Pro Photo Wiki Select Articles

Thomas Sapiano

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A faster variant of the Ethernet standard that allows birdirectional data transfer rates of up to 1000mbps (~125MB/s). This allows high-speed transfer of large blocks of data on local networks with commonly available networking equipment. In order to achieve these speeds, users must use Category 5 (or better) cables with all four pairs intact.

Please see the Ethernet article for more detail on this family of standards.

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"Event Photography" is the business of photographing participants in places other than the subjects home or their usual location.

Event Photogrpahy frequently includes images of people at equestrian events, Business launches, proms and balls as well as including all types of corporate entertainment.

The style of work can be loosley expanded to include pictures of anyone, anywhere where they might wish to record their presence.

Thomas Sapiano

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The Nikon EN-4 battery was used in the D1-series DSLRs prior to their replacement with the D2-series. Offered for the original D1, they were also carried forward to work with the D1H and D1X models that came out afterwards. When the D2-series was released, it also added a new Lithium-Ion battery system that eventually replaced the EN-4 line.

Doug Kerr

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When a camera is focused at a certain distance, any object at another distance will be given a blurred image. The greater the discrepancy between the distance at which the camera is focused and the distance to the object, the greater the blurring (although the exact relationship differs for "near" and "far" errors).

Thomas Sapiano

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DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is a service provided by some networking equipment that automatically provides network settings to devices connecting to a network. This includes settings such as an IP Address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway and DNS Server.

When a device connects to a new network, it broadcasts a request on the network requesting appropriate settings. If a DHCP server is present, it will send the requested information and, if accepted, the device will then use those settings for all other communication. When used, this allows devices to be connected to networks with minimal manual configuration required.

Thomas Sapiano

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The Nikon D200 is a 10.2 MP DSLR using the Nikon F mount. The D200 was designed for advanced amateurs and professionals who don't need the performance or bulletproof construction of the D2 family of cameras. It was introduced in 2005, replacing the venerable D100. The build quality of the D200 is excellent and the controls and firmware are quite similar to the D2X and D2H.

Along with the D2 family the D200 supports metering and aperture priority metering with Nikkor (Nikon) AI (automatic indexing) MF lenses. AI lenses were introduced in 1977.

The D200 also fully supports Nikon's Creative Lighting System (CLS).

Thomas Sapiano

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Intel's Core Microarchitecture is the basis for a series of CPUs that will become the mainstay of their lineup in the coming year. Designed as a replacement for the aging Netburst architecture, Core provides Intel with a new foundation to move forward. Based largely on the successful Pentium M microprocessors, it places a deep focus on efficiency in every aspect of its design.

Thomas Sapiano

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The fundamental consideration that users must make when optimizing a photographic computer system is to work around the bottlenecks inherent in the system. A workflow only operates as fast as its slowest step, so the key to upgrading is to figure out what exactly it is that is slowing the current system down and address it. Buying the fastest processors on the market won't help if the hard drives can't keep them fed with data, just as buying the fastest hard drives won't help if the CPU can't crunch the numbers fast enough.

Thomas Sapiano

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The CPU is generally the part of the computer that most people will focus on first. It is the component that drives everything else in the computer and what will handle the number crunching necessary to process the images passing through it.

Thomas Sapiano

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Another critical component in an image processing machine, the hard drives are the repositories that perminantly store all programs and data that will be used by the machine. In addition, hard drives are also used as temporary working areas for tasks that require more space than is available in main memory.

Thomas Sapiano

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Computers have become critical components in the photographic workflow process. These machines handle everything from processing and transmission to storage and organization. As such, ProPhoto Wiki has a wide range of articles to assist photographers in their use of this critical piece of equipment in their workflow.

Thomas Sapiano

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The Anti-Aliasing filter (aka Optical Low-Pass Filter) is an optical element found in most modern digital cameras. As most digital cameras only measure one colour at each pixel, small points of light may not hit enough pixels to get all the necessary colour information. When this happens, areas of the image with fine details can generate distracting rainbow patturns.

The anti-aliasing filter combats this problem by softening details that are small enough to trigger this effect. This ensures that projected points of light will hit enough pixels so that all three colours can be measured, thus reducing the effect of aliasing on the resulting image.

Thomas Sapiano

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One of the two basic operating modes used by 802.11 networks. When activated, wireless devices communicate directly with one another allowing networks to be created when out in the field. As no access points are required for these setups, users do not need access to any external resources.

Thomas Sapiano

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The foundation for most modern networks, Ethernet provides the basic mechanisms used by devices to communicate. Formally standardized as IEEE 802.3, it specifies the basic communication protocols, electrical signaling mechanisms and physical media used to build these networks. In and of itself, Ethernet only provides basic facilities - however when combined with higher level protocols such as TCP/IP it provides the fundamental resources necessary to build complex networks.

The basic Ethernet standards have been expanded over the years in order to provide higher transfer rates and expanded functionality. Later standards such as Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi all built on the basis of these standards. This has taken it from simple 10mbps networks based on coaxial cabling to sophisticated 10gbps networks running over optical fibre.

Thomas Sapiano

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Ratified in 1997, the original IEEE 802.11 standard provided a new wireless networking protocol. This standard provided data rates of up to 2mbps over either Infrared or 2.4GHz Microwave channels. It would go on to become the foundation for a family of different standards (802.11b/a/g/etc.).

Thomas Sapiano

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In their default configuration, 32-bit versions of Windows limit individual programs to using no more than 2GB of virtual memory at any given time. As many photographers are now buying computers with upwards of 4GB of memory, this limitation can prevent their systems from taking full advantage of that additional RAM. To combat this problem, several of Microsoft's newer Operating Systems (including Windows XP Professional) provide this switch to expand the ammount of memory available to each program.

Thomas Sapiano

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This switch allows users to fine tune the ammount of virtual memory space allocated to individual programs running Windows. When the /3GB Switch is activated, its default configuration is to assign 3GB of address space to the program and 1GB of address space to the kernel. In many cases, this will not provide sufficient room for some device drivers and can cause significant stability issues with the computer. This switch allows the user to set the user space to any arbitrary value between two and three gigabytes.

Thomas Sapiano

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HD Photo is an image file format created by Microsoft to address many of the shortcomings inherent in existing formats. The intention of this standard is to provide a mainstream file format that can be used throughout the entire photographic workflow. With lossless compression and native HDR support, HD Photo can provide many of the advantages of proprietary RAW formats. At the same time, it's new compression mechanism allows smaller file sizes than JPEG so it is also suitable for transmission over limited bandwidth networks.