Links

Here are the latest batch of photo related links I have come up:

- Most Popular Photography Hacks of 2009- LifeHacker; I don't agree with all of these, but there are some good ones in there.  Solid list by LifeHacker.

- Tell Us What You'd Shoot Using a Camera With 158 Lenses- Gizmodo; I haven't the foggest. First show me what an image from this 'camera' looks like or can do!

- New iPhone App To Create Lighting Diagrams- DIYPhotography; Thats just too cool. I am such a photo geek.

- I have looked in to providing some sort of 'buy a print of my image' sort of functionalitly, and well- it isn't worth it. Just like having a photo-only website wasn't worth it for me either. I just don't generate enough traffic or interest to really justify that sort of investment of time and energy to get so little in return. A struggling/starving artist I am not.

- What the Duck- Damnit, that is about as close to the truth as I care to admit it is. Gotta get me some merch. Great shirts in there! Wish they had the stuffed duck again...

- If you need a Christmas gift idea for me, here is my B&H wish list!

Christmas card photos

I have been waiting a while to post this information about our Christmas card photos. We put our tree up two days after Thanksgiving, and the next day I did our photos with baby in front of the tree. I thought about for a moment but realized, it would be easy to light.
I needed two lights sources- one for the tree behind baby, and one for baby herself.

The strobe on camera left was a bounce umbrella at 1/2 power. Looking back I should have raised that to full power just to see the difference.

The strobe on camera right was a shoot through umbrella on camera right for lighting baby, 1/4 or 1/8 power depending on the lens used. I used my 17-40 f/4 and my 50mm f/1.8 as different depths of focus were attempted.

Over all I was pretty pleased with the results. Next year I am gonna try something different, just not sure what yet!

Links

Here is a collection of links and information I have collected since my last batch:

- Nova DSLR concept reminds us that cameras need not be boring- Engadget; Interesting design concept. No clue how functional it would be, but still interesting.

- The Touchscreen DSLR Is Finally Upon Us- Gizmodo; Oh good grief. It was bound to happen I guess. The biggest part is the tactical response I get with the Canon wheel on the back of my camera. How the heck is that gonna be replaced? What if I drag my nose across the wrong part of the screen? Eek gads!

- This Is One Classy Laser-Made Collapsable Lamp- Gizmodo; I saw this and the first thing that jumped in my mind was 'a way cool diffuser, grid spot, or even pattern for behind the subject!'

- Nikon Girl music video, The Photo Club- YouTube; Funny.

- Gifts for Aspiring Artsy Photographers- Gizmodo; Yeah, no thanks on most of them. Please use my B+H wish list as my true gift guide! Thanks.

I just love What the Duck:

JJ jump

JJ jump
Originally uploaded by Phil Romans

This was a bit of fun to do. I am not much of a post editing sort of guy, I don't even own Photoshop. However, I will use the open source equivalent in Gimp.

How it was done:

Position self.
Check settings on camera for Hi-speed shutter.
Shoot as subject doesn't break himself.

At home, research the heck out of Layer masking.

In Gimp, you can import several photos as layers. Nice.
To each layer I applied a layer mask, making it dark. Gimp made the last photo in the series, where JJ landed, the background image.
So when I went to each layer, I simply panted to reveal that version of him. It got tricky when they overlapped.

Turned out pretty good, and lesson learned on how to make the image!