Category Archives: 350D
The 1D Mark Huh?
You knew it was gonna happen. A new camera body has hit the market from Canon. It was only a matter of time. The latest? The Canon 1D Mark IV! (That’s four in Roman numerals…) What’s it got going for it? Lots of features and functions. Everything is being discussed ad infinitum from Megapixels to frame rates, to video, to shutter speeds to ISO’s, and everything in between. In the end, I’ve come to one conclusion: the camera market is always changing, always advancing, and new gear is coming out all the time – from all the vendors. Want some … Continue reading
The Crop Factor…
First off, my apologies for the absenteeism yesterday. After a really fun photo shoot with some friends in downtown Denver (more on that next week), I got home super late (by working standards – my shift is 7-4 and I need to take a bus an hour to get there…so I leave at 6, which means I am up at 5!), and went almost straight to bed! Hopefully the content today will make up for this, because it’s time to talk about (cue fanfare music)…the crop factor! Now, before anyone gets all uppity because sensor crop factors have been discussed … Continue reading
The 40D versus the XT
We are now in day 5 of the first ever photo contest from Canon Blogger, so keep thinking freedom as you point that lens – it could win you cold hard cash! Check out the details from the post of July 3rd, here. In new news, I got a good long weekend with family to shoot with the 40D, and after some pretty extensive shooting (over 1500 shots in 48 hours), I’ve had a chance to get at least a good handle on the basics of the 40D. Granted I do not have the minutia of it down pat like … 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
Monday Pictures and Puzzles
Monday morning news. This past weekend I had a photo shoot I did for a co-worker and her kid (he apparently did not get very good school pictures this year). After about 20 minutes of shooting and putting him in various poses, I figured I had enough (about 50 shots) to get four poses for her to choose from. So, having done that, we sat back and sipped our morning coffee while the kids got ready to hit the beach. The older youngster was sitting around with us (older being relative – she was about 10-12). Playfully, without even looking, … Continue reading
No blog Thursday – smelling the flowers (and shooting the moon!)
Sorry all – after my Jalbum tutorial hit on Wednesday, I spent the better part of my afternoon and evening talking with some of their folks – and they want me to do a few more videos for them. I excitedly started talking logistics, and details before putting together a few short versions for use on the website. At 11:30, I realized – egad – I’ve not done my Thursday Thoughts yet! So…rather than try to cobble something together at the last minute, I’ll make this a no blog Thursday, and suggest that if you are still up, go outside … Continue reading
Photo Tuesday (to take your mind off taxes)
Since I devoted Monday’s post to the Photography and Photoshop Blogroll report for Jason D. Moore, my other announcement got shifted back a day, so this week things will be a tad more compressed. I’ll try not to bore you with excessive links and heavy-handed material where you have to read a lot. That means – it’s Photo Tuesday! (The tutorial will be released Wednesday…since there’s no “Wednesday Web Gems” for the theme.) Besides, since it is a blog that I am pretty much writing single-handedly, I can change things up if I want, right? So…for Photo Tuesday I thought … Continue reading
Monday Morning Meltdown
As a part of our daily routine, my wife and I take our dog for a walk every day of the week. Usually we both go, but if I am busy, or she is, the other will take the dog out so she gets her daily exercise. (The vet told us the dog was a tad on the heavy side – we just think she’s curvy!) Well, due to the time change, the sun was just coming down to the golden hours, so I couldn’t help but grab the camera and take it along in case some chance opportunity came … Continue reading
Canon in the News – XSi body to be released
Well, since I am an admitted Canonite, and the blog name has Canon as part of the identity, I guess I should also chime in with a report on the announcement that Canon is adding a new body to it’s SLR lineup. The XSi was announced last Thursday by Canon, and this is apparently an incremental upgrade to the XTi that now serves as the baseline consumer grade SLR. Designed to compete with the Nikon D40, it offers a slightly larger pixel count, and makes the transition from CF cards to SD cards. I’m not sure if existing Canon shooters … Continue reading
Web gem for Wednesday – go buy some baggies!
Starting the new year off with a bang, the Wall Street Journal reported this morning that the Transportation Safety Administration has implemented new policies regarding what battery types can be brought on airplanes. The new rule speaks to the Lithium batteries we’ve all come to know and love that charges everything from our cell phones to watches, cameras and laptops. That’s right, your Li-ion batteries are now a restricted item. What are the rules? Well, it turns out you can have one in your device, so your camera, laptop, cell phone, and other such equipment is safe. You can also … Continue reading
Saturday’s scenery
Normally I take the weekends off from posting while I go out shooting and recording podcasts and such, but the fun of todays outing was such a high that I wanted to put a few shots out after processing just because I thought they were something anyone could enjoy. Not sure the low-res will work, but I thought these were good examples of how an entry level SLR is still quite capable of taking some great shots! Feel free to critique and share your thoughts in the comments section of the blog!
