Category: Uncategorized

Friday Frenzy

JasonLeave a comment

Rather than the Friday follies, it was something of a Friday frenzy. I realized belatedly that next week Tuesday is New years Day, and I would be spending that time with family. So, to avoid going that long without putting out a new tutorial, I decided to put together a short one on vignetting. Since we’re all enjoying some slower times at work, and more times with family over the holiday season, I figured a vignetting tutorial might be an appropriate one given all the family and portrait shots that people are likely capturing.

So, I put together some materials for posting as a PDF, and decided to do the video-versions as well. So, in a rather rushed manner, here’s the latest tutorial from Canon Blogger. Since I will likely not be posting again between now and after the first, this is probably my last post of the year. I had wanted to get 25 in before years end, but falling only one shy is okay in my book. The other piece of exciting news is that I have finally finished the addition of a tutorial section for the website – ALL the video, PDF, and article contents, nicely assembled in one page. I’ve also thrown together some contact information, started a photo gallery section, and some other neat stuff. Many links are still not verified, but I suspect will be finished before the end of the year. Feel free to check back on your own as I’ll likely not have a chance to make that announcement directly until after the 1st. Here’s the link to that page:

Tutorial and Additional Resource Center

So… without further ado, enjoy the tutorial, linked below (I am using larger sizes that are not blog friendly, but on completion of the video, you do get bounced back here…)! Also take some time to enjoy family, friends, and loved ones for the rest of the holiday season, and I’ll resume the posting and podcasting next year! 🙂 Happy New Year all…

CB #24: Artistic Vignetting

Wednesday Web Links

JasonLeave a comment

Having travelled during the recent holiday, a few photography-related issues came up during my travels.  First off, was the procedures used to handle photography equipment.  While travelling, my gear list included the following:

  •  Apple Macbook Pro
  •  Canon Rebel XT
  •  Canon 18-55mm kit lens
  •  Sigma 70mm f2.8 lens
  •  Canon 530 Speedlight EX
  •  Various CF cards, batteries and charging mechanisms

 Prior to entering security checkpoints, I pulled my laptop out, set it in its own container, and sent it through the security X-Ray.  Nothing I had was ever submitted to additional inspection.  This was quite the opposite experience that others have recorded on their blogs (see Scott Kelby’s experience recounted here). It was quite a pleasant experience.  One thing that helped me move through my travels with ease was in knowing the expectations of the TSA, and what they look for and like to see.  For example, I also know from previous experiences that leaving your batteries inside the flash will display oddly on their X-Ray scanners, so I always make sure batteries are removed from devices when packing.  It also helped to check the TSA restrictions and guidelines on their website (especially since my wife enjoys her lotions and potions).  So, in the interests of sharing that information with others, here’s the TSA link for permitted/prohibited articles:  TSA List.  Needless to say, DSLR’s are not subject to additional searches or inspections by any regulation in place with the Transportation Safety Administration.

 The other thing that I encountered specific to photography was how and where we are permitted to take pictures.  Without regaling all the details, here it’s enough to say that after a frustrating experience with a supervisor, I wanted to report him to the customer service department for his airline.  After snapping his picture, he suddenly became much more animated, and dashed off.  A few minutes later he confronted me with two local policemen who stated that “You can’t just take people’s picture anymore.”  At this point I replied, “Well, I am not sure what he told you, but the only reason I took his picture was to assist in reporting him to his superiors because he refused to even try to help me.  As far as taking people’s pictures, legally speaking, he has no right to privacy in a public place, and I can take his picture as long as I don’t use it to promote a commercial product.    Here’s a printout on Photographer Rights that may be of interest to you.”  For those interested in what I handed them, it said in part that:

 ” Members of the public have a very limited scope of privacy rights when they are in public places. Basically, anyone can be photographed without their consent except when they have secluded themselves in places where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy such as dressing rooms, restrooms, medical facilities, and inside their homes.”

 Suddenly these two officers, who were intending to interrogate me, turned their heads to him questioningly, clearly indicating he had recounted a very different story from what actually occurred.  Having this document also bolstered the evidence that I was within my right to do what I was doing.  So, I would encourage everyone to carry a copy of this with them.  Check it out here:  Photographer’s Rights.  Thanks to Bert Krages for putting this information together. Other than the flight delays and dealing with less than helpful airline supervisors, the holidays were quite enjoyable, and I hope everyone else had a great Christmas too.  See y’all tomorrow!

Monday Merriment

JasonLeave a comment

Good evening to the photo community.  As Tracy and I return from our travels up to the frigid northern territories of Ohio, we are so happy to have made the trip to visit family.  Christmas, after all, is about spending time with family.  So, a short post today, simply from me and my family here to you and anyone else out there who may be reading…

Merry Christmas !!!!

God bless us all…

(and no post tomorrow)

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.

Thursday’s Thoughts

Jason4 Comments

Wit the sidebar poll continuing to generate some increasing preferences toward PS CS3, I can’t help but wonder why more are not adopting LR as an alternative. My guess is that it has something to do with familiarity of the interface, as well as the support for dual monitors, and the added benefits of layers and filters. I’ve also heard from a few that profiling papers using LR is more challenging as well.

