Thinking about upgrading or investing in a digital SLR camera? Then check out these helpful tips below:

Are you trading up from a compact?
In that case, remember you'll need Live View if you want to frame your shots using the LCD screen.

While most compacts now come without an optical viewfinder, that's the best way to shoot on a DSLR. You see exactly what the camera sees and there's no problem shooting in bright light where an LCD screen would be bleached out, for instance. But if you prefer taking shots like that, then Live View is the name of the feature which relays the viewfinder image to the LCD.

Although it's increasingly common, many DSLRs still lack it, especially lower-priced models.

Actually, DSLRs are shaped to make holding them better when they're up against your face, so choose the viewfinder whenever you can, but Live View does offer greater versatility.

Do you have lenses already?
If you're making the move from film SLR to digital - from wet to dry as they say - then you may have some SLR lenses already.

In some, but not all, cases these will work on your new digital snapper. They're not usually brand-interchangeable so, as they're pricey, this may influence which camera you choose.

Staying with the same brand also means continuity of operating system as well. But, of course, it's not simple because the area of 35mm film exposed when a film SLR camera shutter opens is greater than the size of a digital sensor, the focal length of a lens changes. The focal length conversion varies, usually being around 1.5x to 2x, so a 50mm lens becomes a 75mm or 100mm lens on a digital SLR.

Who are you?
Hold on, before you go all philosophical on me, I just mean are you an experienced enthusiast, a newbie or someone in between? With digital SLR you do get what you pay for, but that doesn't mean you should buy the priciest model on the market, especially if you want a simple life.

Though nearly all cameras have automatic modes so you can point and shoot, many more expensive DSLRs are aimed at professionals or very experienced users so they are much less accessible to most of us.

More advanced cameras may lack scene modes, for instance, which make adjustments automatically according to the general lighting situation, so again if you're moving up from a compact, entry-level may be the best way to go.

What's in the box?
Of course you'll be counting how many pixels the sensor offers, and this is an important consideration but it's not the only one.

Does it have image stabilisation (again, as many compacts now do) and is that built into the camera or is it a feature on each lens itself? Stabilisation is good if you're planning low-light shots. And how does it handle dust? The benefit of changing lenses also means DSLRs can be a pain for letting dust into the camera.

Many cameras now have systems which give the sensor a good shake when you switch on to jiggle the dust off.

Is size important?
Compacts are small cameras of course (the clue's in the name), and DSLRs are bigger, but some like Olympus and Pentax aim for a less heavy camera-carrying experience.

Their models squeeze conventional designs into a smaller case, some even managing Live View in this reduced size.

Then there's the Panasonic G1 and GH1 which is not strictly an SLR because there's no mirror system delivering what the lens sees to the eyepiece. Instead of this optical system it does it all electronically.

The result is a decent-sized sensor and striking results from a noticeably smaller machine.

Note though, that the trade-off involves an electronic viewfinder which doesn't match the quality of a traditional optical one.

Related links:

• Link - DSLR cameras tag homepage

Tags: Cameras Digital cameras DSLR cameras Tips Features

Five tips for buying a digital SLR camera originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 25 May 2009 10:00:00 +0100

All the programs available at launch on Android were free, so if you've got a G1, make the most of this – here's our guide to some choice cuts.

1 Google Maps

Of course we know Google Maps from other mobiles, but this is the program at its purest. Sure, the new iPhone app has the StreetView feature as well, but since this doesn't work in the UK yet, it's no big deal. Getting directions is easy enough and the map that results has not only the route but also changes of direction marked clearly with written instructions at every corner. Still no substitute for a TomTom, of course, but not bad.

2 Wikitude

And Google Maps ties into Wikitude neatly, too. This travel companion uses the G1's GPS to find nearby landmarks with stories, map routes and more. It combines with Google Street View so you can hold up your phone to see which direction the places of interest are – though remember this doesn't allow for other buildings which may be in the way, in the real world. Handy if you're not in the UK, for finding your way around tourist haunts.

3 Bartender

Want to know what's in an Alabama Fizz? Need to make the best Frozen Fuzzy, Gin and Sin or Purple Hooter? This comprehensive guide has over 100 to choose from, and the search function means you can look for drinks that can be made from what you've got in the drinks cabinet. Although if that's just an old bottle of Bailey's and ginger ale, you're a bit stuck. You can add your own recipes and save ones you like to the favourites list. Since it's on your phone you'll have recipes for obscure drinks to hand if the barman doesn't know. Mind you, he may not take kindly to you insisting, "It says here you should put the cassis in first…".

