Category: Digital Photography

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The DJI Mavic Air is my New Favorite Drone

I’ve really enjoyed flying my drones over the past few years and adding them as a tool to my photography/videography story telling. My trip to Iceland last year was the first time I shot more footage with my DJI Mavic Pro drone than any other camera that I brought with me on the trip (see my Iceland video here). The more I flew it the more confident I got that I wasn’t going to lost it. This allowed me to capture footage that I probably otherwise wouldn’t have gotten because I wouldn’t have stepped out of my comfort zone.

This year it’s all about the DJI Mavic Air

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Adobe Lightroom CC vs. Lightroom Classic CC: Which one is for you?

Last week during Adobe MAX, Adobe took the wraps off its new photography system: Lightroom CC. Wait, wasn’t there already a Lightroom CC? Yes. Let me try to clear up some confusion I’ve seen out there. First off if you were already using Lightroom CC the good news is that Lightroom Classic CC is the same product that you’ve invested time in to learn and have been using for years. There is one change though besides the name. It’s much faster in most areas than it was before. The team has spent the last several months boosting the performance of Lightroom Classic CC, which is what we all wanted.

Lightroom CC
Lightroom CC doing a search for “tree” and finding images that were never keyworded.
OK then what is Lightroom CC? The existing version of Lightroom has been branded Lightroom Classic CC and there is a brand new built from the ground up application called Lightroom CC. This new desktop application now fits in the Lightroom CC family as a seamless way for photographers to have their images everywhere.

Lightroom Classic CC
Lightroom Classic CC
Didn’t Lightroom (Classic) CC have the ability to sync my photos and have them everywhere? Not completely. If you import images into Lightroom Classic CC, you still have the ability to sync images, but what gets sync’d are smart previews and not the original full resolution JPEG and Raw files. Now with the NEW Lightroom CC you get full resolution files sync’d and backed up to the cloud no matter where you import them from. If I import my DSLR raw images they get sync’d to the cloud. If I shoot into the Lightroom CC app on my iPhone or iPad (yes Android too) the full resolution JPEGs or Raw files get sync’d to the cloud and appear everywhere.

Should I use Lightroom CC or Lightroom Classic CC?

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The HOT NEW Nikon D850 is available for pre-order!

I gotta admit that I was suffering from DSLR fatigue. I haven’t been excited about a new DSLR for a long time. However, I had a wishlist for whatever my next DSLR would be have and low and behold Nikon built 99% of it in the NEW Nikon D850!

  • 45.7MP FX-Format BSI CMOS Sensor
  • EXPEED 5 Image Processor
  • 3.2″ 2.36m-Dot Tilting Touchscreen LCD (on my wishlist “tilting and touchscreen”)
  • 4K UHD Video Recording at 30 fps (on my wishlist)
  • Multi-CAM 20K 153-Point AF System
  • Native ISO 25600, Extended to ISO 102400
  • 7 fps Shooting for 51 Frames with AE/AF
  • 8K Time-Lapse, Negative Digitizer Mode (wasn’t on my wishlist, but damn!)
  • 180k-Pixel RGB Sensor, Focus Shift Mode
  • SnapBridge Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (on my wishlist)

Still missing from my wishlist: built-in GPS, sigh…, but at least I can still use my external one.

You can pre-order the NEW Nikon D850 here.

Whether I go with the NEW D850 or whatever the successor is to the D750, I will keep my current D810 as my backup/second body.

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How to Photograph The Solar Eclipse 2017

Solar Eclipse

Yesterday I did a live stream on the Adobe Creative Cloud Facebook page outlining what you’d need to successfully photograph or simply enjoy the Solar Eclipse happening Monday, August 21, 2017. Here’s the replay in case you missed it:

There were a lot of good comments and questions during the stream and I thought I’d recap some of the things I talked about here.

What you need to capture the solar eclipse

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I Absolutely Knew Better!

data loss

I have been telling photographers for years to always have at least three copies of your images/videos. This also applies to traveling photographers. I have also said for many years that “there are two types of computer users: those who have lost data and those who will.” With this in mind you would probably think that I’d be one of the last people to lose some of my precious images/video, but that’s exactly what happened. I didn’t follow my own advice and it’s no one’s fault but my own. I can’t blame the hardware. I can’t blame anyone else. It was all me. I knew better!

I’m telling you my sad story so that hopefully it won’t happen to you.

