Category: Digital Photography

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My Favorite Things…

FavoritesPeople ask me to recommend products and services to them all the time. Sometimes they take my advice, sometimes they don’t. But that’s besides the point. Rather than having to constantly go back and dig up a link to a product that I like, to send it to them, I’ve decided to put it all in one place, here on my tech blog. This way you will always be able to tell which products and services I’m currently recommending at any given time. The products and services listed here are the ones that I actually use (or have used in the past) and I don’t get paid to recommend them (other than Adobe products of course. Although I was using and recommending Adobe products long before I worked for the company.) Most of these companies don’t even know that I exist.

So the next time you’re looking for a hot gadget recommendation or you’re wondering what I use in any given category, you can just take a peek at "My Favorite Things" to find out. I’ll keep the page updated as I swap out my gear over time.

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Underwater Photography

I bought the Olympus Stylus 720SW last November while on a Caribbean cruise. I blew just about every chance I had since then to grab some shots underwater. My last great opportunity was in Australia at the Great Barrier Reef and just as I was leaving my hotel room headed to the reef for the day, I picked up the 720SW only realize that the battery was dead and I didn’t bring the charger! Arrrrrrggggggh!

So I decided to give it a spin this past weekend in the pool. Sure it’s not as exotic as Australia, but it is water! This camera is waterproof up to 10′ without the need for a special housing. I love the fact that it has built in scene modes just about for every situation (25 in all) including Underwater Snapshot, Under Water Wide 1, Under Water Wide 2 and Under Water Macro.

For a point and shoot camera it does an adequate job. In the scene modes for underwater, I did notice a little more noise than I like, but for an underwater camera that costs less than some housings out there, it ain’ t bad. However, my single biggest complaint remains with this camera and that is Olympus chose to use the xD card format as opposed to the much more popular SD card format. All my other cameras use either SD or Compact Flash. I really don’t need another format such as xD or Memory Stick.

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Lightroom still on sale at Amazon.com

Hey! It looks like someone forgot to tell Amazon.com that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom now goes for $299. There was an introductory price of $199 from February (when the product shipped) until the end of April. But it appears that Amazon still has some of those $199 boxes left. So while they have supplies left of the introductory sku’s you can get Lightroom for only $199.49. However, you’d better hurry as it says "while supplies last!".

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Boston loves Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

I’m here today at the Hynes Convention Center in downtown Boston attending the Scott Kelby Photoshop Lightroom Tour. I’m fielding questions on Lightroom during the breaks and learning some pretty cool tips. The Lightroom product manager Tom Hoggerty is also here and promises to show a sneak peek of what’s coming in the next update. Scott is presenting to a sold out crowd of over 500 people. If this is any indication of where the industry is going, it certainly points to the success of Lightroom and the importance of digital photography workflows.

Scott starts out with a live photo shoot of a bride and then goes right into the Lightroom workflow covering the Library, Develop, Slideshow, Web and Print modules.

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Learning a few lighting tips from the guru

Scott Kelby showing Terry White the Spiderlite

It’s not often that I get the chance to spend some quality 1-on-1 time with my buddy Scott Kelby. So I jumped at the chance to do a photo shoot with him this week in Tampa. I learned a lot and will be placing my order for a Westcott Spiderlite kit as soon as I get home. These lights do a phenomonal job of providing continuous light and basically giving you a what-you-see-is-what-you get situation. It also doesn’t hurt to shoot a beautiful subject either.

Ashley Gellar - photo by Terry White

This shot of Ashley Gellar taken with my Nikon D80 and lit with the Westcott Spiderlite T5 and a reflector.

Did I mention how much I love digital photography?