10 Pictures Take You Back to 1960s New York City

By: admin on 11:34 AM

The Jowers' collection of intimate and charming NYC images reside at the George Eastman House, a photography and film museum located in Rochester, N.Y. The museum has posted many of the photographs online, allowing Internet users to travel back in time from the comfort of behind their keyboard.
The Photographer James Jowers wandered the streets of Manhattan in the '60s, capturing shots of strangers going about their everyday activities.

1. East Second Avenue, 1967

2. Waverly Place, 1968

3. East First Avenue, 1967

4. East First Avenue, 1966

5. Fifth Avenue, 1969

6. Tompkins Square Park, 1967

7. Lower East Side, 1967

8. Washington Square Park, 1969

9. Lower East Side, 1966

10. Wall Street, 1969

IMAGE: JAMES JOWERS GEORGE EASTMAN HOUSE

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Different types of lens

By: admin on 9:23 AM

Lenses are categorized by their focal range or specific function if they're a specialist lens. In This article we have taken a look at a few of the most common types of lens, like about the characteristics their images are said to have, and considered how they can be used.


Ultra Wide:

The focal length of Ultra Wide angle lenses is around less than 24 mm (in 35 mm-format), that means they can take in a wider scene than is typical, though they're not only about getting all of a subject into a shot. Rectilinear ultra wides help keep straight lines, just that, while fisheyes will reproduce buildings with curved walls.

Shots with ultra wide angle lenses typically feature a large depth of field. Images tend to pull in subjects that are close, and push away more distant ones making them appear further apart. Perspective distortion of ultra wides can give falling-building-syndrome (where vertical lines converge) but this can be corrected in post-processing, or minimized with good technique.

Ultra wide angles can be used in a number of ways. Typical uses include landscape, architecture and interior photography. Even the distortion can be used creatively, especially when using fisheye lenses.

Standard / Normal:

The example of a standard zoom lens isThe kit lens your DSLR or interchangeable lens mirrorless camera,It cover a focal range of around 35-70 mm with better optics and faster maximum apertures . Many photographers consider a 50 mm prime (in 35-mm-format) as a normal lens, as it's said to reproduce an image with a angle of view which feels "natural" and similar to what you see with your eyes - even thought this isn't technically true

Standard zoom lenses and normal primes sit between wide angles and telephotos in terms of image characteristics and are much more like you see with the human eye. Normal prime lenses tend to have faster maximum apertures which can allow for a shallow depth of field and lower light shooting.

Normal or standard lenses are versatile lenses which can be used for almost all sorts of photography whether street, documentary, landscape, or portrait. Because normal prime lenses tend to feature faster maximum apertures, they allow you to shoot with a shallower depth of field and in lower light.


Wide Angle:

This type of lenses cover a focal length between 24 mm and 35 mm, They are available as primes or zooms and come with either variable or fixed maximum aperture.They Offer a wide field of view, they often also boast close minimum focusing distances

Wide angle photographs can magnify the perceived distance between subjects in the foreground and background, you still get an exaggeration of lines and curves which can be used artistically.

Many people only reach for a wide angle lens when trying to get the whole of a subject in frame, like a building, a large group of people or a landscape. However, they can also be used for interesting portraits where you want to place a subject in a situation. Just be careful not to distort faces unflatteringly by shooting too close.

Telephoto:

Telephoto lenses cover a focal length in excess of 70 mm, though many people would argue that "true" telephoto lenses are ones which exceed 135 mm. They focus on a much narrower field of view than other lenses, which means they are good for focusing in on specific details or distant subjects. They are generally larger and heavier than equally specified wider lenses.

Telephoto lenses bring far away subjects closer because they have a narrower angle of view,. They can also have the effect of compressing the sense of distance in a scene and making objects appear closer together. A narrow depth of field means that a subject can be in focus with a blurred background and foreground.


Telephoto lenses can be used for shooting portraits and even landscapes where their normalization of relative size can be used to give a sense of scale.Also they can be used to photograph subjects like sports or wildlife .

