Digital cameras come with different size sensors. Compact cameras have tiny sensors – about the size of the nail on your little finger. On digital SLRs, the sensors are considerably larger, which is why these cameras produce higher quality images, particularly at ISO 400 or more.

Canon digital SLRs have three different sensor sizes, depending on the model:
1. Full-frame sensor, which is the same size as a 35mm neg (36 x 24mm), found on the Canon 1Ds and Canon 5D bodies.
2. APS-H sensor — slightly smaller than full-frame (28.7mm x 19.1mm); found only on Canon EOS 1D bodies.
3. APS-C sensor — smallest of the three (22.5 x 15mm); found on Canon Digital Rebels (400D, 450D, 500D), Canon 30D, 40D, 50D models, and the new Canon 7D.

Lenses made for traditional 35mm SLR cameras are designed so that the circular image cast by the lens just covers the rectangular area of the film (or a digital sensor of similar size).

When you substitute a full-size sensor with a smaller one, more of the subject now fills the frame — as in the picture below where the black rectangle represents a full-frame sensor, the blue rectangle an APS-H sensor, and the red rectangle an APS-C sensor.

The impact of using a lens designed for full-frame sensors on a camera with a smaller sensor is commonly referred to as the “crop factor”, and also as “lens magnification factor” or “focal length conversion factor”.

The implications are enormously beneficial for photographers using long lenses on cameras like the Canon 50D or 500D, but simultaneously rob wide angle lenses of extra width. For more on this, please see my attempt at more fully explaining the Canon digital SLR crop factor, one of a new series of articles under Canon Lens Reports.

Kobe the polar bear out for a swim at the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson, Arizona. Photo © Ruston Agte

Six category winners of the Energizer Ultimate Photo Contest have been announced and are now in the running for the main prize of a trip for two to the Galápagos Islands, plus the chance to have their photograph published in National Geographic magazine.

Following a public vote, the following were named Category Winners:
* Ruston Agte – Animals/Wildlife (right)
* Tracy Hagen – Nature
* Glenn Traver – Travel
* Frederick Abels – Weather
* Bernardo Medina – People and Cultures
* Bernardo Medina – Inspiration/Keep Going

You can view the winning photographs at on the Engergizer Photo Contest 2009 Finalists page.

My favorites is Frederick Abels’ Weather shot, although I also like both Bernado Medina’s pics, particularly his “Inspiration/Keep Going” entry – grit and head-down determination perfectly encapsulated.

Our new range of 2010 Wildlife Calendars is now available for viewing and ordering online, in association with Calendars.com

Once again the impressive selection of wall, desktop and mini-calendars features photography by renowned wildlife photographers, including those from National Geographic. In addition to African wildlife such as lions, elephants, giraffes and zebras, there are also calendars featuring baby animals, birds, bears, tigers, and wolves. See 2010 Wildlife Calendars for more.

The winner of the 2009 British Wildlife Photography Awards is Ross Hoddinott with his photograph, Damselfly silhouette. It’s a mesmerising image and deserving of its top position.

Sue Herdman, BWPA Judge, (Editor, National Trust Magazine), explains:
“For the winning image we were looking for the one that, amongst thousand of entries, stood out as the most memorable and striking. Almost monochrome in tone, this beautiful silhouette is both intriguing and haunting, with a delicate composition and admirable clarity. Droplets of water shimmer on the wings; a fuzz of hairs’ bristle from the body and, perhaps most fascinating of all, the photographer Ross Hoddinott has caught the ‘face’ of our fly which holds, in profile, a curiously human look. No one viewing this photograph, we concluded, could fail to find it completely compelling.”

It’s definitely worth visiting the website, BWPA Winners 2009, to see which images took the top honours. In addition to the winner, I like runner-up David Slater’s image, Blackbirds Fight to the Death, which also won the Animal Behaviour category. I have a thing about pictures that use slow shutter speeds to depict movement and drama, so it had to be one of my favourites.

Others I like a lot are Danny Green’s Sanderling running, highly commended in the Coast and Marine category, and Marcin Zagorski’s haunting image, Mountain hare, which was highly commended in the Habitat Category.

This is a British competition, so entries were restricted to those taken “in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands”.

After many rumors and much speculation, the new Canon EOS 7D digital SLR has been officially announced.

