Monthly Archives: March 2009
Come on Ride the Train
It’s somewhat fitting this week that yours truly is making serious use of the mass transit in Denver because a project that has finally come to fruition is a photo-themed shoot of trains. I’ve always found them quite interesting, and only recently did I come into possession of a very high quality model train to pose as I desired for specific types of compositional and focal impressions. Since the podcast isn’t quite finished, I figured now would be as good a time as any to share with you a sampling of my Train project… So, there’s the “Train Series”. I … Continue reading
The basement is… FINISHED!
Okay, you might be inclined to skip today’s post since it is totally a personal post, but don’t do that because it still has something to do with photography (I took some pics of the progress, but they are not really all that great n terms of image quality – horrible on-camera flash, poor lighting, and just no lighting). Nevertheless, in the interests of full disclosure, this is more just a Monday brag session! Additionally, I should also note that the project was finished a while ago (two maybe three weeks), but I am just now putting all the shots … Continue reading
I’ve got friends in snow places
Okay, it’s a lame title, but my day has been centered around the blizzard conditions in and around the metro Denver area. With some areas near where I live experiencing whiteouts, we had a fun time of things today wit traffic, early closures, and the whole 9 yards. Tracy actually was the one who took the day off ahead of schedule (smart gal that wife of mine) and then braved the elements to come pick me up after the mass transit shut down service to my parking place. After a fender bender of her own – we finally got home … Continue reading
Thursday Thoughts with… Scott Eccleston
I am happy to report that the weekly series where I interview fellow photographers and share their thoughts and perspectives here on the blog. This week, I’d like to welcome Scott Eccleston to the stage. Scott has his own blog and shares his thoughts and ideas on a regular basis so be sure to stop over at his site where he shares Weekly Photo Tips! Without further ado, here’s the latest in the revived Thursday thoughts series, with Scott Eccleston! Q: Hi Scott, welcome and thanks for agreeing to participate in the latest edition of the Thursday Thoughts series. Since … Continue reading
How do you like to sound?
In preparation for the next podcast, due in no small part to a technical difficulty with Garage Band, I’ve set up a dedicated computer and recording space (call it my dedicated recording studio) and the audio quality is off the charts better than anything I’ve done before. Ironically, the new topic for this weeks podcast is also about sound – the sound of shutters and how they can impact the feel of the camera, and how they can effect a moment is significant enough to warrant consideration. Make sure you tune in for this one from the good folks over … Continue reading
Urgh – thith code hath sthopped the blog
Nyquil, Robitussen, Theraflu, Zicam, Sudafed – all for nada, zip, zilch, and a big fat doughnut. Sorry all, the fog is just too deep to come up with anything coherent. Don’t drop me from the feed reader just yet, as I think the haze is starting to clear some. Be sure to stop back friday for a hopefully more coherent post about something related to photography – perhaps even a podcast (if you like the sound of hacking lung, runny nose, and pregnant pauses as I try to remember what it was I wanted to say…). In other words, today … Continue reading
Tidbit Tuesday
Been fighting a bug that’s been going around for the past few days so don’t have much news or information from a photography perspective to share. On a personal note, I finally caved in and got an iPod for listening to the spate of podcasts that I enjoy during my daily commutes. The playback, interface, and storage capacity makes for a world of difference. For those that are interested in which iPod, I put together a little YouTube video to show the “unboxing”: Enjoy and Happy Shooting! We’ll see you back here tomorrow (when I’ll hopefully have a podcast ready … Continue reading
An Interview with Peggy Dyer…
As you may recall, a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting up with Peggy Dyer, a professional photographer here in Colorado, and I got to learn about her latest project – One Million Faces. We got a chance to sit down a second time and I learned a lot more about her creative energy, where she finds inspiration, and about where the One Million Faces project found it’s genesis. In addition, we also got to talk in more detail about the Lensbaby series of lenses, starting with the first one ever, going through the most recent Lensbaby … Continue reading
Some assembly required
As promised from yesterday, here is the assembly line of computes I unboxed: And then here’s the boxes that I consolidated all the accouterments into: Thankfully, the laptops didn’t come in today, so we had a brief respite. Monday’s gonna be fun though! I think I am going to try and enjoy this weekend! You be sure to do the same. Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again on Monday.
