In Focus Blog

The weekend’s precipitous frozen flurry presented a wondrous opportunity to capture the majesty of winter’s cloak. Armored in boots, cap and gloves, I marched into the white of Sunday morning’s golden light with my Nikon D-SLR and a spare battery, of course, warm and snug in the pocket of my Gortex jacket!

Strong diagonal rays and shadows ‘accentuate’ a classic winter scenic

©Franklin Viola
IPTC Data: Nikon D2Xs, Nikon 12-24 at 12mm, ISO 200, f/8 at 1/125sec (Manual mode), Tripod

Emphasizing powder coating with ‘close-focus wide-angle’ imaging

©Franklin Viola
IPTC Data: Nikon D2Xs, Nikon 12-24 at 22mm, ISO 200, f/5.6 at 1/250sec (Manual mode)

Recently on assignment in Panama, I used my Nikon 200-400 VR AF-S lens and Nikon D300 camera to capture this image of a Female Black-Chinned Hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri) drinking nectar from a Hibiscus flower.

©Franklin Viola

IPTC Data: Nikon D300, Nikon 200-400 VR AF-S f/4 at 400mm (effective 600mm on DX body), ISO 640, f/8 at 1/200sec, iTTL fill-flash with Nikon SB800 (EV-2.0), Tripod

Observing the tiny birds ‘routine flight path’ to specific flowers for over an hour, I pre-set focus in AF, then switched to Manual focus to ‘lock’ my composition. Using a Nikon wired shutter-release, Bogen carbon-fiber tripod and Wimberly gimbal-head, the 200-400mm never flinched even in my excitement as the ‘hummer’ flew into position. iTTL fill-flash from a Nikon SB800 (hand-held via SC17 cable) applied just the right  ’stop-action’ to complement the gyrating wing-blur. This artificial ‘light’ also added color ‘pop’, an often under-used tool in outdoor photography!

Nikon’s 200-400mm VR f/4 AF-S lens works with all Nikon ‘full-frame’, as well as Nikon APS-size sensor (DX) D-SLRs. You too can ‘reach out’ with this lens through BCC’s rental department. Call 201.664.4113 or come by the Westwood store for more details.

After working at Bergen County Camera in 1988 / 89, Franklin Viola followed his dreams and became an award winning Commercial and Editorial Photographer. Combining his studies in Marine Science (BS Texas A&M Galveston’82), Scuba Diving (NAUI Instructor 1986) and self-taught photographic skills, Franklin traveled the world shooting underwater photo-stories for such magazines as National Geographic WORLD, Ranger Rick, Boy’s Life, Sport Diver and Natural History to name a few. In 1994, the British Museum of Natural History (London) awarded Franklin one of the top 10 Wildlife Photographers of the Year.

BCC welcomed Franklin back for the 2011 Holiday Season to share his photographic knowledge with our customers and his business savvy with our professional team. As a featured contributor on BCC’s photography blog, Franklin will open up his treasure chest of ‘tips’ for capturing great photographs.

You may see more of Franklin’s work at www.violaphoto.com

Look for Franklin’s first post in a few days.

Bergen County Camera is happy to report Fuji’s announcement of  the 16 megapixel Fujifilm X-Pro1 interchangeable lens camera. The camera has earned a CES “Best in Show” designation. Our buyer who is at CES will share his review when he returns from Las Vegas. The X-Pro1 uses APS-C X-Trans CMOS sensor™,  a brand new X lens mount, along with three brand new prime lenses. Bergen County Camera is currently taking orders for the Fuji X-Pro1. Please email or call 201-664-4113 if you would like to add your name to our first come first served list, no deposit required. Should you have questions, our staff of photographic experts are ready to assist.

Download the complete X-Pro1 brochure from Fuji’s website

Here are the Specifications from Fuji’s website

Model Name FUJIFILM X-Pro1

Number of effective pixels 16.3 million pixels

Image sensor 23.6 mm x 15.6 mm (APS-C) X-Trans CMOS with primary color filter – Sensor Cleaning system: Ultra Sonic Vibration

Storage media SD memory card / SDHC memory card / SDXC (UHS-I) memory card*1

File format still image

• JPEG (Exif Ver 2.3)*2
• RAW (RAF format),
• RAW+JPEG
• (Design rule for Camera File system compliant / DPOF-compatible)
• movie: H.264 (MOV) with Stereo sound

Read the rest of this entry »

10 years after Lightroom made its debut we have a new beta version from Adobe Labs, Lightroom 4! Lightroom’s history is outlined on this Wikipedia page. Beta software is not for everyone so be sure to backup your work, and understand this beta software should be used for learning features, testing and tinkering. The final release may or may not be compatible with what you do in the beta so keep this in mind. Lightroom 4 beta will be available for download until the products expiration on March 31, 2012. We’ll post our impressions just as soon as we have a chance to test it out.

