Welcome to my technology blog!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-jLuMgeALY
Adobe's Worldwide Video Evangelist Jason Levine is back to give us his multi-part video series on Getting Started with DSLR video for Photographers. Jason gives photographers a step-by-step tutorial on how to get going with video without being a video editing guru.
For me this was probably not only my busiest Photoshop World, but probably my best. There was a good vibe going on all week long! I not only got a chance to see some old friends, but I also got a chance to teach some new classes and do some presentations that I hadn't tried before.
shot by Cari Gushiken
The last time I was on stage for the Photoshop World Keynote was actually the very 1st Photoshop World Keynote 1999 in Orlando FL. Back then I was the keynote speaker and oddly enough back then the big news was Adobe InDesign 1.0. Wow! A lot has changed in 10 years! This year I took the stage along side Johnny L to show a quick 5 minute demo on taking your photos and DLSR video from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.2 into Adobe Premiere Pro CS5. It was great to hear so many photographers that were thinking about getting into DSLR video come up to me afterwards and say "I think I can do that".
If you missed the keynote, you can watch the replay here.
Adobe took a totally different approach to the tradeshow floor this time. Normally our booth is the typical theater with demo stations and continuos demos of our latest wears. This time we paid tribute to the 20th Anniversary of Photoshop by setting up Macs running every version of Photoshop all the way back to version 1.0. These Macs were running the version of the Mac OS and Photoshop of their era. Users could walk up and play with the earlier versions of Photoshop to remember just how far Photoshop has come in 20 years. I started with Photoshop 2.0 and yes I can remember a time before Layers, editable type, multiple undos and installing Photoshop from floppies.
We also had "Spotlight" sessions throughout the day where Adobe Evangelists and partners showed Photoshop tips and techniques.
photo by Brad Moore
photo by Brad Moore
that thing we call Midnight Madness 🙂 photo by Brad Moore
I had 4 classes on the conference track instead of my usual 2. Not only did I get to do my 2 InDesign classes, but I also got to do one on Lightroom as well as a Social Media Class dealing with Facebook. Thanks goes out to all that attended my classes and the many kudos you gave me.
I also did a couple of lighting demos for Bogen and Westcott. Sarah K on the left lit with the Elinchrom BX-RI 500 against a Lastolite Hi-Lite background and Tala lit with the Westcott Spiderlite TD5s. Both shots taken with my Nikon D700 and 28-70mm f/2.8 lens.
Wacom also asked me to give a demo in their booth of the Intuos 4.
Westcott added something very cool at this show. They had their usual corporate booth with various lighting setups and equipment on hand. However, they also added a second area near the rear of the show floor with Live Shooting Bays. They had 4 bays setup so photographers could walk up and shoot the various themes and models they had for each day. I was completely blown away by how well this worked and it was the buzz of the show floor. It was one thing to have this very creative setup, but I was stunned when it changed each day. A lot went into this for sure. The real beauty of this setup was that it allowed Westcott to REALLY SHOW OFF their Spiderlite TD5 Lights. These continuous lights don't need triggers and therefore not only is it what you see is what you get, but its perfect for allow multiple photographers to shoot at the same time. Bravo to the Westcott team for pulling this off and allowing everyone the opportunity to get some creative shots!
See more of my shots here:
If you also did some shooting in this Gallery the guys at Westcott are offering you a shot to be featured in their next catalog. Check out the details here.
I told the Westcott guys, "you know that you can't ever come to Photoshop World again without doing this right?" they smiled 🙂
Don't rely on one camera battery. I figured one fully charged battery would last me the week. Normally it would have, but the Westcott Shootout took it's toll on my battery and at the end of the week I was only able to get off two shots during my Lightroom Class (tethered shoot) before it died. I have several batteries, they're small and don't weigh much. I could have easily fit two more in my bag without even noticing the added weight. Next and once again I was reminded how important it is to have comfortable shoes. I normally wear or bring sneakers, but this time I was tight on space and left them. Lastly, I brought my Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 lens and while it's a great lens, I was really wishing I had brought my 70-200mm f/2.8 instead. It's not that much bigger and it would have been so much better for the shoots I did.
I look forward to seeing you all in Orlando for Photoshop World East 2011!
The iPhone Book 4th Edition by Scott Kelby and yours truly, Terry White is now available! I got my first glimpse of it at the Photoshop World book store this week in Vegas. I checked stock at Amazon.com and it's available there too. This 4th edition is loaded with all kinds of iPhone 4 and iOS 4 tips and tricks. So don't walk, but run over to Amazon.com and order yours today!
Thanks!
You might remember last week when I posted my video showing how to publish your photos to Facebook directly from Lightroom 3.2, well now that Lightroom 3.2 is officially out I can also tell you the same exact publishing feature is there for Smugmug users too! That's right if you're on Flickr, Facebook or Smugmug you can now publish your photos directly to any of these popular services directly from Lightroom. Even if you shot in RAW, Lightroom will make JPGs and upload them for you all in the background.
It adds camera support for:
This update also adds support for a ton of new Lens Profiles and several bug fixes.
Download Lightroom 3.2 update (Mac | Win}
Download the Camera RAW 6.2 update for CS5 & Photoshop Elements 8 (Mac | Win)
Continue reading “Adobe Lightroom 3.2 & Camera RAW 6.2 are here – Smugmug users rejoice!”
