Monthly Archives: June 2008
Monday Muscle Failure
This was quite the weekend! Two of three bedrooms have been cleaned up, packaged, and taken to an off-site storage so we can “stage” the house. Apparently staging a house is very important when selling. It helps “define the space” for the prospective buyer. Anyway, as a result of all the lifting, bending, pushing, pulling, hauling, and shoving (oh yeah, we packed some boxes too!), we are very much in a state of “muscle failure”. For the more athletically inclined, you know what I am talking about. For the rest, when you push your muscles to the brink of not … Continue reading
Friday Feel-goods
Found a couple neat resources around the web over the last few days. But, I am not gonna share them today. That’s right, the old bait-and-switch! I say something then switch gears once you’re hooked and talk about something else entirely. But, rest assured weary reader, I am not selling anything…yet! Quite simply – I got my 40D!!! That’s right, pulled the trigger, but the bullet, took the plunge, and every other metaphor you can think of. So, now with not one but 2 SLR’s in hand, I feel a little better knowing I have a backup. That means my … Continue reading
Browser Bewilderment
I normally don’t post twice on the same date, but something came up yesterday over at Scott Kelby’s blog that I felt compelled to let people know about it (in case you for some reason stopped here <strong>before</strong> stopping over there…). So, read this about FF3, but keep going down as there’s some buzz going on about his guest author yesterday – none other than Matt kloskowski. Enough of a buzz to even get lazy ole me off my arse! Anyway, two posts for the price of one today. First off, some browser bewilderment over Firefox3: Well,it’s not really … Continue reading
Write your own PS panels!
You know the Photoshop Guys are pretty well regarded by Adobe. When they stop to say something or make suggestions for future product features, the folks at Adobe do stop and listen. Scott K. did a few blog posts about this, and there is ample evidence that Adobe does in fact consider their suggestions in product design, development, and testing. Well, today, as a guest blogger for Scott…Matt Kloskowski brought some Super Genius ideas out, and had some “skeleton” drawings for possible consideration. The beauty of this was that not only did he give his thoughts, but he gave US … Continue reading
What’s This: Week 4
Now in it’s last installment for the month of June, “What’s This?” has become the most popular subject for the blog. Gary correctly guessed that last week’s What’s This was a shower head, so props, kudos, and congrats to Gary! Let’s see if someone else can mount a challenge this week. Here we go (and no more hints)…this week’s What’s This is: Good luck to everyone! If the fun continues, I may be able to start offering prizes too (depends on whether any vendor would be interested in sponsoring the “What’s This Weekly”…so, Canon, Adobe, USRobotics, Apple, Microsoft, Joe’s Tire … Continue reading
Tuesday Tech Talk: Canon ST-E2
This week, the Tuesday Tip is more of a “Tech Talk”. I got an email from someone inquiring about the Canon ST-E2 asking about how to use it, and what it’s compatible with. Taking a cue from this, I decided to make it a video tip from the MacbookPro,and set things up to give a basic primer on what the ST-E2 looks like, how it mounts to your camera, and how it triggers off-camera flashes electronically. Hopefully this will help demonstrate the purpose of the ST-E2 in a better light (bad pun, sorry…). Because it was recorded from the Mac … Continue reading
Monday Minutia: Memory Management
A post over on This Week in Photography got me thinking about my memory cards and the rituals or practices I take to conserve my image data. As they suggested over at TWIP, I do format my cards in camera prior to using. This in-camera formatting optimizes the data sectors and creates folders to organize image data. However, I also occasionally format my cards on the computer for that exact reason. Since the XT only has an image counter that goes to 100, whenever I pass that 100 mark, it creates a new folder. If I were to never format … Continue reading
The week in review
I know web links are typically done on Wednesdays, but a little schedule change was in order given the recent news from this corner of the internet. So, for this Friday, here’s some stuff I read around the web recently: Brian Reyman of Professional Snapshots has released a beta version of a neat Flash program for schematics of lighting setups. It’s a very helpful in documenting studio work and other such photo utilities. Best of all, it’s Flash-based so it will work on Mac and PC! Many thanks to Brian for all the time and energy he’s put into this … Continue reading
Hot and Cold Lighting
We all know that tungsten light is a warmer light (think regular light bulbs) and fluorescents and flash produce cooler lighting. While it makes sense, until I read an article by Peter Kolonia in Popular Photography, I have never thought of combining warm and cool light to produce different effects in a photograph. Since I’ve not tried this yet, I don’t have any sample pictures, but they should be viewable over at www.popphoto.com so stop over there to see samples in action. Basically, the article says that by lighting your subject with one tone and the background with another, you … Continue reading
Pics, Trips, and Tips
Welcome to week 3 of the “What’s This?” series! Last week I had a close-up shot with some great guesses including carpet, a towel, and a toothbrush – but the answer, as it turns out, is a candle wick! I had cropped out a portion of it, to give kind of a different twist! Thanks to all for participating! So, as we move into week3, here is another everyday object that I’ve zoomed in on, and taken a cropped portion to share. Can you guess what this is? In other news, it seems I will be somewhat busy over the … Continue reading
Another delay
Sorry all, but the tutorial will likely be delayed (or possibly postponed) for this week. Some news came in today that needed some time away from the computer and camera world – reality checked in and demanded attention. I’l be back tomorrow with this week’s edition of “What’s This” and a walk around the web! Thanks for understanding. Happy shooting and watch those apertures!