Macro:

Marco lenses are technically those which are capable of reproduction ratios greater than 1:1. However, the term is frequently used to refer to any lens which can be used for extreme close-up photography. Macro lenses typically have focal lengths somewhere between 40-200 mm,and they are One of the more specialist lenses.

Macro lenses have excellent image sharpness, though it's worth noting that when working at close distances they also have a tiny depth of field. You can often end up with a shot of an insect where only a fraction of it is in focus.

Macro lenses can used for close-up photography,and  can also be great for portraits .

Superzoom:

Superzooms lenses  cover focal lengths from wide to telephoto. They can be used in situations where you can't or don't want to be changing lenses and they normally change in length as you zoom.

Superzooms do not have the same image quality of more dedicated lenses and often have slower and variable maximum apertures.

This could be used when in situations where it wouldn't be safe to switch lenses, or when travelling - you don't necessarily want to be weighed down by five lenses when on holiday with the family.

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Pictures .. Ten most polluted areas in the world

By: admin on 9:58 AM

The non-profit Environmental Institute, which is located in New York City "Blacksmith"  publish the list of the most polluted areas in the world in 2013, where they found the mostly in the areas belonging to the developing countries, industrial cities, e-waste processing centers and mining towns.

The chairman the institute, "Richard Fuller" in his statement, saying: Our estimates indicate that "the health of more than 200 million people at risk of pollution in the developing world."

According to the report, the World Health Organization estimated that 23% of deaths in the developing world can be attributed to environmental factors such as pollution.

The researchers explained that the areas were selected on the basis of the ten most dangerous to health, as examples of the different types of pollution throughout the world.

1 - "Oajabujblousha" in Ghana

The people burned wires and other electronics for copper and other metals, but this process will lead to the launch of toxic fumes in the waste dump site in the "Oajabujblousha" in Accra, Ghana.

2 - "Chernobyl" in Ukraine

Occurred worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in the world in 1986 were a hundred times more radiation from the radiation of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

3 - "River Sitarom" in Indonesia

More than 500 thousand people affected directly and five million individual affected indirectly by chemical pollution in the "River Sitarom."

4 - "Dzerzhinsk" in Russia

In Encyclopedia "Guinness" for index numbers, The city of "Dzerzhinsk" is called as the most chemically polluted cities on earth, where until the end of the Cold War, the city was one of the main manufacturing sites in Russia's chemical weapons.

During the period between 1930 and 1998, was to get rid of about 300 thousand tons of chemical waste incorrectly them.

5 - "Hazaribagh" in Bangladesh

The city "Hazaribagh" includes up to 95% of the 270 Tanneries enrolled in Bangladesh, where the intervention of chemicals such as a known carcinogen hexavalent chromium into the water supply of these facilities for the processing of leather.

6 - "Kabwe" in Zimbabwe

In 2006,exceeded the levels of lead in the blood of children,in "Kabwe" exceeded the recommended levels of five to 10 times.

7 - "Kalimantan" in Indonesia

The gold miners in "Kalimantan" - such as the young man described in the previous picture -Exposed to high levels of mercury.

8 - "Matanza Raatchoulo" in Argentina

the river basin "Matanza Raatchoulo" was pollutted by chemicals such as zinc, lead, copper and nickel, which threatens more than 20 thousand people living in that region.

9 - "Niger Delta" in Nigeria

The extraction of oil in the Niger Delta resulted thousands of spills and groundwater contamination.

10 - "Norilsk" in Russia

Each year, about two million tons of sulfur dioxide emited in the air of the industrial city "Norilsk" Prussia.

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A guide to buying your next camera lens

By: admin on 5:46 AM

many photographers have thought to use only the kit lens that their camera or camcorder with interchangeable lens came. despite that there are cameras that have been specifically designed to take and make use of different lenses, but it is not a surprise, because choosing the right next goal can be intimidating, and our guide will help you choose the kit lens.
The lens represents the most important part of your camera set-up, this is the part that make or break your pictures. the party that controls the image that is projected onto your imaging sensor,  and ultimately what photos you are taking home.

many photographers prefer to use a proper camera and a great lens to take pictures,than use a camera with a ho-hum glass attached. But knowing the importance of a good glass is one thing,the second thing is to know what the lens will give you the creative freedom to capture the photos you want to get.