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How to Create a 360° Panorama from your DJI Drone

I really love capturing video and stills with my DJI Mavic Pro drone. I’m surprised by what I can get in regards of sharpness and rich colors. I’m also quite pleased with the 4K video. Posting stills and video to social media is nice, but the one thing that takes it up a notch is being above to post fully immersive 360° panoramas to Facebook (like the one above that you can click on and experience). Facebook has native support for 360° stills and video. On the ground I shot 360’s with my Ricoh Theta S or Insta360 nano. When it comes to aerial photography I’d rather not strap one of these cameras to my drone. The Mavic Pro already has a 12MP camera that shoots Raw.

I remember seeing someone post a drone 360° and I about fell out of my chair trying to figure out how they did it? So I asked and he was kind enough to turn me on the necessary apps. I thank him for that, but knowing which apps were used was only half the battle. I still had to figure out the process. Every time I post one someone asks me the same thing and rather than just point them to the apps they need, I’d rather have this post to refer them to so that they get the full process.

Here’s what you’ll need…

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Iceland 2017 – The gritty details!

Iceland 2017 Load out

Hey everyone! I’m back from Iceland and as usual I learned a lot and had a blast. With that said there are a lot of questions that come up when ever I do a photographic excursion and this trip was no different. The questions started even before I left about the equipment I was taking and in some cases why I wasn’t taking more? As promised here is the list of gear I took based on the load out pic above.

  1. Targus laptop rolling backpack. I initially bought this for Photoshop World so that I would have to carry my heavy backpack back and forth. For the Iceland trip it served as a secondary equipment bag.
  2. Thinktank Streetwalker Backpack. I love this camera bag because it not only holds my camera gear, but also my iPad Pro and MacBook Pro.
  3. Klear micro fiber cleaning cloths.
  4. WD My Passport Wireless 2TB HD. This drive is a lifesaver as it allows you to backup your SD cards without having to use a computer. It has a lithium ION rechargeable battery and you can just plug your SD cards in and they automatically copy to the drive.
  5. Klear wet pack screen cleaning pads.
  6. SkyRoam contract free WiFi Hotspot
  7. Platypod Max camera tripod without being a tripod.
  8. Rode SmartLav+ microphone for doing live streaming and interviews.
  9. Arkon Smartphone Tripod for capturing 360° and iPhone videos in general
  10. Gitzo Traveler Carbon Fiber Tripod
  11. Nikon cable release for capturing long exposures without having to touch the camera.
  12. DxO ONE 24MP DSLR quality camera for iPhone.
  13. Mevo Live Streaming 4K Camera.
  14. Insta360 nano 360° still, video camera and live streaming camera.
  15. Ricoh Theta S 360° still and video camera.
  16. FlatHat Drone collapsable landing pad.
  17. Nikon 14-24mm Wide Angle Lens
  18. Nikon D810 DSLR 36MP full frame camera
  19. Nikon 28-300mm Zoom lens
  20.  DJI Mavic Pro 4K Drone
  21. Anker Solar 15W USB charger.
  22. Monster 4 port AC travel power strip
  23. OREI 2 in 1 USA to Europe Adapter Plug
  24. Anker backup batteries for charing USB devices.
  25. Vovomay Hardshell Shoulder Waterproof Suitcase Bag For DJI Mavic Pro
  26. iPad Pro 12.9″ 256GB WiFi-4G Gold
  27. Apple Pencil for iPad Pro and case.
  28. MacBook Pro 15″ Retina 2014 with custom Gelaskin.
  29. PlugBug USB port for Apple wall charger.
  30. iPod touch 32GB
  31. Apple AirPods, but my Blackpods arrived the day I left.
  32. Coast Head Light dual color.
  33. Anker PowerLine+ Lightning cables.
  34. Camera Rain Protection.
  35. di-GPS for my Nikon DSLR

See the whole story below…

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Awesome NEW Backlit Keyboard for Lightroom Users

I finally got a chance to put my new Lightroom USB Backlit Keyboard to use. Editors Keys has been making dedicated application keyboards and keyboard covers for years. I typically go for the keyboard covers for my MacBook Pro, but when I’m at my desk I had been using a full size Apple USB keyboard. The Apple keyboard is not backlit. I use Lightroom everyday. So if there was a application keyboard to choose for me it would be Lightroom (or Photoshop).

You have to see the Lightroom keyboard in action!

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Let’s go to Iceland this summer!

Iceland lagoon

Last year I got an incredible opportunity to spend part of my sabbatical in Iceland. See the story here. Of course when I got back many of my friends, fans and family asked “Why didn’t you take me with you?” “Next time, take me with you.” “Do you need an assistant?” Well here’s your chance to go with me this year. The good folks over at focusonnature.is are dedicating one of their amazing tours to me and a small group of photographers that want to tag along. It’s rare that I travel to the same place on vacation two years in a row, but in this case I’m willing to take one for the team 🙂 You can get the details here.

6 Days of Pure Icelandic Photographic Adventure

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