Digital Photography For What It's Worth
On the home page— A New Home for dpFWIW Funding Article Index What's New... Limited Warranty Contributors About dpFWIW Selected Links and References  Last updated July 27, 2004

(For easier reading, try narrowing your browser window to the minimum width of the header above.)

A New Home for dpFWIW

dpFWIW finally outgrew its original host, www.cliffshade.com. Thanks to the generosity of National Directory Information Services, LLC, dpFWIW now resides at http://www.dpfwiw.com/.

Please update your bookmarks by replacing "www.cliffshade.com/dpfwiw/" with "www.dpfwiw.com/" in the URL. (The original dpFWIW  subdirectory structure below "www.cliffshade.com/dpfwiw/" has been preserved.) For example, you'll now find the exposure article previously at "www.cliffshade.com/dpfwiw/exposure.htm" at www.dpfwiw.com/exposure.htm.

We'll continue to redirect traffic from "www.cliffshade.com/dpfwiw" through May, 2004. After that, such URLs will fail. 

Funding

This user-to-user (U2U) online digital photography resource humbly offers practical, experience-based information to fellow digital photographers. All of the observations and opinions and most of the photos published here are those of the dpFWIW contributors. We've done our best to present accurate and timely factual material. We've received no inducements or considerations for any of the products mentioned here; nor do we have a stake in them. We just call 'em like we see 'em.

Our pages now include a few relatively unobtrusive Google ads to help defray costs, but user-to-user donations remain an important source of funding. If you find dpFWIW useful, please consider a donation of US$2.00 (or any amount you deem fit over US$0.30).

dpFWIW Article Index

Digital Photography Articles of General Interest

Articles with an Olympus Slant

These articles focus on Oly C-series digital rangefinders (including the C-2100UZ) but also contain a good bit of information of general digital photography interest.

What's new... Use the links in the table below to go directly to the newest or most recently updated dpFWIW sections and articles.  The newest updates are on top. Changes too diffuse to link effectively aren't chronicled here. Nor are the many small but potentially important tweaks made on a frequent basis, as explained below. For a complete listing of dpFWIW articles, please see the Article Index. If you're looking for something in particular, try the keyword search.

Vaporware...

• Guidelines for selecting a digital camera

• Basic printing issues in digital photography

Limited Warranty

I'm no expert in photography (digital or otherwise), image processing or website design. (The last should already be obvious.) Nor do I put forth this content as fully verified and error-free, although I try very hard to make it so.

My goal here is simple—to share what I've learned through experience and carefully cross-checked reading in a rapidly growing and developing field still rather poorly documented by the vendors themselves. Along the way, I've managed to enlist the aid of several knowledgeable contributors who help me extend dpFWIW's experience-based coverage. For more site philosophy, click here.

I've tried to stick with reliable sources and reference them whenever feasible. Throughout this site, you'll find the text marked with these annotation bullets and icons:

Think of the  (caution) and  (go) bullets as confidence indicators. Watch out for anything marked with  (stop)—there's definite trouble ahead.

The bullet and  (skip) icon are navigational aids. Clicking on the bullet in the article index on the home page will take you to the corresponding article. Clicking on will always leapfrog you to the next major point of interest. Clicking on icons and bullets will otherwise bring you back here to review what the icon says about the text so marked.

I consider all unmarked content reasonably reliable but by no mean infallible.

If you spot an error and have the right stuff on good authority, try an offered solution that fails the test of your own experience, or have other constructive feedback to share, I'd very much appreciate an e-mail at dpFWIW@cliffshade.com. Please include your sources where pertinent.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Andrzej Wrotniak for the anti-aliased bullets.

Contributors

Listed below are the digital photography enthusiasts who have made major additions to dpFWIW, roughly in temporal order of first contribution. Their mention here is a small recognition of the expertise, experience, time and effort they've donated to the cause of user-to-user (U2U) digital photography help via dpFWIW.  That doesn't mean that contributors endorse material other than their own. Throughout dpFWIW, you'll find many other contributors cited by name on the fly. They've all helped dpFWIW extend its experience-based coverage. Special thanks go to Don Ellis, who volunteered to tidy up the dpFWIW logo for a black background, and to Andrzej Wrotniak, who provided properly anti-aliased bullets. All dpFWIW contributions large and small are greatly appreciated. If you have pertinent material to share, please drop me an e-line at dpFWIW@cliffshade.com.

