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Before you upgrade your iPhone or iPad to iOS 11…

Apple will release the highly anticipated iOS 11 update tomorrow Tuesday, September 19th 2017. However, unlike previous iOS updates this one is likely to leave some of your apps behind.

P.S.A.: Before I go any further, don’t even think of installing iOS 11 without having backed up your iOS device first! Now on to the topic at hand:

With every operating system update since the beginning of time there have always been incompatibilities with 3rd party applications. In most cases the applications have small glitches and sometimes the more severe incompatibilities cause the applications to crash upon launching. However, this time you may have some applications that will never work again!

Apple is dropping support for 32bit applications in iOS 11

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The Best DJI Mavic Pro Drone Photography and Video Settings

When I got my DJI Mavic Pro drone I was very excited to have a drone with a better camera than the one on my older DJI Phantom 2 Vision +. However, when I got it and set it to the settings I thought would be best I admit that I was never really thrilled with the stills that I was getting. The videos were fine, but for some reason the stills were in many cases over sharpened and things like trees seemed “mushy”. I didn’t think that the settings could make that big of a difference and I couldn’t have been more wrong!

Your Mavic Pro settings will make or break your images

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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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Must Have Accessories for the DJI Mavic Pro Drone

Anyone that follows me closely knows that I enjoy flying drones as a hobby and when I travel. My current model is the DJI Mavic Pro. It was the drone that I was waiting for. While I love the Phantom series and my first two DJI drones were Phantoms, they are simply too big and bulky for casual travel. The DJI Mavic Pro fits either in my backpack or carry on suitcase. Not once has it been an issue taking it through airport security even abroad (in Iceland).

A friend of mine just asked me “What are the Must Have Accessories for the DJI Mavic Pro?”

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Chamberlain Finally Delivers a HomeKit Compatible Garage Door Opener

When I had my house built last year the one thing that I was excited about was being able to take advantage of all the cool smarthome options out there. When it came time to buy garage door openers the main thing I wanted was ones with a battery backup. I wanted to be able to still open my garage door in the event of a power outage. When I looked I was pleasantly surprised to find the Chamberlain model that not only had a battery backup, but it was also WiFi and smartphone enabled. Chamberlain has their own app “MyQ” and it works fine, but it’s yet another single purpose app. It would have been nice to be able to also control my openers in the Apple iOS Home app. They kept promising that HomeKit compatibility was coming and they were even featured on the slides in Apple’s keynote address on more than one occasion.

Well it’s been a little over a year since I bought my openers.

Chamberlain Keeps their Promise and Delivers a HomeKit Solution

Works with HomeKit

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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…

Continue reading “Iceland 2017 – The gritty details!”