Downloadable Manual for the Panasonic DMC TZ5

The manual for the Panasonic DMC TZ5 can be downloaded here (it's a joint manual for the TZ4 and TZ5, the name of the PDF only has the TZ4 in the name though).

Jasper's DRIMaker

If you like HDR (high dynamic range) photos, you might want to take a closer look at Jasper's DRI maker. It's donationware, so you can do try before "buy". Since my new compact cam (Panasonic DMC TZ5) also support exposure bracketing, this might be a nice tool to tryout.

Possible Sigma lenses for my Nikon D80

I have been looking at some possible Sigma lenses, which would nicely fit to my Nikon D80. So far I only use super zooms from Nikon (18-200mm VR and 70-300mm VR), which unfortunately have not very low starting aperture. I also use a fix 50mm f/1.8 lens from Nikon.

The following Sigma lenses caught my eye:

Sigma 24-70mm, f/2.8 EX DG Asp. Makro, Nikon
at Digitec for CHF 550.--

or the newer "updated" Sigma 24-70mm, f/2.8 EX DG HSM, Nikon
at fotovideoplus.ch for CHF 659.-- (not yet avail.)

Sigma 70-200mm, f/2.8 APO EX DG HSM II, Nikon
at Digitec for CHF 947.--

What I like about the Sigma lenses is that they are about one-third to half of the price of a corresponding Nikon lens, but according to some reviews still seem pretty valuable alternatives to the original Nikon ones. Personally, I can do fine without the Macro functionality, I rather would want to have a fast auto focus, therefore the HSM on the new updated 24-70mm is a plus. Although it might be slightly more expensive and my favorite so far, it is not yet available. The 70-200mm is kind of a no-brainer. So I guess I will  have to start saving for those lenses or should try to get rid of my old Nikon super zooms. Although my Nikon 18-200mm is a very handy and useful lens, I'm not too happy about the quality of the photos (regarding sharpness and resolution). I now made some shots in Egypt with low ISO values and the VR (vibration reduction) turned off, but I still need to evaluate those regarding improved quality compared to using the lens with VR turned on.

Here are some reviews of the mentioned Sigma lenses:
70-200mm: dpreview, FM Reviews
old 24-70mm with Macro: the-digital-picture, FM Reviews

For the new 24-70mm HSM I found no review yet, but a news post on dpreview and some discussions.

Remove all metadata from JPEGs

I was looking for a tool to remove all meta data (including EXIF data) from JPEG files, before I would upload them to Picasa. Unfortunately CocoviewX does only remove some EXIF data, but not all other meta data such as comments, copyright notice, etc. Fortunately jhead, a command line tool for all major operating systems, allows to tune the degree of info removal and has also a nice "remove all" feature.

You can strip all meta info from JPEGs in a folder by using the shell and typing:

jhead -purejpg *.jpg

PS: After downloading jhead from the official website you might need to make it executable (chmod 755 jhead) and move it to a proper location (sudo mv jhead /usr/local/bin).