Unboxing strategies…
The folks over at This Week in Photography (aka TWIP) had a post earlier this week that gave a suggested checklist to follow when unboxing new gear. As you all know how much a fan of checklists I am, I started giving this some thought about what sort of unboxing strategy would work best in my own patterns of gear management and setup. Then toda at work, we got in 23 new computers. This means we now have: 23 CPU’s 23 Monitors 23 keyboards 23 mice 23 VGA cables 23 USB cables 23 power adaptors 46 power cords (one each … Continue reading
News, Artists, and Inspiration
Welcome to the show notes for week #17 of Learning Digital Photography. Here’s the show notes for this week’s podcast… First off, I’ve done some further tweaking to give a little more consistency and structure to the show for your listening pleasure. The three segments that I am going to try to regularly stick to will be: News, Events, and Information from around the community and industry – here I’ll share nuggets, information, and other useful snippets from the most recent days and weeks of activity within the photography community. Sometimes I’ll share information that’s available elsewhere, and other times … Continue reading
DST Blues
Yep, the ole Spring Forward/Fall back bug bit us this past weekend. On top of that, a rather late night on Saturday has re-doubled its effect on me today. Since I am an admitted night owl, the mornings did not afford me the time to put together the blog post for Monday. So…sports fans, today is officially a bleary-eyed no blog day! Tune in tomorrow for the (semi) weekly podcast, some photo goodness, and a tweak in the podcast format for even better delivery to the fabulous listeners. In the meantime… zzzzzzzzzz
Is 12 enough?
An interesting news story came my way today over on CNet where Akira Watanabe, manager of Olympus Imaging’s SLR planning department said that most needs of most people can be met with a 12MP camera. The full story is here, but does bring what has been an ongoing discussion into a more defined state. As we’ve seen megapixel counts increase from counts lower than 3 MP less than a decade ago to counts that now are at 12 MP or higher, discussions have arisen throughout the industry on “How much is enough?” From my perspective, I would agree that 12 … Continue reading
Go soak your gear!
It pays to review your web traffic periodically because I just learned a way that your bathtub can be used for photography! Not only is it a good place to mellow out after a stressful shoot, but it also makes a heckuva softbox! I was on a forum that had referenced the blog and a guy had some product that he placed in his tub. I thought it was an interesting idea, and decided to give it a try. As it turns out, the tub is a great place to put your gear! Granted, not to soak it (sorry, but … Continue reading
Setting bracketing exposures – shutter priority
As promised yesterday, today I will be talking about bracketing your exposures based on shutter priority. After a couple comments yesterday that it seemed unusual to bracket on aperture rather than shutter speed, I felt that in this companion post I should acknowledge that, it is. The reason for the post? One of the downsides I mentioned is that your depth of field will change considerably from a wide open setting to that of, say, f22. That can also be an upside though because as you merge bracketed exposures into an HDR image, you can also add depth of field … Continue reading
Setting bracketing exposures – aperture priority
Over the past few years, I’ve had several people ask me how to set bracketing exposures on camera bodies for multiple exposures. When I say multiple exposures here, I am talking in excess of 3 shots. The reason for this is because by default, most Canon cameras (at least all the ones I’ve put my hands on) only have a single over and underexposure allotment on each side of the initial exposure settings. Let’s take a look at the numbers…say we meter a scene and it says that according to the center point, we should be at f8, with an … Continue reading
Monthly Poll – Twitter and Blogging
I was talking with a friend on Twitter last night, and despite the etiquette against chatting back and forth repeatedly, we had quite a lively discussion on the subject of using Twitter to promote/market/advertise your blog. Rather than regale the readership with the discussion, I’ll simply leave the voting unhindered by personal bias, save for one link – a post one of us read on Twitter etiquette a while back: http://tinyurl.com/5lcrqr With that pretext set, we’d all be interested in hearing the blogosphere thoughts on this subject. So, vote in the poll, then chime in with the comments – the … Continue reading
News and Updates
Just a few little tidbits for everyone today: The “Name Your Dream Assignment” is in full swing – you can describe your ideal dream photo assignment and with enough votes (it’s entirely a popularity contest) you could win $50,ooo toward actually getting it done! I did an entry just for the heck of it as well. If you would like to enter the contest (or vote on my entry, stop over here: Win a Dream Assignment You’ll probably notice a graphic for it in the sidebar too… Also, a reminder that the Twitter/Blogging poll I set up a few days … Continue reading →