Monthly Archives: December 2009
37 out of 52
Can anyone guess the significance of the post title right off the bat? Any takers at all? For those that could, cool! For those that can’t, 37 is a reference to the last podcast for 2009! Episode #37 (Longevity of Lenses) is now available for your listening pleasure in iTunes and with the folks hosting the show directly on the web at Personal Life Media. It might be an hour or so actually before the show is available for download on iTunes, so hold off for a little there before downloading – you might get the previous episode! It does … Continue reading
The Life of a Lens
Yesterday we looked at things to consider when getting a new camera body…while the idea is all well and good, lenses are another story, and since we are likely to invest more in glass than in cameras (Have you seen the costs of some of the really good glass lately?), the life of a lens is something worth considering. In all things technology-related, there is a principle called Moore’s Law which states that technology will advance at a rate of re-doubling roughly every two years. While this principle was developed primarily for computers, we can draw similar analogies for digital … Continue reading
I Got a Camera for Christmas – Now What?
With the major holiday of the year behind us, many are proudly wielding new cameras…but many are also asking questions. The most popular question I am getting via emails is something along the lines of: “I got a new ______ for Christmas. Now What?” (Insert your own camera make/model in the blank) The answer to this really depends on what, if anything, you had before the new item made its way into your hands. For simplicity sake, I’ll break the response down to 3 different categories: 1. This is your first “serious” camera, and you are making the foray into … Continue reading
How To Make Your Pictures Sing!
While recently listening to This Week in Tech (a great podcast, and I highly recommend it), the show host, Leo Laporte, made an interesting observation about the advancement of technology. He was musing about the changes that have happened in audio consumption. We listen to much of our music in iPods and portable music players, when not too long ago, we were confined to a certain space. To that end, he noted that the technology of audio in those days revolved around things like the number of amps, tweeters and woofers, quadraphonics, decibels, and much of that technical information. We … Continue reading
speech recognition review
With time becoming and ever-increasing commodity, the ability to utilize speech recognition software has both benefits and disadvantages. And in the interests of sharing my initial experiences with speech recognition software here on the blog, today’s post comes to you courtesy of and open-sourced software application called “E-speaking”. On the initial install, I decided to take roughly ten minutes to let the program get used to my voice before it was accurate enough to consider using for writing a blog post. It’s still clearly is not accurate enough to rely on 100 percent of the time as a stakes clearly … Continue reading
Video Hosting Services Review
With the increasing popularity and discussion of video (we are always hearing about the convergence of photography and videography), I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the different video hosting services, and look at their functionality. So, earlier today I recorded a video using Quicktime Pro on the Mac, and tried uploading it to 3 different popular services: YouTube, Vimeo, and Animoto. Here are the videos in that order, followed by my thoughts on each: YouTube: Thoughts Price: It’s free! Nothing beats free in my book, and with the competitive landscape of technology, this is pretty … Continue reading
Last Minute Gift Guide
Is your shopping done? Mine isn’t – I am going to be braving the stores tomorrow for some last minute ideas I had that popped in my head over the weekend. Unfortunately for Tracy, she is not a photographer, so camera-related items are not really an option. But, if you are running out of time and ideas, rest assured, I’ve got a few more here for you today. Fair warning though, because when you’ve waited this long to shop, the sticker prices for items are generally in the higher end rather than the lower end. (You may recall that I … Continue reading
Episode #36 – The End is Near!
