Category Archives: content
The Un-review Software
This week I am going to talk about the lack of software in the weekly software review. That’s right – the lack of it! You may be sitting there wondering which software item I am going to talk about, promote, or diss in some way shape or form, but instead of that, I actually want to talk about the general trending of software, hardware, and system resources. Why? Because we demand a lot from our computers these days. Think about it – we want our computers to do many things from surfing the internet, to designing graphics, office functions, building … Continue reading
A dash of splash
First up – another web gallery of water drops – this time with a neutral black background that I developed in Lightroom. I am tellin’ ya – this product is just too cool! Photo management, editing, tagging, and gallery production all in one – what’s not to love? Also up today, a little shout out to Dave Zarzacki, who owns a like new Canon XSi in mint condition, but just doesn’t need it in his gear bag (he’s trying to round out his collection with an SLR that will take all his current lenses). It’s a great deal which includes … Continue reading
Airtight Viewers – Web Gallery Options Reviewed
Initially, this week was supposed to be the second in a series of software review posts to take a more detailed look under the hood at Photoshop Elements as an alternative to Photoshop Creative Suite. Truth be told though, the more I poke under the hood with Adobe’s Lightroom, the more hooked I get. One of the absolute best features (in my opinion) is the web gallery options available to you in Lightroom. The options are endless! You can go from standard HTML, to Flash-based templates, and hybrids, with customizations galore. One of my favorites though, is how Adobe integrated … Continue reading
A video short on HDR and bracketing
One of the more popular posts here on the blog has been two that consisted of explanations on how to bracket multiple exposures in camera in order to capture a wider range of exposure values than is typically permitted in a single frame. Typically, these various exposures are then seamed together in some editor like Photoshop, Photomatix or other that is available to produce an effect called HDR – high dynamic range. You can get some impressive results with various techniques that appeal to different subjective perspectives. Here at the blog though, rather than take sides on such post processing … Continue reading
Photo walks, news, and a visit from Scott Kelby
So, as many of you know, Scott Kelby, president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), Kelby Media Group, Kelby Training Live, and leader of the pack of Photoshop guys over at Photoshop User TV, was in Denver yesterday on his Adobe Photoshop Lightroom tour. He led a seminar yesterday that, despite several technical difficulties, was pretty rockin’ when it comes to establishing a work flow in Lightroom. Scott is also known for his annual worldwide photo walks that he started last year. This year response has just been enormous to the walks, with several cities (including Denver) filling … Continue reading
Photoshop CS3 vs Elements 7.0 – Part One
Ever since Tom Hogarty came on the podcast and I’ve had some time to dive into Lightroom, I am thinking more and more that this is a much better solution for managing all of my photo assets. Since I’ve found myself spending more time in LR and less time in PS CS3 (Extended), I started debating if I really needed so much horsepower under the hood. After all, CS3 Extended is quite the workhorse, from performance, to functionality, to footprint, and of course, price. It left me wondering about my upgrade path. In all honesty though, I think the term … Continue reading
The 70-200L f4.0
In keeping with the last few weeks of hardware reviews, I am taking a look in my own bag one more time to bring you this weeks’ hardware review: the 70-200mm L lens from Canon. Canon has several variants on this lens, with different minimal apertures both with and without Image Stabilization (IS). So, in the interests of full disclosure, this is a non-IS lens, and the aperture range is the standard one, 4.0 to 5.6. So, with that distinction being made, we’re off and running: The “L” distinction is one that bears discussion right off – Canon only gives … Continue reading
Win a copy of Adobe Lightroom 2.0!
Just last week, I had the distinct honor of interviewing Tom Hogarty, Senior Product Manager for Adobe Lightroom. Needless to say, I postponed the podcast for a few more days so I could include the interview. He really gave a good breakdown of the function of Lightroom, what to expect from it, how to incorporate it into your work flow, and what (in general) we can likely expect to see in the future of image processing development. We spent a good deal of time going over the nuts and bolts, so under the general heading of Software discussions today, I’d … Continue reading
Where oh Where can You Go? (GPS Units)
Many of us as photographers are also gadget hounds, and the ability to accessorize our cameras with the latest and greatest gadgets and doohickeys is both a boon and a curse. It’s a boon because we have so many options available to us, and it is a curse for the same reason – because we have so many options available to us. A perfect example of this is the development of GPS attachments. GPS (Global positioning system) units allow us to add the longitudinal and latitudinal information to the meta data of our digital images. This can help us locate … Continue reading
Comparison photos from 10-22mm
Earlier this week on the blog, the 10-22mm Canon was reviewed, and in the comments, Julie asked if I could provide some comparison shots. So, in the interests of demonstrating the perspective change (and provide a few sample shots of things I thought came out well), here’s a plethora of photos. First, the comparisons… all shots were done at 1/50th, f5.0 and ISO 800 from a range of 5 feet, 10 feet, and 15 feet, and pointed straight on at the door. No post processing was done in order to preserve as “raw” a comparison as possible… At 5 feet … Continue reading
The Canon 10-22mm Lens Review
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, … Continue reading
Thursday Thoughts with… Rob Weiher
Hey all, here’s what’s shakin’ for this Thursday. Another “Thursday Thoughts” edition is ready, but me and the guestk, Robert Weiher, took a little bit of a different tack on thi go around, primarily because of how I came across Robert, and what he’s doing for a current project. See, Robert is a fellow NAPP member, and has started a 365 blog as a project for 2009. After seeing a few of his comments appear here, my logs pointed me back to him (it always pays to watch your comment links as you never know where the next gem may … Continue reading
Blur, Baby… blur!
Hey all, this week’s show is done and boy are you in for a treat! Not only is there some pretty ground-breaking news from the computing world, but the theme for this podcast is blur! I take a (hopefully) clear look at different types of blur you can get in your images, what can work, what will not work, and how to correct for different types. Got some great listener questions and answers that tie in very nicely to the theme, and as, always the photo tip of the week. Here’s the show notes: News Links – HP Z800 Specs … 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
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
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
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
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
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 … Continue reading
Look out behind you!
We’re always looking forward, upward and downward to find a unique perspective or angle on things – to create something unique and interesting. Well, today, I’ve got an example of how sometimes the interesting shots are behind you! In this particular case, it’s doubly true. This is also from the photo walk out in El Dorado from last weekend, and what makes it doubly true is because we were out looking to capture the beuaty of the mountains, the trees, and the amazing Colorado skies. At one waypoint between hiking trails, we took a rest stop and used some of … 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
Just When You Get Caught Up…
Life throws more at you! Today, I got word from the good folks over at Personal Life Media, that the web page is now set up and ready for porting the pre-existing podcasts from CB over for their hosting. Unfortunately, they can only take the audio, so video will have to remain here. It also means a naming convention change, so here’s the shows by blog post title that will be ported over, their existing Track # and their Future track #: Noise Lighting and Links, Oh My!, #49 – will become Episode #1 Monday Morning Quarterback, #54 – will … Continue reading
