Flagstaff – AZ, not a particularly interesting town to visit in itself but its geographical location is ideal to visit and photograph amazing areas of Northern Arizona. I took my family there in February and with temperatures between 40′s-60′s we couldn’t have enjoyed better vacation time. I was particularly in awe with the incredible diversity, richness, and beauty of the landscape and wildlife; from cinder cone volcanoes (Sunset Crater), to the Grand Canyon, going through amazing Native American ruins (Wupatki) and a 4,000 feet wide meteor crater, the colors, shapes and stories were just enchanting. I must have taken over 1,500 pictures in 10 days, here’s just a few that attempt to capture some of those special moments. Hope you enjoy!

Photos: click here

So after all the fanfare I decided to go check out the iPad at the local Best Buy store. I had read a LOT about it and as a believer in convergence and not adding another device that needs recharging, sync’ing and carrying around, I still thought perhaps as a photographer this could be a great specialized device for showing portfolios, proofs to customers, and video slide-shows with background music.

My first impression of the device was pretty positive, great screen, awesome form factor, the blown up iPhone/iTouch interface is simple and intuitive. Then I went straight to my portfolio site and although it had no flash components, a simple fade-in fade-out transition slide-show was VERY sluggish, it seemed it could not keep up with the transitions. Bummer. So I decided to hop onto my SmugMug Pro account to view recent pictures of a wedding I shot…. and bam, I hit the “sorry cannot play any flash” error in Safari. So neither the regular picture slide-show nor the mp4 video slide-show I had created for the couple could be shown as both needed flash to run. In a screeching halt my test drive was over . Needless to say, compared to the iPhone, the lack of flash support on this device is an even bigger blow to its potential market share as it tries to find niche markets where flash still has a heavy presence.

I don’t have high hopes for flash support on the iPhone and iPad, it’s really a shame they couldn’t reach a deal with Adobe, hopefully this opens the door for healthy competition like the Joojoo and similar devices but this hot new breed of devices seems to be going through some rough beginnings on the critics side. This is all good though, I’m sure version 2.0 of these machines will have rounded their edges and polished their software for more solid products.

 

 

When talking to people who are either getting into photography or want to improve their skills at it,  I often find myself giving the following 6 tips:

 

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So you paid a good amount of $ for your camera gear and feel very enthusiastic about taking your photography to the next level. Like everything we cherish and want to protect from damage or abuse we tend to stay on the “safe” side when it comes to using it in places where we might feel could be “risky”. Although this is a perfectly normal behaviour at some point it will likely limit your options and creativity.

A few months ago I invited a friend of mine for a 2-hour swamp walk in the Everglades National Park, where water levels were up to my thighs (and I’m not short!). His first questions were “can we really bring our cameras? What if we slip and fall in the water with them?”. Very valid questions and although I couldn’t promise any safety for his gear I just told him that going there and NOT taking the camera was worse than the perceived risk of damaging his equipment. I ended up going by myself and although I did drop a few items in the water (lens cap, a map, some batteries) my equipment stayed dry in my photo backpack.

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With today’s ultra-low noise dSLR cameras, every one is tempted to use high-ISO values to maintain decent shutter speeds in lower light conditions. Although this might be perfectly fine as people can now take shots that were not possible a few years ago, the art of “dragging the shutter” (using slow shutter speeds) should not be forgotten as it can produce very artistic and dramatic results, unique to this particular technique. (more…)

Looking to upgrade your point and shoot camera? Consider these 2 top choices:

 

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So you’re starting to amass a hefty collection of photos and wonder what’s the “best” and “simplest” way to back them up. This is actually a loaded question as the answer really depends on how much risk you’re willing to take in your photographic workflow.

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Guess what I got for Christmas? No, not the 5D Mark II,  but probably the best value upgrade I’ve made in recent years. I got BlackRapid’s new RS-4 camera strap, a model that falls between the RS-1 and RS-2 in terms of size and functionality. (more…)

For a long time sub $800 LCDs have been frowned upon for photographic work, many pros preferring CRTs despite their shortcomings with color stability and calibration creep. Low-end TN type panels found in the cheapher LCDs are certainly inadequate for accurate color reproduction and can show strong banding problems (low-bit), but in the last couple years I’ve seen some wide-gamut (large color space reproduction) sub $700 models with S-PVA panels (better quality for photo work) getting pretty decent reviews. I had been using CRTs up to now, enjoying the color fidelity but desperately needing more working real estate (had a 19″ Mitsubishi Diamondtron CRT). I decided to take the plunge and get the DELL 2408WFP 24″ LCD monitor. First impressions were that it was a very bright, contrasty and sharp monitor, showing rich and deep colors. I calibrated the screen using the Spyder 2 and got excellent results. (more…)

About a month and half ago I stumbled upon lulu.com, a self-publishing service that offers on-demand personalized photo book (and other types of books) publishing and some potential e-Commerce extensions to sell your publications online. And all this at a very reasonable price since you can order 1 or 500 copies of your publication, starting at $25 for my full bleed hard cover 8.5″ x 11″ 20-page photo book. I decided to try Lulu after test driving their amazing web 2.0 interface. (more…)

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