Category: competition

Last Minute Gift Guide

Jason4 Comments

Is your shopping done?  Mine isn’t – I am going to be braving the stores tomorrow for some last minute ideas I had that popped in my head over the weekend.  Unfortunately for Tracy, she is not a photographer, so camera-related items are not really an option.  But, if you are running out of time and ideas, rest assured, I’ve got a few more here for you today.  Fair warning though, because when you’ve waited this long to shop, the sticker prices for items are generally in the higher end rather than the lower end.  (You may recall that I did a list of 25 for under $25 a few weeks ago.)  So, without further ado, here’s the final recommendations for this holiday season…

1.  Membership:  Being a member of organizations has perks, and there are several out there that can help different types of photographers for different reasons, but three that I would highly recommend are membership to NAPP (of which I am a member – $99/year), PPA, ($194/yr)  and ASMP ($140/yr).  If these are a little out of your league – a Flickr Pro membership is only $25, and gives you access to lots of things that aren’t available in the free version.

2.  Prints and Framing:  I’ve talked up Mpix before, and would highly recommend them as a printing outfit for anyone, but regardless of your preferences, giving prints as gifts is always appreciated, especially when accentuated by frames, and photographers are no different.  Gift certificates to places like Mpix, and even your local frame and print shops is something that will not only be appreciated but used!

3.  Seminars and Workshops: Having been to only one, this is something I would love to get more experience with, and there certainly is no dearth of these available.  Kelby Training is the one I know best, but there are literally dozens of outfits that offer on-hand seminars and workshops on everything from lighting, post processing,  One that interests me specifically is the Santa Fe workshops, where Joe McNally teaches, but others are all over the country from Maine to California, Florida, and everywhere in between.  If you know of any particular seminars and workshops, feel free to post links in the comments!

4. Software:  High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is here to stay, and for those of you interested in getting great results, you’ll need some software to help you process those images.  Photoshop is okay at it, but if you want better results, a 3rd party product that is dedicated for the tone mapping and processing is really required.  The one I like (and that most others like as well), is Photomatix, from the folks at HDR Soft.  They have educational discounts as well for students, teachers, and the like.

5.  Video:  I know, convergence and the ability to shoot video inside your camera is becoming increasingly common, but this video recorder is just too cool (and low cost) to shrug aside…I am talking about the Flip video Ultra HD Camcorder.  For $150 from B&H, it’s a super deal, and the recording quality is superb.  I’ve seen lots of people with these, and I’ve seen the results – remarkable quality for the cost.

So, get out those credit cards, and get the gift that suits your photog best!  In the meantime, we’ve got a couple things going on here now at the blog, so be sure to chime in before the end of the year:

  • December Giveaway – Win $40+ of prizes, including books, prints, paper and software
  • Share your Best photos from 2009 – I’ve added the ability to embed photos in the comments section, so if you have an image you like from 2009 and it’s online, share it in the comments for Saturday’s post

That’s it for today – happy shooting and happy holidays as we count down the remaining days to Christmas!

Episode #36 – The End is Near!

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:

  1. What was my best photo?
  2. What was my biggest accomplishment?
  3. What software/hardware really stood out above the rest for me?
  4. What was my favorite book of the year that I read?
  5. 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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I’m dreaming of an HDR Christmas

Jason4 Comments

Last night I got the bug to try something I’d seen before – the classic Christmas-y look with a score of music and a shallow depth of field.  It was straightforward enough and after putting a piece of sheet music on the piano, and trying it that way, wasn’t getting the drop off in depth-of -field as I had hoped for.  So, I took a different approach and put the music sheet flat on a table, knowing the dof would drop off that way, with the foreground out of focus and receding off in the background too.

So, the second one came out okay, but the plain background of the table didn’t really work all that well…it needed something else – Christmas lights!  So, I got an extra garland that wasn’t used in the house and threw that down, encircling the paper.  But something was still missing…a little color.  What goes with green and white?  Red!  Enter a blanket strategically placed underneath it all to add a touch of color.  So, took a few shots, and liked it, but the shadows seemed kind of muted, and the lights were getting a little blown out.  Hmmm…could I be dreaming of an HDR Christmas?

An HDR Christmas
An HDR Christmas

The fact that the little star burst off the one light happened was purely incidental, but I think helped the overall composition.  How about the reading audience?  What are your thoughts?  Does it work?  Need something else?  What about your own holiday-themed work?  Feel free to share thoughts, feedback, samples and such in the comments!

In other Friday news, CB now has a Facebook fan page, so if you get a minute – stop by the Facebook page and sign up.  I’ll be sharing more photos, tips, tricks, and such there in the weeks to come as well, and you won’t know unless you’re a “fan”!  For those of you getting your news from the feed, the direct link to the Facebook page is here.

