Picture Perfect Halloween Photo Contest

Halloween is coming! Are you ready to put on your most horrible costume and play trick or treat? With no doubt, you must have picked up camera to make a record of everything interesting. But, have you ever thought that your funny, cute or scary Halloween photos could win you a trip to Hersheypark in the Dark, a FujiFilm FinePix HS25EXR camera, a Rite-Aid photo book and more?

It’s not a dream. FujiFilm has launched a Picture Perfect Halloween Photo Contest lasting until November 7, 2012. The entry is spectacularly easy. Everyone can participate in this contest without charge. Just register and submit as many as 70 pictures per household.

The winning photographer will win a spooktacular trip for 4 to Hershey, PA to experience all of the frightfully fun rides and attractions at Hersheypark in the Dark and more. For 1^st prize, short course on the Fundamentals of Digital Photography, a FUJIFILM digital camera, a $250 Rite Aid gift card and more. For 2^nd prize, FUJIFILM Finepix XP170 digital camera – orange, $150 Rite Aid gift card, 16”x20” wall canvas from the Rite Aid picture center and a Hershey chocolate gift basket. If you’re interesting in this contest, submit your photos at: http://halloweenphotocontest.com/index.php

Get an Extra 3 Months Membership for Free in The Guild ofPhotographers

Learning from the website is of great convenience while there is a great deal of information on the websites which may be easy to get confused and tired. If you want to become a professional photographer, a specific training from the professionals should never be missed.

After taking lessons, it is a good choice to practice. As an old saying goes, practice makes perfect. For both amateur and professional photographers, image-processing software is effective to strive for further improvement. Therefore, ArcSoft, who always determines to bring more effective solutions to professional photographers and amateurs worldwide, now has partnered with The Guild of Photographers, to bring more excellent services to you.

 

The Guild of Photographers: an association for all individuals committed to photography

Established in 1988, The Guild ofPhotographers has grown much wider to become an association for all individuals committed to the art of photography. To help everyone get the most from his camera, The Guild of Photographers offers superb training and mentoring from some of the most established names in the world of photography, as well as a highly regarded qualification program. Some unique discounts will also be provided. 

 

For more information, please visit: http://www.photoguild.co.uk

Special Offer: Whoever joins the Guild for 12 months on their website and quotes 'ArcSoft' will get an extra 3 months membership for free.

How to Take Care of Your Digital Camera

A digital camera is a very delicate piece of equipment, are you having trouble taking care of it?

The camera body, especially the lens, can be easily damaged through rough handling and scratches. Here are some tips for taking care of your precious camera, ranging from lens care, temperature and storage conditions. Be sure to follow these tips so that your camera will be well protected over its lifetime.

Lens Care

The lens of your digital camera is its eye to the outside world. It is the most important component for any camera. Make sure that you never, ever touch directly with your fingers and ensure that you put on the lens cap when not shooting pictures.

Use good lens cleaning equipment. Always use a good lens brush, lens blower and lens cloth to do the job.

Temperature

The other thing to look out for is the temperature under which the camera is stored. You should always keep the camera out of sun. One mistake that newbies always make is to store the digital camera in the extremely hot places like the car boot. Don’t do that ever. And never store it in cold environment either.

Storage

When storing your digital camera, you need to keep it away from magnets, which will affect the circuitry of your digital camera. Besides, many electronic products come with silica gel capsules. Keep these and put them in your digital camera storage box. It will prevent condensation. The batteries of the camera should also be removed if you intend to store the camera away for a long time for they can have corrosive leaks over time.

Protect Delicate Components

Protect delicate components and watch out for the memory card. More care is needed to spend on this small thing. Camera panels are also of great importance. Every time, you need to open it carefully. 

Hooray, Are You Ready to Make a Jump to Windows 8?

Windows 8 is around the corner. It will be launched on 26^th October and may become the most popular system in every newly-purchased computer without accidents. After experiencing Windows 98, 2000 and getting familiar with Windows XP, Vista, 7, I am so exciting to embrace the huge change on my daily life.

This interface of Windows is designed to be used with touchscreens as well as with a mouse and keyboard, and requires programs to be written specially for it. Your laptop and PCs can still run programs written for older versions of Windows, but it doesn't work on Windows tablets. And to improve the user experience, it’s better to install Windows 8 compatible software to keep you working smoothly.