This is an entirely new camera as it doesn’t fit within any of the current ranges – the entry level Rebels (400D, 450D, 500D), the “prosumer” models (30D, 40D, 50D), or the pro range (5D, 1D, and 1Ds models). From all reports and available specs it’s apparently not a substitute for a 60D (assuming a 60D will at some stage replace the 50D in the prosumer lineup).

The 7D is not a full-frame digital SLR and comes with the smaller APS-C (22.3mm x 14.9mm) sensor as in the Rebels and prosumer models, giving a 1.6x crop factor and the ability to use both EF and EF-S lenses.

Stand-out features include eight FPS continuous shooting, 18-Megapixel Resolution and full HD video with variable frame rates and manual exposure control.

The EOS 7D has a completely new 19-point Autofocus system, a new Canon iFCL Metering System (Intelligent Focus, Color, Luminance) and 100% viewfinder coverage with a transparent LCD overlay that’s used to display/hide AF points and grid lines. The camera offers a range of ISO speed settings from 100-6400 (expandable to 12,800).

Although the camera sounds pretty impressive, for many the big question is whether it was necessary to cram 18 megapixels on an APS-C sensor, and the impact this will have on image quality.

Questions have been raised about the image quality of the 50D (15MP on a similar sized APS-C sensor), particularly at high ISOs where more noise reduction has to be applied to keep noise levels acceptable, meaning a loss of detail from ISO 1600 upwards.

In his review of the EOS 7D, Rob Galbraith says “Canon appears to have done a masterful job of wringing out every ounce of quality from the 7D’s little pixels (smaller than any Canon before), resulting in photos that are crisp, reasonably clean and eminently usable up to about ISO 1600.

“At ISO 3200 and beyond you’ll run into increasingly unmanageable amounts of digital dandruff (white pixels spread throughout darker areas) and plugged shadows.”

He adds: “Put in charge of the 7D’s development, however, we’d have chosen something like a 12MP sensor with better high ISO performance and richer low ISO files.”

This is so true, specially for photographers who shoot in low light and can’t use tripods – sports shooters, wildlife photographers, and press or wedding photographers who want to avoid flash.

Only a few years ago Getty Images would only accept digital images from the Canon EOS-1Ds with its 11.4 megapixels, so one has to ask whether 18 megapixels are really necessary. Will the 18MP of the 7D prove to be of more value to photographers than the ability to produce quality images at 3200 or even 6400 ISO? Time will tell.

The Canon EOS 7D Digital SLR camera will be available at the end of September, and will be sold as body-only at an estimated retail price of USD$1700.

If you grew up in the pre-digital era, chances are that you watched a traditional slide show, where 35mm colour transparencies or “slides” were projected on a screen or white surface, using a projector like the popular Kodak Carousel.

Since the advent of digital photography, the slide show has taken a back seat, as there are many alternative ways of watching and sharing images, from viewing them on your computer’s monitor, to emailing them, viewing them in a digital frame, and showing them on your TV. Most of these require some measure of technical skill – certainly more than dropping slides into a slotted container and switching on the projector.

You can of course still project digital images on to a screen using a digital projector – but these gadgets are relatively expensive, particularly when compared to old-fashioned slide projectors.

So you either need an expensive projector, or some measure of technical skill, to “show” your photographs. But that’s all going to change since the announcement of the new Nikon Coolpix S1000pj, the world’s first compact camera with a built-in projector.

Nikon Coolpix S1000pj 12.1MP Digital Camera with Built-In Projector and 5x Wide-Angle Optical Vibration Reduction (VR) Zoom

Overall Rating:

Retail Price: $349.95

Amazon Price: $209.99

I think it’s a brilliant idea – one of those where you wonder why no one did it before. Imagine parties and social gatherings, where you take a group pic and, instead of showing off the result on the camera’s tiny screen, you simply project the image on to the closest wall, or even on someone’s white T-shirt. Come back from a visit to the beach, kid’s birthday party, or animal park, set up your camera in your living room in slide show mode and relax as the pics are displayed on the wall.

The Nikon Coolpix S1000pj is a hi-spec compact with 12-megapixel resolution, a 5x wide-angle Zoom-NIKKOR glass lens, five-way Vibration Reduction image stabilisation and four movie modes with sound. But it’s the projector that differentiates this camera. Now, with a simple touch of a button, you can use the camera to project photos or movie clips on any flat surface at up to 40 inches in size. Pictures can be projected individually, or as slide shows complete with music and added effects.

Digital camera innovations are usually quickly followed by other manufacturers, so watch for a slew of new digital compacts with built-in projectors coming to a store near you.