It’s one thing to come out every day with good solid advice for how to do anything, whether it’s manage your finances, run a business, or (as is the case here), how to take better pictures. It’s another thing entirely to follow ones’ own advice. There are countless instructors out there that offer great learning resources, and have an online presence that illustrates how to do things correctly, yet many would have to fall back on the axiom of “Do as I do, not as I say.” We’re all guilty of this occasionally, but I try to stay more to the side of practicing what I preach. Continue reading “Practice What You Preach”
Tag: maintenance
Please stand by…optimizing
You know these things, right? The hourglass in Windows, the spinning color wheel on the Mac – all signs that your computer is doing important stuff, right? Well, it happened to me last night in the middle of, well….nothing really, I was just surfing the web, reading some of my daily hits. Continue reading “Please stand by…optimizing”
The Best Lens on the Planet!
Imagine the following lens:
-
- Can capture wide angle panoramas
- Can capture detail as close as one inch away.
- Can capture detail as far away as 300 feet in most cases.
- Can adjust to extreme low light scenarios in an instant
- Can adjust to extreme bright light scenarios in an instant
- Can capture HDR imagery with no post processing
- Can capture 3-D in the truest sense of the word
- Can capture images with no pixelation
- Can capture the widest tonal range available in the visible light spectrum.
How much would you spend on these lenses? How much would you protect, treasure, and cherish them? We all love our high quality optical glass whether we be Canonites, Nikonians, Pentaxians, Olympians or whatever. Across all brands, we know the value of high quality optics, and also know that such optics do not come cheaply.
We also know that owning such gear requires regular maintenance. I know people who take a lens out of it’s case, place it on a camera, take a picture, and when done, replace it right back in the case. When the lens costs upwards of $5000 or even $10,000 for the super zooms, it’s understandable. Many would say that even the most expensive lenses in the market today do not meet all of the above 9 criteria. So, it’s kind of hard to put a price on such a hypothetical lens.
However, we are all given two of these lenses by default – even before we got into photography. What are these two lenses that are priceless? OUR EYES!
Think of all the time we spend cleaning our lenses, wiping them down, avoiding scuffs, chips, and keeping away from dust and dirt as much as possible. Then compare that to the amount of time we spend maintaining our optical health. It’s kind of ironic, eh?. So many of us take our eyes for granted. The moral of the story?
GET YOUR EYES CHECKED REGULARLY!!!
I just got back from my annual eye exam the other day, with some good and bad news. The good news is that the glaucoma and macular degeneration which runs in the family (both sides) has not reared its ugly head yet. The bad news is that apparently I am getting to an age in my eye health where I need a little assistance at both the near and far end of vision – in other words: bifocals! *shudder*
While it’s not the end of the world, and I certainly can swallow my pride, accept the fact that my eyes will see better and get the glasses, it is just another anecdote where a little education can come from it – to take care of your own lenses (your eyes). After all, without your own lenses, the rest of the lenses in the world won’t make a difference! On that note, let’s get out and use our eyes to capture the world around us! Happy shooting, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!
News and Nuggets
Hey all, just a couple notes and bits of maintenance for everyone this Thursday. The first ever contest for the Learning Digital Photography podcast is now underway, so be sure to post your images in the thread over at Flickr in order to participate.Some lucky listener will win a copy of Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom 2.0. You do have to have a Flickr account to post images there, but registration is free (and if you have a Yahoo account, you already can get into Flickr). A couple links to make note of:
In some other maintenance notes, the podcast has gotten a few more reviews at iTunes and Diggs over at Personal Life Media – thanks to those that have shared their thoughts and feedback, your support means a lot and every little bit helps. Here’s the links for those that would like to add to the support:
- Review on iTunes
- Digg the Podcast at Personal Life Media
Last but not least, it became official the other day that I will be in attendance at the Lightroom workshop here in Denver coming up on May 20th Being led by none other than Scott Kelby, of NAPP fame, I’ll be getting even more up to speed on how to use Lightroom as the primary means for my photography work flow. I’ll likely have a few posts worth of material to share with the readership shortly thereafter. (Who knows – I might be able to snag a pic or two out of it too!
So, that’s it for today – sorry for the lateness of the post. Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!
Hardware Review: Canon 10-22mm
Happy Monday to all! Today is an exciting day here at the blog, because a new schedule of sorts is going to start, both to make reading more enjoyable, and to make writing more planned and easily executed.