Jeremy McCreary, Editor and Primary Author

Contributions: All material except as noted below. As editor and primary author of dpFWIW, the buck stops with me for all the material presented here. Brevity is not one of my long suits, as you'll no doubt see, but a taste for detail can be a virtue now and then, especially when it comes to photography. My credentials? I'm just an avid amateur with a passion for nature, science, jazz and digital photography. I enjoy digging to get the story straight and trying things out to find and fix the kinks. I also enjoy writing. (In fact, the writing often drives the learning.) My day job as a physician designing and interpreting medical imaging studies and performing imaging-based interventions to help others return to health is another manifestation of all the same penchants. It also allows me to "play" with some pretty amazing medical "digital cameras" making images of the body using physical phenomena as diverse as x-rays, nuclear magnetic resonance, ultrasound and positron emission, among other exciting technologies. I currently use an Oly C-5050Z for most purposes, but my C-2020Z is still my infrared camera of choice, and my 7-year-old D-340L rides in the car at all times. My next camera has yet to be released.
		Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
	Ocean kayaking in Monterey Bay, CA

See About dpFWIW and Limited Warranty for further insights into the philosophy and terminology behind the content and presentation.

Paul Saunders, Contributor

Contributions: Post-processing outdoor photos

Despite his steadfast devotion to film photography, Paul drops by RPD now and then. His extensive experience with the digital post-processing of photographs comes primarily by way of scanning 35 mm slides. Be sure to visit Paul's Wilderness Wales website to see the spectacular Welsh landscapes he's produced from scanned 35 mm slides using precisely the post-processing techniques detailed in his article, Post-processing outdoor photos.

Mike Wright, Contributor

Contributions: Raynox lens tube info and C-2020Z intelligence scattered throughout this site. 

Mike traded up from an Oly C-2000Z to the C-2020Z soon after the latter became available. His careful testing and manual reading originally supplied many of the C-2020Z details found here. For more digital photography info, stop by Mike's Coastal Fog site.

Jay Scott, Contributor

Contributions: Low-light post-processing techniques in Abode PhotoDeluxe, circular vs. linear polarizers with the C-20x0Z and infrared photography

A programmer by trade, Jay shares with us (among many other things) his simple and elegant adaptation of two of CCD astronomers' best tricks—dark field subtraction and image averaging—using Adobe PhotoDeluxe 3.0, the modest but capable image processor bundled with many a digital camera. Jay currently uses an Oly C-2020Z. Lately, he's been taken with infrared photography, and his IR observations—both on this site and on his own—are worthwhile for anyone exploring this fascinating corner of digital photography. His hobbies include artificial intelligence and writing satire; you'll find both on his site.

Dave Tatosian, Contributor

Contributions: DigiPower AC adapter, Oly C-210 teleconverter, and Raynox lens tube intelligence; frequent voice of fact and reason on RPD

A Compaq engineer from Massachusetts, Dave's a frequent and valued contributor to RPD. In fact, if there were a Croix du RPD medal, I'd nominate Dave without hesitation. Look for his thoughtful and factual posts over the "/daytripper" handle. I've certainly learned a lot from them. After bravely pioneering the DigiPower AC adapter and the Oly C-210 1.9X teleconverter for the rest of us C-20x0Z owners, he was kind enough to share his gleanings here.

Robert Barnett, Contributor

Contribution: CD-R basics article

Robert first posted the material for CD-R basics on RPD, where it stood out as an example of user-to-user help at its best. He was kind enough to allow it to be reproduced nearly verbatim here. Robert's PC-Reviews website  provides in-depth on-line reviews of quite a few PC-related products. Of particular interest is his detailed review of Total Training's 20-tape Total PhotoShop video training series.

Ilkka Valkila, Contributor

Contributions: Cokin square filter and Oly C-2020Z external flash intelligence

Ilkka writes "I'm a 31-year-old dairy farmer in Finland who earns a little extra as a freelance writer. Recently I have written mostly about using computers and accessories (including digicams) in agriculture and small businesses. Photography has been my hobby for about 14 years. Some of my photos have been published with my articles, some elsewhere." 

Carl Schofield, Contributor

Contributions: Digital IR photography intelligence and samples

In Carl's own words, "I retired from Cornell University (fisheries research scientist) five years ago and have since renewed my long term interest in photography. I used to do a lot of traditional B&W landscape photography using 35 mm and medium format cameras, but never explored the infrared. After seeing Eric Cheng's digital infrared work, I started experimenting with infrared filters on my Nikon 950 and soon became hooked on this new way of viewing the landscape."

Carl's unquestionable talent as a landscape photographer comes through loud and clear on his own gorgeous and informative Beyond Red... IR site. His newer Digital Grey gallery is a tribute to B&W digital photography and the power of tonality.

Tom Lackamp, Contributor

Contributions: Advanced exposure considerations , Oly 1.45x teleconverter intelligence and much-valued general photographic advice to the editor

I've been tapping Tom's extensive experience as a 35 mm film photographer on a regular basis ever since we met on RPD. After all, digital and film photography have much more in common than in opposition. In fact, the saying,

"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

applies in spades to digital photography. Photographers (like me) with experience mostly on the digital side would do well to learn what we can from experienced film-based colleagues like Tom.