Tip Teaser
Due to birthday circumstances, spousal attention requirements, and other frvolities of life, the tip for Tuesday has not been recorded yet. I will try to get that recorded, produced, and published today. In case it doesn’t make it out though, the teaser for it is that it covers displacement mapping with some pretty neat effects as a result. So, check back in later tonight (I am guessing around 10pm EST) to see if I was able to crunch things together in time. If not, it will likely be published tomorrow with the latest edition of “What’s this?”. So, in the … Continue reading
Geographic Composition
Jason Moore has an ongoing activity where photographers from different parts of the globe capture their perspective on various themes. I was invited to join this group of photographers a short time ago, and this is now my second contribution to the activity. It’s quite a bit of fun as it challenges you to think in new ways, and in participating you get a chance to see other perspectives and ideas. This is probably one of the most useful ways that you can challenge your creativity and to find new sources of inspiration. Anyway, without further ado, the theme for … Continue reading
Rituals – Cleaning your Gear
Rituals are an important part of many cultures and belief systems. Yet rituals can also be patterns of behavior. We drive the same way to work every day, we tend to eat similar meals from one week to the next, and we do certain things each and every day, like brushing our teeth, taking a shower (hopefully anyway!), and a host of others. Well, just like other rituals, many of us become very fastidious about our work flow. We color manage things, we duplicate images, back them up, and save in multiple locations. Yet I’ve not seen anyone really talk … Continue reading
Magical Moments
Does anyone remember from earlier this week why this post is so momentous? This is magical post # 200 for Canon Blogger. A few days off here and there, but since inception back on August 21st, 2007, I have made sometimes silly, sometimes serious, and sometimes useful posts to Canon Blogger. It’s been a fun ride thus far, and rather than take the kind reader on a blathering journey through some deep, thoughtful, meaningful, and insightful post laden with pearls of wisdom, trinkets of tips, tricks and techniques, I would rather just take a moment to say: Thank you! Thank … Continue reading
Week 2: What’s This?
For Week 2 of “What’s This?” – the image is another typical household object, so, take a gander at the image above, then take a guess in the comments or via email…This is a _____(fill in the blank)! After a week of various responses both via email and in the comments, there was one correct guess via email, and the answer is – wait for it – a microphone! That’s right, my Sampson CO2 Condensor Mic that I record the podcast with almost every week. I zoomed in real close and didn’t even crop to produce the photo – so … Continue reading
Usual becomes unusual
The tutorial for this Tuesday, you may notice is not your typical Photoshop tip, trick, or tutorial. I took things outside of the desktop and into the real world to show you examples of thinking outside the box when it comes to lighting. By now we are all familiar with Strobist, and the methods he uses to encourage people to think about lighting and how to do things in an economically friendly way. Today, I wanted to take a moment to share with you a few lighting ideas I’ve had and some of the effects they’ve produced. None of these … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
Smell the Roses
Yes, we love this craft of photography, and we could spend every waking hour studying nuances of esoteric subjects related to the field, and peeping at the pixels of countless photos, analyzing techniques, and all that stuff. That wouldn’t be a very balanced existence though, and through having some balance, we can actually probably better focus on our craft when we do delve into it. So, for this Friday, I’d like to suggest taking a break from photos every once and a while. Consider taking time to “step back and smell the roses”, and stop just taking pictures of them! … Continue reading
Look for Lines
For this week’s edition of “Thursday Thoughts”, I’d like to take a look at the subject of composition. We always are striving to enhance our composition, either by understanding the rules of composition better, or by pushing the envelope in new directions. With the explosion of digital photography, the decreased price of entry, and the abundance of opinions, now more than ever, if you really want to succeed in photography, it helps to get a jump on the learning curve by a better understanding of what works consistently over time. There’s a reason why we often refer to the Rule … Continue reading
What is this?
Welcome to the Wednesday walk around the web. Before throwing the web gems for this week at you, I figured it might be fun to bring in a new feature for Wednesdays: “What is this?” I’ll take a shot of something at an unusual angle, perhaps zoomed in super close, or intentionally blurred. See if you can guess what it is (use the comments). If you’re right, guess what you win? That’s right! Fame, fortune, and glory! Well, not really – but you do win the “What is this?” for the week so you can brag to all your photo … Continue reading
Custom Brushes
For this weeks tutorial, I thought to take a look at custom brushes and brush sets. It can be a pretty handy thing to have some custom brushes of things you do often, or looks and styles that you apply often to your photos (such as a signature, copyright, or some other such logo). The idea came from someone in one of the photo forums (NAPP forums if I recall correctly), asking if there was a brush set out there that had a set of hash marks (like for the days of the week). We talked back and forth on … Continue reading
More coffee Monday
Judging from my soreness even today after a weekend of home improvement projects, I would imagine that tomorrow morning will be even more of the same – I will definitely be partaking of more than a few cups of joe to get me on my feet and functional. I did take some time to do some cleanup work of the weekend on the photo gallery side of things for my website and the project side of things for the blog too though. The lucky readers (lucky possibly being a subjective term in this case) will get a sneak preview of … Continue reading