Download the Lightroom 4 beta

Here’s a quick look at the new features from Adobe’s website

New Features in Lightroom 4 Beta

• Highlight and shadow recovery brings out all the detail that your camera captures in dark shadows and bright highlights.
• Photo book creation with easy-to-use elegant templates.
• Location-based organization lets you find and group images by location, assign locations to images, and display data from GPS-enabled cameras.
• White balance brush to refine and adjust white balance in specific areas of your images.
• Additional local editing controls let you adjust noise reduction and remove moiré in targeted areas of your images.
• Extended video support for organizing, viewing, and making adjustments and edits to video clips.
• Easy video publishing lets you edit and share video clips on Facebook and Flickr®.
• Soft proofing to preview how an image will look when printed with color-managed printers.
• Email directly from Lightroom using the email account of your choice.

Join our conversation on Facebook by answering the following:

Describe in one word what photography means to you.

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Bergen County Camera’s Facebook page is a great place to share pictures, thoughts on photography and to get updates on news and events at our stores in Westwood and Englewood. We hope you can join us.

Hazardous Waste Days open to Bergen County, New Jersey Residents Only

Most photo chemicals are considered hazardous waste. No business waste and ID is required. Also please do not bring computers, electronics, batteries, latex paint or tires to these collections. If you have questions please call the Bergen County Hazardous Waste Hotline 201-807-5825. Information for other New Jersey Counties can be found at the NJ Hazardous Waste Co-ordinators website. Businesses must pre-register before the collection day by calling 201-807-8696 to make arrangements.

Campgaw Mountain Reservation 9 a – 3 p

200 Campgaw Rd., Mahwah

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Bergen Community College 9 a – 3 p

400 Paramus Road, Paramus, NJ

Bergen Community College, 400 Paramus Rd., Paramus

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Bergen County Utilities Authority 9 a – 3 p

Foot of Empire Boulevard, Moonachie, NJ

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Focus sessions are free and take place in the Westwood store from 9:30 am – 10 am and our Englewood location from 10:30 am – 11:00 am. All sessions will allow for questions and answers. Please bring your camera and any images along that you have questions about.

Hit the “Like Button” to let your friends know. Have suggestions for future focus sessions? Feel free to leave a comment.

Here’s the schedule for January and February:

January 7 – Great Portraits With Your Flash

January 14 – Great Winter Landscape Photos

January 21 – Online Photo Services – How to Use etc.

January 28 – Show Us Your Photos / Critique – All photos in print form

February 4 – Sensor Cleanings

February 11 – Indoor Sports Photography

February 18 – Getting Started with Photo Books

February 25 – Tripods and Monopods

These are free events – bring a friend along if you’d like. Share with your friends on Facebook – Click the Like button below. Hope you can join us!

D-Lux 5 Update

The new firmware will improve the following:

• Auto Focus speed-up.
• The upper limit of the shutter speed in Manual Exposure Mode has been raised (max. 250 seconds).
• [HIGH ISO NR] for ISO 1600 and ISO 3200 has been added to the [REC] menu.
• When [MF] is set, you can make fine adjustments to the focus using a simpler operation than before.
• Improved auto white balance performance. • The position and size of the AF area you have set are now stored.
• [ACTIVE MODE] has been added to the [MOTION PICTURE] menu.
• The AF/AE Lock operated by half-pressing the shutter button has been improved.
• [MINIATURE EFFECT] has been added to My Color Mode
• [MONITOR] / [VIEWFINDER] has been added to the [SETUP] menu.

Leica s2 Firmware Update

The new S2 firmware adds support for the new S-Lens Leica Elmarit-S 30 mm/f2.8 ASPH.

Adobe Labs has completed beta testing of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) version 6.6 (adds support for several newer digital cameras). You can get this update by using the check for updates option in your Adobe software or by visiting the Adobe Labs Camera Raw page for this download. This page is the place to visit for the latest ACR release and beta test versions when available.

Lightroom 3.6 has just been released after completion of beta testing. In addition to adding support the cameras above it also addresses some minor issues uncovered in the previous versions of LR. You can get this update by checking for updates inside Lightroom.