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TECH SUPPORT
HELLO KITTY:
Forcing your
camera’s flash is all
you need to do to turn
a photo of your black
cat from a shadowy
blob to a precious
little furball.
YOUR
QUESTIONS
ANSWERED
AUse flash. Most cameras have a
forced-flash setting (lightning-bolt
icon) that will fire a built-in or hotshoe
flash even if the meter thinks
there’s adequate ambient light to
go without. Set this mode whenever
you shoot anything black. If Kitty is
outside your flash range, aim your
camera’s spotmeter circle at her to
set exposure, or dial in a little extra
light with a +0.5 or +1 setting in
exposure compensation. Everything
else in the scene will be a little too
light, but your cat will look beautiful.
Or you can use a handheld incident
lightmeter to get the exact exposure.
If you’re shooting with a digital or film
SLR (not an 8x10 view camera), check
out the Cozy Camera Bag ($139,
direct; www.cozycamerabag.com). It’s
the only bag we know of that has a
built-in glove-like appendage for
your right hand and a front-side
portal to pop a lens through. You
slide your hand
through the
“glove” into
the interior
of the bag,
where it lets
you operate the camera easily. The
bag’s internal pockets are designed to
hold chemical handwarmers, which
keep your camera, fingers, and thumb
warm and photo-ready.
Don’t worry about it. When an
Olympus E-series camera is powered
on, the SSWF (Super-Sonic Wave
Filter dust-reduction system)
vibrates at approximately 30,000
cycles per second for a fraction of a
second to shake dust off the image
sensor. But the dust is collected in
an adhesive-lined trough in the base
of the sensor. With such a system
active, dust-mapping strategies are
usually unnecessary.
The U.S. government categorizes
alkaline batteries as nonhazardous
waste, which can be disposed of
in household trash anywhere but
California and Hennepin County,
MN, where you’re required to
recycle them. Most other states
don’t have dry-cell (such as AA)
recycling programs, but the
Rechargeable Battery Recycling
Corporation has dropoff
locations at many major retailers,
including Home Depot,
Staples, and Target. (Whole
Foods accepts rechargeable
and alkalines.) For a list of
recycling locations near
you, visit www.rbrc.org.
106 WWW.POPPHOTO.COM PO OP PHOTO FEBRUARY 2009