EMONG'S JOURNALS

Choosing the best camera position in your bag is not as simple as it sounds. When I first got myself a bridge camera, it came along with a free camera bag. The bag is shaped in a way that I can only insert my camera with its screen facing the bottom and its lens pointing upwards. So when I have to shoot, I reach inside the bag and grab my camera in its lens, then place its bottom at the palm of my left hand, then use my right hand to grasp the main command grip. It bugged me big time, but who gives a horsesh*t -- the bag was free. After about 10 months, I upgraded to a DSLR. It's a bit bigger than my bridge camera so I had to get a new camera bag. I bought the quick draw system -- the one which had my DSLR pointing its lens downwards when packed. The feeling was liberating. I had such fun time pulling out and inserting my camera at great ease. But, the "liberating" feeling didn't last long. Because months later, I bought a 50mm 1.8 lens to complement with my...

Calling on all certified book enthusiasts! The country's most anticipated book event - the Manila International Book Fair (MIBF) - will happen on September 16-20, 2015 at the SMX Convention Center at the SM Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City. MIBF is the country's biggest and longest-running book fair, showcasing the largest and most varied collection of literature for leisure and academic reading - from fiction bestsellers, to textbooks, to graphic novels, and even educational materials. The event will also highlight this year’s most awaited book launches and signings, dialogues with readers, contests, and other literary events. Already on its 36th year, the MIBF has become a gathering of sorts for bookworms of all ages and walks of life to celebrate the joys of reading and the knowledge each book brings about. It has also been providing a venue for the exchange of ideas among players in the publishing and academic industry. For more details, visit...

Canon Inc. has developed an insane 250 megapixel sensor that can read letters on the side of a flying airplane which is 18 kilometers away from the shooting location! The 250 megapixel image sensor, which to date is the world's highest number of pixels for a CMOS sensor, will be small enough to fit inside of a DSLR camera, Canon said. The APS-H-size (approx. 29.2 x 20.2 mm) CMOS sensor incorporating approximately 250 million pixels (19,580 x 12,600 pixels) will also achieve a video quality that is approximately 125 times that of Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) video and approximately 30 times that of 4K (3,840 x 2,160 pixels) video. This means users can even crop and magnify video images without sacrificing image resolution and clarity. The latest press release, which came out September 7, reads in part: When installed in a camera, the newly developed sensor was able to capture images enabling the distinguishing of lettering on the side of an airplane flying at a distan...

W anted to do more than your street photography? A new full frame DSLR camera from Nikon allows you to shoot for the stars -- literally! Nikon had just announced the new D810A, its new gear meant exclusively for astrophotography. The new model is based widely on their existing D810 model but equipped with more features and gizmos to make it the best astrophotography tool. The Nikon D810A comes with the same 36.3 megapixel full frame Nikon FX format CMOS sensor used in the D810 but will not include an optical low-pass filter. It will have Nikon’s latest and greatest image-processing engine, EXPEED 4. For its astrophotography, the D810A is built with a specially made optical filter that enabled ‘beautiful reproduction of vivid reds in images of nebulae that emit H-alpha light. Nikon claims that this optical filter is capable of four times greater transmission of H-alpha light than the one used on the regular D810 model. Other upgrades include a a long-exposure manual (M*) mod...