A few interesting links about Photography, Technology, Social Media, and Gadgets that I’ve come across recently. Some are smart, some are funny, and some are just plain dumb, but they are all interesting for one reason or another. Have a look and let me know what you think:

• The picture of dishonesty: social media slaps down a wedding photo faker – Hartford online marketing | Examiner.com
  If you fake your entire career online, you're going to get caught. This article about a photographer who stole images from other photographers, including reposting images from entire weddings and claimed them as her own, recently found that out in a hurry.
• 4 Lessons Learned From Our Builder For Photographers
  Photographers need to be awesome to stand out. So do other service providers. It's not that hard, but you have to plan for it. You have to want to be awesome…
• Creative Collision: Branding is Everything
  You are your brand. You must own that. If your clients don't appreciate your brand, how can they see themselves in the photography that you might provide for them?
• Behind the scenes / Making of a QR code
  This photographer deserves a medal for the patience he displayed in creating his print promo piece. It's pretty incredible the lengths he went to to make something tactile for his promo piece. Of course he could have achieved the same look with about 5 minutes in Photoshop, but it's still pretty cool to see what he created.
• Enormous 6mm Nikon Fisheye Lens Up For Sale At £100,000 | Popular Photography
  I have some big lenses in my bag… I know because my photography clients comment all the time . But this one takes the cake. I'd love to see what the images that come out of this lens look like!

For a long time I have had a theory that Nikon photographers are more likely to be Mac OS and Apple Aperture users while Canon shooters tend to use MS Windows and Adobe Lightroom.

Please tell us what you are most likely to use as the primary set of tools in your photography workflow:

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Polls Archive

I finally got around to finishing “The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes” by Joe McNally and I wanted to share a few of my thoughts about it.

I’ve actually had this book for a long time now and I’ve been reading it gradually, one or two sections at a time. My life has been crazy busy and I simply didnt’ have enough time to sit down and read it straight through. But I wanted to (it’s that good)!

It’s not exactly a continuation of his first book, “The Moment It Clicks: Photography secrets from one of the world’s top shooters“, but it’s written in a very similar style. If you liked the first one you will definitely like this one as well.

The Moment it Clicks was more about the backstory behind each image while The Hot Shoe Diaries is about the thought process involved in creating each image. Where Moment present a single image on each two-page spread and included some descriptive text about the people involved or the location used, Hot Shoe is broken down into short chapters about different lighting techniques. Each technique is presented over 2-3 pages and usually uses 2-3 images showing how the scene looked before and after the lighting was completed. Sometimes there are a couple of different images from each shoot instead. For almost every technique McNally includes a lighting diagram (typically a rough sketch on a used napkin, see the Napkin Notebook) showing where each light and modifier were positioned relative to the subject and the photographer. This is essential information for anyone that really wants to understand how the image was created.

On the surface this book is a technical manual by a Nikon shooter using Nikon Speedlites. But it’s really so much more than that. It really is an attempt to show some of the thought processes required to make some of the iconic images that Joe has produced over the years. It’s about thinking through the requirements of the image rather than simply about the gear involved, and that makes it extremely powerful. Because thinking can be used over and over again no matter what gear is used.

The fact is that the Canon and Nikon lighting systems both have very similar capabilities. Some of the gear from the smaller manufacturers does too. As long as you can understand what techniques are involved, it really doesn’t matter what gear you have. It is a relatively trivial thing to translate “Speedlight with i-TTL and CLS” (Nikon) to “Speedlite and e-TTL” (Canon). And you can always use your old Vivitar flashes in manual mode to accomplish the same effect (maybe it won’t be quite so easy, but it works). You can head over to Lighting 101 by the Strobist to learn more about that.

Joe’s witty and slightly self-deprecating writing style is extremely easy to read (check out his blog if you don’t already read it), and he has this way of spinning some of the most amazing tidbits of life knowledge together into a web with his intended subject. It’s very easy to get lost in what you’re reading and to only truly coem to understand what you learned upon later reflection. Sometimes the best parts of this book aren’t even anything photographic; there are lots of life lessons and tidbits on how to work with people buried amongst Joe’s inner thoughts on how the world works.