Adobe's Worldwide Web Evangelist, Greg Rewis returns to give us his 3rd installment on Creating HTML 5 and this time it's how to Get Started with HTML 5 Video. Greg shows how to use the HTML 5 Pack for Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 to create HTML 5 video that reaches the largest audience of viewers.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3xYyxLP9Ec
It's that time of year again and I'm looking forward to heading out to Adobe Photoshop World this week in Las Vegas! I'll be teaching my usual two InDesign classes, but this year I'm also teaching a Lightroom class and even a Social Network – Facebook class.
In addition to the conference track classes I've got something up my sleeve for the keynote as well as a couple of lighting demos (Bogen – 2:15 on Wednesday and Westcott 1:30 on Thursday) on the tradeshow floor. Lastly I'll be doing a quick demo of the Wacom Intuos 4 in the Wacom booth (4:00 on Thursday) too. Yep, it's going to be a busy week and I'm excited to go and see many of you there!
It's FREE! Learn more about it and get it here.
See you in class!
I have to say that this was definitely one of the BEST events I've ever presented at. The Johannesburg crowd was fun, engaging and inspiring! A full house with standing room only. You guys rock!
Thank you for a great day and I'm looking forward to coming back to Johannesburg and also going to Cape Town and Durban again.
The line to get in was around the building!
One thing that I was really delighted by was the Live "Ask a CS Pro" session via Facebook on Friday morning. This was a great way to answer questions from South Africa and around the world LIVE. We'll definitely look at doing more of these going forward.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0Mh1CK6z0Q
Adobe is just about ready to release the Lightroom 3.2 update, which features support for several new cameras as well as a slew of new lens profiles and bug fixes. In addition to these features there will also be a new Publish Service – Facebook. Just like the Flickr Publish Service, you'll be able to upload your photos directly to your Facebook albums from Lightroom 3.2. Above is a video I recorded to show you how the process will work.
You can download the latest Lightroom 3.2 RC (release candidate) here on labs.adobe.com
The NEW highly anticipated 85mm f/1.4 lens is here. I have the older model and it is definitely one of my favorite lenses. The depth of field is amazing! I LOVE IT! So what's new with this updated model? For one it's nano coated and everyone that I've talked to that has a nano coated lens swears by the difference it can make in cutting down glare and getting sharper shots. I have the new Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens with nano coating and it's very nice. The other thing that this lens supports AF-S autofocusing on some of the consumer/prosumer bodies like the D5000. Although I'd love to have this new lens, I can't really justify the upgrade unless I sell the one I have (hint, hint). My current lens works great, so I may have to sit this one out for now.
You can pre-order the Nikon 85mm f/1.4 here for $1,649.95.
When I travel and I can only take one lens, it's usually going to be my Nikon 18-200mm lens. However, that's a DX lens and therefore isn't really designed for full-frame cameras like my D700. This new 28-300mm changes all that. This would be the ONE lens I'd want to carry if I could only carry one lens for my D700 or my D5000! It's also a VRII lens and has the nano coating. Papa needs a new travel lens baby, and I think this is it!
You can pre-order the New Nikon 28-300mm f3.5-5.6 lens here for $1,049.95.
Although the first two lenses I mentioned above are the ones that I'm currently drooling over, Nikon did announce two more lenses:
The AF-S Nikkor 24-120m f/4G ED VR and AF-S Nikkor 55-300 f/4.5-5.6 ED VR.
In case you missed it, Nikon introduced their New D3100 DSLR body just this past Thursday. This camera was rumored for quite a while and the rumored specs were pretty accurate. So it wasn't a shocker to see it, but there was one feature that I was hoping to see that didn't seem to make the cut. My current travel camera is a Nikon D5000 and I like the size and weight of the D5000 for travel, plus the ability to shoot video. The one thing that would have made me upgrade (or downgrade) to the D3100 in a heartbeat would have been audio in. Sigh…. While the D3100 steps up to 14.2 MP, adds 1080p video (Yay! and about freaking time), continuous auto focus in Live View (we'll have to see if it really works or not) and 12,800 ISO (equivalent), the audio for video recording is still limited to the built in Mono mic.
Most video cameras have crappy built-in mics. However, most video cameras also let you plug in a better mic via a stereo audio input. To make matters worse is that the built-in audio on Nikon DSLRs is only 11hz. A bad mic with bad compression, equals really really bad audio. Giving this camera 1080p, auto focusing video is AWESOME, but the limitation for many is definitely going to be the audio. Now if you plan to shoot video with your great lenses in all of the D3100's 1080p glory and then add your own sound track or music later, then this won't be a big deal, but if you need the source audio from the event you're recording, then you're going to either have to record the audio on a different device and merge them later in post or have sub par audio to go with your great video.
I would upgrade to a D300s at this point, but I'll continue to wait and see what comes next since the D300s was last year's model. It DOES have audio in, but it's only 720p video and if I'm going to spend the bucks, I'd rather wait since I don't think Nikon is done for 2010 just yet 🙂
If I didn't already have the D5000, and was looking for a small Nikon DSLR with some pretty cool features, then I wouldn't hesitate to get this one. The price won't break the bank and it has a few features that even the higher end models don't have yet. I may still sell my D5000 (since my D5000 doesn't have audio in either) to get this if I get a good price on the D5000. For now, personally I'm in wait and see mode.
You can get the D3100 here for a great price of $699.95 with a 18-55mm VR lens