Firstly (To the uninitiated),the lenses are baffling tubes of glass with numbers and confusing acronyms printed on the side. We will help you in this guide to understand which lenses that can be used to achieve what, why others can cost more than a family car to buy a camera … and how there are some bargains sub $150 which could change your photography forever.

What is my next lens?

if you have the cash available, you should go out and get a fast normal prime lens or a telephoto zoom. but before,You need to understand how different lenses could improve your current photos and allow you to take ones that you currently can't,and this is what you will learn in this article.read on.

Decoding the lens jargon:

The almost sentence-long collection of letters and numbers on the side of a lens barrel can tell you all sorts of things about a lens.But the details that you should pay attention are those that detail this FOUR: maximum aperture,focal length, lens mount and format type.

Maximum aperture:

Maximum Aperture refers to the the maximum amount of light which the lens can gather.it is shown in a number of ways, but whether it's f/2.8 F2.8 or 1:2.8, it all means the same thing.Lenses with larger maximum apertures are capable of gathering more light.
For example ,the F1.8 lens is able to use more light than an F4 lens,that means it could be used in lower-light situations without using the flash, and is capable of producing a shallower depth of field

Some zoom lenses have a variable maximum aperture meaning that it changes depending on focal length. So, 18-200 mm F3.5-5.6 lens would have a maximum aperture of F3.5 at 18 mm, it would be be F5.6 by the time you zoomed to 200 mm.
Focal length:

Focal length is a value expressed in mm ,which the higher number means a bigger zoom, whilst the lower number mean that the lens can be used for wider shots. let's take this rough reference, the human eye is said to see about the equivalent of 30-50 mm on a full frame camera . A number lower than 30-50 mm will take in a bigger view than you naturally see, while higher numbers mean focus will be on a smaller aspect of your view.

If the lens has a focal length range with two numbers (say 24-80 mm) this means it's a zoom lens and is capable of zooming and being used at any point across that range. However, if there is a single focal length number (50 mm for instance) it's a prime lens, so taking in more or less of the view will require you to get closer or further away from your subject. Traditionally, primes have been considered to be optically superior to zooms, because trade-offs have to be made when producing zoom lenses. But that's not to say that some zooms are not better than some prime lenses.

To make understanding focal length more difficult, the same focal length lens gives different views on cameras with various sensor sizes, because of the crop factor (the sensor only takes up part of the projected image). As a result, many manufactures give a 35 mm-format equivalent on lenses designed for cameras with smaller sensors and in this article descriptions are based on on 35 mm-format. Therefore, if your camera has a smaller sensor, and there's a good chance it does, you'll need to consider this when deciding which lens you need.

If you're using a full frame camera there's no calculation needed, a lens will give you the field of view you'd expect from its number. If your camera has an APS-C sensor (Nikon DX DSLRs, Sony NEX…) it has a crop factor of 1.5 - meaning you multiply the lens focal length by 1.5 to get its equivalent 35 mm-format focal length. For Canon APS-C cameras that number is 1.6, for Micro Four Thirds cameras it's 2.0 and for the Nikon 1 series it's 2.7.

That means a 35 mm lens would give a field of view equivalent to 56 mm on an APS-C camera like a Canon 70D and equivalent to 70 mm on a Micro Four Thirds camera like the Olympus OM-D E-M1. On a Nikon 1 it would act like a 95 mm lens does on a full frame camera.

 Lens Mount:

It goes without saying that you want to buy a lens that will attach on your camera, and this is known as the lens mount. Camera manufacturers generally make lenses with proprietry mounts which will only fit their devices, sometimes having multiple lens mounts for different camera lines. The major exception to this is Micro Four Thirds lenses which can be used on respective Olympus and Panasonic cameras. Third party manufacturers also make lenses with mounts to fit various brands.

