I have been testing a couple of phones a Sony Ericsson K810i which has quite a powerful camera at 3.2 mega pixies and providing you use it within its limitations it provides reasonable quality images, especially for web and urgent news.
The other and at the moment my favorite is the Fujitsu Siemens Loox T830 the built in 2 mega pixies camera is not up to much but as a photojournalist who has a camera with him 99% of the time this is not a problem for me.

It has a voice recorder that you can use to record telephone conversations ideal for interviews.
It also has:
Video recorder
Video phone
Push email
All the things you get on Windows Mobile
Sat Nav
(This embeds location information into your images)

As well as my favorite, the software I have put on is Pocket Phojo, this allows me to attach my Nikon D2x and plug it into the Smart Phone and upload pictures via FTP to anywhere I want. It connects to 3G networks and WiFi hotspots and any other that is open. as soon as I have taken an image on the camera this combination of phone and software uploads it as soon as it is taken. Pre captioning and image editing can also be done prior to upload too.

Now that is an awesome phone for a photojournalist or documentary photographer
Some accessories I have brought so far for it is an in car charger and a solar powered Freeloader
for charging the Loox T830 in remote places like in a field! The Freeloader also powers up mobile phones as well and you can get disposable one shot batteries for a couple of pounds if there is no sun or I am in a heavy urban environment.

My D2X lasts for a considerable time on its own rechargeable battery and I also have a spare, this combination should allow me to keep shooting from just about anywhere.
While the K810i will cover me for the 1% that I don't have my camera

The only kind of Tank you need,

Professional photographers are often very fussy over the bags they need and use, here is a bag bursting with features and well thought out design from thinktank photo; called the rotation 360 Some of the details, such as a strap to hold your lens down with, you wonder why it has never been thought of before!

Quote Radical Images

Yahoo! 360° - Radical's blog

See also: carrying kit

It was about 02:30 am in the morning when my wife’s mobile made the din to say she had a text message, after scrabbling for the light switch and glaring bleary eyed and the screen to find that my eldest son, had gone walkabout after having a barney with his girlfriend, saying she wanted us to let her know if he turned up. Luckily he only lives up the road in our village so it wouldn’t be long.

10 minutes went past and no sign my wife is now doing that worrying thing that only mothers can do, so I decided to go surf the net and take a look at some camera gear (in a supporting way of course) I had a look for some reviews as there was a bag I was wanting to check out and although announced in the camera press it was ant in any of my local shops as yet the bag Lowepro’s slingshot AW200, which looked ideal for what I wanted, another bag my Stealth Reporter AW400  was causing me back trouble with the weight in it (I have a damaged spine) and it stood out like a camera bag.

After not finding any reviews I went to the Warehouse Express and ordered one at 02:45 am job done. I would never have thought of being able to buy camera gear at that time in the morning and to think it will be here the next day too. Cool!

A text message later, he is now back at his house with his girlfriend and my wife still fretting, wanting to know if everything is ok. But I did find that the internet can’t solve all my needs tonight though, as I have ran out of cigarettes and can’t find anyone who will deliver like, now!

So tomorrow ill give you a write up on the Slingshot, meanwhile I am off to bed

 Yet another site offering to sell images for citizen and pro snappers to the media, all the best

Quote

Be the first citizen or professional photo-journalist to upload and make money on the world's first automated news commerce website. During the month of October all news photo UPLOADS ARE FREE and will be exhibited "UNCENSORED" starting November 1st, 2005 for the world to SEE and BUY.

That's right, Spy Media will not censor your photo material no matter how graphic they appear so long as the material is news worthy (which means it must not violate obscenity or copyright laws). Spy Media is seeking news material from your local community or material which has attracted international attention. On November 1st members and non-members can browse all Spy Media uploaded material utilizing our simple search feature

.Spy Media

I got my bag a few days ago, after considering getting a traditional over the shoulder bag for when “I know” I don’t need to carry a laptop and all the paraphernalia, It was deliberately on the small side so as I can bung it into the top of a rucksack for hiking duties and easy tottering around when I want to go light.

