Category: Friday Follies

Another Top Ten

Jason1 Comment

When the blog started to take off, it was partly due to a “Top Ten” list I did that included some notable sites, including the likes of Photoshop Insider (Scott Kelby), the Digital Photography Show (Scott Sherman & Michael Stein), Strobist (David Hobby), and others. Since then, I’ve done some other “Top Ten” lists all with a photo-theme to them. Well, I hadn’t done one in a while, so figured today is as good as any. But… with it being a Friday, which I typically reserve for humorous anecdotes, here’s a Top Ten to make you laugh (and intentionally not photography-related at all):

Top Ten Things NOT to say to say to a Police Officer when queried: “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

  1. Out of Doughnuts?
  2. Couldn’t catch the guy who sped past me 5 minutes ago?
  3. Lost a bet?
  4. Yup.
  5. Boredom?
  6. Quota time?
  7. “That’ll 2 Whoppers, 2 large fries, a Sprite, and a Coke please.”
  8. Oh goody, junior has a gun and a badge!
  9. Why, don’t you know?
  10. Because I hung up on your lame charity drive when they called at dinner last night?

In all seriousness, never say any of these…(for liability reasons). Got any funny ones to share as well? Post ’em in the comments! 🙂

Okay, with that, have a good weekend all – happy shooting and watch those apertures! I’ll leave you with another WTD comic for your weekend enjoyment:

What The Duck - Friday, March 29th

At long last…

Jason1 Comment

Well, the tooth ache is aching for a reason – apparently I am about to join the millions of Americans who must experience a root canal first hand. While I can take pain, a pain in the mouth is much more difficult for me to deal with than a pain anywhere else. Having had my share of broken bones, back aches, hang nails, migraines, hang overs, sprains, burns, scrapes, scars, and all that other stuff – for some reason oral vulnerabilities seem to cut me to the quick.

My guess is on that day, there will be no post. But…until then, I will try to keep to my regular schedule. So, here’s some Friday fun to share:

Happy Easter, happy shooting and watch those apertures!

Friday Freebie – Top Ten Forums on the Internet

JasonLeave a comment

One of the most dynamic ways to share photos in real time is via photography forums. There are literally hundreds upon thousands to choose from. So…how do you know which ones to visit? Well, find a Forum Ranking post from bloggers like myself – usually you can find a few good ones from blog posts. So, on that note, here’s the Friday Folly – A Free Top Ten list of Photo Forum communities! Naturally, this list is highly subjective, and indicative of the ones that I have found useful for my own purposes over the last two or three years, but it is a good starting point. Keep in mind, these are not rank ordered by any means – just forums I’ve perused and found useful. Enjoy!

  1. Fred Miranda
  2. Digital Photography Review
  3. Photography on the Net
  4. Nikonians
  5. Photo.net
  6. Naturescapes
  7. NAPP Forums
  8. South Carolina Photography Guild
  9. Popular Photography Forums
  10. Shutterbug Forums

It wouldn’t be a Friday without a funny, so here’s my weekly reference to What the Duck:

What the Duck Cartoon

Until Monday then, Happy Shooting and watch those apertures!

Friday Free-for-all

JasonLeave a comment

So, last night after the sappiness ended, I came back to the trusty glow of my monitor and started knocking out a few more photos for my display book (more on that later). During a break, I stopped into the NAPP forums (highly recommend a membership with NAPP btw, at only $99 it’s a steal!) and was reading through some of the stuff, just to try and catch up a little more on my own knowledge base. Boy what a humbling experience that was! I did come away with some great web gems though, so every Wednesday for about the next milenium, I’ll dole out a few of them each week to the dirty dozen or so that read CB regularly! 🙂

In the meantime, here’s a couple to start things off – think of them as “Friday Freebies”:

The Graphic Reporter : Not only does her voice sound better than mine, she’s got an amazingly look and feel to her site.

Photoshop Cafe: A little heavy on the ads for me, but a great source of info, articles, and gateway to lots of things to do with photography.

DXO Labs: I recently installed the Film Pack demo after hearing about it on DPS, and have been playing with it for a few days now. This is a very cool plugin, and the coolest part about it is that you can launch the Film Pack w/out photoshop! Make your adjustments quick and easy and on the fly – very intuitive. Here’s a capture of an image you may recognize that I posted earlier this week with some tweaks done to it:

dxo-capture.jpg

The types of effects you can run are quiet myriad, and well worth it. Stop over at DXO and check it out!

Finally, in the most recent issue of Photoshop User Magazine, I saw an add for a PS plugin called SiteGrinder2, from a company called MediaLab. I’ve not heard of them before, but I must admit, the ad makes me want to buy it. It does seem like a costly one though at almost$200 for the thing, but worth the trial which I downloaded last night and will try over the weekend.

And, as many photo-blogger types do, I’ll leave you with a laugh from What The Duck:

wtd413.jpg

Have a good weekend! Happy shooting, and watch d’em apertures! 🙂

Friday Follies for February

JasonLeave a comment

Okay, my Friday follies are a little later than normal (I usually either post super early or before diner). Anyway, without further ado, here’s some fun diversions for Friday:

Stop over at Photo.net and enjoy some amazing photography from Rarindra Prakarsa. I found him through Scott Kelby’s blog.