Rick Matthews, Contributor

Contributions: Focal Length vs. CCD Resolution basis, But It's So Away! quote, Raynox lens tube intelligence

Professor and chair of the Department of Physics at Wake Forest University, Rick started in digital photography with a Kodak DC-120, then fell in love when he moved up to an Oly C-2020Z (home) and a C-3030Z (work). His regular and well-grounded contributions to RPD have inspired or informed many a dpFWIW section beyond those listed above. 

Physics lies at the very heart of photography but is never far below the surface. Rick's expertise in that arena is especially welcome. Rick's own digital imaging web pages can be accessed through his Miscellaneous Tips and Topics page. 

About dpFWIW

This user-to-user (U2U) help site is nothing more than an informal collection of useful digital photography tidbits and recommendations gleaned from the personal experience and carefully cross-checked reading of its contributors. (Ronald Reagan's "trust but verify" doctrine proved that he couldn't be wrong about everything.) This growing site remains a work in progress subject to change without notice and offered strictly on an FWIW (for what it's worth) basis.

Content

The solutions offered here are to be taken strictly as examples of things that work—at least for dpFWIW contributors. No doubt many visitors will find our solutions wholly unsuited to their needs—in which case they'll at least have come away some ideas on what not to do.

Topics are chosen primarily for their practical value and for the frequency with which they arise in the DP-related discussions and newsgroups I encounter. Useful information we've found difficult to come by will also appear here.

Cameras Covered

Since some of the material on this site will be specific to my own equipment, at least in part, you should know that I have direct experience with only 4 digital cameras:

• The handy, rugged and surprisingly competent 1.3 MP Olympus D-340L point-and-shoot. The D-340L's still going at 6 years and counting. Now it rides in my car, on the ready for unexpected photo ops.

• The versatile 2.1 MP Olympus C-2000Z with 3x (35-105 mm EFL) zoom and many other advanced features for its time, including aperture- and shutter-priority exposure control and a lens bezel mounting thread allowing adaptation of a wide variety of filters and auxiliary lenses.

• The 2.1 MP Olympus C-2020Z upgrade of the C-2000Z adding fully manual exposure and focus, grayscale recording, explicit external flash support and a much-improved user interface with many, many small but welcome enhancements. Oly really listened on this one. The C-2020Z remains among the best choices for digital infrared work.

• The finely-honed Olympus C-5050Z, with a fast f/1.8 version of Oly's crisp 3x zoom lens. The C-5050Z offers consummate control over every aspect of digital photography. Once again, Oly's been listening to its user base.

I also do my best to cover similar Oly C-series cameras like the C-2040Z, C-30x0Z, C-4040Z and the C-2100UZ, but I make no attempt to cover other Oly offerings like the C-7xx series and digital SLRs like the E-10, E-20 and E-1. I know very little about the specifics of other digital camera makes and models and plan to keep it that way. The other dpFWIW contributors are mostly Oly users as well. Nevertheless, there's much here of general digital photographic interest, even in the articles slanted toward Oly cameras.

E-mail

I deeply appreciate the many kind e-words that come my way regarding dpFWIW. As with most labors of love, I've had little choice in the matter, but it still pleases me to hear that digital photographers find the material here useful.

Regrettably, since early April, 2002, the dpFWIW mailbox has been targeted with daily floods of spam. Before the onslaught, I read every legitimate e-mail dpFWIW generated. Now, I'm only checking dpFWIW mail sporadically and responding even less. (This is still largely a non-commercial site, after all. Family and work come first, and frankly, most of what I know has already been covered here in adequate detail.) Corrections, contributions and updates are always appreciated (after all, that's what U2U help is all about), but at this point, they're likely to get lost in the flood.

Poking around a bit more here or elsewhere on the Usenet or Internet will be your best bet for answers to your questions.

Use the dpFWIW keyword search page to zero in on material of interest within this site. The search page generates links to other dpFWIW pages with text matching your search string. Once on a matching page, use your browser's Find function (Ctrl-F in Internet Explorer) to drill down on your keywords. You'll find related material heavily cross-linked throughout dpFWIW.

If your search on dpFWIW comes up empty-handed, I strongly recommend taking your questions public on the digital photography newsgroup rec.photo.digital, or RPD for short. You'll benefit from seeing your issue from more than one angle, and other RPD readers will benefit from the answers you receive. RPD welcomes questions at all levels. If current threads don't address your topic, search the RPD archives via groups.google.com.

Please note that I'm usually quite ignorant about equipment not explicitly mentioned on dpFWIW, and that goes in spades for non-Olympus cameras. You'll find it much more productive to float questions regarding other brands and models on RPD or on the appropriate brand-specific forum at Digital Photography Review.