I really loved The Moment it Clicks and I was very happy to discover that The Hot Shoe Diaries lived up to that promise. I highly recommend this book for anyone that wants to quickly make their photography better.

I’ve wanted this for a long time, but all the hype around the new iPhone 3GS with its bigger, better, and badder camera (that also now does video) has really got me thinking about it.  One of the greatest things about the camera in the iPhone is that it is fully accessible by the applications in the gadget.  Programmers have created a slew of apps that allow the user to control the camera however she wants.  From interval timers, panoramic stitchers, exposure bracketing, or special effects “filters” that allow you to change the entire look and feel of the resulting image right in the camera (errr, phone).  If you have an iPhone then you should check out “Camera Bag“, “Pro Camera“, and “Pano“ for some very cool add-ons to the native camera functionality in the iPhone.  (While you’re at it you can also read “5 Tips for Making Great iPhone Photos” from professional photographer Chase Jarvis for some great tips on making better images with your iPhone.) 

Sure you can do many of these effects in post-processing afterwards using software like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, the Gimp, but the ability to do them in camera is very appealing to many people (not to mention that you can quickly and easily add your final image to an email or upload it to Flickr without ever having to take it over to your computer first).  And besides, there are many effects that you simply can’t do in post, such as change the shutter speed, so to be able to do them in the camera is very important.

Since I don’t have an iPhone (I have an iPod Touch but inexplicably it doesn’t include a camera), I really want to have some of this programmable functionality in my Canon 40D.  The 40D is a fantastic camera, and Canon has gone a long way in providing user control over the camera.  But as the iPhone proves, there is so much more that can be done, and I really want to be able to control my camera how I want to control it.  The camera already has a very powerful computer built in, so this should be a no-brainer. 

Here are a few of the things that I want control over:

1. Multiple Exposure Bracketing – natively I can only create a 3 image bracket.  When shooting HDR images I typically use 5 to 7 images over a 5 to 9 stop exposure range and I want to be able to set that up easily in my camera. As it is now I have to shoot multiple 3-stop brackets to creat a set with the entire range of exposures that I might want to use.
2. Interval Timer – currently I would have to buy a very expensive Remote Shutter release in order to fire my camera at regular intervals (eg. to create time lapse sequences).  Many inexpensive point and shoot cameras have this built in, so it should be included in every high end SLR as well.
3. Auto ISO – Canon provides a crude Auto ISO feature where it will automatically ramp the ISO up or down based on the exposure, but it doesnt’ work very well. Really it simply sets the camera at the default ISO (400 on my 40D) and only raises or lowers it if it absolutely must (eg. if the camera is maxed out on Shutter speed then it will drop the ISO from 400 down to 200).  But it could be so much better.  I want to be able to set a minimum shutter speed (eg. 1000) which would then force the ISO up as high as the camera requires in order to get the desired exposure.  I also want to be able to set a minimum and maximum ISO based on my shooting conditions and the intended use of the image.  If I’m using my tripod to shoot landscapes then I want the cleanest image possible and I generally don’t care how long the shutter speed is, so let me choose ISO 50. or 25.  But if I’m handholding the camera while shooting sports, then I don’t want the shutter to go below about 1/1500th and I want the largest aperture possible, so I want ISO 1600.  There are all kinds of personalized situations like these that have their own scenarios.  Let me have the control!
4. AF Microadjustment – all the newest cameras have functions built in to allow them to adjust the focus system to correct for front and back focus, without having to send your camera / lens combination in to the manufacturer for mechanical adjustment.  I want that!

There is so much more that I want to be able to control in my camera that I could write on and on.  I guess what I really want is something similar to the CHDK to be made available for DSLR’s, and I want it to be officially supported via an API from Canon.  I want it to be open sourced, or at least open to outside developers to write Apps or Scripts for the camera.  And I want it now!  I don’t think this is too much to ask. 

Apple got it right with the iPhone camera, and now it’s time for Canon, Nikon, Sony, and all the other camera manufacturers to follow suit!