Announcements – Page 6

What is it About Rocks?

February 23, 2010 Jason3 Comments

Hmmm….seems I have a new series theme going on here – people keep asking when the next series will be posted and are also asking me for specific series sets of photos. I am not sure I have the library of images to accommodate everything, but that just gives me motivation for subject matter whenever I go out shooting again! So, if you have a series that you’d like to see from me – suggest it in the comments or via email! For the time being, here’s another popular set from the library of yours truly:

Rocks

There’s the latest “set” for everyone’s viewing enjoyment. Feel free to leave feedback in the comments with your thoughts as we are always learning from one another! Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

Traveling and Photography – Episode #40

February 22, 2010 JasonLeave a comment

So, the weekend was spent on lots of photography stuff – we had the February edition of our Creativty Workshop Series here with the Denver Photo Meetup group and that was a lot of fun. The theme for this outing was contrast, and the group came up with a lot of great examples. For a peek at some of the member shots, be sure to stop over there and look at the photo gallery: Denver Photowalk Creativity Workshop Series Continue reading “Traveling and Photography – Episode #40” →

New Formats for the New Year

January 13, 2010 Jason5 Comments

With the advent of a new year, the podcast is hopefully going to take on a new format – with things being more conversational. Erik Bernskiold comes back to the show and we’re talking about all the latest news in photography, as well as a main talking point of how to publicize and share your images online – looking at the pros and cons of the various options that are out there. Lots of news including announcements from the recent CES show, as well as contest information, and listener questions and answers so it’s a pretty heavily packed show. Almost an hour and a half, so it could last you through a few commutes! Here’s the show notes, and enjoy!

CES News

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX5V
Casio EX-FH100
Samsung CL80
Sony and Olympus announced adoption of the SD format
Samsung TL210

Canon Camera Announcements

A3100
A3000
A495
A490

We also had been noticing a lot of the newer SLR cameras have been announcing firmware updates, so if you have a relatively new SLR, check your vendor website for details.

Sharing Your Photos

Flickr
Forums
DeviantArt
Photography Corner

Hosting Services

WordPress
Smugmug
Squarespace
Livebooks
Self-hosting
Paying a Design Professional

Picks of the Week

Erik’s Pick: Nicolesy Blog
Jason’s Pick: Joe McNally’s Blog

Listener Questions

Print Resolution versus Screen Resolution (Jason)

SEO for Websites and Flash (Erik)

Listen to the Podcast

Catch up with me and Erik on our respective websites – you know my info, but if you want to learn more about Erik and his work, here’s his web presence links:

A long show for sure – but tons of content. Thanks to Erik for taking the time to sit down and talk again – we’re going to try to make this a regular occurrence, as well as get some others involved in the conversation! Thanks also go out to the folks at Audible for their sponsorship of the blog! Happy shooting, and share your feedback, here, on Erik’s site, on iTunes or even with the folks at PLM (thanks to them for their sponsorship as well!) Happy shooting and we’ll see you here again tomorrow!

December Winner!

January 7, 2010 Jason4 Comments

The trumpets sound! The chorus rings, and the internet shall stop and take notice!

Why you ask? We have a winner for the December Giveaway! I am happy to announce that the winner of the December Giveaway Bonanza is none other than:

Frank Sammut!

Frank’s shot of a childs hand, offering up a gift perfectly symbolized the concept of giving, and his blurred bokeh of the holiday theme in the background was just beautiful! He’s got some great work on his Flickr page too, so stop by and check it out and tell him congrats!

Congratulations to Frank for winning the giveaway package! Frank, if you could drop me an email: jason <AT> canonblogger <DOT> com, I’ll get you all the information and relay you to the donors for the giveaway. Thank you to everyone for participating, and especially to the sponsors, including:

David DuChemin (for a free copy of both Within the Frame, and VisionMongers)
MPIX (for a free 16×20 gallery wrap print of Frank’s choice)
RedRiver Papers (for the specialty paper bundle)
HDRsoft (for the license to a copy of Photomatix Pro)

It’s also time to anounce the theme for the January giveaway. We’re going to move away from the seasonally tied themes, so people don’t feel restricted there as different areas are in different seasons. Instead, we’ll be going with something that is going to inspire some dynamite entries for sure: Circles

That’s right, we’re going with a shape! It should be interesting to see what comes in. As always the standard guidelines apply:

Make sure your image is between 600-800px on the longest side.
Try to keep things within the current month. Archives are okay, but preference will be given to current photos
Images should be family/work safe
Should be posted to the Flickr thread for the current month contest
Deadline for entries is Friday, Jan. 29th (again, 3 weeks)
The folks at HDR Soft have been very generous and have offered up another copy of their Photomatix Pro bundle for the January winner – so if you are into the HDR craze, or are interested, there’s another chance to win your very own licensed copy!

The January Flickr thread is up, live and ready for entries, so get out and shoot! Happy New Year and Happy Shooting!

