Entries Tagged 'New Stuff' ↓

I’m going to keep this weeks Friday Five short and sweet. Let’s go!

• It’s coming! It’s coming! Well at least something is. Canon has put a teaser on their site “Destined Evolution“.
• Sometimes it takes just one company with a great idea to change the world. Let’s hope HP’s idea of selling their laptops in a messenger bag, instead of traditional packaging, catches on. Apple, Dell, Lenovo, you guys paying attention!
• Google launches something new and shiny. Chrome. It’s their brand new web browser. It’s only available for Windows right now (c’mon us Mac users wanna play too).
• “A picture is worth a thousand words.” What happens when you combine a couple of pictures together? Or, remove something from a picture? Does the word count change? Here are some of the more memorable fake photos of all time.
• And, here’s a quick white balance tip for Aperture 2 users.

This weeks Friday Five is brought to you by ibuprofen… “Ibuprofen for when you hear and feel your shoulder pop while riding your mountainbike.” OK, let’s get started!

• There is a new section on Aperture’s website called “Aperture in Action“. I know, it’s marketing stuff! But there is some cool little tips in the videos.
• Chase Jarvis has put together another video. This one is called “Photo Shoot in 180 Seconds“. How cool is that! To see a shoot from start to finish. Thanks Chase!
• Vincent Laforet now has his own blog! Check it out.
• “You eyeballin me?” Very smart people have created an electronic eye camera. This could change photography for ever.
• As many of you know I live in Whistler, BC, Canada and I am an avid mountainbiker. Starting tomorrow (Aug 9th,2008) Crankworx starts. This is the premier mountainbiking event on the planet! The best riders come to Whistler for 9 days riding, music and partying. Let the festivities begin.

It’s another beautiful Friday in Whistler and my mountain bike is calling me… So, I’ll make this quick.

• I keep referring to PhotoShelter’s School of Stock because the articles there are a great source of information. This weeks is no exception. Shooting Silo. They cover the topic in great detail and even give a shot list.
• Not another D700 post! Yup! I’m starting to sound like a Nikon “fanboy”, but when Canon announces their new stuff, I promise to give them just as much attention… OK? Luminous Landscape has posted a review of the D700 with sample images that are worth checking out.
• Did Nikon make a mistake with the SB-900’s massive foot? Strobist has the details. David has also posted a review of the SB-900.
• People say some nasty things in the comment section of blogs. I guess hiding behind a computer screen gives some people courage to say things they wouldn’t say to a persons face. Play nice, please.
• Rob Haggart at A Photo Editor has started a new project. He’s a fellow mountain biker and skier… He has to be a good guy! Right? APhotoFolio.com looks like it will give LiveBooks a serious run for it’s money. The price is reasonable and designs look great. My only issue, being a slightly tech savvy photographer, is that there is no “self hosted” option. If he was to offer a backend similar to WordPress (what I’m using to create this blog) at a reasonable price I would jump all over that. In the comments on his blog the issue was already brought up and Rob seemed open the idea.

OK… off to go ride my bike. If you have any comments please post them below.

Today’s Friday Five is brought to you by your credit card company… Kidding. Here are few photography products I think are cool:

• Lon over at FlashZebra.com has some pretty cool products. I just recently received an umbrella adaptor from him and it’s well built! I can’t believe he’s only selling it for $14. Check out some of the other stuff he carries also.
• VisibleDust has come out with a new sensor cleaning brush with a built in light so you can see what the heck you’re doing. I’ve had one of their products (sans light) for a while and they work great!
• I found Fstopgear.com a little while ago when I was searching for a ski touring photo backpack. They seem to know exactly what an active photgrapher needs.
• Calibrate, calibrate, calibrate! As photographers we all know how important calibration is. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could buy just one product to calibrate your monitor and your printer? Wait! You can! Check out the Colormunki photo.
• Anyone who has never used a graphics tablet to work on their images, should give it a try. Now you can buy an affordable Cintiq LCD graphics tablet for under a $1000… Wow!

I have another love other than photography. Cooking.

This is my latest toy… I’m going to call it Hector

OK, lets get right to it!

• AUPN (Aperture Users Professional Network) is starting a series called “Aperture 101″ the first installment is called “The Interface“
• Nikon’s Capture NX2 is out and it has a 60 day trial period!
• “ICEBERG! Dead ahead!” popphoto.com has an article on  James Balog’s iceberg shoot.
• The 39th Annual Nikon Photo Contest International.
• Flickr portfolio of *Cinnamon.