The Lowepro Stealth series are designed for photojournalists and are similar to the street and field reporter bags with corresponding codes, with the exception to the Reporter 600AW, 650 AW and the Stealth backpack II AW for digital photojournalists as these can take a laptop as well as your camera gear. In fact the Stealth series from “Lowepro” seems to cater for all my likely photojournalist needs, but as there are so many of them, it dose seem to be difficult to know which one to chose for the job you want, too big and you tend to overfill it with all that kit you might need in case! To small is just as bad, because you can bet you needed the item you left behind. That said they can be expanded with Lowepro’s SlipLock add-ons (pouches)

The bag design on the Stealth reporters are the same format with the big ones taking a Laptop and the smaller ones catering for how many bodies and lenses you need and the Stealth Reporter 400 AW I would say is in the middle and is able to carry 2- 35mm film Bodies (can be digital) and 4-5 lenses flash system and other accessories

Design

• Getting to your gear

On the top flap there is a zipper running down the centre of the bag which when undone allows easy access into the bag for changing lenses etc. Although it is just possible to get the D2x out with a lens attached it is quicker to undo the quick release catches the lid is also further secured with a zip that runs around the top of the bag. A removable handle also runs along the top of the bag

• Weather protection

With the camera bag there are two options for weather protection the lid can be covered only with a nifty little cover that Velcro’s under the lid to secure, but with the loss of the quick access zip.

Total protection comes from a cover hidden under the base and is ideal for when the weather is very challenging, this also can be used to stop dust, sand, snow and sun out of your bag when not in use. This cover, first raps up underneath, then over the top and secures with a draw string. Flat SlipLock pouches will also fit under the protection, but it might be too much to cover some of the lens pouches.

There are two slots to secure the comfy shoulder strap that has a metal quick release clip on each end allowing it to be totally removed. With this cover on gaining access to your gear is not really possible, but secures it from the elements with the exception of the back, which has the option of adding an additional Street and Field Waistbelt to assist in carrying duties

• Pockets

On the front of the camera bag there is a large document pocket and two smaller pockets. In the right pocket there is a secure plastic pocket to keep track of those small but important camera bits. The left pocket has a holder for notebook and pens. Both of these pockets expand to take quite a lot of items but there is no way to secure the pocket shut, so when the top lid is open all stuff is accessible or vulnerable depending on your viewpoint!

Inside the bag there are two further pockets hidden away one at the front and one at the back and are very discrete and quite sizeable for flat objects like passports and bigger documents. I always like to have somewhere to stash a memory card out in case I need to smuggle it through police lines!

• Straps

On the sides there are cinch straps to clamp down on pouches or pull it tight for a snug fit to your gear inside.

• SlipLock add-ons

On both ends there are loops for three SlipLock add-on pouches or accessories, with wide loops and narrow loops, so a range of uses can be found for these. The SlipLock range covers film drop pouches, phone pouches memory card storage and utility pouches such as bottle bags

• Protection

The lid of the camera bag has a thin layer of padding and the main body has a removable padded insert that can be used separately (in the top of a rucksack for example) which leaves a soft, lighter bag if you need one, with the space between the insert and the bag, there are plenty of tuck away places for things like lens caps and filters two dividers run from front to back and are located in the centre portion of the bag and there is a short divider running across between the two dividers, this works out well for storing two bodies or other angular objects.

• Lens pouches

To the sides of the centre dividers (at the ends of the bag, inside) there are two removable lens pouches (one each end) these are big and wide and can take a 70-200mm f2.8 easily in fact it might just take a 300mm f2.8 without lens hood or reversed. Additional lens pouches could also be fastened to the ends of the bag using the SlipLock add-on loops if greater carrying capacity is needed.

In use

Well it says you can get 2 bodies and 4-5 lenses flash, PDA and accessories and you can, further I can get my D2x in with lens attached (24-120mm) ready to go, plus my FlashTrax portable storage device. The only thing missing is some tripod carrying straps, but it is rare that I use one, so is no loss to me.

The material used is according to Lowepro water-resistant 600D TXP ripstop and 2000D ballistic nylon and these seem plenty tuff enough, the only addition I would like to see is some feet underneath so it doesn’t sit on the wet floor and helps protect the base from tuff tarmac when picked up and put down.

The addition of more secure pockets, as I mentioned earlier these can be to easily accessed when the front  quick release straps are open which could lead to gear loss from pickpockets or from spilling out, in fact even when closed up, due to the lid having fairly shallow flaps it is still possible to get to the pockets with the straps done up.

Size wise it is ideal for travelling  on train and plane and is quite a discreet bag, in use it is fast to use and the shoulder strap secure and comfortable, it may seem to you that there is little praise here for the bag, but what more can you say, it dose its job well, its expandable and I am happy using it that’s what it was designed for so top marks a good 9 ½ out of 10

see also:

carrying gear

Now and then there is always a must have peice of kit that can make a photographers life a lot easier and the DK-17M looks like a must have.