Reciprocal Link Policy

Sorry, dpFWIW does not engage in reciprocal link arrangements. Nor do we post link-related commercial logos. A few Google ads aside, the links in this largely non-commercial site are strictly content-driven and will remain so as long as the current funding arrangement holds out. That said, sites wishing to link dpFWIW are welcome to do so.

Sorry, We Don't Carry That

What you won't find here:

• Glitz at the expense of content (in fact, you'll be hard pressed to find any glitz on this site)

• In-your-face ads (as long as donations permit)

• Camera reviews (sorry, not my bag)

• "Why didn't they" rants and whines (chances are, "they" had their reasons)

• "My camera's better than your camera" neener-neeners (the root of all evil lurks here)

• Attempts to save the souls of those still using and enjoying film cameras (they have a right)

You can easily get your fill of all that and more on the big commercial sites and in newsgroups like rec.photo.digital (RPD).

Updates

This growing site remains a work in progress subject to change without notice.

My knowledge and resources keep evolving right along with digital photography, which itself evolves at a particularly daunting pace. It's easy enough to date the occasional entirely new article or section, but in reality, most of the site's changes come in dribs and drabs. Many of the articles here see small additions and refinements on a monthly basis. Not infrequently, new insights, syntheses and organizing concepts come along and set off cascades of changes affecting scattered portions of many articles. Some small changes might potentially be quite important to certain users, but I'm afraid that signaling all these updates in a timely and thorough manner would take nearly as much time and text as the articles themselves.

RPD (rec.photo.digital)

This site functions in part as an unofficial reference for my favorite digital imaging newsgroup, news://rec.photo.digital, or "RPD" for short. RPD is an unusually friendly and well-informed bastion of U2U support well worth frequent visits for any digital photographer. I'm greatly indebted to the many RPD contributors who have enriched dpFWIW indirectly through the expertise, experiences, comments and insights they've volunteered on RPD.

On RPD, you have access to the collective experience and wisdom of many other digital photographers of all levels and backgrounds. Everyone benefits from the open discussion, and you're likely to see more of the angles on issues that turn out to be controversial. RPD welcomes questions at all levels, but see below before firing off questions likely to have come up many times before.

Of course, all newsgroups require a healthy dose of skepticism and even a thick skin at times, but no website I've seen offers the breadth and depth of DP experience to be mined at RPD, especially when it comes to specific products and techniques.

It's worth repeating explicitly that on RPD,

Even sincere, well-meaning responses may not be as authoritative as they sound.

My wisest professor once said, "Two-thirds of everything you know is crap—you just don't know which two-thirds." Judging from RPD, he may have been a bit optimistic.

While dpFWIW serves as an extension of RPD in some ways, it's no substitute for the open public forum RPD provides.

RPD FAQ

With the meteoric rise of digital photography, RPD has more than its fair share of frequently-asked questions (FAQ). Chris Friesen's thorough and beautifully compiled FAQ for RPD is an invaluable resource on recurring issues. Erica Sadun frequently posts a very helpful mini-FAQ (search the "from" fields for "Sadun") which also resides on the web. 

I've nevertheless elected to develop my own parallel FAQ material on dpFWIW out of

• a strong desire to help out on RPD where I can, 

• an equally strong distaste for typing out the same RPD responses over and over, and

• an awareness that I learn best through writing.

However, the FAQ for RPD is far greater in scope than this site. If you don't find what you're after here, the FAQ should be your next stop.

RPD Tips

The Usenet is an invaluable self-help tool. And as with any tool, knowing how to use it gets the best results, particularly on high-traffic newsgroups like RPD. You may never get a scolding for straying from the guidelines below, but you may never get a reply, either. These tips will substantially improve your chances of getting what you came for—reliable help, instructive dialogue and perhaps even a sense of community.

Reading RPD

To get the most out of the material already available on RPD,

• Check the FAQ first. However new it may seem to you, your issue has probably come up before—often many times before. Your shortest path to a reliable answer will usually be Chris Friesen's comprehensive FAQ for RPD or Erica Sadun's mini-FAQ. (The articles on this site address many of the FAQs as well.) Look for the frequently-posted message pointing to the FAQ and bookmark the link for future reference. Many RPD regulars also include a link to the FAQ in their replies. Please check the FAQ or dpFWIW before posting questions to RPD. If these resources don't fully address your issue...

• Check for pertinent messages on RPD before starting a new thread. If your topic's been hashed out recently—and chances are, it has—your post may be ignored if those in the know have tired of writing about it. Sort and scroll through the subject lines if you like, but you'll generally find it much more effective to...

• Drill down on pertinent keywords or phrases using your news reader's message search or "Find" feature. You'll save yourself lots of time, you'll substantially improve your chances of locating the best answers to your questions, and you'll improve RPD's signal-to-noise ratio by sparing this high-volume group many a redundant post. Note that the most apt keywords sometimes appear only in the subject field or only in the message body, so be sure to search both. With a little practice, you'll be crafting message searches that are neither overly specific nor overly broad in no time. And to maximize the potential yield of your search...

