Dropbox

Dropbox is an online storage service that finally does it right. Once again wary of yet another online storage service I signed up for their free 2GB storage account to check them out.

The sign-up is simple enough and they give you a program to download to your computer. This program synchronizes a folder on your hard drive with Dropbox. When the program starts up it makes sure your Dropbox folder is synchronized. Since you can install Dropbox on many computers, this is a great way to make sure you have the latest version of a file at all times!

Lets say you’re on a computer without the program installed.. Maybe a hotel or friend’s computer. Your Dropbox can be accessed by web and you can upload and download with ease. There is also a public feature and you can select files to share with friends and family.

The folks at Dropbox are kind enough to offer free accounts with 2GB of storage and paid accounts with higher sizes. Sure, 2GB isn’t much space any more (I have more space in my cellphone) but I certainly have about a gig of files that I want to have access to at all times and I admit that sometimes I forget to grab my Flash Drive when I leave the house. This service for me may prove very valuable, all my important files will be with me anywhere there’s an Internet connection.

Security.. Their website says that all servers are encrypted and even employees of Dropbox are not able to access files and directories. Sounds good to me.

Overall, the service appears to be solid and stable. For me, I would never use over 2GB so I can’t justify paying Dropbox for a 50 or 100GB account. Sorry guys, I just don’t have that much stuff I need with me at all times. Security looks rock solid and well, I think it’s much more secure than a Flash Drive. Are your files password protected or encrypted on your Flash Drive? What happens if you lose it? There you go.. If you have files that you need to have with you at all times and most of the computers you use are Internet connected (which ones aren’t anymore?) check out Dropbox.

Link: Dropbox.com/GetDropbox.com

Belkin Mini Surge & USB Charger

Yesterday I received my review unit of the Belkin Mini Surge protector with USB Charger. I was pretty excited to open the packaging, as you may already know I’m a sucker for travel sized goodies.

The unit looks nice and is well designed.. Except for an aspect or two that are very important to me. We’ll get to that shortly. In the meantime here are the features of the device. A 360-degree rotating plug with 4 locking positions, a three outlet surge which provides complete surge protection through all outlets. The unit offers compact, lightweight, efficient design and in addition to two USB charging ports, a  mini-USB cable to charge virtually any USB device—including BlackBerry® and Motorola® RAZR phones. Product and $75,000 equipment protection warranties.

Looks like Belkin has a clear winner here and the price isn’t bad. At under $20 it’s protection that won’t break the bank. The product will be great on the road where power outlets are at a premium. Ever stay at a hotel fully expecting to top off your batteries only to find the bare minimum of outlets. The Belkin will certainly help with that. And the USB Charging ports? You can’t beat that.

Read More…

HonlPhoto Rosco Gel Kit

After trumpeting my love for the LumiQuest FXtra (LQ-121), the good people at Mack Camera sent me a HonlPhoto Gel Kit to play with.

Any gel system is going to work. We’re shining light through a color tinted piece of plastic and that’s not exactly rocket science. We’re reviewing the delivery system of placing and keeping the gel over the strobe, easy removal and changing of said gel. Nothing more, nothing less.

When I opened the HonlPhoto Gel Kit box I was quite surprised. Here is a box of 2×4″ pieces of colored plastic with velcro. It was so simple, a breath of fresh air…

Read More…

LumiQuest FXtra

Let’s face it, most photographers are cheap. Sometimes we need to be. With new lenses and bodies well over the $1k mark – most of us don’t have the extra budget to buy a lot of the fancy photography related doo-dads offered to us that promises a whole studio lighting setup out of a single strobe, perfect white balance under any condition, or a cure for male pattern baldness.

Just when I think I’ve seen it all, somebody creates something completely new. I’ve seen ping pong ball diffusers for pop up flashes, shoestring tripods and rubbing alcohol bottle diffusers for off-camera flash. PVC pipe softboxes, salad bowl ring flashes and para-cord light meters. Photographers sure are a creative lot in and out of the viewfinder.