The reason behind the new flow is due to many listener questions asking a wide variety of questions, ranging from hardware questions to software questions, technical questions, work flow questions and the like. So, in the interests of providing answers to each of the wide subject matter areas, here’s the new schedule:
- Monday: Hardware – I’ll take a look at hardware components, ranging from lenses to bodies, attachments and accessories. This could come in the way of a review, a summary, or other commentary.
- Tuesday: Software – many elements of photography involve using software, whether it be organizing your library of images, to managing that library, and editing idividual photos. Here is where I’ll take a look at software reviews, editing tips and tricks, considering work flows,and other similar subjects.
- Wednesday: Composition – As with anything else, you only get better when you practice what you preach. We can only learn so much from reading – and today I’ll focus on the “doing”. How to take better pictures, what elements of composition work, what elements of composition don’t work, what to look for, what to avoid… things of that nature.
- Thursday: Free-for-all – Who knows what may happen – I’ve been doing the “Thursday Thoughts with…” series, and this may happen from time to time – I’ll keep everyone on their toes with this post! (This will probably also be the post that includes show notes for the weekly podcast hosted over at Personal Life Media, Learning Digital Photography.)
- Friday: Weekly wrap-up – news and events of the week, notable items of interest to photographers, and the occasional note with blog announcements, and other administrative types of things.
So, in kicking things off, here is the first installment of a look at some of the hardware in my own gear bag (since many of you dear readers have asked about that stuff specifically). This week, I take a look at the 10-22mm lens from Canon.
This lens has been the premiere wide angle lens for quite some time, as the widest non-fisheye available on the market. Only recently have Sigma and now Nikon added this specific range to their inventory of available lenses. I absolutely love this lens and have used it for everything from landscape work to architecture work, and even some portrait work when I am going for a unique look. In general you won’t use a wide angle lens for portrait work because of the distortion that can occur when you get up close. This distortion can work to your advantage if that is the look you are going for though. Alternatively, if you have a larger group of people, a wider lens may be required to fit everyone in the scene.
Fitted with the well-regarded USM feature for Canon lenses, I also love this lens for it’s whisper quiet and fast focusing. You almost can’t even hear it as it locks in on your point of focus.
On the downside (if this can be considered one) – because it is an EF-S lens, this will not work on the full frame cameras. So, shooters using the Canon 1Ds series (Mark II or III). While full-frame lenses may be the future of digital photography, there are enough people out there with the Rebel series, and the family of 20D-50D bodies that can really take advantage of this lens. I have to give this lens two thumbs up!
ETA: Update: I had inadvertently made the notation that the 10-22mm is an “L” lens from Canon. This is not the case – thanks go out to Bill for detecting this. While it was a typo, the disctintion is an important one because Canon designates their high end glass with the letter “L”.
Facelift Friday
With February now in the archives, I figured this may be as good a time as any to get a head start on some Spring Cleaning with the blog. The theme I had been using for the last year or two had been getting a little dated, and the designer has not issued any updates since 2007. Additionally, some portions of the blog just were taking more muscling to conform to the evolving standards of CSS, XHTML, plugins, and even WordPress itself. So, consider this a Facelift Friday!
Those of you on the blog, you can see what I am talking about – this new theme is much more photo friendly – the header image is more standardized, so I can start putting more of my images into the rotation for everyone to enjoy. Plugins also enjoy more support, as does the RSS, calendar, and other sidebar features. For those of you picking this up via the feeds, please take some time to stop over and enjoy the new layout. This is, of course, the “first look”, and I will likely be making some adjustments as things settle in, including widening the body width for the main posting area, and dressing up the edges a little. Any ideas for what to consider? More pics? Perhaps some page links? (I noticed the pages area is now not visible from the main one…) Feel free to chime in now while I am still in “clean-up” mode!
Okay, so the Spring Cleaning is a little premature, but felt it was needed due not only to update some features, but also due to some coding deficiencies were brought to my attention (thanks, and shout outs to Kerry of Camera Dojo!). Anyway, on a happy note, I’ll leave you with a little WTD humor since it’s been a while for a comic post:
Have a great weekend, and don’t forget to share your thoughts on the new theme/layout in the comments – it’s now or never to see your feedback implemented! Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here Monday morning!
Maintenance Monday (and a book review…kind of)
Hey all, it’s been a busy couple of days for the blog. I’ve been doing some research and maintenance on the blog to try and keep things interesting and to hopefully let more people know about the articles, essays, tips, tricks, techniques, and such that I’ve been sharing now for the past 9 months. I realized that I was in dire need of this when I saw my post count was up near 200 (hint: Thursday will be significant…) and I had not really taken any measures to get the blog registered in any directories.