• Max out the number of message headers your news client downloads at one time to capture more of the traffic. Some news servers retain posts longer than others, so catch them while you can, especially if you're an infrequent visitor. But don't despair if a keyword search of your news server's current stock of messages comes up empty-handed. Old posts never die—they're just waiting for you to... 

• Search a Usenet archive like groups.google.com for pertinent RPD messages past and present. Chances are, the very best answer to your question has already scrolled off your news server, but don't let that get in your way. Todd's Walker's well-illustrated introduction to Google Groups should be required reading for all new visitors to RPD.

• Don't stop at the first promising thread you find. Popular topics like batteries and printing are often the subject of several different active threads on this high-traffic newsgroup. Some are more helpful than others. 

• Watch for trolls. Some folks like to post inflammatory, rude, abusive or even misleading messages just to watch the fur fly. Resist the urge to reply. Ignore them and they'll go away. 

• Cross-check everything you learn on RPD before betting the farm on it. Misinformation abounds, however well-meaning, and it can come in very convincing garb.

Posting to RPD

As newsgroups go, RPD is both friendlier and busier than most. We welcome contributions, but to keep the signal-to-noise ratio reasonable, we strongly encourage visitors to take full advantage of the resources outlined above before posting questions. Redundant questions ultimately work to everyone's detriment, but if you have useful input, or a question that covers new ground, by all means post it.

To post effectively to RPD, 

• Post only plain text—no images or HTML. Out of valid bandwidth and security concerns, RPD is a text-only group by charter. Posts containing embedded images or HTML code tend to draw little more than reprimands, if that. Worse yet, if someone complains to your ISP about such posts, your ISP may terminate your account summarily. To share an image, put it up on a web page and then post a link (URL) to it on RPD. 

• Please keep it civil. Rude posts serve no one and are likely to sidetrack otherwise productive threads. Entitled demands for help ("OK, help me out here, folks...") are seldom answered, and rightly so: You'll find us happy to help, but keep in mind that no one on RPD owes you anything. RPD denizens and flies have little in common, but the old sugar vs. vinegar adage certainly applies.

• Craft an informative subject line to attract those in the know. Opaque subjects like "help!!!" and "camera question" tend to get skimmed over. Subjects like "Oly B-300 Lens Mounting Glitch" and "Canon G1 RAW Files Compatible with PhotoShop?" are much more likely to draw useful replies. 

• Type Your Subject Line in Title Case. See how this one header stands out among all the others? Messages with subject lines in Title Case (like the title of a book) are much easier to skim and tend to draw more responses. Subjects in all lower case tend to escape notice in a busy group like RPD, and those in ALL CAPS tend to get actively ignored—probably because many experienced Internet users take all caps as SHOUTING.

• Repeat your subject in the body of your message. Don't depend on the subject line to carry the freight here. Some news clients display only the first so many characters of the subject line without user intervention, and some news readers never return to the subject line once they've opened your message.

• State your question or reply as clearly and specifically as you can to help keep the thread on track and avoid misunderstandings. Things have a way of spiraling off into the ionosphere on the Usenet, even when there are specifics to constrain the discussion. Well-crafted questions generally get better answers, and well-crafted answers require less defending.

• When you're guessing, speculating or extrapolating, please say so. Guesses have contributed to many a breakthrough on RPD, but less informed readers may well act upon guesses stated as fact. Remember, bad guesses can have real consequences.

• Don't ask for private e-mail replies. They have a way of saddling the respondent with the full burden of helping you from that point forward. Worse yet, they deprive the group of the benefit of any ensuing exchange. Good donated help is worth coming back for.

The civility bit is both a tip and a heartfelt plea from an RPD regular. Digital photography is complicated stuff. Stop and recite the "6 blind men and the elephant" fable 10 times before calling someone a moron over an elephant part you can't feel. 

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Andrew Colfelt for the link to the Geoffrey Saxe poem recounting this mother of all fables. Thanks also to Bill Paire of RPD for pointing me to the RPD charter and a host of other Usenet references.

Olympus Camera Terminology and Coverage

In the fast-moving world of digital photography, camera models multiply faster than rabbits. To keep up with the proliferation of the Olympus C-series rangefinders featured on dpFWIW, I use the shorthand camera notations below.

I'll try to address at least the deltas pertinent to other similar Olympus digital offerings as experience-based end-user information becomes available. 

* Note:  I make no effort to cover the C-211Z, C-7x0UZ, E-10, E-20 and E-100RS Camedias or the new 4/3 E-1. They're different enough that I simply can't do them justice, but a good bit of the Oly-specific and generic info presented on this site will apply to them as well.

