Month: January 2008

Uh Oh…

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I spent too much time surfing after dinner and not focusing on the tutorial…and paying the price now.  I just finished cleaning things up and am entering the 2nd half of production.  I fear with he time being 10:30pm, it might not get out until after midnight.  But, in the meantime, I had an interesting dialog this evening on a stock agencies forums debating the question of whether fine art and stock photography can co-exist in the same market.  The discussion never had a resolution, but it did open my eyes to a few outlets online for those who are interested in marketing their fine art photography.  I suspect that may be part of an article that may emerge from the weekend!  In the meantime, the tutorial should be finished and ready for download once you wake up in the morning.  So, for now I’ll bid all a good night, and again, apologies for the belated tutorial this week.

Oh Yeah – GO GIANTS! 

Walking Wounded on Wednesday

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Well, it seems my wife’s illness was a little more contagious than anticipated. Suffice to say the bug bit me and with this lethargy the already belated Tuesday tutorial will have to wait another day. In the meantime, the usual Wednesday rounds seem appropriate. So, here’s my wounded walk around the web from Wednesday:

  • Check out The Online Photographer for a unique opportunity. It’s a call for photos on his companion site, www.photoborg.org
  • The Digital Photography show has their latest podcast available for download as they head out for the PMA show.
  • And of course, Photoshop User TV has their weekly video podcast up for viewing – and the ultimate question: “Who’s the Greatest Poobah?”

With PMA into full swing, Canon has announced it’s latest generation of camera bodies, the 450D, and Nikon has answered with its own D60. Other gear announcements are also filling the currents, but these are the two biggies for the last week. There’s a decent comparison analysis done on another blog, so feel free to read it here For the rest of the Photo Marketing Associations news, visit their news line online

Hopefully I’ll be back on my feet tomorrow (Thursday), or shall I say later today – since it’s almost midnight, to get out the tutorial. Until then, happy shooting and, as always, watch those apertures!

waterfront pier

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waterfront pier, originally uploaded by Canon Jason.

I’ve finally taken some time to get some of my pictures processed and online both on my dedicated photo site, and on Flickr. Since Flickr has this means of posting to the blog built in, it makes a handy means of sharing my photos back to the blog as well. So…here’s a random Pic of the Day. The tutorial should be out late tomorrow (Wed.) night. In the meantime, happy shooting everyone, and as always, watch your apertures! 🙂

No blog Tuesday…

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Some things have come up that are requiring me to take some time off work (sick spouse), so I likely will not have time to get to the tutorial today.  It should be out tomorrow morning.  That being the case, today will officially be a “no blog day” for me.  Happy shooting all and watch your apertures! 😉

Canon in the News – XSi body to be released

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Well, since I am an admitted Canonite, and the blog name has Canon as part of the identity, I guess I should also chime in with a report on the announcement that Canon is adding a new body to it’s SLR lineup. The XSi was announced last Thursday by Canon, and this is apparently an incremental upgrade to the XTi that now serves as the baseline consumer grade SLR. Designed to compete with the Nikon D40, it offers a slightly larger pixel count, and makes the transition from CF cards to SD cards. I’m not sure if existing Canon shooters would be compelled to go out and purchase this, as I own the XT, and cannot see a need to own this. The camera instead seems as an attempt by Canon to recapture the lead market share for entry level SLR cameras from Nikon.

The reason I call this an incremental upgrade is because not much changes. The only things to change really are pixel count and screen size. I did a quick comparison chart of the bodies in the same range, so you can see where the “upgrades” are. Really, it seems more like they took this part of one body, that part of another body, and left other parts unchanged across the board (shutter speed, fps, ISO, etc…) Kind of a non-news item for me, but for those interested in entering the market, I can see where it’d be a decent option. Anyway, here’s my comparison chart to other Canon bodies:

canon-bodies1.JPG

For those interested in it’s specs, here’s a link to Canon’s official page for the new XSi.

Five Fabulous Photo Fixes! (for Friday)

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Woo Hoo! Friday is finally here – time to go out photoggin’ again! Tonight I head up with the better half to Columbia to celebrate an in-law birthday. Then, Saturday, back to Charleston for a photo shoot with some fellow photogs from Flickr (hey, that’s some cool alliteration, and it was unintentional there! 🙂 ). Then Saturday evening I am meeting up with some good friends from my days at the College of Charleston. We’ll probably turn a few up that night!

Then, Sunday a current co-worker will be stopping by the house to help me assess some options for further upgrading the house. The screening in of the patio did not go quite as planned, as the contractor got the heave-ho from me a few days ago so now it’s up to me (and Dean) to finish what he didn’t, and fix what he screwed up.

