Scribbles and Snaps

I’m probably the only person in Denmark who misses snow. It makes me feel alive and I love the way it transforms flat and boring landscapes into breath-taking scenery.

You may be surprised to learn that it doesn’t actually snow much in Denmark. Snow-less winters are pretty common in our neck of the woods, which is rather depressing.

So when I woke up this morning and discovered that it has been snowing almost all night, I was ecstatic. I grabbed my HTC Magic Android phone and went for a long walk. Why not my Nikon D60, you might ask. Well, I really wanted to enjoy the snow instead of worrying about taking photos.

By the time I reached downtown (a 6km walk), the winter was pretty much over. But I did snap a few photos that will hopefully help me get through the rest of the Danish winter.

Designed to manage hundreds and even thousands of photos, digiKam provides top-notch searching capabilities that can help you to find the photos you want in several different ways. If you need to quickly locate or filter photos, you can use the search field and filtering options at the bottom of the main window.

Enter the search term you want and digiKam automatically finds photos which file names, comments, or tags match the specified criteria. The clever part is that digiKam performs the search in real time, so it narrows the search results as you’re typing the search criteria. Using the drop-down list you can limit the search to specific file types; for example, you can search only RAW or TIFF files.

The rating filter to the right of the search field lets you view photos that match specified star rating criteria. Use the mouse to select the desired number of stars, and digiKam narrows the view to the matching photos. By default, the filter uses the Greater Than or Equals condition, but you can choose between two other options — Equals or Less Than or Equals — by right-clicking on the filter.

While the quick search and filtering features can help you to find the photos you want with a minimum of fuss, keep in mind that the results they return largely depend on the quality and completeness of the metadata of each photo. This is also true for digiKam’s more advanced search features, so to be able to use them to their full potential, you should tag and rate your photos as well as enter as much information as possible.

Despite the conventional wisdom that digital photography is an expensive hobby, I’ve found that the most useful stuff in my camera bag doesn’t actually cost a lot of money. For example, the Nikon wireless remote control costs only about $15 dollars, and you can get an unbranded version for even less. It may sound like a nice-to-have kind of thing, but it can prove to be an indispensable tool in many situations like night photography and self-portraits. True, you can use the camera’s timer, but the wireless control is so much more convenient.

Decent macro lenses are obscenely expensive, but if you want to dip your toes into the macro photography waters, you don’t need to take out a bank loan. Instead, buy a set of Kenko Extension Tubes that turn your kit lens into a rather capable macro tool. I bought mine from the Cameta Camera eBay store, but you can find Kenko tubes for your camera model in many Web and brick-and-mortar stores.

If you are looking for a good yet affordable tripod, consider something like Velbon DF10ML. Although it’s only 25 inches tall when expanded, the tripod can come in handy in many situations such as low-angle landscape and indoor photography. When folded, the tripod is only 11 inches tall, so you can easily tote it around.

Finally, the most obvious and arguably the best purchase is a Flickr Pro account. $25 buy you unlimited uploads and storage, the ability to create an unlimited number of sets and collections, access to your original files, useful statistics, and ad-free browsing and sharing.