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Wednesday news and info – lots about light

March 5, 2008 JasonLeave a comment

Back into the cockpit today for the typical Wednesday news and information…

In the interests of full disclosure, and sharing news across the photography spectrum, there is a full review out for the Nikon D60, which is the Nikon equivalent of the Canon Rebel XTi – the entry level SLR for each vendor. They seem pretty happy with it overall. Check the review out here, and thanks to the Digital Photography Show for pointing me there.

Strobist offers some sage advise today on it’s most recent post, where David reminds us to not think of lighting as the be-all, end-all, but to use it as a tool for accomplishing a goal or to solve a problem. Always a good read, but particularly useful for me since I have a model shoot coming up soon, where I hope to take this advice to heart. Stop over and read the latest when you have some time.

Another useful lighting scenario played out over at Scott Kelby’s blog the past few days. Scott had a shot set up and a couple of us asked to see the setup, and he shared that today. Pretty useful info and further solidifies the idea that moving lighting of camera and diffusing it is the ideal route in any shoot setup. I guess that means I need to get a diffuser too. The gear quest never ends…*sigh*

In a little self-pimping, I’ve got a new poll up – how many cameras do you own. Forget about SLR versus P&S versus medium format, wide format, film, working, non-working, or any other caveats. Grand total, all-in, how many cameras do you currently own? I’ll reserve guesses on results this time as in the past I’ve been famously wrong. Also, stop over and view some of the photos I’ve put up for sale on Redbubble!

Here’s a short slideshow of some of what’s available:

Some of my photos for sale

Until tomorrow, happy shooting and watch those apertures.

March Mystery…nothing happened yesterday!

March 4, 2008 JasonLeave a comment

Okay, well, that’s not true, but as predicted, I was not able to put a tutorial together for Tuesday, and it’s unlikely I will have one out this week simply due to time constraints and the fact that I have been spending most of my time recreating and spending some quality time with my wife, We’ve been enjoying our vacation immensely, and I shall return tomorrow with hopefully a little more info to share. I would expect that next week will see two tutorials to make up for the downtime this week. So, with that in mind, enjoy the rest of the day. Happy shooting, watch those apertures, and we’ll see you here tomorrow! 🙂

For now I’ll leave with a teaser of my day at Invesco…

Monday Morning Travel Recap

March 3, 2008 JasonLeave a comment

Well, the weekend was a cornucopa of Denver tourism. We left SC at the not-so-bright hour of 5am and arrived in Denver by 10. That gave us time to make the last tour of Invesco Field. As a dyed-in-the-wool Bronco fan since pretty much as long as I can remember, this was the epitome of the entire 7 day trip. Needless to say, my camera pretty much clicked non-stop for the entire visit. I’ll share some shots later this week when I can get some time to work a few up.

Yesterday we visited the Celestial Seasonings tea factory. After Invesco I owed my wife that, but I have to say it turned out to be much more interesting than I would have thought. No cameras allowed in there, and just as well – the powder from the herbs and roots and spices in the air sometimes made my eyes water. If you’re ever near the Boulder area, I would highly recommend a tour – it was free and well worth the time.

Back to the real world of photography Continue reading “Monday Morning Travel Recap” →

Wednesday Withdrawl

February 27, 2008 JasonLeave a comment

Wow – time flies when you’re away from the computer – my hands have been literally tied up with a pinched nerve in one hand and a few cuts and bruises on the other from my voracious weekend. As a result, I have not been able to spend nearly enough time either behind a camera or in front of the computer. So, today is an “official” no blog Wednesday. Tutorial will have to wait another day as I am doing things very piecemeal at this juncture. Hopefully Friday will be full of news enough to carry everyone through the weekend. Stop back and look for the tutorial of the week, some web links, and my weekly thought segment – until then, happy shooting and watch those apertures!

Top Ten Tuesday

February 26, 2008 JasonLeave a comment

Sorry folks, not much to do today. My busy weekend and a rather odd chain of events from Monday night has set me back a we bit in the sleep department. I spent last night catching up a bit – will try to piece together a tutorial after work today, but no promises. It may be a day or two before I can get things together again. In the meantime, here’s another of the “Top Ten Things” for Tuesday to add to your daily hit list. This week I take a look at online print labs. Remember, these are not in any rank order, they’re just the most popular and ones that get the best reviews from what I’ve read and heard. No links today on each, so Google to your hearts content! Without further ado:

Top Ten Online Photo Labs

Whitehouse Color
MPix
Shutterfly
Sam’s Club
Adorama
Dot Photo
Costco
Kodak Gallery
EZPrints
Snapfish

For the photo fiends, I’ve added a few images to my Red Bubble account, so stop over there to get a larger view of the ones for sale.