It's important to know which mount your camera uses before heading out to buy a lens. Example lens mounts for DSLRs include the Nikon F-mount, Canon's EF or EF-S, the Pentax K and Sony's Alpha (A) mount. For mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, these are things like the Canon EF-M, Fujifilm XF, Nikon 1, Sony E, Samsung NX and Pentax Q. As mentioned earlier, Olympus and Panasonic Micro Four Thirds cameras take any Micro Four Thirds mount lenses.

Format:

In addition to being able to mount the lens on your camera, you need to be sure it will produce an image big enough to cover the image sensor. Because different cameras use different size sensors, manufacturers produce specific lenses to work with them.

Because different cameras use different sized sensors, there are a variety of lens formats...
For example, while Nikon DSLRs come with full frame or APS-C sensors - and both take F-mount lenses - its DX lenses only produce an image big enough to cover the smaller of the two sensors. Meanwhile, FX lenses cover the full frame and can also be used on DX and even Nikon 1 cameras (with an adapter). This is done because lenses designed for smaller sensors can be physically smaller and lighter themselves.

In the next Post I talk about "The Different types of lens" ,Follow us On  Facebook ;Twitter.

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Photos from inside the world's finest libraries

By: admin on 6:59 AM

Dr. James Kamel from the University of Cambridge launched a book in which he included pictures of the largest and most important libraries from around the world.

Tommy epic book featuring distinctive images of the finest libraries from around the world, including the Tripitaka Koreana Library in Haeinsa temple in South Korea.

Library Grand Mafra Palace in Portugal.

Codrington Library at Oxford University.

The author of the book visited the greatest 20 libraries around the world, including the library Biblioteca Joinena, in Coimbra, Portugal.

Cultured's dream: six floors of books stored in the George Peabody Library, Baltimore.

Dr. Kamel mentioned in his book that the library Admont monastery in Austria, the largest monastery library in the world. And considers personally preferred choice.

Precious books been vandalized in the library of the Cathedral of Noyon, France.

Library Monastery Altinborg in  Austria is not just a library but is also considered works of art and historical sites.

Library of the Monastery of St. Gall, in St. Gallen, Switzerland, also is one of the libraries that its built is artwork.

National Library in Paris, France is an example of the most modern library building was completed and processed in 1996.

The National Library is very modern in Beijing, China.

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Pictures ..German artists innovate paintings on iron fences

By: admin on 9:39 AM

A number of German artists innovate in the formation of paintings on iron fences,that can be seen from looking at them from one side, these artists exploits the advantage of the spaces between the columns of iron fences to contribute the complement of paintings imaginary.

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See ..The Winning photos in the Competition "military photography"

By: admin on 10:46 PM

The British newspaper "DailyTelegraph" published an illustrated report on the winning shots in the contest "military photography" for the year 2013.

The pictures taken from within the U.S. military dominate the most of the first ranks in the annual competition, which only the photography enthusiasts of the military can participate.

 Appeared in the list,the picture taken of the warrior "Celtic" by Corporal Jimmy Peters, which shows a set of tattoos that cover his shoulder and hand, during clean his personal weapon, one of the checkpoints of the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.

And also the Corporal Jamie won an award with another image, which showed a group of explosives experts are helping 21 engineers at the beginning of construction of a building destroyed by a suicide attack in Afghanistan, and in other picture that shows a Welshman guard dog, who was taking a break from the heat of the sun under one of the umbrellas in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

And continued the winning photos from Afghanistan with the picture taken by "Chris Lloyd," during his speech in northern Helmand with the Afghan family was riding a motorcycle, where it appears the man's daughter was impatient of questions from the American soldier.

Also Capt. "Dave Skamil" won with a photo for the British Royal Artillery Regiment, and another picture during his watching to a sorties of British unmanned planes .

The Corporal "Dan Cavalra,,," won with the picture which he called "goodbye kiss", which the horse was directed to the soldier in the English army at Bates Holkam in county "Norfolk", before moving horse to another residence.

And other footage appeared like a Korean boxing match, and another picture of an Indian soldier wearing a traditional costume for the Indian military.

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