August, 2009

Photography / Tutorials — No Comments
29
Aug 09

Why Shoot Fast Glass?

First of all what is “Fast Glass”? Well when we photographers are talking about glass were really talking about a lens for a camera we just like to use code haha. Then the fast comes in when the lens can let in a lot of light for example an ƒ/1.4 or a ƒ/2.8 would be a fast lens.

So why do we want fast glass or a fast lens? Because of Depth of Field. The faster the glass the shallower the depth of field becomes. Also a fast lens will allow you to shoot in very low light which is very nice. The only thing that isn’t nice about fast glass is the price tag.

The images below show the advantages of having a fast lens and being able to shoot at those low f-stop numbers.

K
ƒ/14 not so great for portraits to much detail in the background but would be nice for landscapes. ƒ/1.4 really selective focus great for portraits like this one. What one would you rather use?

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Gage — 2 Comments
28
Aug 09

My New Manfrotto Tripod

I just recently bought my self a new Manfrotto tripod. I got the 055XPROB with a 322RC2 ball head grip. So far I’m loving it. Its sturdy easy to set up and take down and great for the price. Not to mention I can move the center column from vertical to horizontal without having to remove the camera which is awesome!

GageThompson

Up to 70 inches tall

GageThompson-2

GageThompson-3
as low as 4 inches

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Photography / iPhone — 1 Comment
27
Aug 09

DSLR Camera Remote App

Those who know me know I’m pretty nerdy when it comes to gadgets. Well I’m pretty excited today because onOne Software just releases DLSR Camera Remote version 1.1! What does this mean you might ask? It means finally us Nikon shooters can use this app! Not only did they add Nikon to the new update but also a auto import function for lightroom, burst settings, and a few other things.

Here is what you got to do to set this all up. First go to onOne Software and download the app from iTunes. I have the “Lite” version it only cost 2 bucks compared to the full version that costs 20. With the lite version all I can really do is fire the camera. If you get the full you can do whatever. Live view, burst, change shutter speed, ISO, the works. Now that you downloaded the app to your iPod or iPhone, go back and download the free software server this app will be running on your computer.

Now what you want to do is launch your server app on your computer grab your camera and the USB cord that came with it and plug one end into the computer and the other into (you guessed it) your camera. Make sure your camera is on. The make of your camera should pop up on the onOne server software. Then launch your iPhone or iPod’s DLSR Remote app and select your computer (Make sure your wi-fi is on). And there you go! Just push the button.

As you can see in this photo I’m triggering the camera from my phone and you can see the previous shot on the screen. Pretty niffty!

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Photography / Tutorials / iPhone — 1 Comment
10
Aug 09

iPhone GeoTag for Photographers

If you have an iPhone you know you love it. Now your just about to love it even more!

While in Barnes and Noble with my girlfriend Kari I picked up the iPhone book by Scott Kelby and I was flipping through it when I came across the GPS section and how every time you take a picture with apples camera app. It geo tags your images! Thats right it bakes the longitude and latitude right into the images metadata.

Why is this so cool? Because now when you go out scouting places to shoot photos and snap a picture with your phone the location of where you were standing when you took the picture will never be forgotten. So ten years down the road you can easily find out where you took that photo and go shoot some photos at that location.

Now how do you see and use this metadata? With lightroom its a snap! Just go to your library mode select one of your iPhone photos. Then on the right hand side will be all your meta data telling you what camera was used, shutter speed, all that stuff. But if you look at the EXIF section of it all your see GPS and some numbers. Guess what if you click on it. It will launch your web browser going right to Google Maps and pin pointing where you were when you took the shot, well I would say within 100 ft. I added some images to the end of this post to show you exactly how it all works.

Here is the image I captured

Screen shot 2009-10-22 at 1.42.36 AM

Here is where I click to launch Google Maps in my web browser

Screen shot 2009-10-22 at 1.43.13 AM

Here is my Google Maps result.

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Computers / Lightroom / Tutorials — No Comments
8
Aug 09

Lightroom Plug-Ins

If you a lightroom lover your about to love it even more! Thanks to Jeffery Friedl we have some amazing lightroom export plug-ins. If your like everyone else in the world you have a Facebook page and there is a export plug-in for that, all you have to do is click “HERE” and it will take you to his lightroom goodies page.

Now this is where it gets even better there not just a facebook plug-in there is a blogger, flickr, photobucket, and a few others. Just select the ones you want and download them.

Screen shot 2009-10-22 at 1.55.39 AM

Screen shot of Jeffrey’s blog, as you can see in the upper left corner there is a list of all the plug-ins. Just click to download.

Then your going to want to go to your lightroom catalog, while in the library mode your want to click the export button or hit (Command+Shift+E). This will bring up the export dialog then go to the bottom left where it says plug-in manager and hit the “add” button to add a plug-in. Go to your download folder and import your plug-in. Once it is added there should be a green dot to the side of the plug-in name, which means “I’m ready to rock!”

Screen shot 2009-10-22 at 1.54.37 AM

This is what you should see in your plug in manager

Hit done, now your back to the regular export menu. So go up to the top of the menu and by default it will say files on disk or something to that affect. Click on it and select your plug-in from the drop down menu. Now your a boat load of options for that plug-in. All I did was verify my account by putting in my user name and password for facebook and I also set up which folder it would export my images to. (for the facebook plug-in it will swap you to facebook and you will have to allow the plug-in to export to facebook. Sounds complex but your see what I mean) Once you set all that fun stuff up your going to want to go to the left of your menu and hit “add” and name it something useful like Facebook.

Screen shot 2009-10-22 at 2.02.22 AM

Now all you have to do is hit that magic button called export and it should automatically swap to your browser into a new facebook tab and all you have to do is select the images you want to add and confirm and its just that easy!

Screen shot 2009-10-22 at 2.03.39 AM

Just to note all the plug-ins are basically the same set up.

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