From this I am thinking that it may have been a little counterintuitive for Adobe to launch not one, not two, but three new software lines that in essence are competing with one another for market share. While I can see the merits of appealing to a [b]wider[/b] market share with a multi-faceted approach, I can also see some downsides. For those on a budget it seems clear that LR is the way to go, but with CS3 and CS3 extended, and the myriad of ways to obtain the software at serious discounts, I can’t help but wonder why LR would still be an option. I saw an academic price for CS3 extended recently at [b][i]under[/i][/b] $300! That’s within $100 of Lightroom!!! For me it’s a no-brainer, and I will definitely make the move to the Extended version after the holidays.

It does seem though that in using this multi-faceted approach, Adobe is appealing to a wider range of shooters. The “other” category seems rather low, which tells me people are not only choosing an Adobe solution for their work flow, but that they are also moving toward a dedicated solution that is geared towards their goals. I kind of feel bad for the competition as it seems with this approac, Adobe is goig to become the sole provider of photo editing software (that can be taken seriously anyway). That brings anti-monopoly issues into play and I can’t help but wonder if Adobe had considered this in their long-term strategizing….

In other news, the Photoshop Guys over at NAPP and Kelby Training have announced a whole new online training system. Now, instead of paying per class, you pay fur usage of the training resources, much like Lynda.com Some pretty big names in the photo education field are hopping on the coattails of Scott Kelby and his ever-rising presence in the training environment. Kudos to them and best of luck. Feel free to stop over at the NAPP site for more info as they will likely pimp that heavily for the next few months. Nothing wrong with self-promotion, and these guys definitely have it down to an art form. Anyone wanting to monetize their photo presence should take a hint from the methods they’re using over at NAPP and follow the leader (anyone else remembering the Honda commercials?)…congrats to the NAPP crew, and watch out Lynda.com!

Another totally random thought I’d had recently was on the layout and purpose of Canon Blogger.  As I’ve spent the vast majority of my posts either addressing industry news, events, information, and presenting tutorials, tips and tricks, that Canon Blogger could also use a face of just photos.  So….I started a blog over at the blogspot domain.  Canon Blogger was taken so, I had to take the next-best thing:  CanonBlogger1.  So…for a view of my photoblog (or as close to a photo blog as I dare to go), stop over to that page:  Canon Blogger’s photo posts to enjoy some of my digital photos, all taken from my Rebel XT.  (Some day, the elusive 40D will be within my grasp…with fellow photogs and blogers as my witnesses, I promise that will happen….when I can’t say, but my suspicion is shortly after the X-Mas tree comes down! 😀

Last but not least, it seems the latest Tutorial from thursday is going to garner a new record number of site visits based on my analytics metrics as of right now, so thanks to all who have stopped in to view the tutorial. It’s down a couple posts by now, but feel free to visit the flash page from here: Faded Antique Effects

My wife and I are sitting in an airport in Charleston SC waiting for our flight to Ohio for the holidays, so I might not post again until after Christmas. I have a feeling I will get an opportunity, but just in case, let me take a moment to be specifically and intentionally non-PC and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

That’s all for today. Anyone that would like to share their comments/replies/thoughts from todays post is encouraged and welcome to share in the comments section below, or to email me directly. My addres, as always, is jason <AT> canonblogger <DOT> com. Happy shooting, and have a good afternoon – get that shopping done!

Wednesday on the Web

Jason1 Comment

For my first post of “Wednesday’s wonderfully wise web gems” (it’s an addiction, I know…), take some time to stop over at Scott Sherman and Michael Stein’s Digital Photography Show. Self-admitted non-pros give great information on events in the industry, interview industry-leading experts and big wigs, as well as some pretty innovative contests with cool prizes. Their average podcast length ranges between 45 minutes to an hour and change. Another great resource is Photoshop User TV. Adobe gurus Scott Kelby, Dave Cross, and Matt Kloskowski deliver tips, tricks, news and events relating to Adobe products and share their thoughts on gear in a half hour long video podcast every Monday. They are all part of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals that offers training, and workshops for people of all skill levels on many of the Adobe products. Well worth the cost of membership too, and you get access to much more than a weekly video podcast including discounts from some of the most respected vendors of photography gear and products in the industry.

Last, but not least is Fred Miranda’s online photo community – with so many forums and communities it can seem like an insurmountable task to find the right ones that gel with your interests. Fred’s site is well organized, and offers something for everyone whether you’re a Canonite, Nikonian, a gear hound, a color guru, or like to just look at pictures. Another added bonus is that Fred sells actions for improving your work flow efficiency, and these are a great resource for a minimal investment ($5-$20). Product reviews, articles, and a great sense of community round out the forums quite well. Granted, I may be partial as I have been a member there for almost three years now, but the thoughts and perspectives of that community are quite valuable.

Don’t forget to vote in the poll – and see what is the most popular image editing software. The answer may surprise you! (It surprised me to see this one in the lead.. 🙂

The Digital Photography Show

Photoshop User TV

Fred Miranda

The weekly tutorial is up and available for viewing!

