come in two flavors: strobe lights and continuous lights. Strobe lights fire an intense short burst of light when triggered, a lot like a camera flash, and continuous lights are either on or off.

Strobe lights
Studio strobe lights come in many different sizes, makes, and models. Multiple strobe lights can be used together to give you complete control over the light. Studio strobe lights must be triggered with a sync cable or a radio slave system that allows the lights to be triggered wirelessly.
The two types of studio strobe lights are monolights and flash head/power pack systems. A monolight is a self-contained unit that plugs directly into a wall outlet. All the controls are on a single unit. Each moonlight may be used as a master or a slave. When the monolight is used as a master, the sync cord plugs from the camera directly into the monolight. When the master moonlight fires, any slave monolights also fire. The output for each of the monolights, master or slave, is controlled independently on the actual light. This allows each of the lights to output different quantities of light. The flash head/power pack studio light system consists of a central power supply with individual flash units attached by their own cables. The sync cable is connected from the camera to the main power supply control unit, and each of the flash heads is adjustable by changing the amount of power going to each of the flash heads.

Continuous lights
Continuous lights are always on, letting you measure the light with the camera’s metering system. This means no extra equipment and it is not necessary to sync the camera with the lights. Continuous lights used to get a bad rap for being very hot, but this is no longer the case. The new fluorescent bulbs don’t produce much heat at all and can be used all day quite comfortably. The continuous light system also has the advantage of being able to use different bulbs should need be. On the other hand, because the light output from the continuous lighting setup is not as bright as that from a strobe light, it can’t be used to freeze action in the same way.

Have a look at other articles describing the influence of lighting conditions on photography:

The Color of Light, The Diffusion of Light, The Intensity of Light, Light Direction, Light types,