And today, I’m glad to know that ArcSoft, the expert in multimedia imaging technologies and applications, has upgraded the latest software to perfectly meet the technical requirement of Windows 8. Aiming at providing the most effective solutions to the users worldwide, ArcSoft will always make progress to meet your demands. This time, some popular software including Totalmedia Theatre 5, Panorama Maker 6 and other 12 products have been upgraded to Windows 8 version. You can download the latest version and activate it with activation purchased previously. If you haven’t purchased any product before, don’t worry. You can share the activity page on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ to get a $10 coupon and purchase any product you like on that page.

Now, what are you waiting for? Click your mouse and make a jump to Windows 8!

Get your $10 coupon in activity page: http://www.arcsoft.com/topics/windows8.html

Window 8 Users: Ready to Get a High Visual Experience?

Due to the advancement of Internet, the rise of indoorsmen and indoorswomen is never fresh news. We can handle shopping, studying, even sporting at home without being sunburned or getting wet. For me, I like to watch movies to spend my time. And I believe film is favored by most of you. A good media player with smooth playback and elaborate interface will prevent me keep in queue for one hour and more to get a ticket.

To watch stunning 3D movie at home is quite leisure, both time and money are saved. And you can choose any movie you like. Whether watch love story or horrible movies, you can take full control and cut it off at your will. For TotalMedia Theatre, it is a piece of cake. Any DVDs or low-resolution videos, even YouTube videos will be brought up to near high-resolution quality. Never get upset by file formats, TMT plays multimedia files smoothly including Blu-ray, DVD, HD video, SD video, audio and photos and comprehensive video formats like MKV, WMV, MPEG, AVI and more.

Isn't it a quite powerful media player? And today, I’m glad to inform you that TotalMedia Theatre has upgraded to 5.3 version, which can be totally qualified with the technical requirement of Windows 8. Meanwhile, some bugs have been fixed to ensure your cinema-like experience. ArcSoft guarantees that TMT 5.3 defiantly supports Windows 8. If you are interested, please visit: http://www.arcsoft.com/totalmedia-theatre/

Creative Ideas for Photograph in Night

Low light levels make night photography a challenging yet rewarding subject. The best results require specialized equipment, like SLR cameras, tripods, cable releases and flashguns. After sunset, the everyday world is magically transformed, and city buildings, fireworks, thunderstorms and the northern lights all become popular subjects.

 

But you may try many different ways to photograph the gorgeous night. Don’t be upset, below are some creative ideas courtesy from DigicamGuides. Stop hesitating, pick up your camera and freeze the beautiful night.

John Mueller

Light Streaks

Find a moving source of light. Cars are good for this — as they move past the camera, their head and tail lights create streaks of light. This is fun if you can find a lot of moving cars all in the same spot.

Troy Paiva

You can also create artificial streaks of light by using your zoom lens with a slow shutter speed. Set the zoom to a wide angle view, depress the shutter and zoom to telephoto. Any light in the photo will streak toward the camera, which creates a sense of speed and motion.

Painting with Light

Add artificial light to your photograph. You can use flashlights and other light sources to create unique lighting on your primary subject or use colored lights to make things look interesting. You can either use the light source off-camera to illuminate the subject, or include the light source in the photo itself to create additional patterns, or even write your name in lights.

Terri Beitzel

Apparitions

Get a human subject to stand in front of the camera for roughly half the time the shutter is open. For example, if you have a shutter speed of 10 seconds, have your friend stand in front of the camera for 5 seconds, and move out of the way for the other 5. This results in an optical illusion: your friend will appear transparent. 

Mirror Shots：Perfect vs. Worst Ever

Mirror is easy to be found everywhere. But the ‘mirror shot’ is a much-debated but evident part of participating in fashion communities. It involves taking a self-portrait with only a camera and a mirror, which might be heard quite easy. Of course, hold the camera and take a shot before a mirror is simple to be done by anyone while it’s hard to spur your creativity. Below photos are courtesy from digital photography school and Smosh. Through comparison, you may find some inspiration from it.