Category: thoughts

Monday Pictures and Puzzles

JasonLeave a comment

Monday morning news. This past weekend I had a photo shoot I did for a co-worker and her kid (he apparently did not get very good school pictures this year). After about 20 minutes of shooting and putting him in various poses, I figured I had enough (about 50 shots) to get four poses for her to choose from. So, having done that, we sat back and sipped our morning coffee while the kids got ready to hit the beach. The older youngster was sitting around with us (older being relative – she was about 10-12). Playfully, without even looking, I fired a few snaps at her, letting the AF kick in. As luck would have it, this turned out to be one of the most phenomenal shots from the entire outing. So much so that I am going adding it to my portfolio. For those that read the blog though, here’s a sneak preview!

Portrait Close-up

Don’t forget, the TOP test has moved to it’s new location as a sub-folder of the Canon Blogger moniker. It can now be found at it’s new site: www.canonblogger.com/top so don’t forget to stop over there and take the second test (still a work in progress) measuring your advanced photography skills! Share results here in the comments or directly via email. I’d love to hear feedback on this too, as I move forward with more user-requested content.

My other Monday tidbit is a cool site I heard about (from my folks of all people to boot!) this last weekend: www.jigzone.com You upload your pictures and can turn them into flash-based jigsaw puzzles that you can share with your friends over your blog. Quite the time waster, but otherwise very fun and very cool! I uploaded a few images to test it out and since it seems cool enough, thought I’d share that with the blogosphere as other creative types might be interested in seeing it in action:

Well, that’s it for today. As we shutter-click our way through the week, enjoy it and remember to keep things in focus (happy shooting and watch those apertures!)

You Want Fries With That?

Jason5 Comments

We live in a world of super-sizing everything:

From sodas to coffee, fries, meals, cars, and houses, bigger always seems to be better. This is no different in photography. From larger bodies, to larger bags to more Megapixels, we are constantly in pursuit of something “bigger and better.” The idea behind all of this is that the bigger the camera is, or the more megapixels you have, the larger you can print (or the more you can crop and still get a decent print). This is true for the most part. Higher MP counts translate to higher sensor resolution (note that the sensor size isn’t changing, just the resolution). The higher sensor resolution then ultimately translates to higher print sizes. Serious photo enthusiasts know though, that it’s not in the megapixels, the sensors, the cameras, or even the lenses. Truly great prints come from capturing something unique and wonderful that you see with your own eye. Having said that, we are still obsessed with creating the biggest prints we can – after all, the larger the print, the more we can “wow” our clients, right?

Sensor resolution is, by and large, the single most important determinant of how big you will be able to print a particular image. It’s a simple matter of math, native print size will vary as a function of the number of pixels on the sensor. You may get more noise has MP counts ratchet up on identical sensors, but the more pixels you can fit, the larger you can print.

So, that only makes one wonder – what are the maximum print sizes for various cameras? No one tells you that. You can read all about the Digic III sensor from Canon to Nikon’s CCD sensors, and onto the 4/3rds sensor from Olympus. You can also find out everything from the MP counts to frame rates, lens mounts, and a host of other information, but I have yet to find a vendor that publishes a maximum print size in terms we can understand. Instead, they just give us the sensor resolution. But that doesn’t help. We need to know how that resolution translates into prints! Paper sizes aren’t measured in pixels, they are measured in inches! Well, no fear, I’ve taken care of all the legwork and put together a spec sheet for all the cameras currently listed in Canon’s product line. So, without further ado, here are the current Canon cameras, replete with model, current retail price, MP count, sensor size, and max print size. Enjoy!

Canon Camera Print Sizes
Got a camera other than Canon or an older model? Well then, unfortunately it’s a little trickier for you, because you actually need to know 2 things. First, it’s helpful to know that as a general rule of thumb, your maximum print size is proportional to your sensor resolution. Second, you need to know your sensor resolution. To figure out your maximum print size, divide your sensor resolution by 200. For example, the Nikon D80 has a sensor resolution of 3872×2592. So, the max print size would be 3872/200 x 2592/200, or 19″x12″. This is, of course, only taking into account the native resolution of any sensor. Up-sizing programs can adjust for this, but that would no longer be a native measurement.