Why "cliffshade"?

Years ago on a hike in Pinnacles National Monument, California, I came across a trailside plaque discussing some fairly ordinary-looking but apparently rare plants clinging to the north wall of a slot canyon known as Condor Gulch. The plants were apparently found only beneath overhangs casting just the right amount of cliffshade onto otherwise sun-baked vertical rock faces with southern exposures. The term resonated strongly with me for reasons I've never fully divined, but I know I like the way it sounds.

I hope you find dpFWIW helpful in your digital photography pursuits. Thanks for stopping by. —Jeremy McCreary

Selected Links and References

Among the many digital photography (DP) resources I've encountered on the Internet, those below are still very much worthwhile. Here's a quick index into the links and references in this section:

• Major DP sites
• General DP help online
• Software
• Batteries, printing, etc.
• Newsgroups
• Olympus-related sites
• Books and printed articles

Additional materials are listed in the References section found at the end of each dpFWIW article.

DP in Depth

Reviews, industry news, tips, tricks, FAQs, links, downloads and ads, these major, broad-spectrum DP sites have it all:

• Luminous Landscape—Michael Reichmann's masterful site bills itself as "the web's most comprehensive site devoted to the art of landscape and nature photography using digital imaging techniques." I couldn't agree more. Scanned film images are the usual raw materials here, but from there on, it's pure DP gold—especially the PhotoShop tutorials, which can usually be ported to any competent editor. Michael's Instant PhotoShop tutorial is an invaluable leg-up for anyone contemplating digital photo editing, but be sure to continue on to Miles Hecker's tone curves tutorial. Since November, 2000, Michael's been teaming up his enviable collection of high-end EOS lenses with the widely acclaimed Canon EOS D-series digital bodies.

• Digital Photography Review—Phil Askey's comprehensive, easily-navigated one-stop sponsored DP site has also been around since day one. The side-by-side camera comparison pages are a godsend for serious camera shoppers. The how-to articles and user forums are well worth bookmarking. Oly users will find a wealth of practical information on the Digital Photography Review Oly Talk Forum. 

• Steve's Digicams—Steve Sanders' superb full-service sponsored DP site has been a pioneering resource in the DP arena. Reading the thoughtful and candid full-length camera reviews here will get you up to speed on your camera faster than reading the manual! Steve also reviews and illustrates many valuable accessories. 

• Imaging Resource—Dave Etchells' excellent full-service sponsored site offers DP news, reviews and tests, but it's particularly notable for its many superb how-to articles.

General DP Help Online

The DP in depth links listed above offer lots of help on all DP fronts, but the Web abounds with DP learning resources. Below are the best I've found, but these are just the beginning.

• Kodak Guide to Better Pictures—an online version of the authoritative and comprehensive Kodak Professional Photoguide available from amazon.com. The online guide covers 35 mm film photography, but much of translates directly to DP as well. Phil Greenspun of photo.net says of the hardcopy version, "Buy one and keep it in your camera bag forever." The last page of the paper version is an 18% gray card for accurate metering. 

• Kodak Digital Learning Center—a well-organized wealth of DP information.

• photo.net— Phil Greenspun's non-commercial site dedicated to sharing knowledge about photography, both technical and practical.

• Short Courses—the on-line source for Dennis Curtin's in-depth book-style guides on digital photography, camera batteries and on many different digital cameras, including the Oly Camedias. Check out Dennis' free Digital Camera Pocket Guides—handy, thorough, well-indexed, printable online mini-manuals for all the Oly Camedias (the C-20x0Z, the C-2100UZ and C-30x0Z) among many other cameras.

• Digital Camera Basics—Part of the much larger Digital Photo Corner sponsored site offering lots of valuable DP material, Arthur Bleich's beginning-to-intermediate on-line course offers insightful discussions of camera resolution and printing issues, among many others.

• Digital Camera Resource Page FAQs—Jeff Keller's beginner-to-intermediate FAQs (frequently asked questions) are part of comprehensive and growing sponsored site featuring many camera reviews.

• John Houghton's image sizing primer—an excellent introduction to downsampling, cropping and other pre-print manipulations and to the sometimes confusing issues they entail.

• Tony's Digifotoinfo—A growing non-commercial user-to-user DP site posted by Tony Collins, a frequent and valued contributor to RPD. Be sure to check out Tony's beautifully illustrated material on depth of field.

• Digipub Resource Central—John Peters has collected and organized an impressive array of resources devoted to B&W photography, digital and otherwise.

• Mike Wright's DP site—another worthwhile user-to-user site, this time with a slant toward the Oly digitals and surrounding hardware choices. Mike also offers a very slick method for removing purple-fringing from your images.

• FRCN Digital Imaging—another non-commercial user-to-user website by Randy Glass with helpful lessons and lots of post-processing software reviews.

