The folks over at Stack Exchange have become the latest sponsor for the monthly contest series, and I gotta say, they are quite a clever operation.  The site is based on the same idea that the blog is based on – which is sharing knowledge and experience with the greater community at large.  No forums to join, no registrations to mess with, just good information in a Wiki-style interface.  The layout is pretty slick where you can post (and answer) photo-related questions.

There’s lots of topics covered and it’s definitely a useful resource to answer everything from generic to specific questions like “Depth of Field and Focal Length” to “How to take sharp night photos“.  Definitely one to add to your photo bookmarks folder.

Anyway, they were super generous, tossing a Lensbaby Composer into the ring for some lucky photographer!  So, special thanks and shout outs to Stack Exchange in advance for their sponsorship.  With the theme of their site, and the gear tied to the giveaway, I figured this was worthy of something special, so, here’s the gist:

Lots of ways to interpret this…it could be a stack of pancakes, a stack of coins, a stack of Pringles, a haystack, or any other way you can imagine!  Remember, the prize is a Lensbaby Composer, worth $300 retail, so if there ever was a time to ramp things up a notch, this would be it!  I’ll put something together on the Lensbaby Composer later this week so you know how cool this lens actually is!

That’s it for today – more cool stuff coming up later this week including the September winner (lucky photog will win a year of NAPP membership!), and other fun stuff.  The trick is to keep on shooting!

The Aero-Master Tether Table

The Tether Table is a pretty straightforward device – it comes with the table itself, made out of T6 Aerospace Aluminum (whatever that is).  Regardless of what the official name is – this table is pretty solid – I have no doubts as to whether it might bend under the weight of a laptop.  What I found to be really nice is that it spins onto a tripod (sans head of course) quite nicely, and just as easily fits over the top of a light stand.  The stability is also pretty equal between the two once it’s locked down.

So, how does the table lock down?  There’s four little Allen screws that tie the female acceptor tube to the bottom of the table through the top.  Their design makes them lay seamlessly flat so no worries about your laptop getting off kilter.  Here’s a few sample shots to show you the design:

The other part that bears mentioning is the additonal kit item (not included normally with a Tether Table) is the Jerkstopper – a handy little device that attaches at both the laptop and camera end to avoid getting cables tugged out of your connection points.  They really help to keep equipment from falling, plugs or connectors from getting ripped or damaged, and the add-on value is well worth the $22!  Here’s the product shot from Tether Tools site to give you an idea…

The first problem I found was that it does require either a light stand or a tripod.  So, if your camera normally goes on a tripod (mine does) and you have an external flash that goes on the light stand (mine does), then either the flash has to become more of a portable device (enter the wireless trigger system), or you need to get another light stand.  I initially lucked out in that I am/was running the triggers through their paces for my good friend Kerry Garrison over at Blackbelt Lighting for an upcoming review this Friday, but the need for another light stand has become pretty clear to me.  When I am using two-light setups though, things could get complicated, but that’s a personal gear issue, nothing really to do with the Tether Table itself, so no harm no foul there.

The second problem I found was budgetary.  While the sturdy construction and clean polished look and feel are certainly features I can appreciate, being on a budget, the cost of entry to obtain a Tether Table of this caliber is a little pricey for my blood.  At $179 for the Table and another $22 for the Jerkstopper kit, we’re over $200 and while it’s not inconceivable, it’s certainly rich for the enthusiast blood.  For most professionals it is easily justified and likely something you can itemize in an invoice if needed.  So, not completely out of reach, but up there for sure.  Oh well, no one ever said photography was going to be cheap!

When all is said and done, I do think it’s a worthwhile investment.  These can be invaluable in a studio or on-location shoot where you need to be moving around in between shots.  The benefits of both the Tether Table and the companion Jerkstopper could be invaluable in a number of environments, including macro photography, food photography, portrait photography, and most product photography where a dedicated preview monitor would be super handy to have! To that end,  I will be sad to see it go, but alas, the Contest Series gets priority!  Thanks to the folks at Tether Tools for their generous contribution, and best of luck to all the participants!  (If you haven’t entered your photo yet, the theme is FLAT, and the contest link is both here and at the top of the page!)