P.S. I do have this as a worksheet in a larger Excel workbook…other sheets include the Canon lens list, a sunrise/sunset calendar, and bunches of other goodies. If anyone is interested in that, drop me an email! Good stuff in there…

Now is the month of Maying

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There is an old saying that goes something along the lines of “April showers bring May flowers.” While this is generally a principle that holds true, in the photography world, it is also the time when things start really hopping. Below is a list of just some of the activities that drive the photography industry as we move into late Spring and early Summer:

  1. Wedding season kicks into high gear (wedding photographers)
  2. High school and college graduation parties are scheduled (which is great for portrait photographers)
  3. Engagements are announced (with anticipation of #1 the following year) (portrait photographers again)
  4. Family portraits are planned in conjunction with all of the above (portrait photographers yet again)
  5. A new season of sports swings into gear such as baseball, soccer, lacrosse, swimming, and countless other summer leagues (great for sports shooters)
  6. Mating seasons begin for birds (nature photographers)
  7. Rivers, streams, and waterways are teaming with new life (landscape photographers are just ecstatic)

Continue reading “Now is the month of Maying” →

Less is More…

JasonLeave a comment

Thursday Thoughts for May 1st, 2008

In photography, the idea of keeping your scenes simple is one that I know about, but all too often, forget to consider during composition. I typically will see something and move to take the picture without taking into account the surroundings. Then later on the computer, I see stray objects or shadows I didn’t see in camera, or more correctly, didn’t think to take note of in camera. So, I hit the delete key and try again some other time. Invariably though, the best shots I get are the ones where either by intent or dumb luck turn out to be the ones with the simplest composition. A dewdrop, a sunset, a boat, a leaf, a smiling face, whatever you like…they all have worked for me due in no small part (in my opinion anyway) to the absence of other elements in the scene. There are no barnacles or trash cans in the sunset shot, the boat and its reflection are the entire shot, and the smile is super close so everything else was thrown way out of focus. The images work due in no small part to the simple composition. The age old adage reveals itself again: Keep. It. Simple. Stupid. (KISS).

While the KISS idea is nothing new to photography, I am finding more and more that the same concept can also be applied to blog entries. Some of my most popular blog posts and video tutorials are simple ones. Short videos that are no longer than 2-3 minutes seem to be more popular, and post subjects that are easily read either in bullet points or numbered lists (Top 7 of ’07, Top Ten Landscape Tips, Top Five Lighting Rules, etc., etc., etc….you get the idea).

Just my random Thursday thoughts for the week – kind of photo related, but also tangential. Although I would suspect that this new-found knowledge may manifest itself in future postings, so…for those who stop in to get lengthy reads, enjoy them while they last – they could be gone tomorrow! *gasp*

Workflow – ACR vs DNG which way to go?

Jason4 Comments

Recently two of the blogs that I read brought some meaningful insight on individual work flow perspectives. The first was Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider, where he had a few people criticize his critique of camera raw in Photoshop CS3, Lightroom, and Bridge. It was a pretty good and informative post, but a select few saw that as an opportunity to say that he was not giving Apple’s Aperture a fair shake. He actually replied to the comments (which he normally doesn’t do), and with quite an effective argument. This was quite the departure from his normal style, where he has just a few things to say and they are punctuated by pictures, as he likes the visual aids. The ultimate point though, was that Scott is very much a fan of the Adobe Camera Raw in his work flow and post processing of prints.

The other was Mike Johnston’s The Online Photographer. TOP is a great blog if you like to read, but is not very often written with the visual learner or “reader” in mind. The post that struck me was Mike’s Friday post, where he espouses “What to Buy” and his thoughts on the DNG format. While quite interesting, it’s not exactly in keeping with my thoughts on post processing.

Since I am more of an ACR guy than a DNG guy, it’s really going to be beside the point to discuss my feelings on work flow and post processing. Instead I am goig to take a different tack here and say that work flow is really up o whatever works best for the individual. I know some people that go with open sourced options like GIMP, and that is equally viable if the results are acceptable to the photographer. It’s ultimately a matter of this – opinion!

All of this brings me to my final point, and that is really about the nature of blogging itself. Blogging, as much as we like to think otherwise at times, is just our personal opinions. I think sometimes we get wrapped up in promoting certain ends, and I am equally guilty of that here at CB – I promote my own photography, ideals that I believe in, and software and hardware that I use. Nevertheless, it is, after all, just my opinion.

So, partly in response to those that started giving Scott K. a hard time, and in defense of Mike’s DNG work flow with the Pentax – lest we begin to take ourselves or others begin to take us too seriously, we are all just promoting our own opinions on subjects related to photography. It’s definitely useful though as different thoughts and opinions and ideas are what inspires each and every one of us to new levels of creativity and original thoughts. So, my hats off to all the blogging world, but this weekend, most especially to Scott K. and Mike J. for being on the leading edge of the topical content for photography.

