Thanks so much to all the participants for your wonderful images of Cheer!  It really did bring a smile to my face going through all the images and selecting a winner!  As always, the decision was quite difficult, but ultimately, the nod goes to Pan Shovel for the annual holiday giveaway.  As you all may recall, the prizes this year were donated by the good folks of Craft & Vision (David DuChemin), Thinktank Photo, and Photojojo for the books, bags and lenscap holder respectively.  So if you get a moment to check out their respective product lines, you can say thanks to them in your own way too!

The downside after all this excitement is that the January giveaway does not have a sponsor (same as last year), so this means the prize will be the ability to choose the theme for the February contest giveaway.  Think of January as a practicing month to take your own shots of whatever you find appealing.  No themes to restrict your creativity, but the rest of the standard rules apply:

1.  One photo per person

2.  Must be work-safe/family-friendly

3. Posted to the Flickr thread

4.  Largest side must be no more than 800px or less than 600px (this is only so that the winning image can be displayed well…)

5.  Taken within the last 60 days (preferably during the contest window)

6.  Images must be done by Feb 3rd (Friday).

7.  Theme is open (no theme)

8.  And most importantly, have fun!

Congrats again to Pan Shovel, and good luck to everyone in the coming months for the 2012 giveaways – keep the great shots and creativity churning!

His image, clearly thinking “outside the box” of a taxicab in NYC just jumped off the page for me:

So, Miguel, drop me a line via the blog or Flickr to claim your Streetwalker Pro and I’ll get this shipped out to you in short order!  Congrats to Miguel, and thanks to everyone who participated – this was an excellent month with lots of great ideas, creativity, and inspirational types of imagery!

With July in the books, I’ve got a really cool product up that saved my bacon more than I’d care to remember.  it came to me from none other than David Ziser when I attended his workshop here in Denver.  He had mentioned a little product called PhotoRescue and it does exactly what you’d think – recovers photos off a card that were deleted accidentally!  Sheer brilliance in design, and even affordable to the tune of $30 if you end up not winning the giveaway!  Here’s the nuts and bolts:

1.  Two images per person

2.  Work/family safe

3.  Shared via the Flickr thread here

4.  Downloadable by me (so I can announce you as the winner on the blog)

5.  Deadline is August 31st (this is a Wednesday too, so not a weekend as is the norm)!

6.  This is a software product so the key is distributable globally which means – no country border limit!

7.  And the theme is…”SAVE!“

So, enjoy it, embrace it, and win!  Some extra goodies may be added depending on how sponsorships and such pan out in the next week or so! Hint hint – more coming than what meets the eye!   Thanks to the folks at DataRescue for the sponsorship, support, etc.

JawDoc

His image of the Tilt-a-Whirl (or whatever you call it) really stood out for me in terms of the sense of motion and speed, so congrats to you sir.  If you could be so kind as to drop me an email, I will forward your name and info over to the folks at Camera Bits who are ready for delivery of your installation code for Photo Mechanic!  One final nod of thanks to them as well, for their generous contribution for the June Giveaway!

And now, for the July Giveaway, our next prize is yet another doozy!  The good folks over at Thinktank Photo have generously sent some of their latest product line to me for review, and now up for grabs is none other than their already well-received Streetwalker Pro bag.  This holds an astounding amount of gear for its size, allows for a tripod, and much more.  I’ve not had a chance to kick its tires yet (so to speak), but you know a review is going to come up soon for this month, so keep an eye and ear open!

It retails for $159 US, and this one is a beauty!

Again, because the prize will be shipped from my location rather than Thinktank, the shipping requirementsare built into this months guidelines:

1.  All images must be between 600-800 px on the longest dimension.

2.  Each person can submit up to two images

3.  The theme is STREET, fitting for a Streetwalker Pro

4.  Contest Deadline is:  July 31st at midnight Mountain Time (GMT -7).  Add or subtract for your own time zone as needed.