Don’t forget, the December Giveaway is also still underway – over $400 of super cool prizes including software, books, prints, and papers!  Just a cornucopia of prizes, all waiting to be given away for free! Just enter your photo at the Flickr thread:  December Giveaway. The theme this month is GIVING. Interpret however you like and good luck to all.  The rest of the contest details are here.

That’s about it for this Friday – have a great weekend everyone! Going on a sunrise shoot in the mountains tomorrow wit the Meetup group here in Denver, so it is going to be an early riser for me tomorrow.  Start time of 4am!  More on that next week!  Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

December Giveaway News

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:

  1. Limit of one photo entry per person.
  2. 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!
  3. 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.
  4. 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…)

How Low Can You Go?

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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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Freaky Friday Follow-up

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After a freaky Friday yesterday filled with podcast-associated technical difficulties including broken URL’s, missing media, and quieter than normal audio, the idea of writing a blog post for the day completely slipped my mind.  So, the awaited hardware review for the week got pushed back a little, as well as the announcement of the winner of the Scott Kelby Digital Photography book, volume 3!

The former is a little to late to push out on a Saturday, but the latter is accomplished easily enough, so I turned to my trusty Random Number Generator website (which I learned about from friend-of-the-blog Datchichfirgs), and entered the post count total into the fields.  With a whopping 29 entries (double the previous post comment record),  I gotta admit, it was kind of a rush!

And, without further ado, the moment you’ve been waiting for, and sans drumroll (unless you want one here), the winner is none other than poster #19:

randomnumberwinnerMary Angelini!  Her clever response posted above wins her the book!  (And I kind of like the off-beat stuff from time to time myself – at least it means people are reading) Congrats to Mary – please email me so I can get some  information and get this book out to you!

For the 28 that didn’t win, don’t forget, there’s still the Flickr LDP monthly giveaway – simply submit a photo (or two or three) to the Flickr Group to have a chance at the bundle of prizes for the November giveaway, including a $25 B&H gift card, a book from author Matthew Bamberry, and a DVD for the Best of Photoshop User – 11th Season.

Thanks to everyone for participating in the Comment Contest, thanks to NAPP for sending out the book, and we’ll have another one soon – that was a lot of fun!  In the meantime, keep on shooting, have a great (rest of the) weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

Photo Framing Follow-up

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After the blog post on Wednesday, and the number of comments received, I thought that the next podcast would be well served to discuss the idea behind matting and framing in more detail.  As luck would have it, that podcast just went live earlier this afternoon!  You can catch the podcast over at the Personal Life Media site here: Learning Digital Photography

Here’s the Show Notes:

In this latest episode of Learning Digital Photography, the Grand Prize winner from the September $500 giveaway is announced, and the October contest opens up – ready for your entries.  The theme this time is Fall (open to interpretation).  Specs, guidelines, and such are discussed including dimensions, dates for submission and more.

Also in this episode, a primer on framing your photos:  things to look for and avoid when matting and framing work.  I look at what gallery and show fine art venues usually require versus home or personal use.

Finally, the popular listener question and answer segment returns, with some great ones coming from all over the globe!  Download today!  Happy shooting!

The links mentioned in the show follow as well:

Rich Charpentier’s Website and Blog

Flickr Contest Thread

Redimat

American Framing

Don’t forget, every time you “Digg” the podcast over at PLM, or subscribe and write a review on iTunes , you are helping others enjoy the fun and thrill of photography.  Feel free to also use those venues as well as the comments here and contact with me via email if you have an idea or thought to share about the show.  Thanks, as always, for listening and reading.  Have a great weekend, happy shooting, and we’ll see you back again on Monday!

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Tuesday Top Five Nuggets

Jason5 Comments

In lieu of a software review, today instead just a couple news nuggets for you.

  • First up, the finalists of the $500 giveaway have been determined.  These six finalists are being considered to win a pretty impressive package of stuff including a Thinktank Photo Multimedia Bag System and a complete set of the Topaz Labs Photoshop Bundle.  View the finalists gallery here.
  • Next up, a recommendation:  Even if you aren’t a subscriber to the Rangefinder Magazine (although you should be), you can read the current issue online here, (it’s a PDF download) which includes in the most recent issue an interview of none other than David Hobby, founder and author of the world-famous Strobist blog.
  • From Scott over at one of my favorite daily reads (Weekly Photo TIps), there is a new PBS series starting this week on National Parks.  I am definitely setting the DVR for this series!
  • As a longtime fan of DIY-projects, this one on making a tripod for your P&S (or iPhone) out of a paperclip was just too cool to leave out of the list.
  • And finally, for those that just insist on getting a photo fix regularly, visit former contest winner John Dunne’s blog, My Chi to see a great dilemma as he is torn between a color and a black and white version of a sunrise scene on the Promenade (psst….I like the black and white version!)…