In closing, I’d like to open the comment section up for others to share their thoughts and opinions on work flow, and blogging in general if you like. What work flow style do you prefer? Do you act on the recommendations of fellow bloggers, fellow photographers, or on other resources? Don’t forget to get out and shoot too though, so happy shooting and watch those apertures!

In the spirit of keeping things light-heartedly, and as a “make-up” for the short post yesterday, here’s the weekly best from What the Duck!

What the DUck - Friday, April 25th

Finally Friday (again)

Jason4 Comments

Well, it’s been a log week folks,and since I’ve put a bit of time into various projects this week, I am feeling somewhat sleep-deprived, so not much will happen today, except to say that my Friday post will be delayed for another 12 hours or so.  Tomorrow is the anniversary (made it 5 years and she still loves me!), and we’ll be doing some stuff with our neighbors.  So…I should have some time tomorrow morning to share some Friday fun with you (only on Saturday).  Just to give you a hint, the theme is “Friday Freebies!  So, if you want to save some money, or are just interested in seeing economical alternatives, then make sure to tune in for a Saturday morning post with the freebie fun!

About 5 days left to chime in on the camera quantity poll, so don’t forget to vote.  I’d also be interested in seeing how people have been doing with the Online Photography Test   Care to share your scores, ideas, and suggestions for improving and/or expanding on this?  E-mail me or post to the blog.  So, until tomorrow – if you’re going out, be sure to take your cameras.  Happy shooting and watch those apertures! 🙂

A marriage made in Heaven – FTP and Raw

JasonLeave a comment

Yes, that’s right, I am taking a pretty drastic departure from the alliterative titles for posts, but today the two topical subjects are so widely divergent, the title seemed rather amusing. As most of my readership knows, I have been working for some time no on a variety of articles discussing how to create and publish your photos in an online web gallery. For those of you that missed the first few articles, check out the first two articles here and here. Well, today is the unveiling of the 3rd chapter – FTP software. I give a short comparative explanation of a few interface options for both Mac and Windows. That article will be downloadable at the end of the post.

For the other half of the post today, I’d actually like to give some kudos to Scott Kelby over on his blog Photoshop Insider, where he gives an excellent summary of the differences between how Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) functions in Photoshop versus Bridge and versus Lightroom. I know quite a few people (myself included at least initially when LR first came out) had some trouble grasping the differences between each of these uses, and Scott really gives an good post on clarifying this. Plus, it’s Scott Kelby, so there’s always some humor thrown in for good measure! Check it out when you have a minute.

We’re probably not going to get the needed count of 100 votes in the poll for this cycle, but if you haven’t yet, register your category today (see right hand panel for options). I’ll hopefully have a more thought-provoking poll available in May. I’m sure there’s more news to report, but what with getting the photo site (www.jasons-photography.com) more inline and presentable, as well as getting some actual business cards made up and starting to advertise and promote things, I’ve not read much on the web lately. For a good web resource on many of the latest happenings, stop over at Jason D. Moore’s site. He gives an excellent wrap-up every Monday, and has links to a lot of the more popular blogs and photo outlets on the net. He’s linked on the side panel too as I am a member of his blogroll (I actually had the honor of helping out and sitting in on a weekly P&P a week or so ago… *waves to Jason in case he’s reading*…)

Finally today, an amusing shot of the dog from messing around with ambient light earlier today on our afternoon walk (and I am starting to include larger sized images to share so if you click on the pic, be prepared for a pretty large image (1023×646):

maggie.jpg

So, with an article, a web link and a potd, I bid all the reading and viewing audience a good evening and wish you happy shooting tomorrow. Remember to watch those apertures! 😉

Meaningful Monday Materials

JasonLeave a comment

Yeah yeah, I know, sometimes the alliteration gets old, but it really is a disease for someone who enjoys to write! Anyway, resuming the content on how to create web galleries, I thought that today would be a good day to share the next chapter draft with the reading/listening/viewing audience.

This go around, it’s Chapter 3 which talks about some of the basic coding concepts. If you are going to be customizing your web galleries from software like Lightroom or Photoshop, some basics of coding concepts are helpful to get the end results you need. Thus, I’ve put together a very basic, but detailed article that talks about the most basic of coding, being HTML and CSS. I also include some useful resources for those interested. Anyway, not much else to report today. For some news and events from around the web, stop over to Jason D’ Moore’s site for his Monday P&P Blogroll. (Thanks for the linkback Jason, and helping out last week was a lot of fun, let me know if you ever need any assistance – it really kept me on my proverbial toes!) 🙂

Happy shooting all, and watch those apertures! Here’s the link to the PDF article:  Coding Basics.pdf

Here we go again…another round of web galleries!

