About a year ago I became a fairly frequent user of flickr.com. One of their partners is a Do It Yourself book publishing company called Blurb. I was very intrigued, and after taking their "BookSmart" software for a spin, I was hooked. More about this review after the bump.

Lightning is one of nature's most exciting and potentially dangerous phenomenon. Capturing the beauty of something that lasts only a few hundredths of a second does not have to be a challenge. With the right set up, capturing photos of lightning can be a rewarding experience. More after the bump.

In January 2008 I purchased a used 30D from Adorama, hoping to take advantage of 2 generations of advances since my 10D was made. I opted to purchased a used "as-is" body rather than a refurbished unit, and have been paying for that decision for almost 7 months. More after the bump.

Every now and then a gadget comes a long that grabs my attention. This week I came across an article about the ATP GPS Photo Finder. This small device, used in conjunction with a digital camera, allows you to stamp the images with the latitude and longitude where picture was taken. I was immediately intrigued. I have always resorted to manually plotting the coordinates on such image hosting sites like Flickr, a tedious and time-consuming task when you're dealing with a large amoung of images. More after the bump.

Though this isn't for a Canon DSLR, this is a new development in firmware hacking for Canon DIGIC-II-based cameras. The CHDK Firmware allows you do add some extended features to your Canon PowerShot A610, A620, A630, A640, A700, A710 IS, S2 IS and the S3 IS cameras.

Like with any firmware, there are some risks involved, but if you have one kicking around, you might actually get real use out of that 'Direct Print' button with things like:

Scripting! =>some examples
RGB Histogram
RAW images
HDR
Unlimited DOF
HDR Mosaic
Timelapse movies
Games?