THE EVIL CAMERAS ARE HERE!

EVIL as in Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens cameras.

Cameras with electronic viewfinders (Non- prism) are gaining popularity and market share. The most popular currently available are the micro four thirds cameras from Panasonic (GH2), Olympus (PEN), the Sony (NEX 3 & 5) and the new Samsung NX100. All use interchangeable lenses and have large sensor sizes for great image quality. There are six good reasons to consider an EVIL camera:

1. They're small as opposed to a bulky DLSR
2. They take great pictures.
3. You can change lenses.
4. They're fast.
5. They are small and quiet so they blend in allowing for anonymous shooting.
6. They all shoot hi-def video with ease.

But as popular as these new compact cameras maybe, there is still another design coming on the horizon that bills itself as the "future of photography" called the WVIL, or Wireless Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens. We reported about this new design technology for cameras previously. To learn more go to: Artefactgroup.

Minneapolis Photo Center

The MPC has announced a slate of new courses and two new exhibits. click on the images below to learn more, or go to the MPC website.

Get Your Best Shot Hung at the Snithsonian

IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO ENTER your best images in the 2011 Nature's Best
Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards for a chance to be
displayed at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History.

The submission period has been extended to May 2nd by email.


Go to the Smithsonian's website: Natures Best Photography to learn more about this and other photo competitions, or to Contest Forms to enter an image. It would be great to have an image published and hung at the Smithsonian!

THE CAMERA OF THE FUTURE?

Check out the WVIL camera concept. It is incredible in design and touted as the future of photography. It sports lenses that have the chip on-board so you can detach the lenses and point it at your subject and take a wireless image that is then transferred to the camera body. It also does hi-def video of course.




If the camera body looks similar to the current I-phones it may be no coincidence. This camera will probably double as a phone, music and movie player.

You can check out the whole story and videos that show this camera at: WVIL.

Take a Photo Tour

Epic offers tour to exotic locations. Its current offerings are:

Peru: A Mayan Encounter July 18, 2011 - July 28, 2011

Ethiopia: Tribes of the Omo Valley October 5, 2011 - October 15, 2011

Guatemala: A Mayan Encounter November 9, 2011 -- November 19, 2011

To learn more about these or other tours offered go to EPIC TOURS.

Or you can choose to attend a nature tour closer to home with Slonina Photography. They hold a number nature workshops here in the US including one this June in Northern Minnesota. There upcoming offerings are:

BLACK BEAR ADVENTURE: NORTHERN MINNESOTA: JUNE 9-13

MOOSE COUNTRY NEW HAMPSHIRE: JUNE 3-5 or JUNE 17-19

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK, PUFFINS: JUNE 24-29

YELLOWSTONE & GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARKS: SEPTEMBER 10-18

FALL FOLIAGE: NEW HAMPSHIRE: SEPT 30-OCT 2 and or OCT 3-5

To learn more go to SLONINA PHOTOGRAPHY.

PORTRAIT LENSES REVIEWED

Mason Resnick is an editor for Adorama Camera Learning Center. He has written a piece about portrait lenses called "Portrait Lenses We've Fallen in Love with" that is very informative. It contains a review of all of the available lenses for this type of photography with a description of their effectiveness. It is accompanied by list of the available lenses and prices by manufacturer.

To read the article and learn more about the available lenses/prices go to: Adorama.

Please note: the Camera Council does not endorse any one particular vendor, but will continue to post useful information for camera club members from any source.

Bedtime for Miss Sloth

Anything can be beautiful if you just use a bit of imagination and creativity.

NEW ARTIST OPPORTUNTIES

Here are opportunities to submit images to a juried book competition. The juror is Doug Beasley. The selected images will become part of a published book that will contain photography, poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction. Click on the images below for more information, or go to: Open 2 Interpretation.

Photographer Bill Cunningham

A camera club member alerted us to a film being shown about New York photographer Bill Cunningham. The film has been shown once, but a repeat showing is scheduled for Tuesday April 26th at 9:45 pm. Click on the image below to learn more about this production.

It is being put on by the Minneapolis/St. Paul International film festival. The festival is showing 170 films from producers in over 50 countries. To learn more about this festival go to: MSPFILM.

DxOMark - Sensor rankings

DxOMark - Sensor rankings will show where your camera, or the camera you are interested in, may be in sensor rank. "DxOMark provides four different scores to rank camera sensors at RAW level: The Sensor Overall Score, showing the performance for a general purpose use case, the Portrait Score based on Color Depth, the Landscape Score based on Dynamic Range and the Sports Score based on Low-Light ISO."

Its worth a look.

Still Imaging is now optimized for mobile phones

If you use a smart phone, the Camera Council's blog has now been designed to be easily seen on mobile devices.

FSTOP SWAP

The Fstop Swap will be held next weekend in the Brooklyn Park community center. It is held twice each year in the Minneapolis area. It features used camera and related equipment, as well as, collectible prints.

For more information about this event and it's location go to http://www.fstopswap.com/.

Vivian Maier, update - new book expected this Fall

Street Photographer, Vivian Maier: Ms Maier lived into her 80’s and recently passed. Her work was accidently discovered last year and it is truly amazing. The first articles started showing up in late 2010 and news of her work spead quickly through the photography community, but now a new book is expected in Fall, 2011. I suspect it will be a great sell for the publisher.....

Getting warmer - buff up those cameras and get ready!