JasonLeave a comment

It’s Monday again, and I’ve been working on the first round of revisions to my set of articles on creating a web gallery. As the age old saying goes, if you really wanna learn the nitty gritty of how to do something – try teaching it! To take that to the next level, try teaching it without an audience!

After sharing my first rough draft of the Introductiion and Chapter 1, I saw some areas where improvement was (and possibly is still needed.) I tapped away at that over the weekend, since the weather turned out to be such a downer (cloudy with a chance of rain and just blustery and cold – bleah!). So, no shots to share today, instead it’s a revision of the Chapter 1 for the new set of articles. Also, I am pleased to say that Tuesday’s tutorial is finished and should be prepped for early release, so it should be available after work today. In the meantime, here’s the edited Chapter 1. Feel free to share your thoughts, feedback and discussion in the comments section. Until this afternoon then, hope all your snaps are good ones! Happy shooting and watch those apertures!

The Nitty Gritty on Photoshop Express

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I was going to wait until Monday to make this post, but in light of all the hubub, decided to go ahead and make an exception this go around and do a weekend post.  So…without further ado:

Adobe on Thursday unveiled it’s latest incarnation of photo editing software, an online editor it’s calling Photoshop Express. In the aftermath of the online communities reviews, first looks, tutorials and grabbing the headlines, some salient questions are coming to the fore on the value that PE will bring to the marketplace.

What is Photoshop Express?

First and foremost, even heavyweights from NAPP are quick to say that PE is not really Photoshop. Scott Kelby, Matt K., Dave Cross, and the whole bunch were clearly in on the development, but only to a degree – since the Photoshop moniker was there on release. In retrospect, Adobe may re-brand this down the road so as to clear up perceptions of what it’s trying to accomplish here. With that in mind, it does seem pertinent to say that Adobe is likely trying to bring a web-based application into play that can compete with the likes of popular online image-sharing repositories like Facebook, Photobucket, and Picasa (which you can log in to via the PE interface with what is likely a means to transfer images from one repository to another.) It does seem interesting that there is no similar facility in place between PE and Flickr though…perhaps someone could share some thoughts on that in the comments?

The Legalese

The other big hubub surrounding the release was a bit of legalese that granted Adobe some pretty potent rights on images uploaded. Full terms are disclosed here. The specific part that many seem to be having an issue with though, are on transference of licensing. Specifically, the terms stated that:

“Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.”

Apparently there was enough of an outcry (especially the license granting) that Adobe is re-writing the terms to accommodate the concerns. This comes according to some news from the blog of John Nack (who works for Adobe). It will be interesting to see how things roll out from here.

Photoshop Express Backlash

Finally, a question about its value came up on the NAPP forums where members share their feedback on everything NAPP and Kelby Training has going on. Some have expressed concern that even though the new application is being touted as intended for the “18-24” crowd, that with the photo editing that is available, this could further dis-illusion the average Joe Public into thinking that they can do their own photo editing and no longer need professional photographers. As one poster put it, “it’s giving the consumer a false sense of what it really takes to truly manipulate and retouch photo[s]”.

Conclusions

From my perspective, as both a photo enthusiast and as a consumer, that this is merely an attempt by Adobe to expand their market footprint. They’ve already got the pros and enthusiasts (like myself), but there is a huge market share out there of the next generation to appeal to and gain market share from. With the internet expanding past its infancy and getting to the point of ubiquity, the growing trend for online collaboration and Web 2.o applications becoming more common, it only makes sense for Adobe to expand in this regard. Why should other companies like Facebook, Photobucket and Picasaweb get exclusive access to this demographic?

As for the notion that PE will dip into the market share of professional photographers and retouchers – it’s unlikely to have an impact on the higher end professionals that cater to corporations, businesses, and clientele who are interested in the highest quality. Where there likely will be some fallout is the GWOC (guy-with-camera/gal-with-camera) who wants to hang out a shingle. It’s actually a win-win situation for Adobe because the GWOC’s will find that there is no market for them unless they upgrade their skills and buy a higher end product like full versions of PS. At the same time, the next generation of photo enthusiasts is likely to try this Photoshop Express for a while, then want to do more. It would only make sense to “upgrade” to the standalone application for their computer. My hats off to Adobe for an excellent marketing plan to expand their footprint in todays competitive marketplace.