The flip-out LCD is a fantastic thing for tripod-mounted and odd-angled work. Like when I want to hold the camera over my head to get a from-above style shot, I can use the LCD to help me frame the shot, rather than just guessing the composition. I hesitate to say the flip-out LCD is the greatest photographic invention since the CCD itself, but it really is that valuable.

Sherree's Canon Powershot A80 also has a twist and swivel LCD, and she also uses it heavily.

First-time consumers of digital SLR cameras focus on the body. Long-time photographers, however, look at the system. An SLR system includes a body, multiple lenses, flash units, and various connecting cords. For most photographers the investment in lenses will come to dwarf the cost of a body. It is thus important to choose a system whose manufacturer makes the lenses that you need for all of your potential projects and, ideally, whose system is popular enough that you can rent special-purpose lenses for uncommon situations. Each camera system has its own lens mount design and a lens that works on, say, a Nikon camera cannot be attached to a Canon body.

Having started with Nikon film cameras and switched to Canon for digital, I feel I can say with some certainty that this is a bad idea.

In the past, every great once in a while, my camera would give me a corrupt photo. I didn't think much of it because it was just one photo out of hundreds or thousands--it must just be a little hiccup. However when I tried to get the Christmas photos off my camera, Adobe Lightroom rewarded me with a "no photos found" message. After fooling around with the camera, memory cards and the computer I came to the conclusion that the camera has a problem writing to the memory cards.

And so, I hunted out some photo recovery software. I'm trying Digital Photo Recovery 3, and it's only recovered 4 out of 68 photos.

Does anybody have any suggestions on other software or methods to try to recover my photos? Next up, a call to Canon's customer service. I wonder how much this will cost...

The 30D incorporates a few of the minor changes that I really wanted in the 20D: two continuous-drive shooting modes (3 and 5 fps), spot metering, the ISO setting displayed in the viewfinder, and increased burst depth (from 5 to 11 frames for RAW). It seems like this is a great update, though certainly not worth an upgrade for me.

I saw this as an opportunity to share some basic scanning techniques. Scanners and scanning is becoming less popular as digital cameras become more popular, but it's still the best way to capture an existing photo or other document. The trick is knowing how to use the scanner and its software to do the best job that can be done.

Yesterday Sony announced a new digital camera: the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-R1. This is a very exciting camera for a number of reasons. Digital Photography Review has a preview of the camera available.

With a camera like this and a computer nearby--likely a laptop for easy portability--the need for many and large memory cards ($$$) disappears. And similar to shooting tethered with a DSLR camera, reviewing photos in Photoshop or similar during a shoot becomes easy. Wireless connections for DSLR's have been around for a year or so, but that this feature has come to consumer-grade cameras is very cool!