• Gary Honis' astrophotography site—a wealth of C-20x0Z information pertinent to astrophotography but also often of general interest.

• Terry Dawson's DP site—a non-commercial site with some very insightful essays on practical issues in digital photography.

• Robert Monaghan's medium format site—don't let the title fool you— you'll find a wealth of general photographic information here, much of it fully applicable to digital photography.

Photographic Science

• Light and Color—a fabulous optics primer developed for microscopists but fully applicable to digital photography. The Java simulations alone are worth the trip.

• The Complete Color Manager—Linocolor's five-star online treatise explaining color gamuts, Lab color, and everything else you've ever wanted to know about color.

• Light Measurement Handbook—Alex Ryer's thorough, well-illustrated, surprisingly readable on-line technical treatise on the properties, behavior and measurement of light.

• How Digital Cameras Work—this HowStuffWorks article on digital cameras by Karim Nice and Gerald Gurevich is beautifully explained and illustrated and very thorough.

• Webvision—an authoritative and detailed resource on human vision.

DP-Related PC Software

I don't claim to have tested all these titles thoroughly, but I've poked around with most of them enough to comment.

• PIE (Picture Information Extractor) shareware—Holger Jungk's indispensable DP utility deftly manages camera-to-PC image transfers with on-the-fly file renaming to insure a unique file name for every image. Among many other valuable features, PIE offers single-image and whole-folder thumbnailing (the latter new with v.3.0), lossless image rotations and flips, and EXIF information display and image file management—all via a familiar Windows Explorer-like interface. My description does it little justice, however. You'll understand just how handy PIE can be only when you try it, so download the free 15-day demo version and see for yourself. Holger now offers a nicely-done companion print layout utility sold separately as Picture PrintStation or integrated with PIE under the name PIE Studio. Support has been sketchy in the past, but I still consider PIE the best $19 investment you can make in DP software, period. Click here for more PIE details on this site. 

• ThumbsPlus shareware—Cerious Software's superb thumbnail-based image management and editing application is notable for its fast and flexible thumbnailing, powerful batch processing, solid intermediate image editing facilities (including a superb general enhancement function), off-line volume support for management of images archived on removable media, keyword-based image management, and a handy web page wizard for constructing thumbnailed image link tables. Starting with v. 4.10, ThumbsPlus also offers EXIF data access among many other enhancements. Version 5 is even more impressive. ThumbsPlus is much more expensive and slower to load than PIE, but it's far more versatile overall. I continue to use both at different times and for different reasons, more often PIE. Click here for more ThumbsPlus details on this site.

• ACDSee shareware—ACD Systems' fast, feature-packed thumbnailing digital image browser offers many different ways to view and work with images. ACDSee supports zillions of image formats, allows manual and automated image enhancements, generates text file lists, makes contact sheets and HTML albums, performs lossless JPEG transformations, presents folder-based slide shows and much, much more. After exploring its many corners for 90 days, I allowed my demo to lapse, but my overall impression is quite favorable. That said, PIE does a much better job at image transfer automation—at least from my ancient FlashPath floppy adapter. I'm a little leery of the "supported mode" for privacy reasons, but the 90-day free trial period is generous, and the $50 purchase price for v. 3.1 seems reasonable. Click here for more ACDSee details on this site.

• Qimage shareware—Mike Chaney's powerful and versatile DP utility package features a thumbnailed interface, batch processing, flexible and efficient image resizing, red-eye removal and, perhaps best of all, complete print layout control with savable page layouts. Qimage also offers noise filtering (including dark current noise), lossless JPEG rotations and flips, and EXIF data access. The rather inscrutable user interface still drives me crazy, but Qimage remains a steal at ~$30, and more than pays for its keep when it comes time to print multiple images on one sheet of expensive photo paper. Click here for more Qimage details on this site.

• Corel PHOTO-PAINT—many experts rank this professional-level photo editor on a par with PhotoShop in terms of capabilities, but it tends to get better marks for ease of use and sells for a fraction of the cost — the exact fraction depending on whether it's purchased by itself (1/5) or with Corel Draw Graphics Suite (1/3). PHOTO-PAINT does objects (layers), lenses (adjustment layers), tone curves and VBA scripting, among many, many other powerful features.

• PhotoShop Elements—For well under $100, this affordable subset of Adobe's much-celebrated but very expensive industrial-strength PhotoShop image editor offers many of the same editing tools, including layers, plug-in support and the infamous love-it-or-hate-it PhotoShop user interface. However, its lack of essential tools like tone curves, Lab color editing and channel mixing make it a poor choice for anyone aspiring to intermediate editing skills. I find Adobe's Photoshop vs. Elements feature comparison PDF is misleading in this regard.