Okay, the end isn’t near, but the end of the year is near, and it’s time to start doing wrap-ups all over the internet and other publications. Heck, even Time Magazine has a photos of the year, as did Rangefinder, and many blog authors are doing the same. So, in the interests of always “doing something different”, I am inviting everyone that listens to the podcast and reads the blog to share your own thoughts of 2009 in the comments. Here’s the questions that I always think about at the end of the year: What was my best photo? What … Continue reading
Photo Notes, News, and Tidbits
Last couple days have been rather busy, so I’ve not had the time to get ahead in the blog postings. Clearly, Wednesday was a missed day,and here today just a few short notes to share as kind of a PSA (Personal Service Announcement) : 1. The CanonBlogger Facebook page is active (and available on the sidebar). Some have asked if there’s a way to make the posts there at least partially public to view links. As far as I can tell, there is not, so I will try to tweet those and post links in blog notes as well. Regardless, … Continue reading
Flickr Plugin for Lightroom
While recently participating in a Photowalk group outing to Rocky Mountain National Park, with the fellow local photogs, I learned about this great little plugin for Lightroom that allows you to export your photos directly to Flickr…all within Lightroom! It’s a pretty cool little plugin, and as you know, when I learn something new – so do you! This plugin comes courtesy of Jeffrey Friedl, and one of the greatest features of it is the cost – absolutely free! Well, that’s not exactly true, you do need to spend one cent via Paypal, but for a penny, check out what … Continue reading
There’s a fine line…
There’s a fine line between standing up for your rights and intentionally inciting controversy. As you may know, I have been known to stand up for my rights. At the same time I can also respect the need to be cautious, given the nature of the time that we live in. Since you probably are wanting to know where this is coming from, while going through my daily blog reads, and weekly reader posts, I was reading a post from friend-of-the-blog Becky Thomas. She had a post up on her blog about someone who was detained (note – detained, not … Continue reading
I’m dreaming of an HDR Christmas
Last night I got the bug to try something I’d seen before – the classic Christmas-y look with a score of music and a shallow depth of field. It was straightforward enough and after putting a piece of sheet music on the piano, and trying it that way, wasn’t getting the drop off in depth-of -field as I had hoped for. So, I took a different approach and put the music sheet flat on a table, knowing the dof would drop off that way, with the foreground out of focus and receding off in the background too. So, the second … Continue reading
The Beauty of Bokeh Revisited
I know – the blog has not gotten much attention lately. My apologies – but after the job loss, and pounding the pavement, my schedule has tightened up considerably, so the “planned posts” have pretty much been exhausted as I let myself get behind. The good news is that with several opportunities on the horizon, I am a little less stressed about “real world” economics, and can dedicate some time back to the blog. A few items of note: #1 – The Year End Blowout Bash is underway – and LDP/Canon Blogger is giving away a ton of goodies. I … Continue reading
Podcast #35 is now live!
The latest episode of Learning Digital Photography is now live and ready for your download and listening pleasure. As always, there’s news, interviews, and listener questions and answers – and this time it’s a theme of Treats, Travel and Tips. I had the pleasure of bringing Andie Smith back to the blog/podcast and we actually had a chance to sit down and really chew the fat on a lot of stuff. News Nikon Contest – $100,000 Giveaway! Saturday Night Live recorded on a Canon Techie Tips for Shooting at Holiday Events Interview with Andie Smith AndieSmithPhotography.net Andie.Smith on Flickr @AndieSmith … Continue reading
December Giveaway News
A few days late, but the year-end giveaway is quite exciting as there is just a ton of good stuff going into this giveaway. Here’s the inside skinny on what the winner is going to walk away with in December: A free copy of the “Within the Frame”, the wildly successful and great book donated by David DuChemin! A free copy of “Visionmongers”, the latest book from none other than David Duchemin! A free copy of Photomatix, the software known for its HDR processing, donated by the folks over at HDRSoft! A free 16″x20″ gallery wrap of a print of … Continue reading
December Calendar and blog alert
Happy Tuesday folks! A few curve balls have been thrown my way recently, so the content may shift a little and be more sporadic as I make some adjustments both professionally and personally. However, in the interests of keeping things positive, the December Calendar is ready for download! Enjoy the Christmas-themed desktop: Here are the dimensions available: 1600×1200 px 1280×1024 px 1024×768 px And for those of you that know the specifics of the curve ball – there’s a donation button on the sidebar! If you like the desktop calendar download, feel free to help off-set the curveballs from there … Continue reading
