I have a few Macs that I use for my various jobs, but the main machines that I use are a MacBook Pro, and a Dual 2.7 GHz G5 tower. Since the tower is connected to a large monitor, it’s what I use as my primary image editing workstation. After a few recent jobs, including a computationally-intensive video gig, I started to wonder if it wasn’t time to think about upgrading to a faster machine. A friend mentioned that he was going to build a Hackintosh. As his machine came together, and he sent me some benchmarks, I decided that this was the upgrade path that I would choose. The result? A machine with Mac-Pro like performance that crushes all the other Macs in my house, and cost only about $1000.

Users of Nikon’s Capture NX are already familiar with the incredible image editing power provided by that program’s uPoint technology. However, if your workflow is Photoshop- or Aperture-based, then you may be hesitant to invest in yet another image editor. Fortunately, Nik Software, the co-developers of Capture NX, have taken their uPoint technology and rolled it into plug-in form, so that you can use these powerful tools from within Photoshop or Aperture. The result is Viveza.

Reader Bill Baum writes in asking if it’s possible to batch convert DNG files to JPEGs. Bill says that several years ago, he converted several thousand images to DNG, but now wants them as JPEGs to ease the process of working with them in Nikon Capture NX, which doesn’t natively read DNG files. Fortunately, if you have Photoshop CS2 or CS3, you can easily use Bridge to batch process DNG conversions into JPEGs, Photoshop files, or TIFFs.

Reader Graham Long (no relation) sends in an image that he titled "An Almost Quite Good Photo." As he describes it: "the shot was taken at Granville Island in Vancouver. My wife took the kids for a bite to eat and I rattled off more than 250 ill-considered shots in about 15 minutes." Graham’s experience shows the merit of heavy shooting, as his blitzkrieg approach delivered an image that truly is almost quite good. However, there are just one or two issues that keep it from being a an outright quite good photo, and in this Before and After we’re going to discuss what those issues are, and explore some ways that you can fix them in an image editor.

Over the last few years, the digital camera market has been sliced into fine slivers. There are cheap, not-so-cheap, and expensive point-and-shoots; a full spectrum of SLRs from $600 all the way up to $8,000; and stratospherically priced medium-format digital backs, owned by a precious few.

Sitting on its own, outside the realm of the point-and-shoots and SLRs is the Leica M8, a rangefinder camera based on the traditional M-series Leica body. Priced at roughly $5,500 for the body only – with Leica-branded lenses starting at around $1,500 for a 35 or 50mm lens – the M8 sits in the same price category as heavy hitting SLRs like the Canon 1Ds Mark III and the Nikon D3.

If you’ve been shopping for a mid-range digital SLR, it’s a safe bet to say you’ve probably been considering the Nikon D-300. The latest rev of Nikon’s mid-range camera, the D-300 offers some impressive changes from it’s predecessor, the D-200. As with previous Nikon models, no other camera comes close to Nikon when it comes to feature list, and the D-300 backs up its features with improved image quality.

While the iPhone has a built-in camera - and one that’s surprisingly good for a cell phone - you might find that its real photo value lies elsewhere. I recently found myself needing to shoot some product shots of a camera. I decided to use the Canon PowerShot G9 because 1) it’s a very good camera, and 2) its big LCD viewfinder makes the camera easy to use when mounted on a tripod. However, after taking a few shots and moving them to the computer, I discovered my setup had some problems. That’s where the iPhone came in…

Following close enough on the heals of the EOS 30D to be annoying to anyone who bought that camera, the new Canon EOS 40D takes a strong place in the middle of Canon’s digital SLR line-up. As with most of the upgrades that have happened over the last few months, the 40D now offers Live View, which lets you use the camera’s LCD screen as a viewfinder, but this is just one of several significant changes to the camera.

Experienced film photographers have a broad knowledge of the exposure and grain characteristics of many different types of film. This knowledge effectively becomes yet another creative variable that they can alter when approaching a subject. By choosing one film over another, they can opt for particular imaging characteristics. If you come from a strong film background, or simply want some new "looks" for your digital photos, then you’ll want to consider two products that provide push-button solutions for simulating the look of various typs of color and black and white film.

I have the good fortune to get to play with a lot of camera gear and accessories, and a lot of those things are very cool. There are new lenses, and nifty digital storage devices, and all sorts of other electronic gizmos. But I have to say, of all the things that I’ve looked at over the last six months, the one camera accessory that I use every day, and that I would unequivocally recommend to any shooter, is the UPstrap. That’s right, depsite the cool high-tech gadgets that are sitting around me as I write this, what I’d like to recomend to you right now is a camera strap.