P.S. Can anyone tell me anything different about the site? (For you feed readers, come on over and check things out – something is different! 🙂 )

Favorite Photos of 2009

January 4, 2010 Jason5 Comments

One of the resolutions I had wanted to do was publish a “Best of” series from the Flickr group each month. That did not come to pass, but I did want to take some time to share some of my favorites of the past year with you here. Not much to say in the way of prefacing these, other than to say that I liked them. Whether for the technical quality, the compositional quality, the message, the colors, or the perspective – they stood out for me. Feel free to visit the Flickr group pool and peruse for your own favorites, but here’s mine:

Thanks to everyone who continues to share their photos in the Flickr Community. I will try my best to get some “favorites” put out monthly from this group, as that is one of many New Years Resolutions I am going to try to commit myself to for 2010. Some are personal, some are inspired by others. I’ll likely share more of these commitments going forward as well. Do you have any resolutions for the 2010 calendar year? Sound off in the comments!

Finally, stay tuned for the December Giveaway Winner which will be announced later this week too! Tomorrow, be sure to stop back for more top picks from 2009. Happy shooting and we’ll see you then! 🙂

37 out of 52

December 30, 2009 JasonLeave a comment

Can anyone guess the significance of the post title right off the bat? Any takers at all? For those that could, cool! For those that can’t, 37 is a reference to the last podcast for 2009! Episode #37 (Longevity of Lenses) is now available for your listening pleasure in iTunes and with the folks hosting the show directly on the web at Personal Life Media. It might be an hour or so actually before the show is available for download on iTunes, so hold off for a little there before downloading – you might get the previous episode! It does take a look at the subject of lens longevity much along the lines of the previous post here on the blog, but it also speaks to things like depreciation, and considers the business element of lenses too – so there’s always more in the podcast for blog readers to enjoy!

I can’t guarantee I will have a post ready for tomorrow, so this could also be the last post for 2009 as well. It’s always fun to look back and review the year this close to the end. I’ll have some more details trickling out once we’re into 2010, including the always popular “Best Blogs”. There does seem to be a trend as in 2007 I posted my “Top 7 of ’07”, followed by the Top 8 of ’08, and most recently, the “Top 9 of ’09”. Can you guess what is coming soon in January? 🙂

Here though, it seemed appropriate given that the podcast was released today, to note that it is episode 37 of the show. That means 37 episodes in 52 weeks – that’s more than one every other week. I am not sure what the average show length is, but am guessing it is in the 30-45 minute realm, which means some people out there have spent at least 26 hours (over a day!) listening to me talk about photography! Got another day available for 2010?

I hope so because we’re going to have a lot more fun and cool stuff coming up in the podcast, and on the new radio show for newcomers over at WebtalkRadio! More guests, more articles, more tips and tricks, and yes…more contests! These shows and articles and contests though really are here for you, the listener and reader though, so if you want me to cover anything specific, please feel free to let me know in the comments of the blog or via email!

Anyway, enough of the “back story”. Here’s the show notes:

Photo News:

Listener Q&A

Which Lens?

EF-S 15-85 f3.5-5.6 IS USM (=24-136)
EF-S 18-135 f3.5-5.6 IS (=28-216)
EF-S 18-200 f3.5-5.6 IS (=29-320)
EF-S 17-85 f4-5.6 IS USM (=27-136)

Scripting Resources:

There you have it! Enjoy!

Last but not least…don’t forget the contest deadline is rapidly approaching – tomorrow midnight is your last chance to get your favorite Giving photo into the Flickr thread to be eligible for the prize bonanza! Lots of stuff is going to go to some lucky participant, so get it up there and good luck! Happy New Year one and all, and we’ll see you next year here on the blog/podcast/etc.! Happy Shooting!

Episode #36 – The End is Near!

December 19, 2009 Jason8 Comments

Okay, the end isn’t near, but the end of the year is near, and it’s time to start doing wrap-ups all over the internet and other publications. Heck, even Time Magazine has a photos of the year, as did Rangefinder, and many blog authors are doing the same. So, in the interests of always “doing something different”, I am inviting everyone that listens to the podcast and reads the blog to share your own thoughts of 2009 in the comments. Here’s the questions that I always think about at the end of the year:

What was my best photo?
What was my biggest accomplishment?
What software/hardware really stood out above the rest for me?
What was my favorite book of the year that I read?
What new blog became a staple in my reading?

So, rather than me telling you, this year you have an opportunity to tell me what your favorites are! Feel free to sound off in the comments or via email…the address as always is jason<at>canonblogger<dot>com

In the blog notes for the week – the latest podcast is up, and lots of blog/podcast news to share. I also took a more detailed look at photography and the law, and some of the resources I rely on. Lastly, as always were the listener questions and answers. Enjoy the show, and here’s the links/show notes:

Blog/Podcast Notes and News

Photograhy Legal Resources

Listener Questions and Answers

Enjoy the show – as an added bonus I added another link in the show notes that wasn’t actually IN the show. Anyone know which one it is? Winner is the first person who guesses right in the comments! Oh yeah, and here’s a link to the show on PLM and iTunes!

So, that’s it for this week – looking forward to hearing people’s thoughts of the year! Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again on Monday, have a great weekend!