But, sometimes we don’t want to be seen in public with our creations. We do have a lot of pride in living up to the pro-photographer part no matter if we are professionals or not. I certainly wouldn’t want to show up at a client shoot with a Wal-Mart bed sheet background and a Target shower curtain diffuser. Thankfully the LumiQuest FXtra addresses a major need for ‘Strobist Style’ photographers in a professional package without breaking the bank.

Read More…

When I first saw the Bokeh demo I figured it would quickly leave our minds as quickly as it appeared. I also thought – Hmmmm great, one less thing pro body shooters have over the good old point and shooters. So I grumbled a bit but the video stuck in the back of my mind.

What is bokeh (as a term, not the program)? Simply put, Bokeh is the look of your out of focus areas of your image. Of course it is much more, but for the purposes of this review, that’s the simplest explanation.

'Hot Air' - After Bokeh

I’m lucky to have almost every lens I could want at this moment in time (minus some very long or very specialized and thus very expensive glass) I have been thinking about picking up a tilt shift. Well over $1k US for the lens I want. I don’t mind an expensive glass purchase for something I would use regularily – the 400mm 2.8 L IS and the Tilt Shift lens would rarely see any real action to justify the purchase.

I watched the video again – hmmm, this could be something very interesting. Of course the video made it seem like magic, I patiently waited for the demo release and today there it was. Alienskin Bokeh demo 1.00. I downloaded it, installed it, loaded up a recent photo that would look good with a little more background separation.. The Alienskin window just sat there, my image inside with a complete blur over the entire field. I fumbled around with some sliders and buttons. Nothing. Oh man, don’t tell me I have to mask off everything before entering the program. Rats.. I guess nothing will ever save me from masking and selections. Yuck.

Read More…

If you haven’t seen the R-Strap, take a look at the video below. And then read on for first thoughts on the product.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14Q1IxI_Opwstyle

The R-Strap from BlackRapid http://www.blackrapid.com/

As you can see, the R-Strap is a strap for us two-body shooters or really for someone who wants to be inconspicuous around town. The body hangs down at your hip, strap across your body so it’ll never slip off. Right now when I shoot two body I usually have a camera on the monopod and a second body over my shoulder. Move around too much and that second body can easily slip off.

And if I happen to be walking around town the one body setup would really seem to be the way to go. My only concern is having someone cut the strap and make off with a camera. While I’ve only had these for a day so far, I don’t know how I would actually ‘walk around’ with this on my hip. Do I keep a hand on the body at all times or do I let it swing to and fro?

So, the beauty of the device is to be able to reach down and grab your camera pretty much at the control grip (the grip you normally hold your camera in landscape mode) and bring it to your face in an instant ready to shoot. One-handed operation, are you shooting a main body with a monopod? That’s fine. Left hand swings the monopod off to the side, right hand grabs the second body and snaps away. Almost too simple.

So on first look the R-Strap seems to be a nicely designed and sturdy product. It comes in a nice fabric mesh bag and collapses into about the size of two delicious hot pockets end to end. Mmmm Hot Pockets. The padding seems nice and thick and the whole thing clamps to my existing Manfrotto/Bogen quick release plates (the D-Rings). No extra doo-dads for me, though the product does come with a screw-in clamp point if you do not have an existing place to clamp onto.

A big thanks to Phil R. for posting a link to a DIY version which made me research the product itself before even thinking about a DIY version (See more here: http://philslice.blogspot.com) and also a big thanks to the fine folks at Ace Photo for being pretty much the only East Coast distributor for the product and getting it shipped out and in my hands in only a day.

Update: Adorama now sells the R-Strap! Link

Predictions and Concerns: I can see myself using this, a lot. My only concerns are a swinging camera on my hip, it really feels natural so I hope I stick with it. My other concerns are making sure the product is inspected before each use. The only thing holding your camera up against gravity and the ground is a strap and clamp. If that strap or clamp breaks. See ya. What if the D-Ring on the bottom of your quick release plate gives way? I am already thinking of a strap I can design to secure the camera again using the shoulder strap (double it up and fix it to the R-Strap) just in case your clamp or d-ring fails. Lastly, thieves. It would take nothing to slice through the R-Strap and take your camera. So when in a crowded situation, one hand on the camera whenever possible.

