Rocco Galatioto, nice photos and good food

These are perhaps my earliest digital images. They date back from September 2000 right after I had purchased  my Nikon Coolpix 990. It had only 4 mega pixels but I was able to get some nice images out of it. The venue is the North Fork of Long Island.

Sitting atop a Tuscan hill, San Gemignano is famous for its many towers. Most of them have not survived but quite a few have giving it the sobriquet: the Manhattan of Italy. A far cry really, but it has it's own fascination.

It sounds like heresy but mega pixels may not be the most important feature in a camera. Things like the size of the pixels - the larger the better - have more to do with image quality that the actual number per se . As camera makers pack a larger number of sites in a defined space, each pixel must be made smaller and becomes more prone to saturation. Think of pixels as little buckets that instead of collecting water collect light.   The solution is to make them less sensitive to light or lower their native sensitivity. This creates a problem when higher ISO speeds are needed as when shooting in low light. This is because the light must be electronically amplified thus causing a concomitant increase in noise. The photos posted are all with the Nikon D2 H with what is now considered a very low four mega pixels of resolution. Nevertheless, they are all fine images that produce good enlargements and prints. Another misconception is that packing pixels tighter will be l;...

It's always the same song and dance. cameras always come out with some strange issues that must always be solved, more or less by firm ware updates. Can they ever get it right the first time? The D600 Firmware Upgrade Deals With HDMI Output Limits Yet this is a great camera no matter what. When  launched,the D600  was advertised with the capability of super video recording, It turned out that   the camera was capable of  recording in 1080p,  but the resulting video was scaled to fit 95 percent of the screen, leaving black bars on the top, bottom, and sides. No one knows why Nikon, did this  but. now thanks to a new firmware update, it's not something that has been solved. Nikon's patch notes  state, "Frame output size has been changed from 95% to 100% when movie live view display is changed to "Information off" and an HDMI-compatible device is connected." The new firmware also brings some minor improvements and  other inevitable bug f...

There's only one Big Apple and I just love it. It's energy is palpable; driven by it's  diversity, the raw material that produces it. It's the people that populate it that really create that inexplicable quality that make this city a phenomenon. Naturally, during springtime, it's even more magical.

Shot during an assignment for Catholic Charities, an old client.

The X system of interchangeable lenses range finders by Fuji appears to be more and more an alternative to the superb but very expensive Leica RF system of digital cameras. Our friends at DP Review have just posted their extensive review of the new Fujy X 14mm F 2.6 lens that becomes the equivalent of a 21 mm wide angle. Click at our link below to the right to read the review.

I will from time to time post images with accompanying hints and information that I deem to be helpful to aspiring photographers. I'm just trying to share some of my knowledge.    What we have here are portraits all done  in a hurry using only one portable on camera strobe. The trick is of course to use a bracket that places the flash unit above the lens and high enough to prevent red eye. This also prevents annoying shadows especially if the subject is  not too close to a wall. In one of the images there is a shadow but it could not be helped because the subject, sitting on a wheel chair, was very close to the rear wall. My bracket of choice is the so called Stroboframe that is easily available in most camera stores. It is a cheap items that makes life very easy. The camera was the Fuji S-2 Pro and these are out of camera JPEGS. Very few cameras were able to produce such great color without post production. There is some color contamination as the r...

All these date from the early to middle seventies and are from Pennsylvania Dutch. They are all on Kodachrome II except for the black and white conversion that was shot on Kodachrome 25, the so called new and improved film whose colors did not hold up well.