Have you got an idea for a product review?  Is there something you’d like to see a test drive on?  Sound off in the comments and I’ll try my darndest to make things happen!  See you next time here on the blog.  (And don’t forget the Facebook page where the “Behind-the-Scenes” video is posted on using this very table!…”Likes” and comments there are always appreciated too!).

Installation

Installing this product can’t get much easier.  Regardless of whether you are running a Windows or Macintosh environment  (it really doesn’t matter a whole heck of a lot) the system will auto-detect the drivers for your Bamboo fun.  Still, it never hurts to go through the CD installation on their provided media, so I thought I’d share with you the process (and a few bonuses) of installation.  It’s pretty much identical, but I am showing the screen shots from Windows:

Here’s the main splash screen where you can choose what to do, ranging from installation to viewing video tutorials, or browsing the CD contents…

I opted to do the driver installation first, and got this following message…

Then the notice that the pen drivers were being installed…

Then notification that installation was complete…

After finishing that, I was offered the video tutorials on how to do different things.  For first-time users, a very useful resource…

And finally the extras that are included on the CD.  I am not sure about files with an extension of x32, but believe this is a carry-over from Macromedia software like Flash.  Since I do not own Flash, I can only guess based on my own research…

Ad additional CD also gives you a copy of Photoshop Elements 5, Nik Color Efex Pro 2, and Corel Painter Essentials 3.0, which also help to offset the cost the the product.  I didn’t want to open this and negate the serials or licenses of the products contained, but did scan the front side so you can see what you get in the companion CD:

Configuration

The added buttons at the top of the tablet make for some very intuitive advancements in its usability and properties.  Rather than cover each of these in detail, screen views of each tab (there are four total) should be indicative enough of the control and customization you can get:

Pop Up Configuration

The pop-up tab is probably the only tab that isn’t completely self-explanatory, so let me delve into a little more detail here. The reason why is because you can program common keyboard combinations (like the ones I referenced in my post last Friday) to be controlled from the tablet (provided you have “Pop-up menu” selected as on option on the tablet tab (seen next)…

Here’s how you do it:

First, click the drop-down to indicate what it is you want to program on the tablet.  For me, the biggest advantage would be in incorporating keyboard keystroke combos so I have to switch less between kb and tablet.

You’ll get a window now where you can define the keystrokes you want simply by typing that keystroke set in the blank space…

The tablet will detect your keystrokes and populate the fields

Then, give your keystroke set a name…

and Click OK.  You can see the ones I programmed below…

Last but not least, you can also include special keystroke combinations that are unique to your system (like Printscreen on Windows), as shown next:

So, you can see how having the pop-up tab configured with your most commonly used keyboard combinations, as you can reduce the swapping between inputs even more!  Very cool!  And here’s what the right-click menu looks like once inside Photoshop:

But, make sure you have a button set on the tablet to “drop down” (as shown next…)

Mechanics

Here is where your specific work flow may have an impact.  On my Windows desktop environment, I have a 19″ and a 17″ LCD, so that’s roughly 36″ of real estate that this tablet (which measures roughly 6×4″) has to cover.  What this means is that movements on a scale that size makes everything larger proportionally speaking.  You can adjust the tablet settings under the pen mode details screen to manipulate for just one monitor instead of all screens, but if I am going to use a tablet, Idon’t want to jump between that, a keyboard AND a mouse…two inputs is all I really would want to switch between, but that’s just personal preference.  But, for those that are interested, here’s how you make that adjustment in the pen settings tab of the tablet properties.  Click on the pen tab of the tablet properties, then the details button to get this screen:

From here, change the button from “All Screens” to “Monitor”.  It will default to the monitor you have set ot #1:

But you can use the arrows to set it to monitor two if you prefer:

On my Macbook Pro, since I only had the one monitor, the experience was quite different as I had less real estate for the tablet to cover – with only a 15″  LCD of screen space to cover.  So the pen was much less sensitive to location on the touch pad given that less than half the real estate was needed to cover the range of the screen (and I noticed greater position control even when I did just the 19″ monitor versus the 15″ LCD of the MBP – it’s just a happenstance of the tablet size, and the only way to do that would be to increase the tablet size – at the expense of desk real estate space…pick your poison, ya know?)