In other news, I’d like to take a brief moment and thank Zack for chiming in on yesterday’s post with his thoughts on flying. Very informative, and after sharing a few emails, (and shots), I’ve got to say he’s got the knack for photography! Great portraiture on his site, and lots of fun to peruse. Here’s the link, so feel free to stop in on Zack’s photos and share your comments with him. Best of luck with the photography Zack – here’s hoping it goes well! 🙂

Oh well , so much for weekend fun, eh? Well, the good news is I’ve been doing a little reading and thinking, and you know what that means – a new Fabulous Five for Friday!

Specifically, I’ve put together five pretty common ways and suggestions from a wide breadth of reading materials that the pros seem to agree on to improve your pictures. I’ve given it a little twirl of my style and perspective, but the nuts and bolts should be pretty much in line with what I’ve come to understand are the fundamentals of photography. So…with no further ado – here’s the Top Five for Friday:

Five Fabulous Photo Fixes

  1. Choose interesting subjects
  2. Be aware of lighting and its impact
  3. Watch out for distractions
  4. Be aware of your gear choices
  5. Watch for colorful contrasts

Details in the download…

As the old saying goes…

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This Thursday, as I reflect on the happenings from Wednesday, I am reminded of an old saying, that encourages one to be vocal if things aren’t right.  A while back I related the tales from our holiday travels and tribulations here on the blog.  Suffice to say, the experience was less than pleasant as the airline pretty much left us flailing about aimlessly and helplessly.  On top of the travel troubles, we were also frustrated by the severe lack of customer service (which in my opinion was the very essence of not right).

It was on the lack of customer service basis that I wrote to the airlines.  Included in the correspondence were our flight numbers, names of people we dealt with, and the topper – a weather report from Charleston on the day of travel.  The reason that was the topper was because the airline originally claimed that weather problems delayed our initial flight.

This documentation, and the simple fact that I wrote to them, was the likely reason I received a check for almost a full reimbursement of all extra expenses we incurred.  While the reimbursement is definitely nice, what floored me was both acknowledgement of where the responsibility lies, and an apology from the airline.

My faith in corporate America is somewhat restored, but more so…it’s my firm belief that The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

Happy shooting!

Wednesday Update – Three things…

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Three things:

  • Just a quick update and thanks to those who pointed out that the resource page was not updated with the latest tutorial.  That page has now been updated and is current.  For those of you that don’t know of the resource page, it can be found here:  Canon Blogger Video Tutorials
  • I also made an update so you can go straight to the iTunes page via the admittedly lame graphic on the right sidebar.  (I did it on a whim and have not had time to go back and do a real graphic that will blend better.
  • Jump in on the poll too – what gear do you enjoy shooting with?

Wednesday Weblinks

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As I corrected the missing links from yesterday’s podcast, I started surfing my usual photo sites, and I came across this neat site sponsored by Kingston, called Icons Of Photography (IOP). Four well-known photographers offer up their professional albeit short critiques of user-submitted images. I read through a few and all seemed very well-meaning and kind in their deliveries. What a great resource for the budding photographer: Icons of Photography Thanks to the contributors, Harry Benson, Colin Findlay, Gerd Ludwig, and Peter Read Miller for their generosity in sharing views and perspectives on their contributions to the field.

For those of you equestrian aficionados, there’s a new photo contest for 2008 tailored to your interests from the folks over at Equestrian Magazine. (I personally have tried to take a few photographs of some horses and they make for challenging subjects sometimes, so good luck!) Here’s the contest link for those that are interested. Good luck!

Another little tidbit for photo news of the week – as a former graduate student in Political Science – I watch political news fairly regularly. While I try to stay away from divisive content and hotly debated subjects, I do have reason to share a political story here: New Photos from Lincoln’s second inauguration have been discovered and added to the repository for the Library of Congress. Truly amazing shots and in great detail considering the era: 22MG tiff files are available with no constraints on usage (in other words, they’re in the public domain!). Rather than try to reproduce smaller thumbnails here that simply will not do them justice, here’s links to the Library of Congress Announcement and the 4 images:

Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4

Last but not least – my last hobby before photography was scuba diving (I can never seem to take up something cheap like writing poems or anything along those lines), so I try to peruse news about scuba from time to time. While underwater housings have been around for a while, a company named Aquatica has confirmed they are making an underwater housing for the Canon Mark III. I went to the company’s website, and they have quite the variety of housings that are guaranteed to protect your gear underwater. Like all high quality gear though – it has a price. On the order of $2 G’s US. (That’s two thousand dollars…) Very cool website though and makes me think about mirroring the two hobbies together once again. (I am sure my wife would divorce me though…)

That’s it for today. What photo news have you heard today? Sound off in the comments or to me via email.

Thanks, and as always, happy shooting and watch those apertures!

Links lost in translation

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The perils of posting early in the morning were evident today…apparently the links that I had inserted prior to publishing the tutorial post were not saved.  So…the entire day a post has been sitting there with references to all this great stuff, but no way to get there.  Well, the problem is solved and the links are there.  Sorry for the confusion on my end *yawn*…