JasonLeave a comment

This weeks tutorial has been recorded, produced and published. Watch how to create a neat antique effect on your images. Because the tutorial shows a camera raw view, it does not fit a blog-sized flash screen, so my normal procedure for embedding the flash player in the blog will not work.  For an online streaming version, click the Flash link at the bottom of this post.  The Quicktime version is available as always for iPod or other media player via download. Enjoy the vid, and feel free to share your comments here on the blog or with me directly via email. My address, as always, is jason <AT> canonblogger <DOT> com. Thanks and enjoy the tutorial!

Flash Tutorial – Applying an Antique Effect to your Imagery

Tuesday Trivia Tickle…

JasonLeave a comment

Well, the Monday Minutiae did not happen as I had hoped (my pillow convinced me to deal with it instead…), so I guess Tuesday will get a temporary trivia tickle (I can’t help it – alliteration is my ”thing”.) Did you know that Canon currently has 64 lenses on their website for purchase as of 12-17-07. Here’s the breakdown:

  • Number of lenses w/IS: 17

  • Number of lenses w/USM: 46

  • Number of lenses at 2.8 or higher: 32

  • Number of dedicated macro: 5

  • Number of non EF-mount types: 4

  • Number of L Lenses: 25

  • Third Generation lenses: 3

  • Second Generation lenses: 9

  • First Generation lenses: 52

  • Digitally Optimized lenses: 2

  • Fisheye lenses: 1

  • Fixed Focal length lenses: 34

I put together a full spreadsheet of all these lenses including their body mount type, focal lengths, aperture size/range, glass quality, IS presence, generation, designation and USM presence. It’s a pretty handy reference, and if anyone wants a copy, feel free email me to request one. I’ll probably post it for download later this evening, so if you can wait until then, stop back to the blog after 4pm (Eastern time) to see if it’s available yet. Tonight I should have the weekly video tutorial finished so don’t forget to mark your calendars tomorrow to stop back and check out the latest. This weeks subject is “Applying an antique effect to photos”, specifically designed for those using Photoshop CS2. Watch the show to see where you can view the same methods for other software platforms! Until tonight then, happy shooting (and surfing)!

The spreadsheet file has been uploaded and can now be downloaded from here: Canon Lens Availability & Features

Alternatively, you can view a PDF version of it here:

Canon Lens Availability & Features

New Poll (both literally and programatically)

Jason3 Comments

In light of my recent foray into a solid system that has both portability and transparency for use across multiple software and OS platforms, I started a new poll. In doing so, I also realized the polling system was broken, and voting links were dysfunctional (I put the fun in dysfunctional, eh?). So…the polling plugin has been updated as well, and is now re-enabled. So, participate in the most recent poll: Let’s see which software package is the most popular – any guesses on which it will be?

Scott Kelby’s 7 Point System

Jason1 Comment

Reknowned photographer, and Photoshop/Lightroom posterboy Scott Kelby has released his latest book, the 7 Point System for Photoshop CS3, and it’s marching it’s way into people’s homes left and right.

While I am looking forward to getting a copy, I am also a little concerned about the fact that CS3 is in the title. Usually when a specific type of software is in a books title, it means that specific generation is required to take full advantage of the concept behind the book. This concerns me because while I do plan on getting to CS3 eventually, I am still fairly happy with CS2, and was not planning to upgrade any time soon. It also strikes me as a little odd as Scott has also indicated that Lightroom has also become a standard part of his work flow. So…what should the rest of us be doing? Should we be upgrading to CS3? Should we be going out and getting Lightroom? What about both? What about those that use alternative setups like Corel’s software, or even (gasp) The GIMP?

It seems that if this is a 7 point system that teaches you how to identify the “7 things” to take your photos from bland to beautiful, that these 7 things could theoretically be applied under a multitude of software setups. Is this another way of trying to convince us to upgrade to software when we really don’t need to? I am all for innovation and upgrading, and for improvements in technology, but if this is a system or a way of working with photographs, I would rather have a system that can be applied across multiple environments regardless of the underlying software.

I guess it’s the computer geek in me, because when troubleshooting networks and hardware problems, we follow a standard procedure for pinpointing problems. Very much like the scientific method, this works well regardless of whether you are in a Windows environment, Macintosh, Unix,Linux, Solaris, or any other setup. It works universally.

For the 7 point system to be effective (and the fact that Scott is trying to get copyright protection on the process) it seems this would thus be a process that could be applied across many environments. Ideally, that would be the case. et the title, and some of the comments on his blog, seem t suggest this system is somewhat proprietary to the CS3 setup. I’ve posted the question on his blog, so hopefully we’l find out about portability soon. More when/if that happens.

So, what about you, readers of CB? Has anyone out there read the book? What are your thoughts on it? Can you take the concepts and methods and port them to CS2, Lightroom, the GIMP, or some other software setup? I’d love to hear your feedback here (or via email). Thanks in advance for sharing any of your thoughts!