• Paint Shop Pro—this very popular and affordable all-purpose image editing powerhouse is also used by many pros. Some users claim that it doubles as a good viewer. I've never used Paint Shop Pro and know little about it, but I do know that it does layers and enjoys a strong RPD following.

• CAME freeware—TsuruZoh Tachibanaya's compact utility offers PC-controlled camera configuration, image transfers and even automated picture-taking, all via your camera's serial cable connection. CAME supports most current digital cameras.

• EXIFRead freeware—Max Lyons' handy utility mines the wealth of useful information stored in the raw EXIF image files produced by most current digital cameras, including exposure data and the camera's firmware version.

Batteries, Printing and Other Technical Issues

• greenbatteries.com—Stephen Dougherty's admirable site is "devoted to advancing the use of rechargeable batteries," which happens to be a favorite cause of mine as well. The Battery FAQ, Battery Myth and Charger FAQ articles are well worth a visit.

• NiMH battery FAQ—what you need to know, from Thomas Distributing, a major on-line battery and charger vendor.

• Image resolution guide—a good discussion of image size vs. print size issues at digitalkamera.de.

• EXIF image file format—written by the author of CAME, this site provides technical details on the image file format used by Olympus and most other digital camera manufacturers, including information on how exposure settings are stored.

DP Newsgroups

• rec.photo.digital (RPD)—there's often more heat than light released here, but the light's usually worth the trip. Be sure to check out Chris Friesen's FAQ for RPD—a beautifully compiled and invaluable resource dealing with the many important DP issues the come up with some frequency on RPD. Elsewhere, I offer some tips on getting the most out of RPD.

Olympus-Related Sites

• Photo Tidbits—Multi-talented physicist and photographer Andrzej Wrotniak offers up a fascinating and decidedly eclectic mix of technical articles and insightful camera and equipment reviews. The former include excellent pieces on digital depth of field, hyperfocal technique and infrared photography, while the latter cover the Oly C-5050Z and C-5060WZ rangefinders, the Oly E-10 and E-20 DSLRs, several other popular Oly digitals and a few film cameras as well. 

• Alfred Molon's C-4040Z, C-5050Z, C-5060WZ and C-8080WZ camera pages—Alfred Molon's superb travel photography galleries cover the globe. His equally superb camera pages thoroughly document several of Oly's most recent C-series offerings, but none of them are linked on his home (gallery) page. Among Alfred's many valuable contributions are a convincing demonstration of the virtues of RAW recording with the C-5050Z, and a well-designed C-5050Z vs. C-4040Z vs. C-2020Z noise comparison. Where others are content to report hearsay, Alfred rolls up his sleeves and digs for empirical data. Wish I had Alfred's travel and photography budget.

• Jens Roesner's digital IR site—still under development but already brimming with valuable practical information on IR work with Oly digitals and the Minolta Dimage 7.

• Olympus digital cameras—Olympus America's official site, with good information on Oly cameras but still very skimpy on workable accessories.

• Official Olympus downloads—limited software and driver offerings, mostly related to hardware and software bundled with Oly digital cameras.

• Unofficial Oly iS-series data sheet—for the adventurous, a useful, well-illustrated resource on Oly's IS-series 35 mm film cameras. Converters and other accessories made for the IS series can in some cases be adapted very successfully to the Oly Camedia line.

• Digital Photography Review Oly Talk Forum—an active discussion group devoted to Oly non-SLR digitals.

Books and Printed Articles

• Blacklock, Craig and Nadine, Photographing Wildflowers, Voyageur Press, 1987.

• Covington, Michael, Astrophotography for Amateurs, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 1999—a deservedly best-selling and widely- acclaimed book covering all aspects of astrophotography. There's much to be learned about photography and post-processing in general here.

• Feynman, RP, Leighton, RB, Sands, M, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. 1, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA 1963—for a review of physical optics.

• Hunter, Fil and Fuqua, Paul, Light — Science & Magic, Focal Press,  1997—a classic text on photographic lighting focusing on the application of principles rather than on the following of recipes.

• Peterson, Bryan, Learning to See Creatively—How to Compose Great Photographs, AMPHOTO, New York, 1988.

• Prochnaw, Dave, "In the Zone", digitalFOTO, vol. 1, no. 3 (August, 2000), pp. 38-47—an excellent article proposing a modified zone system for black and white photography with digital cameras.

• Rowell, Galen, Mountain Light, 2nd ed., Yolla Bolly Press, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1995—to many, the bible of landscape photography.

• Shaw, John, Closeups in Nature, AMPHOTO, New York, 1987.

• Shaw, John, Landscape Photography, AMPHOTO, New York, 1994.

Unless explicitly attributed to another contributor, all content on this site © Jeremy McCreary

Comments and corrections to Jeremy McCreary at dpFWIW@cliffshade.com, but please see here first.

URL:  http://www.cliffshade.com/dpfwiw/index.htm