5.  US Residents only…sorry international folks.

6. The photo must be included in this Flickr thread.

7. The Flickr photo must be downloadable – we share the winning photo via announcement here on the blog and in newsletters – so I need to get it to do that!

8. Have fun! Remember photography is supposed to be fun so keep that in mind as you approach the May giveaway.

9. Reminder Guidelines and Rules of Engagement links are here for easy reference.

Special thanks to not only Camera Bits and Think Tank photo, but to all the sponsors – and for readers out there, if you would like to see a product reviewed and/or offered up for a giveaway, feel free to drop suggestions in the comments – that’s where vendors look!

The link to enter the contest is here – good luck to all!

Here’s the Show Notes:

In this latest episode of Learning Digital Photography, the Grand Prize winner from the September $500 giveaway is announced, and the October contest opens up – ready for your entries.  The theme this time is Fall (open to interpretation).  Specs, guidelines, and such are discussed including dimensions, dates for submission and more.

Also in this episode, a primer on framing your photos:  things to look for and avoid when matting and framing work.  I look at what gallery and show fine art venues usually require versus home or personal use.

Finally, the popular listener question and answer segment returns, with some great ones coming from all over the globe!  Download today!  Happy shooting!

The links mentioned in the show follow as well:

Rich Charpentier’s Website and Blog

Flickr Contest Thread

Redimat

American Framing

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Feel free to comment here and contact with me via email if you have an idea or thought to share about the show.  Thanks, as always, for listening and reading.  Have a great weekend, happy shooting, and we’ll see you back again on Monday!

We all have aspirations of taking our work to “the next level”.  How we define our “levels” of success is largely a personal matter.  Here I am always happy to share my aspirations and goals with the larger community.  It is likely no secret that as a blogger, the written word is an enjoyable “tool” for me.  In writing both blog posts here, and articles for the PhotographyBB magazine (and special shout outs and thanks to Dave Seeram, editor-in-chief of said magazine), it has become pretty clear that writing for blogs and writing for magazines requires different approaches.  To that end, there is some content on the blog that has never been incorporated into any magazine.  Likewise, some magazine content has never seen the light of the blogosphere.  Well, that convergence begins today, courtesy of my good friend, Eizabeth Gast (a.k.a. “Firgs” of Design by Firgs).

In looking at her work online with her own blog, and her social presence as well, I thought she might enjoy reading an article I wrote for the magazine.  Well, she has helped with editing, and it now also has a great blog form to it as well.  Since she was so instrumental in its transition from magazine to blog, I offered it up to her for use if she liked – needless to say, I think she liked it enough because it’s on her blog today!  Thanks Firgs!  You are the best!  If you want to read more about the importance of how social networking can play into photography – stop over and read her blog.  Heck, stop over anyway and tell her thanks for me!

The Comment Contest Winner

In other news, the Comments Contest was a huge success!  With only one repeat and one tweeted link, the count totaled 15, matching the highest total ever received for a single post!  After taking out the repeat and the tweet, lucky #13 is the number I plugged in over at www.Random.org (another link I picked up from Firgs!).  Wit the Random Number Generator (drumroll please…) the winner in the Comments Contest is – believe it or not, lucky #13!  That winner is is andie! So, Andie, if you could drop me an email, you are the lucky winner of a $25 gift card to B&H Photo!

The “Win a Wacom” Giveaway

Submissions for this giveaway are now closed.  Over the next few days I will be going through all the entries and winnowing out the best of the best and choosing a winner!  Be sure to tune in as we move toward Friday!

The Super September Giveaway

Remember the Topaz Labs software I mentioned yesterday?  And the Thinktank Photo Multimedia Bag System? Yup, it’s now time and they are up for grabs in the latest and greatest giveaway over on the Flickr page.  A new thread has been created (yes, a little ahead of schedule), so feel free to start putting your work in there.  The direct link to that thread is here.  The theme is Think in Color, so I am sure a rainbow will appear in short order, with lots of creativity!