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December Giveaway News

December 2, 2009 Jason7 Comments

A few days late, but the year-end giveaway is quite exciting as there is just a ton of good stuff going into this giveaway. Here’s the inside skinny on what the winner is going to walk away with in December:

A free copy of the “Within the Frame”, the wildly successful and great book donated by David DuChemin!
A free copy of “Visionmongers”, the latest book from none other than David Duchemin!
A free copy of Photomatix, the software known for its HDR processing, donated by the folks over at HDRSoft!
A free 16″x20″ gallery wrap of a print of your choice, printed (and donated) by the folks over at MPix!
and as if that is not enough, the folks at Red River Paper have also expressed interest in joining the gievaway frenzy, so it looks like there will be a paper bundle in the mix too – (more details on the bundle specifics as those come in!)

With over $400 in free stuff, this is surely going to generate a lot of interest, so this go around, the guidelines are a little stricter than normal. Here they are:

Limit of one photo entry per person.
Also, please make sure your photos are taken during the month of December. I know – there’s a few days missing, so it’s less than a full month to shoot, but the theme is somewhat appropriate…more on that in a minute. Just remember, no archives!
The longest side of your image should be no larger than 800px or shorter than 600px. Don’t confuse this with a 800×600 aspect ratio – the second side of the photo can be any length you want – just make sure the longest side is no larger than 800px and no shorter than 600px. All entries should be posted in the Flickr Contest Thread.
All entries must be live before midnight December 31st.

So, the theme is all that remains. Since it’s a season of holidays far and wide, we’re going to go with the theme of:

GIVING

That’s it – interpret however you like. Just tie in that theme somehow, and enter your best photo in the Flickr thread. Good luck all, and may the best shot win! Happy shooting, and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow! Many thanks to David DuChemin, Mpix, HDRSoft, and Red River Paper for their generous contributions. Now, let’s wow them with some amazing photography!

P.S. Just a little reminder that the blog is still taking donations to not only help offset the cost of maintenance, but also now to help pay the bills – the “curveballs” referenced the other day was an abrupt notice that my position was being terminated. So, please help to keep things alive and online through the holiday season! I am going to try to get some extra special content out there for everyone so you can also get some use out of this feeble old mind for any donations (or purchases…) but no guarantees there yet. (Special thanks to Rob Jones from Towner Jones Photography who has already donated very generously to the cause though…)

And the Winner Is…

November 25, 2009 Jason3 Comments

With the November giveaway deadline behind us, it was time to look at all the submissions and pick a winner from the set of entries. Without further ado, the winner of the November Contest/Giveaway is:

The theme for the contest was “Winter” and though it was a little early for this, Yvonne took her creativity to new levels by doing some rather unique post processing on an image and it worked! It looks like she converted this to black and white or added an infrared filter of some kind. Not sure what exactly she did, but it sure gave me shivers when I looked at it, so, congratulations to Yvonne for your creative vision, and for winning the November giveaway. If you see this before I get a chance to find you, send me an email to claim your prizes. I’ll be sending Yvonne a $25 gift card to B&H Photo, a DVD for the Best of Photoshop User TV, Season 11, and a book from Matthew Bamberg. Be sure to stop by Yvonne’s photo stream on Flickr, and her website for more wonderful photos and to congratulate her.

Thanks to the folks at NAPP for the DVD, to Matthew Bamberg for contributing a copy of his book, and for everyone who participated. I know it was challenging as many people noted that it wasn’t very “wintery” in their area yet. Hopefully though, Yvonne’s creativity showed us that you can create wonderful winter-like scenes any time of year – you just need to post process a little.

Stay tuned for the announcement of the December giveaway this Friday, while recovering from your turkey-induced tryptophan slumbers! Believe it or not, tomorrow is not going to ne a no-blog day – something special is scheduled for your reading enjoyment. Regardless, have a Happy Thanksgiving, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow! Don’t forget those cameras, and keep on shooting!

How Low Can You Go?

November 23, 2009 Jason1 Comment

In episode #34 of Learning Digital Photography, we look at the subject of low light photography. In these shooting circumstances, you often need to drop your shutter speed pretty low, while shooting with apertures that are relatively open, and high ISO’s in order to get the scene with enough light. Whether you are shooting night photography, concert photography, or foggy weather, these are all things to look at and think about.

To help shed some light on the subject (get it? 🙂 ), we talked to Becky Thomas (aka BecThomasPhoto on Twitter) on the show. A great conversation, and lots was covered so be sure you give it a listen. Thanks to Bec for her time – it was a lot of fun. Make sure you stop over to her site as well for a great dose of inspiration.

Photo News

Panasonic Sound System NW-10
Facebook Automated Photo Tagging (Face Detection)
Price Cuts on Photo Storage from Google ($4096 for 16 TB)

Photo Technical Tips

Pros and cons of increasing ISO
Pros and cons of opening your aperture
Pros and cons of slowing the shutter

Listener Questions and Answers

Camera Prices/Lines – What camera should you get?
Difference between a Lightroom catalog versus photo backups
Which stock agency to use?

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