GETTING STARTED

			This section is for all beginners to digital photography. The sites listed below will get you informed on the basics of this new and exciting hobby.
		Who's afraid of Digital Cameras?	A series of nine articles written for the beginner by Nikon.
		EPI-Centre.	A good British site offering a number of easy to follow articles on the basics of Detail, Tone and Colour. Recommended.
		Learn Digital Photography.	As always dpreview.com offers an excellent series of reference articles of cameras and techniques for beginners and experienced users alike.
		Digital Photography for Dummies.	An excellent book for beginners which you can order from Amazon.co.uk.
		A Simply Guide to Digital Cameras...	An low cost book for beginners which you can order from Amazon.co.uk.

			There are lots of online sites and they offer an invaluable mine of information. Here are a few of my personal favourites.
		Digital Preview.	This excellent site provides an amazing amount of highly detailed information and reviews about Digital Cameras. You'd be hard pushed to find a better site.
		The Imaging Resource.	This high quality site provides more on the subject of 'Imaging' as a whole. So Scanners, Printers and Hints & Tips are the order of the day.
		Max Lyons.	Max Lyons is a landscape photographer who uses panoramic imaging to achieve breathtaking landscape photographs you can view on his site. His pages also explain in detail how anyone can perform this amazing technique.
		The Luminous Landscape.	This web site provides a lot of high quality articles on the art of landscape, nature and documentary photography using traditional as well as digital image processing techniques. Excellent.
		Digital Photography Now.	This site provides a RISC OS section on this popular subject.
		FocalFix.	This UK 'community' site offers people a way to get their own images online as well as offering lots of articles, etc.
		Digital Imaging Magazine.	This site is a front to their paper magazine and has in it quite a few well written articles on the subject of Photography.
		LoneStardigital Magazine.	A online magazine by photographer John Cowley who goes into great detail on digital techniques and how to get the best from your images.
		Megapixel.	A Canadian (French and English) online Digital magazine which provides lots of really interesting reviews and articles.
		Yahoos Clubs.	Yahoo lists lots of Digital Clubs. So see if one of them interests you and get connected to fellow Snappers! Recommended.

			Lots of places to buy Digital Cameras. The typical 'High Street' shop offers only a limited range and are often overpriced. Best to pop into your local Photography Shop as they'll know about the subject. Here is a number of recommended Shops:
		Jessops.com.	This well known and highly repected UK shop offers virtually everything for the Digital Photographer. What is not commonly known is that Jessops will price match if you print off a competitors web page and show it to them.
		Sherwoods Photo Ltd.	Another well known UK online Shop offering virtually everything for the Digital Photographer.
		FotoSense.	A rock bottom priced UK online store selling Digital Cameras and memory cards.
		InternetCamerasDirect.	Another rock bottom priced UK online store selling Digital Cameras and the like.
		Dixons.	A well known UK High Street Shop which offers a wide range of Digital equipment. But never the cheapest unfortunately.

			One of the first things you discover about using a Digital Camera is the amount of battery power they consume. Whilst some models use dedicated rechargeables. Others allow you to use standard off-the-shelf rechargable AA cells. But unfortunately standard Alkaline cells you buy in the shops don't last long, some last only ten minutes! So the secret to not spending all your life changing your batteries is to get special high capacity ones called Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH) cells. The capacity of batteries are rated in 'milliAmperes per hour (mAh)'. Basically the bigger this number the more power is stored in the battery. Standard AA cells however are not designed for the large current drain Digital Cameras require so only last a few minutes! The batteries you get 'free' with a new camera are often quite low capacity often they are only 1500mAh or lower. These days you need 1800mAh or 2300 mAH Ni-MH cells which means they last a lot longer when taking pictures. This is where Hähnel Batteries comes in. They make some of the most powerful batteries you can buy. So if you want the best ask for Hähnel. Here is one typical UK online dealer who sells them - Sherwoods Photo Ltd. But there are lots of others (7 day shop sells a good range of Panasonic rechargables). One Tip: Ensure you buy a recharger that can recharge four cells at once in much less than 8 hours. This ensures they're ready for full use the next day. Most 'free' rechargers supplied with new cameras take 12-15 hours!
		Digital Imaging.	This excellent web site has a page reviewing rechargable batteries. Something you won't see on many other sites.
		Green Batteries.	An excellent web site telling you all you need to know about batteries for Digital Camera. Easy to read and vital information!