It is a replacment/additional eyepeice that magnifies the viewfinder image by a factor of 1.2x, it also stops your nose being pushed up against the back of the camera.

As I don't wear eyeglasses, I am not sure if this would be a bonus or a hinderance for users wearing them.

There is also a new viewfinder screen (W) for the D2x for when you want to use the camera in High Speed Crop (HSC) mode which will make framing easier for action subjects.

Read about them both in the link below:

DK-17M in Nikon Pro Magazine

At present the DK-17M is in short supply

Tip: you need to close the rear curtain to be able to unscrew the eyepeice, this is so it dosn't vibrate loose

What I like about Nikon form a photojournalists point of view

To me, Nikon have always had the photographer in mind and understand that one job to another may be very different and that this demand needs a very versatile camera. a further consideration for me is being able to go at a moments notice even though I always follow that old rule "always carry your camera" you just never know when a picture is going to form in front of your eyes and the pro Nikon's and even the D70 are able to cope with this beutifully.

It is said that Canon cameras have the edge in quality and cope better with noise and this may be so, but its realy a matter of how a camera fits in your hand and ease of use, you just have to feel comfortable with it. If  not, it will never be instinctive and when you realy need to move fast, you can. There comes a point where you have to be able to concentrate on the pictures forming in the viewfinder and you can't do that if you need to keep asking yourself what button do I need to press to get that image. Thats why I use Nikon camaras, I know what I need to press instinctavly.

 When I moved up from the D70 to the D2x I didn't even have to read the instruction book I knew how it worked.

Canon's EOS 1Ds mkII  may be better image quality and I guess if I was doing studio work, weddings or portraits I might have gone that way but even in this circle the D2x has its followers and msot seem to go for the camera for the same reasons as me "it feels right" I would rather get the shot that I want than miss it!

Dose image size matter?

The Canon EOS 1Ds Mk II has a 17.3 million pixel sensor where as the D2x runs in at 12.? pixels. So what is the differance other than the number of pixels? The first differance is the size of the sensor, the Canon is the same size as a 35mm frame of film the Nikon is smaller but has more pixels giving a finer image detail, with smaller pixels, but that is not the only differance.

The D2x also magnifies the focal length of the lens by a factor of 1.5x thus a 200mm lens becomes a 300mm, but what is realy happening is that the image is comming from that sweet spot on the rear of the lens. Lenses have always had a drop off in quality around the edges of the image and this dose not apply so much with the D2x due to the smaller sensor size not being coverd by the lens edges, result, higher quality images.

There is a down side to this of course, and that is at the wide end of the lenses are no longer quite so wide a 24mm becomes a 35mm an 18mm (normaly very wide) becomes a 28mm (just getting wide) and so on. there are benifits to this as well of course my 50mm F1.4 is now a 75mm F1.4 or in high speed crop mode 100mm F1.4, ideal for available light portraits and close action sports.

Some people ask me what is the best camera?

Well that realy dose depend on what sort of photography and quality you need and do, the D2x is such a big camera that it is imposing for candid photography and for this I like a smaller camera like my E5700 and it still has 5 million pixels so the image quality is pretty good, but this little camera suffers from battery drain quite badly and realy could do with an AF illuminator for night and low light situations where the autofocus fails, this has been fixed on the E8700 wich is the same camera with the added AF illuminator and dose 8 million pixels

Magnum photographer Alex Majoli (read the article) used an Olympus equiverlant to the E5700 and E8700 to get some award winning pictures and these are not pro cameras either so what camera you need realy dose depend on you. I also think that photographers in general have beaten themselves up a lot over the quality issues when it comes to digital, this may have been reluctance to change or just demands for high standerds that they have set themselves1

Noise and grain

There has always been a lot of talk about noise in digital images cuased at high ISO settings or long exposures. Noise appeares due to electrical interferance from the cameras electronics and looks very similar to film grain where the grittyness seems to add to the mood but in the digital image coloured dots may show up in the shadow areas or in blaks making it look slightly unatural I havent yet found a situation where this has hapened (I still have Noise Ninja at ther ready) and the grain looks natural and fits with the atmospher of the image. that said it might be more of a problem in certain disiplins of photography like landscapes, again I think there is a lot of photographers beating themselves up over this issue, it was not so long ago when i was shooting colour print film at ISO6400 at floodlit football matches for the nationall papers and that was grainy!

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Nikon D2X Review: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review

See also

cool stuff for the D2x