If you worry about losing your digital camera – or perhaps worse, the images on its memory card – you might want to check out CameraTrace.

For an annual fee of $10, CameraTrace provides a metalized, adhesive tag for your camera which enables someone who’s found it to return it to you. The tag directs them to a website where they can enter a code from the tag, and communicate with you anonymously.  Anonymous communication protects your identity as well as providing the finder with a means of disclosing information regarding your device without risk.

CameraTrace also monitors popular image sites and is often able to extract the serial number from a photo and trace that to your camera. They also have experience in the process of recovering lost and stolen goods, so you don’t have to take as many risks to get it back.

See it here:  CameraTrace

Notes: works worldwide. See website for a list of supported cameras.

An alternative:  Stolen Camera Finder.  Drag and drop a photo taken with your camera onto its homepage, and Stolen Camera Finder will search for images posted to the internet (Flickr, Picasa, etc.) for other images taken with the same camera.  This is likely similar technology to that utilized by CameraTrace.  For what it’s worth, I did this with images from both my Canon S90 and Nikon D80 and came up with nothing, despite the fact that I’ve posted pictures from both cameras to my Flickr account. Not encouraging.

Your best bet? 

Put a contact info/reward tag on your camera yourself, back up your images frequently – including while you’re vacationing or otherwise on the road – and try not to be careless with your camera!  If the unthinkable happens, at least you can try Stolen Camera Finder.

If you’ve tried CameraTrace or Stolen Camera Finder, or have another solution, please comment.  Finally, for a humorous take on this subject, check out Andrew McDonald’s A Pictorial Guide to Avoiding Camera Loss

If you’re interested in travel and photography, the odds favor your stumbling across Trey Ratcliff. A talented artist and photographer, Trey is an outstanding practitioner of HDR (high dynamic range) photo processing.  You can see his work at both his Flickr photostream, or at his website, Stuck in Customs.com, which also features his free tutorial on how to create HDR images.

I encourage you to visit Trey’s site – his goal is to add one photograph a day – so there’s a ton of great images to take in.  For now, here are a few gems from his Flickr photostream; you can click on each for a close up:

I hope you enjoyed these images, and invite you to visit Trey’s site:  Stuck in Customs to see more images like these.

As a couple of you know, I picked up a Canon S90 a few days ago via Amazon.  I’ve not had much time to spend with the camera, but a couple of things about it are really striking.

Fast f/2.0 lens

My Nikon D80 is equipped with an f/3.5 lens; the S90 with an f/2.0 lens.  The difference is staggering. The f/3.5 lens on the Nikon is about 1/3 as “bright” as the 2.0 lens on the S90.

A scene like the one below – a few items on my desk, illuminated by the light allowed by partly closed horizontal blinds – requires flash with the Nikon, but no flash with the Canon:

Macro capability

The other thing that’s really struck me is how easily one can take macro photos with the S90.  No need to switch to the Macro setting (although there is one) – just get as close as ~2½” from your subject, and the camera performs very well:

Another…

Will test over the holidays…

Another feature that my D80 lacks (and which is included on the D90, of course!) is the ability to record video.  With the D90, it’s HD; that’s not the case with the Canon S90, but the quick test clips I’ve shot thus far have looked very good and the sound quality is more than acceptable.

We’ll give the camera a good test over the holidays, and we’ll report back sometime in January.  In the meantime, if you’re interested in the S90, here are some professional reviews:

Canon S90 Review:  It’ll never leave my pocket (Gizmodo)

Canon PowerShot S90 @ The Luminous Landscape

Canon PowerShot S90 @ PhotographyBlog (long, detailed review)

Canon S90 @ Canon Rumors

The S90 is currently $399 at Amazon.

A recent comment from Paul on my October, 2008 post about Tourist Remover made me want to revisit this online app:

I agree with James – I think the demo ought to have about 50 or 60 big fat tourists in Time Square and show how they can be made to disappear.  That would be impressive.