I’ll be posting an update to this in a week or two after I’ve had sufficient time working with the product.

Well? Have you? I know, I sound like a broken record. But I’ll get you to backup religiously one day. If you save one photograph from my nagging I’ll be happy.

As for me, I’m glad I backed up Sunday night because I had a drive die in my Hyperdrive on Wednesday. I did lose some images, but nothing I’m worried about. All the good shots and client data goes on multiple Hyperdrive units immediately. These lost shots were just tests with the new G9 and I didn’t copy the card to more than one Hyperdrive.

The Hyperdrive is back up, same chassis with a new drive is humming along just fine. Hard drives die, electronics go freaky, plan for the worst because when it does, you’ll give a big ol’ sigh of relief when you realize that even though that drive needs to be replaced, your images were safe.

Hard drive, CD, DVD, Tape – whatever, just make sure all of your eggs are not in one basket. Even one lonely extra copy on a different drive puts you way ahead of the game.

Still not convinced and have all of your images on one drive? Take this test:

Scenario: Your images from the last few years are in one location on a hard drive. The drive dies do you:

A. Scream, pull out your hair and then go take a walk into traffic.
B. Curl up in the fetal position and cry.
C. Send your dead drive to a drive recovery service and pay thousands for some, perhaps not all of the files back.
D. All of the above.

A little ol’ backup every now and then is worth averting any of the above options. Take this three day weekend to get a current backup!

Well, once again it seems that Adobe cheated us in CS3 – we’ve been begging for Conditional Actions in Photoshop for years now. What are Conditional Actions you may ask? A Conditional Action would be an action that is smart enough to handle if conditions. Lets say you have a folder of Landscape and Portrait oriented photographs – you would either need to run your action on them separately or use ImageReady. ImageReady you may ask? Where is it? Adobe decided to do away with it in CS3. So let me get this straight, now I don’t even have the option to go into it and run Conditionals. Nice.

I must say that I have never had the need to use ImageReady since I upgraded to CS3. Wow, I’m shocked that it is gone. Now how will I make my blinking, fireball, dancing baby animated gifs for client webpages? This is truly upsetting.

Oh well – awesome Photoshop community to the rescue! Sivaratnam Gunaratnam has created a script for Photoshop CS2 (which works in CS3) that lets you set a basic conditional. Now this is not the end all script to solve the problem, but it sure is a lot of help. Right now Siva’s script will let you set one conditional and if the condition is met run an action in your action palette. If not, run another action in your action palette (or no action at all). You can set conditions like height/width (is, is not, greater than, not greater than), file type, file size, RGB/CMYK, filename, exif, etc.. Recently I’ve been using ‘If Height is not greater than Width’, which is your basic way to differentiate between Landscape and Portrait images. Pretty clever.

Okay, you still need to create two sets of actions for this. One for each condition. I have an action that resizes my landscape oriented images and an action that resizes my portrait oriented images. It would be very nice to still have conditionals like ImageReady used to have so I can have one Action for each condition, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Lastly, some features commonly found in actions are just not available in the script. For example, changing the file name, overriding save actions, etc.. You *MUST* record the action to save to a specified location. Not too big of a deal, I have a folder on my scratch drive that the script dumps images into, I rename them first inside of Bridge, run the action, they get funneled into this folder and I move them out.

So, if you want conditionals – check out this script. Siva says a version 2 is in the works, but like most unpaid projects who knows when we may see it. I’d be willing to throw some green to the project to see a new version with a lot more features, but even more, I’d like to see Adobe finally get on the ball and give us Conditionals within Photoshop!

Thanks Siva!

Link: http://sivaratnam.googlepages.com/

Stacie beat me to the first entry, be sure to check her thoughts on the seminar over at her weblog at http://www.staciecmorris.com.