Another fun site to enjoy some photography fine art would be a recent discovery I found: Red Bubble. (I even created a profile there to see how things work)

Need a tripod in a pinch? Try Photojojo’s suggestion of using a screw, a string and a weighted washer. It’s not really as stable, but makes for a neat and compact way to add a little stabilization while on the go. Check them out for a fun diversion: Photojojo

This also came up in conversation over on the new blog of Michael Johnston (of T.O.P fame), www.photoborg.org

Last, but not least, a little humor from What the Duck:

wtd408.gif

Friday Filter Fretting (and a funny)

JasonLeave a comment

Well, I’ve decided to go ahead and pull the trigger on two purchases… first on an ultra wide angle lens that has been noticably missing from my bag thus far. The winner of my internal mental anguish is the Sigma 10-20mm lens. With the free shipping thanks to my NAPP membership, I’ll be picking this up from B&H Photo (which I would probably use even w/out the bonus of free shipping – B&H rocks!). Canon just did not make a wide angle that would fill my needs (nor fit my budget), so this Canon Blogger could theoretically be called a Canon/Sigma Blogger as I have an equal number of both vendor lenses in my gear bag.

The other is an accessory item – a graduated Neutral Density filter. Knowing how expensive they are, I figured it might be a good idea to make this purchase all at once since I know the wide angle will be most most for landscape photography. I am still torn here though between a B+W one or the Tiffen one. I’ll freely admit to not knowing my head from a hole in the ground when it comes to filters, so thought I would make the Friday post a user-driven one. Which filter would be better suited for use with this lens? Both B+W and Tiffen make the 77mm filter in the graduated ND variety, and both are non-coated filters, with a 2 stop loss of light overall and a glass rating of .6 With only a $20 price difference between these I am wondering if there is a certain element (pardon the pun) of distinction between brand names that I am missing. So….what do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments or with me via email (jason [at] canonblogger [dot] com).

Last, but not least, as many photo-types do, here’s the weekly funny from WTD:

Happy Friday, Happy Shooting, and don’t forget to watch your apertures! 🙂

Friday Photo Fun

JasonLeave a comment

Well, the funnies take a back seat today as I wanted to share some thoughts on image restoring with those who are tuning in. My father gave me a shot of my great-great grandfather holding a slug he was shot with during the Civil War. I had it scanned, and then took the digital version into Photoshop for some work. It’s okay, but his right arm looks a little “off” to me. I’ll give it some more work, but think it should work to give him a nice 8×10 back.

If anyone has thoughts on this, or would like to share their own photo restorative efforts, feel free to share in the comments or email and I can append this post with those. Thanks for tuning in, have a good weekend, and Happy Shooting!

before_after21.jpg

A Friday Fix and some Funnies

JasonLeave a comment

Made a few minor updates to the Canon Battery Lithium Content page. First, I added some additional information that was initially lacking (it seems some of the Canon EOS series batteries have multiple cells, so the numbers needed another factor entered in the formula.) The other part was that I updated the location of the page – it’s now in the tutorials/education section where it belongs.

Apologies for the missing Thursday post. I am sure it won’t be the last time I don’t have time for a post this year…just disappointed the first missed post day came so soon (day 2 – I didn’t count the 1st)!). The funnies come today via WTD and FBorFW:

What the Duck:

What the Duck Cartoon Strip

For Better or For Worse:

For Better or For Worse

And last but not least, a written one:

Once upon a time there was a photographer in one of the most remote parts of the African continent on assignment. He came across a primitive village where the residents were living in thatched huts and wearing colorful primitive garments. He approached a man who appeared to be the chief who was wearing a large headdress made of woven hemp and colorful feathers. Not knowing how to speak to him, he pointed to his camera then to the chief inquiringly. The chief nodded his approval. As the photographer was taking a meter reading the chief said “today use f/8 at 1/125 for ISO 100 film”.

Got any good jokes? First person to post an original photo-related joke wins a free action from me!

Friday’s Follies (but not really…)

JasonLeave a comment

Fun stuff for the first Friday follies from Canon Blogger…but it requires a little prep, so bear with me. (I need to get in a program to help me with my alliterative tendencies, don’t I?)

First off, I had a thread started in an online community that was getting a lot of dialog on the latest Scott Kelby book and what people’s thoughts were on it. Specifically, I was interested in the reaction to the nature and trend of his teachings – in recent publications, I’ve noticed that his tutorials and work flow seem geared to be recipes for how to process certain types of images. Before investing in the book, I thought it might be good to hear from others who are software cautious in their purchases like myself.

It seems my suspicions were well-founded on a number of fronts. First off, the book is very proprietary in it’s dictum. Now granted, the title does clearly indicate for CS3, but given that there are commonalities between CS, CS2, and CS3, one would think that some things are portable from one application to the other. Apparently not, and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. How do you get people to buy a book? By making it specific to a particular product. That way, you have something called built-in obsolescence. The knowledge learned will eventually go out of style, as newer applications are built that have new features or different ways of doing things.

What’s so funny about this? Well, the funny part was that I made the mistake of referring to Scott as a “re-known photographer” on my initial post.

That was quite funny because some people took great exception to the two words being used in conjunction with one another. Very odd how people can often take a subject matter, and disregard it completely to argue over the minutiae of semantics. Eventually, I acquiesced and changed the phrase “re-known photographer” to “re-known author”. After appeasing the hypercritical crowd, some very good dialog continued afterward. Jeff Schewe’s name has been added to the mix for discussion on the forum, so if anyone knows how to cross-connect these two, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments too!

As for the rest of my “review” of his book, I will have to defer until reading it myself. Given the initial response though, I think I will wait for it to come to our local library.