4 MarioSimulator

More or less pointless, I admit, but it will appeal to gamers of a certain age. It's not a game, just a motion-activated sound effect. Jump in the air and the phone makes the sound of Mario bouncing. Touch the screen so the sound changes to Mario collecting a coin. Press the screen for the sound of Super Mario shooting a fireball. Of course, you get the sounds if you just jiggle the phone, you don't have to jump, but that's just cheating. Satisfyingly, when you end the program it makes a "game over" kind of noise, too.

5 ParkMark

Oh, come on, you've never forgotten where you've parked? This is another program that uses the GPS functions to great effect. Hold the phone next to your car and pinpoint the position. Then, when you return, it'll show you on the map where your car is. Of course, the act of holding the phone up and selecting a program may be enough to set the car's position in your mind anyway, but this is a bonus for parking at a long-term airport car park when you get home jet-lagged and bewildered, for instance. It takes a moment to find the position, so I'd suggest launching the program and activating GPS a moment or two in advance.

6 ShopSavvy

Barcode scanners are not limited to Android-powered phones, but this version is good. Scan the barcode on a CD, and you'll find the first problem is that the plastic film catches the light making them hard to scan. However, get past this and the system works well, directing you to the nearest shop having the product at a good price, or an online seller. Not every shop is listed, mind. Of course, it begs the question, if you're scanning the product then you are probably holding the exact thing you want to buy, standing in a shop. If so, can you really be bothered to traipse down the road to save 50p?

7 DialZero

Now this is mostly of use to folks in America, but there are some UK-specific items. Basically, it's a series of phone numbers to take you to the main switchboard for Abbey, HSBC, Amazon and so on. Plus, it then tells you what buttons to press to get through to a human being instead of endless menu loops. Users can add comments but these vary from the dull ("I love Air Canada" or "Screw AOL") to the obscene. Some users seem to think they might get graphically described sex from others via this service. Optimists, I guess.

Tags: Phones Android Google Mobile phone apps Tips T-Mobile

Seven Android applications you can't do without originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Satellite navigation is a real boon - but there are ways to make the most of it, and things to avoid. Here are seven tips on what to do - and what not to do.

1 Be discreet

Satnavs have memories with easily accessible data. Don't be tempted to specify your home address. If you put such details in, and so clearly, too, then if it's stolen, thieves will know where you live. And it will be odds on that you're not there, either. So they've got your satnav, the other contents of the glove box and now your address, too. Similarly, remember to delete your secret lover's address from the recent destinations list, you cad. Or to put it another way, if you suspect your significant other of wandering, the TomTom might at least show you where they've been straying. The brilliant Zoombak, sadly no longer available in the UK, transmitted its location at all times, making it an ideal lie detector.

2 Set it up before you set out

I know, I know, but it's worth saying. How many times have you been fiddling with the GPS en route, to adjust the volume or make the warning sound when you're speeding, because it wasn’t quite right when you started? We all think we can do it without losing concentration on the road. This may be true if you're just switching to night screen, say, but not if you have to concentrate on keying letters into the screen. Really you should pull over, no matter how annoying that seems. Better safe…

3 Listen up

Similarly, it's worth making sure the voice instructions are loud enough to cut through the gossip and the radio as you drive, so you don't even have to look at the gadget any more than usual. One manufacturer used to only have one English voice and this was an unbearably posh one. I have missed motorway exits because I turned him off (which, after all, was the effect he'd had on me). This is also an argument against those novelty voices you can buy, oh, so funny for a day or two but infuriating ever after.

4 Use common sense

Actively question the satnav. First, so that you don't drive through a "No Entry" sign or into an unspecified canal. The police won't be so keen on your defiant chant of "the satnav told me to". But also to make sure that you're going to the right destination. There are several places with the same name in Britain, and if you're abroad it may be even more challenging. So check the map details, how many miles and how long the journey - do they all match your expectations?

5 Use the features - you've paid for them

Like the excellent NavPix features on Navman's machines, where you can snap that best-kept-secret pub you found down a country lane using the built-in camera. The photograph will save the geotagging data as well so it can guide you back. Even the super-slim Navman S100, which doesn't have a camera, can still record where you are, just no pic to go with it. Similarly, if you have a TomTom with Traffic HD or sophisticated routing related to the time of day, make the most of it.

