DPP 2.0
I guess it's time for my weekly "I'm busy" post. My day job has slowed back down to normal, but freelance work is keeping me up into the wee hours most nights. I'm also staying occupied with eBay, selling nearly all of my non-essential possessions. Anyone want to buy a drum set?
In camera news, check out Martin Bailey's latest podcast. He does a really nice job of reviewing the Canon 5D.
Speaking of new Canon products, I've been wanting to try version 2.0 of Canon's Digital Photo Professional software. I thought I was stuck at version 1.0 until I could upgrade my camera. Not true! A friend hooked me up with a copy of the software and it's fully compatible with the RAW files from my 20D. Yessssss...
The coolest feature of DPP 2.0 is that picture styles can be applied to RAW images during post processing. I was almost certain this was going to be a novelty feature reserved for shooting in JPG mode.
Alright, that's all for now. Oh! Happy birthday, Jeremy!
Soup?
hospitalsoup.com - Worst domain name ever.
Apparently it's a job website, but seriously...gross!
The Ice Cream Game
I was hungry for ice cream this weekend, so I stopped at Whole Foods to see what they had. One of the only dairy ice creams they had was Cedar Summit vanilla. That shit was disgusting. I don't know how else to describe it, but it tasted "gamey" and smelled a little like meaty butter. Yuck.
How big is too big?
How big is too big? I'm not sure, but my new 20" Apple Cinema Display comes pretty close. This thing is awesome! I currently have two browser windows open and both are at a very comfortable size. I'm freaking out, but I'll stop gushing. It's just that this is a huge upgrade from my 17" CRT monitor. It's so sharp and bright. Plus, it looks amazing on my desk. I decided to treat myself after finishing a freelance project that recently came to a close.
Okay, on to regular business. Here are a couple of standouts from todays browsing:
- In a surprising and very cool move, CBS just released a bunch of podcasts. I'm most excited about 60 Minutes.
- Best. Song. Ever.
- I haven't decided if I'm excited about The Warriors game coming out tomorrow. It looks like it will play like Grand Theft Auto (and is put out by Rockstar), but is based on the movie of the same name about 70's New York City street gangs. Retrolicious.
In photography news, Saturday was quite a day. I got up early to pick up Jeremy to go do some shooting. We went down to a mountain bike race. Note to self: telling people that you are an independent photo journalist does WONDERS for how you are received. Everyone there was really helpful and the park ranger even let us ride in her vehicle. Shooting mountain bikers was tough...really tough. The woods were pretty shaded and the bikes were moving fast. Not a great combination and not a great first experience. I did learn a lot, but didn't get anything usable. I think I have one shot that I might post to Flickr.
After the mountain bike race we hung out with our ladies and some friends at an apple orchard, but cut out early to hit the Zombie Pub Crawl. Everyone was really nice (or about as nice as you'd expect a brain hungry zombie to be) and very willing to be photographed. Not that this isn't obvious, but slow moving zombies are MUCH easier to photograph than fast moving bikes. I have a bunch of shots that I hope to get posted tomorrow night.
Okay, that's all for now. I have to go finish watching Million Dollar Baby and play more We Love Katamari.
The LCD Blues
I've been using the same CRT monitor for the past 5+ years and I'm really used to how it looks. Editing images on it seemed to be pretty easy and I could predict with confidence how my images would appear on a majority of monitors.
I've been working with a bunch of photos tonight, using my new Cinema Display and am having a really hard time getting used to it. The LCD is so sharp that the sharpening I would normally apply on a CRT is too much. Plus, everything's a lot brighter. I uploaded several photos to my private Flickr account to check them out on a CRT display that I have attached to another computer and I'm not quite comfortable making them public yet. They're a little dark and more soft than I'd like them to be. I think I'm going to live with this new display for awhile before I post any more photos.
I have calibrated the display and am pretty sure that I just need to live with this new display for awhile and shouldn't get too down about not being comfortable with it right out of the gate. That said, I'm open to advice or suggestions.
Does anyone else look at photos on multiple displays before posting to the web? Should I forget about it and just get them to look good on my new display?
One Podcast to Rule Them All
If you're in the creative field and can listen to one podcast this week, make sure it's the Martin Bailey Photography podcast.
It's available in iTunes, but here's a direct link to the MP3:
http://www.bokeaji.com/podcasts/MBPP_Ep007.mp3
This guy is spot on with his thoughts about getting paid for your art. In his case it's photography, but what he says can be applied to any of the arts.
The Pod
At lunch yesterday I ran over to West Photo and picked up a cool little bean bag support for my camera. I've been thinking about making one or picking up a generic bean bag, but heard about the Bogen Pod on the Studio Lighting podcast. What I like about this one is that it has a locking bolt, which attaches to the bottom of my camera, so there's little chance of losing it or leaving it behind. This is going to be really helpful when resting my camera on parking meters, rocks, etc.
Titles, Titles, and more Titles!
I'm making some minor changes to the site. You may notice that I'm displaying a title on each post now, instead of just showing the date. I've been giving all of my posts titles since early 2003 because I use them on my RSS feed, so thankfully I didn't have to go back and add them. Any of my old posts without titles will revert to using the date.
I think this is going to help out a lot to make each post more topic based and less like a journal entry, which I've never really been comfortable with. Plus, it gives me the freedom to make more than one post a day. I think it also makes the page easier to skim and find what you're interested in reading. Let me know if I'm wrong.
I've also reformatted the subheader slightly, pushing the comment count/link over to the far right, giving a little more separation from the date/time stamp.
So far, I like the change. Next up, a new banner graphic.
UPDATE: A few readers (myself included) noticed that the subheader style was out of whack this morning. A simple refresh of the page should take care of that by loading the new style sheet.
White Russian Girl
On the way up to my apartment this evening I heard one of the most ridiculous quotes of all time:
"Maybe I should be a 'White Russian' girl now with my long hair...wait, do Russians have long hair? Maybe that's Swedish."
Ugh. I hear stuff like that from my neighbors all the time.
iView MediaPro 3 Beta
I've used iView MediaPro for the past year or so and couldn't wait to download their new beta when I heard it was out. I installed it yesterday and am not completely blown out of the water, but there are some nice new features and I'm excited about the "Pro Lightbox".
What got me right away is that it's fast...REALLY fast. Importing and rendering images seemed to be at least a third faster than the current version. Many applications seem to get more bloated and slower as they mature, so the speed boost was a nice surprise. I think this will be an upgrade worth purchasing when it's released in November.
Sensor Dust
I usually don't shoot photos at an aperture much smaller than 7.1f, but last night I was taking some shots for an eBay auction at 16f, which ended up revealing a bunch of sensor dust. I'm not quite brave enough to try the Pixel Sweeper method of removing the dust and am not yet willing to send my camera to Canon for a cleaning, so I decided to take my Giottos Rocket-Air blower to it.
I got rid of more than half of the visible dust particles, but can still see 7 or 8 specs on shots taken at small apertures. I started to get obsessive about it, but decided to let it go. I'll probably just try the Pixel Sweeper method in a couple weeks after making sure I can afford to buy a new camera if something goes horribly wrong.
Check out Tips from the Top Floor for a detailed podcast about camera cleaning and sensor dust.