I was going to do a write-up of some more plugins from the Topaz Suite, but time and space just got away from me, so if you wanna see more about this great plugin set, be sure to stop back in tomorrow as I promise to have that review together for your reading enjoyment.  On that note, have a rockin’ day and happy shooting!

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The Comment Contest

Talk about a huge success – had enough feedback and ideas in this one post to really get some great creative ideas in play for the coming months for the blog – after the re-design!  Some lucky winner will be announced tomorrow (I am writing this on Sunday, while comments are still being accepted, so a winner cannot be announced right now.)

Win a Wacom Giveaway

The Learning Digital Photography giveaway thread over on Flickr has seen quite an uptick in submissions in the last week.  As the deadline approached, more people started getting their “fun” themed shots in, and there’s a lot of creative and fun photos in there.  It’s going to be tough to decide this one for sure.  Have you got your image submissions in yet?  If not, today is the last day to enter, and like the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play!  You have until midnight tonight (Mountain Time), so it’s now or never!

The September Giveaway – Think in Color!

Announced briefly and teased on post #500, September’s contest is a pretty big one.  Two significant items are up for grabs this month.  First up, the winner of this contest will receive a Think Tank Multimedia Bag System (5 bags total).  For more information on this latest bag system to hit the shelves from ThinkTank Photo, you can read the review I did here, or visit their website for the specifics here.  The retail value of this set of bags is easily $350!

Second, Topaz Labs has offered up their plugin suite of actions for Photoshop to the winner of the September giveaway.  You may recall my review of the Topaz Labs Adjustment plugin here on the blog, and more of the Topaz plugins will be reviewed here during September, so stay tuned to see all the cool stuff this set can do.  The retail value of this software set is valued at $150 for the Adjustment, Denoise, Simplify, Detail, Clean and DeJPEG plugins.

So, let’s see – $350 in bags, and $150 in software = $500 in giveaway items for the September run.  That’s a lotta loot!  This means the setup will be a little more competitive than last months.  Here’s a rundown of the guidelines:

1. Longest side of the image should be between 600-800pixels.  This makes for consistency in galleries, and also for equal view-ability in the judging phase.
2. One photo per person, submitted through the Flickr thread, which will be created tonight at midnight.
3. Photos must be taken within 30 days of the contest start date.  So, if you have something you took just last month, that is acceptable, but earlier archives will not be accepted.
4. All images must be work-safe/family-friendly.
5. This go around, the theme is:  Think in Colors (for ThinkTank and the color Topaz).  Incorporate the theme of the giveaway somehow into your photos.
6. Since we’re talking Photoshop and plugins, it makes sense to also note that image editing is permitted, so go ahead and punish those pixels!
7. Image submissions will be accepted starting September 1st, and will continue through Sat. Sept. 26th.

The other cool thing about the Thinktank/Topaz Labs giveaway is that the folks at Topaz Labs have offered to the winner that their photo be displayed on Topaz Labs website (along with photo credit given, naturally).  This is, of course, totally optional, but definitely a cool feather to have in ones’ cap.  The caveat here is that the submitting photographer would have to be at least 18 years old.

Phew – that is a lot of contest news!  In one sidenote about the blog, a little administrative note that the B&H Photo affiliate link is back, so if you are thinking of purchasing some gear through B&H, if you use the link above, though your price stays the same, B&H will send a few cents back this way to help offset the expense of hosting.  (It literally is just a few cents per purchase, so go ahead and spend a fortune!)   So much for a hardware review today…I’ll be back tomorrow with the last post for August, and the announcement of the Comment Contest winner!  In the meantime, happy shooting!