Usage

Tablets rock!  Let’s just get that bias out of the way right off.  If you want the ultimate in cursor control (and when I say cursor I mean movement of your tool, whether it be a brush, a pencil, an eraser, clone stamp, whatever, it’s just amazing).  The first major difference between a mouse and a tablet is touch sensitivity.  No matter how you tap a mouse, it delivers the same intensity or strength when it paints in Photoshop.  With a tablet, this is not the case at all.  How hard you press determines the strength of the brush.  This is truly remarkable as now you can apply just a touch, or go full hog on anything you want from painting, to clone stamping, and anything you want.  To demonstrate, I created a blank document and selected some brush settings to illustrate what I am talking about.  Take a look:  from left to right are light touches to hard pressing with the pen…followed by dots of the same strength top to bottom.

So now you can control things like jitter, hardness, and a whole myriad of options that you didn’t have before (well, at least not to the same degree anyway) with just a mouse.  I know what you’re thinking now – “Great, for graphic design that’s super cool, but how can I use this as a photographer?”  Excellent question!   Ever catch a picture where the eyes are darker and you want to brighten them up?  Well, now you can with greater ease and control both of area, intensity of the lightening (or darkening) by using the pen tool for the Bamboo Fun.  Take a look at the sample below, where I took an underexposed picture of the dog and selectively lightened the eyes and teeth, here’s the before:

and after:

One of the best parts is that this functionality is there in whatever application you use that incorporates brushes.  I tried it in Photoshop, Lightroom, and Corel Painter Pro (I installed a demo version of the last one for this review).  The Bamboo Fun can also expand your ability to clone things out, say a stray light pole or some telephone wires, or even the nasty -ex that you want out of that super cool shot of you in Hawaii!  The possibilities are limitless both for graphic designers and photographers.

So, this now begets the question of why I don’t have one in my home environment.  The main reason is because I’ve never had the need at home.  Most of the time I am at work, and if I need to work that requires that level of control, the work hardware has always been there for me.  Granted I’ve also gotten used to the Wacom Cintiq which has a much larger surface area, so I have even a greater degree of control over the desktop, cross-hairs, and all brushes, so it’s also a matter of being spoiled – I just can’t afford a Cintiq at home, or justify its need – I am just not that much of a re-toucher either with photos or in graphics design creation.

Additionally, for me, the use is only really there in graphic design, because I am also of the mentality of “getting it right in camera”, so I don’t like to do a lot of edits in photos.  Of course no one is perfect so I do occasionally need to do some fine tuning that requires a tablet.  In cases when I do, I just take the photo in to work and do the retouching there as the tablet does give a much greater amount of control than any mouse or trackball will.

When I’ve not been successful in camera, it’s not that my home work flow is good enough, it’s just that the tools are already there for me if needed at work, so the financial justification really hasn’t been there.   As my personal usage has been increasing lately though, I must admit that I am thinking more and more about adding a tablet to my home work flow.   So, would I would recommend this?

Yes!  This would make a great tablet for anyone who does not have access to a tablet elsewhere, or if you are looking to enter the tablet market – the Bamboo Fun is a great entry level tablet, that takes up minimal desk space while offering a maximum range of precision and control.  I think for my own personal usage, I would probably prefer a larger tablet because I do have the desk space, and have been accustomed (as I said) to the Cintiq, so perhaps the Intuous 4 would be more easily incorporated…but only time will tell!)

Finally, as prone as we are to repetitive motions, and with conditions like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome becoming much more common, the tablet does offer a much less repeated motion tendency than a mouse or a tablet.  So, if you make the move to a tablet, you are only decreasing your chances of things like Carpal Tunnel and repetitive motion problems in your wrists.

Two thumbs up (in Siskel and Ebert style) for the Bamboo Fun from the good folks at Wacom.  Many thanks for the demo product, and I am sure the listening/reading audience appreicates their generosity as well.  Happy shooting everyone, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow for an exciting software review that includes the announcement of our latest contest, which is starting in July!).