By now, you know that I switched from Canon to a Nikon D300 and my reasoning behind the switch.

Here is a quick rundown of my first impression of the D300.

• The camera feels very solid and well built.
• It fits nicely in my hand. A very natural feel to the grip.
• Excellent view finder, nice and bright. Even with my glasses on I can see everything in view finder.
• LCD display in fantastic. It’s actually useful to check sharpness with.
• The colors are very accurate. This could be a combination of the D300 and using Aperture 2 as my RAW converter. What ever it is the results are superb.
• 6 fps. Holy Cow! It almost scared me the first time I tried it. Afterwards I had the biggest grin on my face. I can’t wait to get the vertical grip and shoot 8 fps.
• The manual is huge! 400+ pages. Be prepared to do some readin’.
• Button and dial layout good. Except for the front sub-command dial. I keep switching the camera off by accident. Maybe I just need to get use to the dials location. I’ll keep you informed.
• The menu system and layout is definitely different than Canon’s. Not that it’s and better or worse, just takes some getting use to.

I hope to shoot something worthy of posting here in the next few weeks. In the mean time I’ll be reading the manual and playing with the settings.

Any comments or advice regarding the D300 or this post?

I’m so excited! I just got my confirmation e-mail. My order for my brand spankin new Nikon D300 has been processed. I should have it within a week.

So why the switch to Nikon?

I’ve been a Canon shooter since 1999 (first film, then digital), and previous to that I shot with a Contax SLR and Mamiya medium format. When I first embraced digital photography there we few affordable options. Nikon’s offering was expensive while Canon’s offering had a CMOS sensor and the image quality at that time was hard to beat. The decision was pretty easy. I was lucky enough to get a Canon 10D within the first few weeks of it being released. The camera took still takes great pictures, but I never fell in love with it like I did with my previous cameras. Something wasn’t quite right and I only brought it out for paid shoots and the occasional portfolio shoot. The other thing that irked me was Canon’s, “We won’t build one camera that can do everything.” philosophy. If you wanted to shoot sports/photojournalism (1.3x crop factor) you need to get a 1D. If you wanted to shoot in the studio (full frame) you needed to buy a 1Ds. And the 5D was a half-assed attempt at a mid range offering with some pro features in a not so pro body.

Then, last year Nikon announces the D300 and D3. My jaw dropped. CMOS sensors, 12 megapixels, pro level auto focus and much more. I waited for Canon to drop the bomb and announce their offerings to directly compete with these two cameras, and I waited, and I waited, and waited some more. Nothing even close. So I decided to go out and hold the D300 in my hand and see how it felt. It felt great in my hand and the build quality was excellent. I also started to feel that lovin’ feeling again.

Is this post biased? Darn right it is! I just bought what I consider to be the best camera for my needs that is available today. Is the D300 the perfect camera? Almost. I can’t afford the perfect camera, the D3, just yet. But I know the perfect exists and it’s a Nikon.

To all the Canon lovers out there. I know your going to hate me, but this my opinion and you are entitled to your opinion. I don’t hate Canon, I just think Nikon has the best camera for me.

My internet connection has been a bit slow for the last few days, but that happens. Then, the connection got VERY slow (almost a minute for Google.com to load). WTF? I called tech support for my ISP and they were about as helpful as… well, they weren’t any help at all. I didn’t have one of their wireless router/modems so they would not help me. A hardwired connection worked fine, but wireless didn’t. So, off I went to get a new wireless router. I ended up buying the Apple Airport Extreme base station. Within half an hour (unwrapping and reading the included manual) I was back up and running at faster than previous speed. YIPPIE!

What I really like about the Airport Extreme is I can keep my network secure (not giving out my security settings) and allow client access for a 24 hour period. That’s kinda cool.

The other issue I am currently working on is recovering images I shot prior to my switch to Mac. It seems that about 90% of the images I shot in my studio in Toronto that I saved on my PC’s hard drive and on CD’s are not able to be opened on my Mac (Not the right kind of file). they worked fine on my old PC. I gotta figure out how to save them so my Mac can read them. If you know of a solution please let me know.

I’ll be continuing with my “30 Days using Aperture 2″ series in a day or so.

Some photographers gave up on Aperture after months of no updates for any new cameras. People were wondering if Apple dropped the ball and decided to give up on developing Aperture further. Well, it looks like Apple my have redeemed themselves when they announced today the release of Aperture 2 with over 100 new features.

I’ll be getting my hands on a copy shortly and I’ll give you all an update after I have had time to play with it for a while.