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• Multimedia Wired Up 10 Bag (Retail value $140)
• Mic Drop-in Bag (Retail value $40)
• Audio Recorder Bag (Retail value $40)
• Big Audio Bag (Retail Value $50)
• Wireless Mic Kit Bag (Retail value $50)

Rather than describe the function of each, here I am going to defer to the descriptions Thinktank provides on their site because their descriptions are pretty good and I figure why re-invent the wheel.  Instead, I’ll share here my lists of pros and cons on the system overall.  So, here’s the lowdown from my perspective:

Pros:

1. Design – The overall design of these bags is just superb.  Because it’s designed as a multimedia system, the idea of incorporating a way to feed cable lines from one component to another is just brilliant.  This way cables are not interfering with operation of anything.  I also very much enjoy the idea of incorporating both a belt and harness method for carrying gear.  While belts can tend to sag down when loaded, the shoulder harnesses prevent this from happening without being too constricting.
2. Material –   Additionally the material is the excellent canvas/nylon-style on the outside with very well-thought out padding on the inside (although I think the pads could still stand to be a smidge thicker).  They also were very generous in that most of the bags have a rain cover that easily pulls out should you get caught in a sudden downpour.
3. Space – Even though the Wired-Up 10 bag is the smaller of the two (there is also a Wired Up 20), it can hold an impressive amount of gear.  Although I had to take off lens hoods, I was able to get all of the following into the bag:

With all this crammed in there I still had room in the front portion to accommodate a few other accessories (like radio triggers, media cards, batteries, etc.  The rear pocket also allows for things like grey cards, business cards, and other slim style things (I tossed my 1.4x TC in there along with the flash diffuser cap for the 550EX).  I know this isn’t exactly a multimedia gear list, but it does give you an idea of what all can fit in there.  Here’s a quick snap I took with everything in there:

The rest of the system also holds up well – with what appear to be very durable zippers, which have bungee-style pulls that make them easier to close.  The accessory bags also are designed with stiff flaps on the backs and Velcro to add them onto the main belt bag (the Wired up 10 or the Wired Up 20).  What I especially liked about each of the bags is that not only could I see the use for each designed component, I also could see other items being substituted in and out.  Ipods, P&S cameras, and other components could easily fit in here.  Probably the thing I was most pleased with was the slim pocket that sits against your back.  It was a little snug but I was able to fit a mini-laptop in there (my wife’s Acer Aspire One).  I literally could go completely mobile and reduce my overall technology footprint to fit inside this bag/betl system.  I think the Wired Up 20 would probably be more desirable just because things were a little too snug.  For a trip though – it could work in a pinch – check it out:

Cons:

Design:  My two druthers in the design are the belt and the suspender/shoulder straps.  On the belt, I wish it had a little more space to put the accessory bags on them.  With the current design, each bag would butt up next to one another without any room between them.  While this may not matter if you are up and moving around, but I can imagine that sitting down while fully loaded could be tricky.  Sure, you can always take the whole setup off, but if you are bending and squatting or wanting flexibility then this could conceivably have trouble with maneuverability.  The other element were the shoulder straps – they were thin which made them less obtrusive.  However, because of their thinness, this could cut into your shoulders if you are heavily laden down with gear.  Thankfully, I don’t own enough gear to really have that kind of an impact, but for the multimedia minded, with audio recorders, mics, and all the bells and whistles, I could see it kind of digging in a little too much.

Other than these two elements I really couldn’t even think of much else I would change – even the price is right for what you are getting.  All five of these bags is still under $350 which is quite a good deal!  Heck, even the matte black and thin blue pin-striping that is a part of the Thinktank design looked cool here.  All in all, this is definitely one to consider.  While no bag or bag system is perfect – this is the closest to perfection I’ve seen yet!  (And I’ve tried a few systems…)

Well, that’s about all for today – just a reminder that we are in the last week of the current month’s giveaway where you can “Win a Wacom”!  Get your photos in by Friday to the Flickr thread, be eligible for this giveaway.  Happy shooting all, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow for the latest software review (and you should know what that is – if not watch the video from last Friday!)

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