			Digital Cameras need lots of portable storage if you don't want to run out of taking pictures whilst out and about. But needless to say most manufacturers seem to only supply the smallest memory cards when you buy! You may find that one way for a Shop to offer you better value for money is to offer a larger card than what is normally supplied with your camera. Indeed it can be often become a useful bargaining point when buying over a counter. But no matter what size you end up with, you'll want a bigger one. However, this type of miniature memory is very expensive compared with the memory you normally fit into a desktop computer. But it is possible to make substantial savings if you shop online. Here are a few Shops to browse if you are on the look out for extra memory:
		Jetmedia.	A well know UK online shop that offers a wide selection of low priced memory cards.
		FotoSense.	A rock bottom priced UK online store selling Digital Cameras and memory cards.
		Crucial Technology.	A well know memory supplier which sells Compact Flash cards amongst many other memory types. Worth a look.
		Expansys.	Another UK online shop that offers a wide selection of their own brand of low priced memory cards.
		7 day Shop.	UK online shop that offers an amazing range of very low priced memory.

			With taking pictures comes the act of printing the images onto paper and this can be a bit of an 'art form' in its own right. There are many different types of paper and ink available and issues like print fading and making panorama prints are currently top of the list. So here are a few sites with I've found which help the Digital Photographer out.
		PCWORLD.com.	This site provides a good article on Photo fading and how to prevent it. Essential reading I think.
		Wilhelm Imaging Research.	This site gives lots of detail on image fastness across a wide range of paper types.
		Panoguide.com.	This site provides lots of interesting articles to read on how to do a good panorama shoot and how to print them. See PhotoStitch for some RISC OS photo stitching software.
		PRINTING YOUR IMAGES	I've tried a number of online Print Shops which offer various items to print your image onto. You can get T-Shirts, Mugs, Caps, Mouse Mats, Coasters, Placemats, Calendars, lots of different size prints from Passport size to large posters. However some of online Shops don't have very good quality control and seem to delight in either taking their time sending the item to you or giving you a damaged good. Here is a list of the ones I've tried and I feel do offer a good service.
		Internet Cameras Direct	This UK site offers a reasonably good range of items and I've had several posters done to a good standard.
		Cafepress	This site is slightly unusual as it actually offers individuals the chance to make some money selling their own printed items. You give them your designs and they print them. You can also get your own web page and sell your designs to other people. Great for Clubs, Charities and Groups?
		Printing Tip	Do you get fine banding on some colours when printing from a Epson Photo printer? The secret to get rid of these is to set the image dpi resolution to 720dpi and then resample your image to 720dpi. This makes the image big but it becomes the same resolution as the Epson internal resolution and so the banding disappears. Canon Users need to use 600dpi. I got this tip from the Dpreview.com forum on Printing and my photos have improved greatly.

			Digital Cameras produce pictures and these have to be transfered to a computer for long term storage via a cable. This transfer process comes in two popular cable types - USB or Serial. At the moment USB is just becoming an option for RISC OS users unless you've got a modern PC with this ability. But a couple of USB podules are expected to be available by the end of 2002, if not before which will remedy this problem. See RISC OS USB for current details. So until these podules are released RISC OS users are limited to using Cameras which offer Serial transfer or make use of Surtec's DigiFlash device (see below) which allows the memory card to be read into your RISC OS Computer via the parallel port. Manipulating Images. RISC OS 4 has a problem rotating a few Digital Camera JPEGs as this causes banding bars to appear in the edited image. So you either patch the OS (look for 'SpriteExtend') or you upgrade to RISC OS Select. RISC OS is blessed with free imaging processing software called !ChangeFSI which is included with every copy of RISC OS and can perform a huge range of processing effects and image converting. Recommended commercial Image editing software is Photodesk, Composition and Studio24 Pro. All are excellent pieces of software.
		Photodesk ltd.	A popular RISC OS company which specialises in Imaging. They offer a range of Olympus, Nikon and Epson Digital Cameras for sale with full support in RISC OS with their 'PhotoLink' software. Their site isn't always the most up to date and I'd recommend telephoning or emailing them for the latest information. New Digital Cameras seem to come along every few weeks!
		Surftec Ltd.	Another RISC OS company offering Digital Cameras that work on RISC OS machines. They offer a device called - DigiFlash, which allows the reading of Digital Camera memory cards. So instead of plugging your Camera into the Computer you just plug in the memory card!
		4QD.	This RISC OS company offers Digital Photography enthusiasts a section of their web site with advice, free software, mailing lists and a list of compatible Cameras that work with RISC OS.