Last Saturday morning I went over to the local Wally World to purchase a few items; afterward, sitting in my car, I tried to put my camera on the dashboard in order to photograph people walking into the store.  This worked exceedingly well; I managed to: 1) take some fantastic shots of my windshield wipers, and 2) become concerned that if someone saw what I was doing they might call the cops (I was sitting in the first spot in a row right near the entrance).  I started the car and went home.

One of these days when there’s a football game over at the local college, I’ll go over and take several shots of a few plays, and will then use Tourist Remover to erase all the players from the field.  Until then, the following is going to have to suffice for all the skeptics out there.

I took 5 shots of myself walking to and from the front door of our condo; obviously, the camera was on a tripod, and that’s certainly a plus:

I dragged the 5 images into the Tourist Remover folder at Snapmania (see the original post for more details), and about 5 minutes later received an email saying my image was ready.  I dragged the modified image to “Download” icon in the Snapmania, and saved it to my pc.  Here it is:

As was the case with the image I did for the earlier post, a black line has appeared at the top and bottom of the image; it could easily be cropped out.  There’s no ghosting or other evidence of my image from the 5 shots.

I’m no shill for Snapmania – I have no relationship with them – but having been in the position of trying to take images of the Lincoln Memorial and other touristy attractions, I wish I’d known about this software years ago.  This additional illustration of what the app does may not satisfy everyone who’s skeptical, but in the testing I’ve done, it seems to work.

See it at Snapmania.com; note that although it was free when I first reviewed it, a subscription is apparently now required – it cost a few dollars to renew my account for a month.

As I write this on Sunday morning, it’s difficult to believe that I was playing in a golf tournament a week ago.  It snowed Friday night in The Middle of Nowhere, and this morning the temperature is 27°F.

As a result, the weekend has been devoted to cooking (pulled pork, Cajun seafood over linguine, corn chowder – in other words, comfort food), watching the President’s Cup, and working on the blog a bit.  Yesterday I added a plugin which enables commenters to respond to one another, creating “nested” or threaded comments; to take advantage of this feature, click on the small “Reply” link at the bottom of an existing comment.  Oh, and I’ve done one other thing this weekend – I found several posts I think will be of interest to you:

Everyone loves getting airline upgrades, yes? A few days ago I stumbled across an article by Jonathan Marks titled “How I Almost Always Get a Flight Upgrade.” Jonathan offers a few good tips and his post is certainly worth a read; for a completely different perspective, check out this FlyerTalk thread – the original poster was a United gate agent for years:  Operational Upgrades from a gate agent’s perspective.

Next time you’re on the road to some exotic (or not so exotic!) locale, these tips could be handy:  10 Tips for Taking Great Street and Market Photos (from Uncornered Market)

Speaking of which, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger has another excellent blog called Digital Photography School; here’s a post in which he covers what to bring along on your next trip (from a camera/gear standpoint):   Travel Photography – What to Take in your Kit

TripBase blogger Katie Erica offers up some good recommendations in Tips to Avoid a Disappointing Vacation at CheapOAir.com  Odd, she doesn’t mention avoiding New Jersey.

If you haven’t had a chance yet to pick up Rolf Potts‘s excellent Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, you can get a taste of his writing on his blog, Vagabonding; in a recent post, he thoughtfully explores the value of the custom of saying goodbye:  Traveling and the art of goodbye

I usually hate articles with lists about essential travel gadgets because a lot of such gadgets (my opinion) are crappy, but this one, from Matador Network, includes a number of worthwhile tools:  Top 10 Useful Travel Gadgets & Accessories (I’d personally leave the radio at home, but most of these are solid.  I assume the author is talking about compact binoculars – not the gargantuan ones shown in the photo.)

If you know someone who’s engaged in a job search, please pass along this link from Freelance Folder:  How to Build The Ultimate Job Finding Dashboard with Google.  Hardly a substitute for networking, this is nevertheless a great idea for anyone’s search.

Finally, a product I happened upon as I was composing this post (read:  ADD).  If you’ve ever struggled with keeping your earbuds’ cord straight while exercising or otherwise, check out the Magneat:

See it here:  Magneat ($12.90 + shipping)

That’s it.  Have a great week!

The Fine Print:  I have no connection to any of the companies mentioned in this post, nor does this post contain affiliate links