Well, that’s it for today, be sure to stop back tomorrow for another dose of inspiration as we hit the midway point of the week (a.k.a. hump day)!  Happy shooting and we’ll see you then…

Five Elements of Control: #5 Composition

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You knew it had to come back to this, right?  I know, everyone is screaming by now “But Jason, you’ve talked about the Rule of Thirds until the cows literally came home!”  Truth be told though, most people think about compositional positioning with their subject matter.  While it’s true that subjects are ideally placed on a hot spot or along one of the gridlines in the ROT grid, but you can break the rules too, ya know!  I say, put anything you want on a grid spot.  Or don’t have a specific point of interest!  Make the subject of your photo the space – negative space, as previously mentioned, can be a powerful thing!

You can also think of the ROT grid for any point of interest, not just subject points of interest.  And, since we know that light (luminance, contrast, whatever your semantics prefer), geometry, color, and context can all be points of interest, then you can put any of these there and create visually grabbing photographs.

The greatest part of this exercise though, is that now we are looking at everything in a lot of new and creative ways.  I bet you are asking yourselves lots of questions now:  Does that light look good?  DO those colors complement each other?  What about that round  wheel in a square table – that could be interesting, right?  Keep on thinking and looking at the world around you from different angles and perspectives.  Sooner than you realize it (if not already), your eyes will dart all over the place looking at things and you might not even be conscious that you are doing it.

When we migrate these exercises from the front of our brain to the back of our brains, making them automatic to the point where we no longer need to even think about looking for things – we just do it, then believe it or not, the compositional perspective also becomes second nature.  You are already looking at how the light and colors on this corner of the room are really awesome contrasts to the darker shadows on the other side – and how cool is it that the funnel of light literally cuts through the darkness on that gridline?!

Some days you’ll have epiphanies, realizations, and great moments to capture, while others you may not see as many.  Rest assured though, once your brain and eyes are trained to look for it – you’ll see it everywhere you go.  So, take a look at the world around you – see what catches your eye – ask why if you like, but enjoy your moments, because these are the ones where you can really get creative with composition and take your photography to the next level!  Just remember the Five Elements of Control:

Luminance
Color
Geometry
Context
Composition

Have a great weekend everyone – this officially wraps up my first week-long thematic series of blog posts.  Hopefully you’ve found each one rewarding individually, and I would welcome any feedback, thoughts critiques, and comments, because this will likely become an eBook download.  I’ll expand on each element some more, and include even more photos as examples of each, along with detailed critiques and highlights to help show readers why certain ones work, and others don’t.

So please let me know your thought!   Who knows, feedback may get you a free copy of the eBook and a mention in the credits if you do!  Thanks too, for all the comments already throughout this week, with your comments and insights on both the written word and photographs.  We’ll be back to regular posting starting Monday!  Until then, Happy Shooting!

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Covering the Photo Beat

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In the latest release of the LDP podcast, a shorter show this week as I prep for some other ventures, but there’s still enough material to really sink your teeth into.  To start things off, Leica released two new cameras in a synchronized announcement including a full frame ranger finder camera for $6995 and a crop factor camera with 12 MP for just under $2K which will release around the holidays.  More info on both cameras here

The other big photo news of the week comes to us courtesy of Apple, with the latest updates to iPods not only by adding features, but also by decreasing cost.  Find out how this all relates to photography (very cool ways) on the podcast today!  You can get Apple-specific details on their main page.

Second up on the show, the contest news which regular readers mostly know about except for the October announcement of two new sponsors!  Find out who the new sponsors are and what will be the giveaway for October in this episode.

Finally, I also let you know about the latest project to be looking for from CB and LDP – a monthly newsletter, and let you know how to become a featured artist in a monthly newsletter.  Details in the podcast so be sure to tune in and catch all the details today!

We cover the usual spate of listener Questions and Answers, so here’s the links to help answer the issues in this weeks show:

I’d also like to give some special cross-promo props to Kerry Garrison of Camera Dojo last week to talk about the Canon 7D!  It was a lot of fun, and I would encourage anyone looking to add photography-related podcasts to their listening libraries to visit Camera Dojo and pick that up today!  (Also, while you are there, don’t forget to say hey in his community too as he’s got a lot of great resources available.  His website is linked here.)

That’s enough news and excitement for one day, so make sure to stop back in tomorrow for more photography news and info as we head into the tail end of summer weekend photography fun.  Happy shooting all!  Don’t forget to visit the Podcast site here and Digg it!  (Or download through iTunes) and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

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