Podcast update
I know I had said that I woud be putting out a tutorial today showing the benefits of god quality gear (i.e. my new Samson condensor Mic), but since my typical date for release is Thursday, I dediced to hold off until tomorrow to finish the production on it, and cross all my T’s and dot all my eyes. In the meantime, for your viewing pleasure, since I’ve not done a POTD for a while, here’s one I worked up recently from last Wed. (Haloween). Kind of works for the month of November to as the color scheme also is … Continue reading
Life Lessons (and a tutorial)
The last week has been an interesting one… I got a call at work saying that my wife was at the doctor’s office and they were transferring her to the hospital as a precautionary measure for some elevated blood pressure levels. Needless to say, the next few days I was not thinking much about getting a new podcast tutorial out. After getting every test known to mankind done, the good news is that she is fine and will be sticking around for a while. The bad news is that she needs to go on some blood pressure medication and she … Continue reading
Sharpening in LAB Mode
That’s right, the podcast is done…this is part deaux of what will likely be a three part series that speaks to my work flow in LAB mode. The first tutorial dealt with curves and luminance adjustments in the LAB color space, and here, I illustrate how to sharpen in the LAB color space. Great stuff here, and I also briefly touch on producing an action that will create various layered sharpness levels so you can pick and choose which suits your needs best. Also helpful are some formulas I’ve learned on what works best for various scenarios. I intended to … Continue reading
Camera Raw Tutorial is up!
I gave up again trying to figure out how to embed the flash file into the blog page, and keep the layout somewhat decent looking, so I am going to continue linking to a dedicated video podcast page, where I will likely end up building an html front end to reference down the road. It’s an admittedly rudimentary look at ACR (Adobe Camera Raw), and while there are some really great extensive resources out there (I highly recommend Jon Canfield’s book on the subject), this should be a nice intro for those that have shot jpg and are thinking about … Continue reading
No news for Monday
Well, that may not be entirely true, as Tips from The Top Floor has a few updates both in audio and video format, so stop over there for some weekyl news and info about Chris’ trip to the great ole U.S. of A. He’s going from CO on to California, and then some other place before finishing up in St. Lucie FL, so if you get a chance between now and Oct. 18th to listen/view – you may wanna do so as now I am even thinking of making my way down there for a few days. Please also say … Continue reading
Closing out the week with a new tutorial!
That’s right, I’ve finally got enough of an act together to record a new tutorial. It’s another Photoshop tip, and this week is kind of a tangential feature of Photoshop, in that it’s not one you would typically use Photoshop to produce as Adobe has other products that perform this function better. There are also other applications on the market that do this equally well, and probably with equal if not better results, but if you don’t have them, PS is a neat alternative, especially for preserving things like drop-shadows and text style treatments like gradients and other stuff commonly … Continue reading
Quiet News Day
As photogs both amateur and pro await the start of the Photoshop Conference out in Las Vegas, (the “pre-conference” starts tomorrow, the rest of the photo world plugs along. Not much really “news-worthy” or personally revealing today, so here’s just a recap of some of the top stories I happened to catch in my blog feeder. Olympus announced it’s latest Pro series camera, the successor to the E-1, to be unveiled Oct. 17th. While the announcement may seem kind of a yawner (reviewed at dpreview here: Olympus Review), the fact that it only took them 4 years, 4 months to … Continue reading
Top Five Reasons I am getting the Canon 40D
It wouldn’t be a year in photography without at least one of the Big Boys of photography world (those boys being Canon, Nikon, Olympus and Pentax) announcing some new piece of equipment that sets everyone off, racing to give their money away so they can have the “latest and greatest” that money can buy. As a technology buff, I am particularly susceptible to this tendency, so I always have to take a step back and look at my current setup, as well as the rest of the options available before I can pull the trigger (or trip the shutter, since … Continue reading
Size doesn’t always matter…
As I bide my time for the Canon EOS 40D to come to a B&H store near me (online), I have been slowly find flaws with my current body – the Canon EOS 350D (a.k.a. the XT). When invited to a high school football game last night, one of my Canon camera buddies lent me a second body so I could have a wide angle and a zoom at the ready for changing situations without having to swap out lenses on a single body. As it turned out, I pretty much stayed on the zoom the entire night, but that’s … Continue reading