The ‘Captivated by the Light’ seminar by Ed Pierce and Photovision was a hit and I think everyone learned something. At $49 (many discounted price opportunities are available) I highly recommend seeing it if you still have one coming up in your area. Not including the outdoor setups, most indoor studio setups and examples are four light or more. Beginners will get a taste of the art but really need to start small, one light and then add from there. Pros with those light setups will appreciate the explanations and the ideas from the information presented. The whole show starts off with Ed talking briefly about basics, then lighting. We go into a few videos. Certainly the sort of things you’d see on the Photovision subscription DVD’s however once they were done Ed would discuss a few points. He goes into talking about his lights and using the Photovision Targets. Stacie caught the bug and bought one – it appears this guy could sell ice to Eskimos. I can’t blame her, when I actually remember to bring and use mine they’re wonderful and make color and exposure a no brainer.

Then we go into a few inspirational videos from Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep and a really cool video about Parker Pfister.

Ed does a great job of speaking and his stage presence is as cool as on his videos. However one thing that still bugs me. Ed told everyone a trick to photographing someone one small eye is to put the eye forward and closer to the camera so that by the fact the eye is closer to the camera, it will appear larger. Okay, I don’t see how a half-inch will fix a small eye. I have always used the Monte Zucker facial analysis training which tells everyone to put the smaller eye AWAY from the camera.. Why? The eye is Almond shaped, if you are doing a 2/3 portrait of someone and you set the small eye to the back, you’re automatically making that eye look larger because you are getting a straight view into the fat part of the eye. Does it really matter? Nah. And Ed was sure to state that what he says on stage is his opinion so try both ways and pick the one you like. All in all, my impression is that he’s just got it all together when it comes to speaking.

See the tour, buy yourself a target (I bring my miniature one with me on shoots when I remember, you can see it here: Photovision 6″ Calibration Target) and maybe even subscribe to a Photovision DVD Subscription.

Oh, and don’t forget that when you see the tour you’ll get yourself a four hour DVD set with your registration. And Door prizes, of course none of us won anything but the row in front and in back of us did.

 I love… Mac? Okay, not quite. Not quite yet at least. Mac used to be the platform for graphics (well, technically Amiga, but that’s a sad story for another time). So, I got myself a Mac, OS X and gave it a whirl from a die hard PC fan standpoint.

I will say that the whole Mac experience is pretty. But how much will we pay for ‘Pretty’? Does the Mac offer anything more to justify the cost over a PC? My opinion – kinda. For Photographers? No. For day-to-day work? Absolutely not. For Video work? Yes.

The Mac seems to take as long or longer than a PC to open a RAW file. Photoshop doesn’t seem any faster nor offers any increased functionality. In fact, it seems harder to mimic my pretty streamlined workflow on the Mac… Even after learning the new OS. Why can’t I right click on a RAW file in iPhoto or Preview and select Edit in Photoshop? And Aperture – where can I click on an image and edit it in a third party file? I couldn’t find it – I had to physically find the file on the drive and edit it from there. Maybe I’m missing a simple fix, but as much as I looked I could not find a way.

Applications? Can we skip this one? Just know that I’ll keep my PC for business related workflow or general applications.

Video work. Here is where a Mac really shines. PC video editing tools suck. Plain and simple. With the Mac I can import a video file (of pretty much ANY filetype or codec) and edit, play, scrub the file in any way possible. Even if you can get a video file into as PC editing program, scrub back and forth over the video a few times. Did it scrub absolutely flawlessly? Most likely not.

Luckily I hope to get back into video once I get into my new place, so the Mac will not go unused – but if you already have a high-end PC, why switch to a Mac? I hear people refer to owning a Mac as not a necessity but as a perk. However, I believe that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages for me. So, until I buy something like Parallels and load Windows XP on my Mac, it’s purely a toy and will never take center stage in my workroom.

This article was not intended to argue or flame one machine over another, it is just my working experience. This was not a technical test between comparable hardware nor were speed tests done between both machines. My opinion may change, I intend to give the Mac full consideration, however as of yet it falls short. In the case my opinion does change, I’ll post about it.