I don’t typically get too excited about beta software, particularly for my production environment, but this is one that I’ve really been waiting for! The first public beta of Lightroom 3 didn’t get me too excited. It didn’t really offer enough new stuff for me to bother with the hassles of the fact that it was beta, and in fact it had certain features that were disabled that made it problematic to use (like luminance noise reduction). But the new beta offers several new features that I’ve been hoping to see in Lightroom and I will definitely be giving this version a full workout.

One final word before I talk any further… This is Beta software. Your results may vary, and there is significant potential that you could really do some damage to your photography collection if you use this software. It hasn’t been released for production yet because it’s not ready. Be careful.

• Video Support: We didn’t get full on video editing yet, but at least we finally have some rudimentary management tools that allow viewing, flagging, keywording, and captioning of video files in exactly the same way that still images are cataloged. I certainly hope that they expand this further to include basic edits (clipping, exporting, and global exposure adjustments) but for now this is a huge step over the old version!
• Tethered Shooting: With this version they have added support importing live images directly into Lightroom when shooting while a camera is connected to the computer. This is a studio and product shooters dream. I won’t use it a lot, but every once in awhile it will be very useful.
• Performance Improvements: I haven’t tested the new version enough to fully buy into this one yet, but I really hope that this one is true, and the new version does seem to be a little bit snappier. I will definitely be watching to see how this pans out.

For a complete list of the new and upgraded features the best place to go is the Lightroom Team Blog. You can also check out the release notes included with the update.

To download the program head on over to the Adobe Labs site.

Here are a few more sites you can check for additional information and commentary:

• Jeffrey Friedl’s: Lightroom 3 Beta 2 and My Plugins
• The Lightroom Queen: What’s New in Lightroom 3.0 Beta 2?
• Terry White: Lightroom 3 Public Beta 2: What’s New?

A friend of mine recently asked for some advice on how to make some great images of his newborn baby.

“We’re having our first child in a couple of weeks and I just started a photography course. I’m looking for some tips on getting some decent shots. You being a Dad AND an accomplished shutterbug, I thought I might pick your brain a bit. It was suggested to me to pick up a 50mm 1.8 lens. I have a 40D which puts the lens at approx 80mm after crop factor. Obviously flash probably shouldn’t be used, so I was wondering if you could please toss a little guidance my way.”

I quickly came up with a few great tips that I wanted to share here too:

1. Consider Black and White, and use Tight Depth of Field - Brand new Babies are often blotchy and scaly and if you photograph them in color then they tend to look funny. Black and White images can hide lots of that stuff. So does a really large aperture and tight cropping. This is where a lens like the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 comes in. It is very inexpensive (around $100) and has a very wide maximum aperture that allows you to highlight a sweet spot of the scene, such as the eyes or the face of the baby. (I wouldn’t actually shoot it at 1.8 because the depth of field would be so narrow that much of the image would look blurry. If you use something like f/2.8 then you can really bring the attention to the part of the image that you want, while still giving yourself a chance of making the image in focus).
2. 
   Move Closer - When you think you’re close enough, take another step closer! A series of tightly cropped shots are often much better than trying to show everything in one image. And portrait where the subject almost completely fill the frame are almost always better than images where the subject is small in the frame. Having said that, make sure you shoot a little bit of everything, from really wide to very tight just to make sure you capture everything that you might want to remember later.
3. Shoot the Details – Baby hands and feet are really cute, so don’t forget to make some nice images of them. Make sure you also get a few shots of the hospital details that you will only see in the first few days. The birth announcement, the name card on the bassinet, the wrist band (security ID) on Baby’s arm or leg, etc. You might also want get a few images of the doctors, nurses, and any other people in the hospital that make your life better while you’re there. The key is to have a camera with you at all times for the first few days.
4. Use Window Light on a Cloudy Day - After the initial excitement of Baby’s arrival drops off, you’ll want to make some great portraits while the baby is still tiny. It’s still winter in our neck of the woods and we’ve had lots of those foggy days lately where the light coming in the window is extremely soft and bright white. This is fantastic light for portraits. Set baby up in a blanky (or in mom’s arms) near the window and use that light to your advantage. This is much easier than trying to make light from a flash look good because you can see what you’ve got before actually taking the picture. Try it, you’ll like it!

These are all great ways to make sure you get some great images of your baby and some of the details of her arrival.You’ll look back on these images many many times over the coming years, so you really should try to do it right!

A few more thoughts about 50mm lenses:

I love mine and I use it all the time. In fact I have two of them; an older 50 f/1.8 and a brand new Canon 50mm f/1.4. I really love the 1.4 version because it focuses extremely quickly and it’s incredibly sharp. The 1.8 is also very good (especially for the price), and I happily used it for years before upgrading, but it focuses really slowly, especially in low light. The good news is that really little babies don’t move very quickly so you can set up every shot very carefully and get your focus bang on! Either one of them make fantastic portrait lenses because the focal length is just right for making images that look pretty natural to the human eye (ie. it is very similar to what we see with our own eyes). But they also allow very tight DOF which lets you to blur out the distractions in the background. I definitely recommend buying one if you have the cash.

I’d love to hear what has worked well for you when making portraits of your children (or your clients children). Hit me in the comments below!

The recent release of the Canon EOS 7D has created quite a stir in the photography community. Initially people weren’t sure where this camera fit into the lineup of existing Canon cameras. From the naming convention it appears to fit somewhere between the 50D and the 5D Mark II; however, the feature set is so impressive that many assumed that it was intended to slot in above the 5D in the hierarchy. As the dust has settled it appears more and more that Canon has created a new product line designed to directly fight the Nikon D300s which is positioned in the market in a place where Canon had no comparable equipment.