So, after some research and study, I took some time Friday and Saturday to look at a number of directories and the types of blogs that are typical of those various venues. A couple that caught my eye include:
- Alltop
- Podango
- PodcastReady
Of these, Alltop is definitely one of the coolest ones as they have a Photography category. On looking at the category, pretty much every blog that I’ve ever been to was on there along with a few that I’d not heard of. So, I sent them an email to inquire, and as you can probably tell from the new Directory listings on the side panel, they seemed willing to at least give me a try. So, thanks and shout outs to Alltop for the quick addition. Fair warning though – for those of you that may stop in there, you will likely find new must reads to add to your daily surf list. The one that caught my eye is a blog called Hyperphocal, with Chris Bergman. While still fairly new, the approach he seems to be taking with the blog is very similar to the one here at CB – sharing information, helping other photographers, Plus, his own blogroll reminded me of Digital Camera Resource, which I’d known about but forgotten for some time. So, thanks to Chris for putting that back on my radar.
Back on the directory subject though, the listings have been moved in the side panel to the bottom, as has the Google search box and the Feedburner subscription box. I think putting all that material in the same area gives a cleaner and smoother look to the blog. An iTunes one should be up shortly, I’ve just not had a chance to get the graphic I am looking for. If anyone has other subscription services they use, or that they can recommend, I am open to suggestions here as well. Feel free to stop in to any of these directories and share your thoughts of the blog, I’ve provided direct links to those directories where CB is already live.
The last bit about podcast directories though – even though I’ve been blogging and podcasting for a little over 9 months now, the idea of promoting the blog/podcast is somewhat foreign to me. Adding CB to a few directories seems like a good idea, but I would like to hear what others might suggest for venues or approaches to take. Should I promote the blog? If so, where? How? Are the ones I picked popular? I am in uncharted waters here, so would appreciate any suggestions or comments from the readership. if you’re reading directly, feel free to post in the comments. If you are reading from a feed, or would prefer to to comment publicly, please feel free to drop me an email. The address (as always) is jason <AT> canonblogger <DOT> com.
Other maintenance I did on the blog:
I removed the Dig button that was on each post. With a grand total of perhaps 20 digs over the last nine months, it was just another graphic that was taking up space and slowing down the blog more than it needed to. So, unless I start hearing screams for it back (which I doubt), the Dig button is toast!
A few pictures were added to the header rotation. I manually rotate that periodically to change out the look and feel, depending on the post of the day, so you may start seeing a little more variety there. If I can get to it on my “To Do” list, I’ll try to add full-size versions of the header images to the Flickr photo stream.
In photo news today, I got my copies of two reprints I ordered through reading The Online Photographer. The titles are “The New West: Landscapes Along the Colorado Front Range” by Robert Adams, and “The Photographer’s Eye“, by John Szarkowski. Being a Coloradan at heart, I tore the shrink wrap off Mr. Adams book first. I’m about a third of the way through it, and the black-and-white approach he takes to address both the man-made and natural landscapes (especially along the corridor of I-25) are pretty interesting. I would definitely recommend at least seeing if your local library has a copy of this book. I know spending $20 on a book of pictures can be off-putting to some, especially when we are trying to create our own works and possibly our own books. Nevertheless, I am quite happy with the purchase as viewing the works of others helps me to refine and hone my own vision that much more. Thanks to Mike J. from TOP for the heads up on these reprints – hopefully the few pennies he got from the referral purchase will pay for at least a few minutes worth of hosting!
Last, but not least, you may have noticed from the casual reference above, CB has joined the Flickr frenzy. That’s right, there is now a Flickr group for the blog. As I mentioned, I will start uploading full-size versions of pics that are rotated through the blog header, as well as some other shots that may be fun to view that weren’t really “croppable” to header size (is croppable a word?). Anyway, on the Flickr group, anyone is welcome to share images, tips, tricks, ideas, suggestions, feedback, or just share photos with one another. Here’s the link for anyone who’s interested: Canon Blogger on Flickr Fair warning though – if I see pics in the photo stream there I will likely be giving shout outs and links to your stream on the site. (Just keep the images PG-rated is all I ask…)
Well, that should be enough news for Monday. Until tomorrow, keep on shooting and watch those apertures!