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Qantas Airbus A380 does a low pass over Sydney

…ruins it.

At least if you have created a watermark of sufficient boldness to defeat the various semi-skilled image thief’s which inhabit the world wide web as it exists today.  You only have to do a simple Google search to give an exhaustive list of tools and techniques to remove watermarks on images.

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Flickrs New Look

After the “War and Peace” like length of my last post on “Editing Canon EOS 7D Video with Premiere Pro“, I have taken a bit of a break. Here are some quick photography related links to distract while I craft my next masterpiece

• Lifehacker – How to record great video with your hd dslr camera. Some great tips on shooting video, including knowing which way your focus ring moves. Sounds simple, but you don’t have time to mess around with this when shooting video.
• ImpulseAdventure – Comparison of Digital Photo Catalog Software. After my brief reviews of DAM software such as Adobe Lightroom, I found this excellent (and massive) comparison table of pretty much every software product for digital asset management known to man.
• Finally, Flickr will shortly be introducing an exciting new look, as seen in the image at the head of this post. It also features a great “Dark” mode, seen below, something which many third party services had provided in the past. I use Flickr to showcase my images, it’s a great community, and I enjoy the feedback that an image or gallery on my website doesn’t necessarily receive.

The new Flickr "Dark" mode

The emergence of Canon DSLR video has been a triumph and a struggle for wantabe Steven Speilbergs, me included. The triumph is the undoubted quality of the image, and the creative avenues opened up by the wide variety of lenses available.

The struggle includes the introduction of so much new terminology, so many new ways to be creative and to fail miserably, and the inevitable havoc caused to well established workflows with the introduction of video. This post outlines my efforts to arrive at something resembling a usable workflow for video, using  MPEG Streamclip, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Youtube.

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We Had Some Great Adventures!

Ah, my first DSLR, a Canon 20D, it is time to part company. I will miss it, but the truth is I have not used it since I got my 7D. So it is up on eBay now, to be recycled into something new and shiny! Check it out here.

UPDATE: Sold and dispatched.

MS Queen Victoria alongside in Sydney

I have just posted a new gallery of some shots of the Cunard Line cruise ship MS Queen Victoria on her recent visit to Sydney, Australia. For more information on this beautiful ship, check out this Wikipedia entry, or the Cunard Line website.

While not strictly a “Landscape” photo, for the moment, I am including “Cityscape” and ‘Seascape” in this category.

Go take a look!

Towards The Light - Tourists shoot the Pantheon Oculus

Slowly but surely I am sorting and sifting my way through my back catalog of images. This new gallery features some of my favorite shots from a two week trip to Rome in 2007. During that time, we really got a feel for this wonderful city, and especially it’s food!

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So Adobe has announced Creative Suite 5. There have already been some amazing preview video’s, but, as always with Adobe products, there will be the debate whether to upgrade or not. I am lucky enough to have Adobe Master Collection CS4, but here are the top three features which will probably push me down the upgrade path…

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“The Last 3 Minutes” From Shane Hurlbut, ASC from Shane Hurlbut, ASC on Vimeo.

After watching this video, all I can say is:

Wow!

My Canon 7D can also shoot High Definition 24P video, though coming from a photography background, I am struggling to catch up. New formats, new tools, new challenges (i.e. have you tried to edit Canon 7D footage in Premiere Pro? That is a major challenge for another post…) and new creative decisions.

Then you see a video like this, and realize that even with all the right tools, you still have a mountain to climb The video capabilities on the current Canon 5D MkII and 7D are so strong that even the season finale of House MD was filmed completely on one.

I Hate Flash...

Why? It scares me, it defies me to control it, demands manual control for best results. And mostly, it beats me… so much so that I bought this book, this flash, this camera, and finally, this lens to wrestle back control at the darker points of the my photographic adventure.

If I am honest with myself, I don’t know how to use it correctly, and have the photographic evidence to prove it! This post from Photocritic.Org might just put me on the path to flash redemption, and cure me of my past sins..

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Adobe Lightroom 2

In my previous post on Digital Asset Management, I briefly outlined some of the entry level contenders for DAM software such as Google Picasa and Adobe Photoshop Elements. In the rest of this series, I will look at some of the heavy weights, the professional asset management systems. I will start with the one I use most –  Adobe Lightroom. Not sure if this is a good idea as I it is the product that I am most intimate with, knowing its strengths and weaknesses. Let’s get started…

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