Muscle Failure Monday – and the “sweetness” factor

February 25, 2008 JasonLeave a comment

As the weekend fades into the recesses of time, it leaves a reminder with me in the form of muscle failure from the screened in porch project. For regular readers (the half dozen or so)…you may recall me having posted in passing about the porch before. Well, enough was enough for me and I went full bore to finish the dang thing this weekend. I did (for the most part), but am paying the price today. The remaining false studs were put in place, and the panel trimming began in earnest. I never realized how tiring it can be to bend over a miter saw, hammer away (manually) at paneling with chincey nails that bend with the slightest off-center tap of a hammer, manually cut metal rebar for shelf hanging, finishing painting trim work around a counter, re-paint a contractor f***-up, rip paneling boards to exacting measurements, hang paneling boards with one hand while holding the paneling in place with shims and another hand all while running back and forth to Lowe’s every three or four hours. Starbucks saw almost as much money from me as Lowes did on this project!

It’s done though (for the most part – still a little trim work to do, and some cosmetic work here and there), and I’ve got a few shots to share of it.

After all was said and done, I retired to the couch for about half the day to surf, watch HGTv (that channel is addictive), and catch up on my photo reading materials. It was a pretty sweet feeling to get all of that completed. Speaking of sweet, check out the new softbox I made this evening from the DIY’er perspective. Should be interesting to see if it works when I get back in my “studio”. Here’s a shot of that too:

Not the most professional of softboxes, but it should do the job well enough, once I get the inside spray painted with white. (Without it the can itself cast a nasty yellow glare on shots.) For anyone who is thinking of doing this, all you need is an empty container, a piece of paper, a utility knife and a little spray paint. If you want to forgo the spray paint, you could always use something like a Clorox jug (empty and rinsed of course…) cut in half. Ultimately, I’ll likely put some cloth on there and rubber band it around to act as the softbox rather than a sheet of paper but you get the idea.

For more lighting ideas, try getting an empty cardboard roll from a carpet store – you can get them dirt cheap (as in free) and cut to size. Spray paint a little white paint on the inside and you’ve got yourself a neat little snoot! What’s a “snoot” you ask? Go find out at Strobist – where you will find everything you ever needed to know about lighting but were afraid to ask!

Friday Freebie – Top Ten Forums on the Internet

February 22, 2008 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!

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

Until Monday then, Happy Shooting and watch those apertures!

Tips for Photo Walks

February 21, 2008 JasonLeave a comment

Hey all, sorry for the late posting today – in the middle of the week I don’t have as much time to put material together. However, a few weeks ago Scot Sherman and Michael Stein took a photo walk with some listeners from their Digital Photography Show while in Vegas. That, in conjunction with a new site developed specifically for photo walks, made me start thinking about the keys for success to photo walks, and what our local group (The South Carolina Photography Guild) does on a regular basis. Since I had already offered to share those thoughts with Scott and Michael, I figured it’d be an interesting subject for a “Thursday Thoughts.” So, I starting putting pen and ink together for a PDF supplemental post this week, and that’s been completed. In the interests of keeping the post short so everyone can enjoy the two-page diatribe on “Keys to Successful Photo Walks”, I’ll bid you all a thoughtful Thursday. Happy Shooting and remember to watch those apertures!

ETA: Jeff Revell was interviewed on the DPS which was released yesterday. He does a write-up on the subject today (3/20), so I am going back into this post to add this link to that post. Congrats Jeff!

A long weekend…

February 18, 2008 JasonLeave a comment

President’s Day has afforded many of us the pleasures of a long weekend. I took advantage of the opportunity by catching up on some over-needed Z’s, visiting with family, and making strides on the back car-port-turned-screened-in-porch. So, it’s now Monday afternoon and I am just now sitting down at the computer for some meaningful minutia to share.

One fun little tidbit I got came from the Red Bubble community where a lot of fine art photography can be found. It seems many there are familiar with another community called EyeFetch. I know, there’s tons of communities out there, but these seem to be different in that they are full of really positive energies, contests, and great sources of inspiration that is sometimes lacking in the more technical communities. So, stop over at EyeFetch and see if it’s to your liking. I could get hooked on these fine art communities.

The other is a couple videos from Joe McNally, who apparently has a dedicated channel on YouTube for some of his videography. Pretty cool stuff – if you’re afraid of heights, then don’t watch the one on the Empire State Building.

That’s it for today – tutorial Tuesday is only 24 hours away, so stay tuned!

Tuesday tutorial teaser

February 12, 2008 JasonLeave a comment

Today, I am going to show you yet another technique for making specific color selections, but as noted in the title, this is just a teaser – the tutorial is not finished in production, so I should have it up later this evening (around 7). In the meantime, I would like to thank everyone again who has been reading, watching, listening, and sharing their feedback. Let’s keep it up – what other tips, tricks, techniques and stuff do you want to hear in tutorials? I’m listening… 🙂