6 Be secure

Not just about your address - that circular mark where you spit-licked the satnav to the window is unsightly and tells a thief you may have something valuable on board. Some stick to the dashboard instead of the windscreen, which may be better. And make sure it's attached well - one sudden bump and a flying satnav could do some damage as it hurtles towards you. And make sure it's not between you and an airbag. Finally, some people even leave theirs on display when away from their car - what were they thinking?

7 Carry a road map

If you drop your satnav in a puddle or crack the screen, you're beggared. Ditto if it turns out that the battery was low and the one thing you forgot was the charger. An analogue backup that withstands falls and doesn't need batteries is worth keeping in the boot. It even offers a chance for nostalgia: "Darling, do you remember when we used this last time? We had that vile argument when you said I'd got the map upside down? Weren’t we a fine pair of hotheads?"

Tags: Car And GPS Tips

Seven ways to get the best out of your satnav originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:15:07 +0000

Whether you're sending texts or composing complicated emails, we'll show you how to get the best out of typing on the move.

1 Make the most of shortcuts
Oh the joy of pressing space space on a BlackBerry or iPhone and watching as the system magically inserts a full stop, space and capitalises the next word. This is just one of the cute shortcuts you should employ if you have a phone with sophisticated features. If you're typing an email address, you can save time by pressing space. First time it'll give you @ and after that a dot. There are other handy shortcuts for navigating messages and jumping back and forth between mails. Check your manual for tips. Best of all, even the lovely touchscreen Storm has the same familiar shortcuts.

2 Embrace the phone's error correction
Try to remember the first time you used predictive text on your mobile. Chances are you were resistant to it, saying "Oh, I'm quicker using multitype, thank you very much". But then you got over the hump and have never looked back. There's a similar hump to be climbed with texting on the iPhone. It takes getting used to because it imposes its choice on you - to cancel it you need to tap the suggested word. This seems counter-intuitive until you spot the tiny x in the corner of the box. But go with it, it's amazingly accurate in its predictions or else you're saying weird things. Other phones have other systems but they're relatively humpless.

3 Keep an eye on predictive texting
A fine balance this, as if you watch what you're typing too carefully you'll be put off by the garbage it spits out on the way to the right word. But if you don't glance up often enough you'll have to scramble back to where you typed if and the phone thought you meant he, for instance. Or "of" where you want "me" or "in" instead of "go". Or "home", "gone" and "good" when, of course, you're trying to type "hoof". These are among the most common transpositions, although there will be more you've accidentally typed in a hurry.

4 New words
Words made up of the same keypresses are called, and I can't believe I'm typing this, textonyms. Sometimes referred to as T9onyms or, my favourite, cellodromes. Wikipedia tells us that the numbers 22737 correspond to 14 words. So that message you had in mind about "Bards baser caper barfs acres, carer bares cards" will be particularly tedious to type. The site also claims that textonyms enter spoken language, insisting that teenagers say "Book" to mean "cool" or even "Zonino" for "Woohoo".

5 Beware of SureType
BlackBerry uses its own version on the Pearl, for instance, called SureType. This suggests words for you. However, it's not entirely successful. Its suggestions aren't always what you're after, like with the iPhone, but SureType has multiple words on offer, so it's easy to make mistakes. For instance, in the recent Movember charity fundraising and prostate cancer awareness campaign, those brave fellows growing moustaches found the new word Mo was being transliterated into month. Annoying outside Movember for anyone trying to write "Hang on a mo".

6 Know your handset
Phones behave differently and texting is a major source of variations. Samsung and, frankly, I've told them this until I'm blue in the face - has a very, er, individual setup. When you press the capitalisation key instead of giving you a capital letter it gives you numbers. Press it again for caps. Nokia uses the * key to cycle through matching options while Samsung uses 0. It's these differences, please note, that build on brand loyalty on phones.

7 Look for yourself
If there are any cool or annoying shortcuts you think Pocket-lint readers should know about, let us know. It's good that to get a capital letter on BlackBerry you can just hold the letter key down longer rather than pressing the caps key first, but why don't they tell you these things on day one? And why does the iPhone change my text signoffs from Dx to Ex with such regularity that my friends now call me Ex? Of course it's good that the iPhone knows that when I type im I mean I'm but are there any splendid shortcuts we haven't included? One day, maybe there'll be decent voice recognition so we can dictate texts reliably. Wouldn't that be cool? Zonino!