Marketing aside, the 7D has a very impressive list of specifications and the image quality appears to be at least as good as the 50D (with increased resolution at 18 megapixels for the 7D vs. 15 megapixels for the 50D). It may not quite match the standard set by the full-frame 5D Mark II, but this is clearly one of the best SLR cameras ever produced.

Here are a few of the main reasons why I’m excited by this addition to the Canon family:

1. New Autofocus System: I’ve had the Canon 40D for almost 2 years (and 70,000 images) and in that time I’ve never really loved the autofocus system. It works well in some situations, poorly in others, and OK in most. But I’ve always felt that it could be faster and more accurate, and could do more to help me achieve critical focus. For the 7D Canon is boasting that the brand new “19-point, all cross-type AF system equipped with dual diagonal cross-type sensors in center at f/2.8 and f/5.6 and AF area selection modes to match various shooting situations” will be exactly what I’ve been asking for: faster and more accurate. I certainly hope they’re right.
2. Low Light / Low Noise Shooting: It seems that I can almost always use a little bit faster shutter speed and so higher ISO’s with lower noise levels are definitely exciting. I use ISO800 all the time with my 40D and the noise in those images is “acceptable” but often much uglier than I want it to be. In my opinion ISO1600 is not at all usable except in those extreme situations where getting any shot is better than getting nothing at all. I was able to test a 50D for an extended period and on that camera I find the images made at ISO1600 to be comparable to those at 800 on my camera, and the 7D is supposed to be even better yet. This is a very good thing and I’m excited at the possibility of having a camera where ISO3200 is a reality, not just a crazy dream!
3. Lots of Megapixels: Lately lots of people have been crying for the camera companies to stop chasing megapixels and focus more on reduced image noise. Not me. I want both! I shoot lots of birds and wildlife which can often be very small in the frame, and more megapixels means that I can crop my images tighter and post yet still have a large file for multi purpose use. So while I’m happy that this camera is 18 megapixels, I’d be even happier with more. Canon, keep the pixels coming!
4. HD Video: This isn’t so much exciting for me as it is very interesting. I don’t shoot a lot of video, but I do want to be able to in a pinch. I’m used to always having a point and shoot nearby to use for the occasional video that I want to shoot, but it would be much nicer to have it built into my SLR. The fact that the 7D includes 1080p High Definition video, with the amazing control over depth of field that only comes with an SLR is really nice. Video has already become a de facto industry standard for SLR’s, but I’m glad that Canon is pushing the quality envelope with the video capabilities implemented in this camera.
5. Wireless Flash Control: I’m saving the best for last with this one… The 7D comes with built-in capability to control multiple external Speedlite flashes wirelessly using TTL metering. That means that the camera can control the output level of each flash where in the past an external flash with Speedlite Master capability, or a dedicated wireless Master controller, had to be mounted on the hotshoe of the camera. These units are heavy, bulky, and expensive! Canon has long been way behind Nikon in this one little detail as most (all?) Nikon SLR’s have been able to control slave flashes wirelessly for a long time. Anyone even remotely aware of the Strobist movement will immediately understand why this is a big deal. It’s not just big, it’s huge!

I don’t necessarily think that the Canon EOS 7D is the perfect camera. In fact it only adds one of the features that I really want in my next camera (AF Microadjustment, which has also already become a de facto industry standard feature). But it is a huge leap over the existing xxD cameras and in many ways an improvement over the much more recent 5D Mark II. The main thing for me is that it shows that Canon hasn’t been sitting on their laurels and that they have some fantastic new technology ready to roll. Upcoming releases in the 1D and 5D series could get very exciting!

I love my iPod Touch and I use it all the time. Before I actually got one I had been coveting it for a long time.

Without doing all that much research on it I naturally assumed that it would consist of the exact same hardware as the iPhone, and would be missing only the ability to make and receive phone calls. I was quite surprised to discover that the hardware was actually quite different; the Touch was smaller and lighter, and, most significantly, did not have a built-in camera.

Fast forward about 18 months to the launch of the iPhone 3Gs which included not only an improved still camera, but also video camera functionality. It also received a wide variety of software upgrades in the form of the iPhone OS 3.0. At that time there was no corresponding launch of new hardware for the iPod Touch, but the existing device got a de-facto upgrade since it was compatible with the OS 3.0 upgrade. Everyone naturally assumed that Apple was simply stalling in order to ensure high demand for the upgraded phone, and that new hardware for the Touch would follow a few weeks of months later.

This finally happened this week when Apple released a whole new lineup of iPods.  This release also came with a major update to iTunes 9.0 and also to the iPhone OS 3.1.  Some of the highlights of the release include:

• new colors and lower prices for the iPod Shuffle
• a massive 160 GB hard drive in the iPod Classic
• a faster processer in the iPod Touch (the same as in the iPhone 3Gs) and a new 64 GB model
• a video camera (with microphone and built-in speaker) and FM tuner in the iPod Nano

What?  The Nano gets a video camera, but the Touch doesn’t? 

Video is king right now and I can see why apple would want to shove a camera into all of their iPods.  But never in a million years did I expect to see it in the Nano before it was in the Touch.  The iPhone already has it so it seemed like a lock that the Touch would get it next.  My 32GB 2nd gen iPod Touch is plenty fast enough and without a camera in the new generation I’m really not sure why any existing iPod Touch owner would upgrade to the new model.  Even new iPod buyers should be able to pick up some great deals on the 2nd Generation devices.  For me this announcement is just plain odd.

Oh well, maybe bext time.