Tags: Phones Tips BlackBerry SMS Nokia Samsung

Seven ways to make mobile typing easier originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:33:51 +0000

Get through the week ahead with our daily tips for tech happiness:

1 MobileMe
Apple’s MobileMe (£59.99 a year) is a simple but impressive example of cloud computing, where your data is not only on your computer but on a remote server, too. Of course, it works best if you synchronise the calendar, email and contacts information to your phone, too, and it only does this with one phone, thank you – the iPhone. Still, it will keep your Mac and PC computers in sync, via iTunes, without a phone in the middle, but there’s something magical about putting an appointment in your iPhone calendar and seeing it on your computer’s calendar within minutes. Shame you can’t synchronise Notes from the iPhone, too.

2 Note Pad
Actually, that’s not quite true, there are ways of doing it, thanks to the App Store. There are a few alternative notes programs available for the iPhone, but Note Pad (£2.99) does the job well, though it certainly lacks the slick user-friendliness Apple would have brought to this feature. You have to get your head round the fact that when you open a new note it asks you if you want to save it before you have typed anything you want to save. And when you close it the information you’ve just typed in disappears alarmingly – though it does come back. Syncing looks unattractive, but works.

3 Missing Sync
You may still favour a Palm smartphone like the Centro. Why not? The Palm OS is elegant and efficient and avoids the hell that is Windows Mobile. And you can search every part of your contacts, say, when all you want to know is: "Whose number starts 07968?" you can’t do that in Cupertino. However, even the Palm doesn’t have perfect syncing skills and that’s where Missing Sync comes in. If you want to export your Palm Calendar and there are more than 1000 items in it, you social butterfly, you, then you’ll need Missing Sync for Palm OS to help you. It’s available from markspace.com along with versions for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and, hey, iPhone (though the notes syncing is not bi-directional). Prices start from around $30 (£20).

4 Life Balance
If you want to go off-piste, you may want a program from the pleasantly named llamagraphics.com. Here you’ll find Life Balance available for Windows, Mac, Palm and now iPhone. It’s personal coaching software to help you figure out your goals and help you achieve them. It’s a sophisticated program that aims to prioritise your to do list, for instance, so that you don’t do what I do and put the really difficult things at the bottom so you never have to actually do them. There’s a free advice book program in the iPhone App store to get you started. The main iPhone app costs £11.99, others start from $79.95 (£49).

5 Sky Remote Record
See, it’s important to keep your TV watching in sync, too. Life’s too busy to remember to set the video recorder (as we used to call it in olden times) every day. And chances are you’ll forget when it really matters. If you have Sky+ you can set the machine to record even when you’re not at home. You can set it via your computer or your mobile phone. Of course, the arrival of BBC iPlayer and other online catch-up services means there’s no excuse to miss anything on the box, but at least with Sky Remote Record you can see it in full resolution (maximum of ten requests per day – don’t be greedy).

6 Digital music
Before iTunes, synchronisation was not a major part of our lives. Then, when music went digital, we all found out how important it was. Now, it means we can not only carry a shedload of music in your pocket, but that it’s backed up on a computer. So if the hard drive or the battery on your portable goes (as if!) then all is not lost. The latest music sites offer great things, like Nokia Comes With Music, with unlimited downloads you can keep. If your computer hard drive goes south, you can download it all again. Or Amazon MP3, the newest of all, which offers DRM-free music suitable for most players (including iPods), encoded at high bitrates (256kbps), with prices starting at £3 for an album.

7 Google
There are, as we know, many faces to Google. And the online calendars, contacts and mail features took on a whole new level of usefulness with the arrival of a particularly compatible mobile phone. So now you can sync all those easily accessible programs with Android OS mobile phones. For now, that means the T-Mobile G1, but next year there’ll be more. It’s a handy and simple set-up which, like MobileMe, feels a little bit like magic but, unlike MobileMe, is free. BlackBerry users will also be able to benefit from Google's Sync software that will sync contacts and the calendar to your device over the air.

Tags: Phones Tips Google Apple Palm Missing Sync Sky iPhone iTunes

Seven ways to keep your life in sync originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:08:24 +0000