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F.J. Westcott liked the images from my recent shoot at Red Rock Canyon so much that they inquired about using them on the Westcott Rapid Box 26″ Octa packaging. I was thrilled to work it out with them and once again honored to have my work in print with brands that I admire. PocketWizard was also happy with the results and mentioned them in their “Making Waves” blog post here.
See my Westcott Travel Portrait Lighting Kit here.
See more of my photography here.
By popular demand I’m doing a digital photography workflow workshop. The 1st one will take place Saturday, August 24th, 2013 from 10 AM – 3 PM in my Troy Michigan photography studio. After that I’ll head to Cincinnati Ohio for another one on September 14th.
I’ll walk you through my complete end-to-end digital photography workflow. You’ll get a chance to see how to work with models, how to light for beauty and fashion photography as well as the secrets to my workflow for bringing images into Lightroom 5, organizing, picking the best shots, delivering client galleries and retouching the final selections in Adobe Photoshop.
Seating is LIMITED! So Register Today!
Register for August 24th, Troy MI
Register for September 14th, Cincinnati OH
Why attend this Master the Shoot workshop?
There are several great workshops that concentrate on lighting or photography techniques, what makes this workshop different is that I will take you through the entire process from start to finish. You’ll learn tips and tricks to speed up your entire workflow including image management and retouching techniques that will help you deliver the best shot.
What should I bring?
If you want to participate in the portrait shoot bring your camera.
If you want to follow along with the workflow bring your laptop with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 or 5 and Photoshop CS6 or higher. While this will be mostly a lecture on the workflow and retouching techniques that I use, you should be able to follow along with many of the tips and best practices. Please note: Everyone is going to have different configurations and shoot slightly different images and therefore it will NOT be a hands on class step-by-step session. If you bring your laptop you’re bringing it as a convenience to you, as there will not be time for me to work with everyone one on one. With that said, you will walk away with my notes/workbook so that you can go back and practice the main points of the day.
Sometimes you can be so focused on what you do professionally that you totally overlook what’s out there for fun. Both Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC are at the heart of my day-to-day photography workflows. Many of you have heard me talk about Adobe Revel in the past. I had begun using it as my portfolio App on iPad. I loved that it sync’d my photos from Lightroom to the cloud and instantly to my iPhone and iPads. However, the one BIG THING that was missing from the iOS apps was a “slideshow” feature. Sure you could swipe the images, but you couldn’t simply hit play and let them run. The beautiful new redesign of Revel 2.0 changed all that. The app is gorgeous and has many new features that has me using it as my Portfolio app again. Let me share some of the other updates with you that you may have missed…
Adobe Revel is Adobe’s “consumer” based photo sharing service. It’s FREE to use for those with modest needs. With the FREE account you can upload an unlimited number of photos in the 1st 30 days after setting up your account and then 50 photos a month after that. If you “need” more than that you can go UNLIMITED for $5.99/month. Yes, that’s unlimited imports, no limits ever. Once you upload your images to Revel they are instantly available on your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch (Windows and Android is in the works, but no timeline for when they will be available). As with other services like Flickr. com, most will only need the FREE account, but if you want to handle a lot of photos each month you can go unlimited whenever you want.
Download Adobe Revel for Mac here:
Download Adobe Revel for iPhone, iPad and IPod touch here:
Adobe Revel is on the consumer side of the house and the consumer offerings from Adobe (like Photoshop Elements) will remain separate from the professional offerings in Creative Cloud.
In addition to uploading your photos, the Mac and iOS Revel Apps allow you to do non-destructive edits to your photos. Think of it as a Light version of the Lightroom develop module for consumers. It’s all slider based and like I said, 100% non-destructive. Once you make edits on one device those edits are automatically sync’d to all your other devices. This means that you always have the most up to date photos with you. You can also use the App to display your photos on screen or via AirPlay to say an Apple TV.
Lightroom 4 had a Revel Publish Service built-in and Lightroom 5 has a plug-in that you can download for free that does the same thing. Get it here. When I sign in to the Revel Publish Service I see my Revel libraries and I can create collections (or better yet, Smart Collections) that represent my portfolios. This means that I can publish my best/favorite images from Lightroom directly to Adobe Revel. I have created a Smart Collection in the Revel Publish service for each of my portfolios. When I update the regular Lightroom collection with new images, all I have to do is hit the Publish button in the corresponding Revel Publish Service Collection and my images are uploaded and my iPhone, iPad and Mac are updated. This has been the easiest way for me to carry my “CURRENT” portfolios around with me on my various devices. Yes the images can be viewed offline too. Actually if it weren’t for the Lightroom tie in I wouldn’t be half as excited about Revel. Since all my photos live in Lightroom it’s the hub of all my photographic workflows.
Everything I mentioned above is pretty much old news to Revel. The 2.0 iOS Apps and rate plan changes have been out for a while. What’s new is a couple NEW iPhone Apps. The 1st one is called Grouppix. I reviewed it here last week. When you and your friends download this FREE App, one of you can create a “shared” Album and invite the other to it. At that point anyone that has access to the album can upload pics to it and you all see them. This is GREAT for events such as parties, weddings, conferences, etc. Now everyone will have access to all the photos. That’s pretty cool, but what I didn’t realize right away is that those albums are powered by Revel! If you’re a Revel user those Grouppix shared albums show up in your Revel account. This also means that they show up in the Lightroom Publish Service. This makes it really really really easy for me to not only share photos I’ve taken with my iPhone, but also the ones I’ve taken with my DSLR. I can import my DSLR photos into Lightroom 5, select my picks, Develop them and add them to a Revel collection (Grouppix album), hit Publish and everyone that’s on the shared Grouppix album now has access to them. I did this last week during the Adobe Create Now Tour in APAC and it worked GREAT! If you’re into video there’s also a consumer based video editing app for iPhone called Video Bite. Yep it’s free too. It’s basic, but hey it lets you put clips together quickly and output a final movie right on your iPhone. Also did I mention that it’s free?
Get Adobe Grouppix for iPhone here:
Get Adobe VideoBite for iPhone here:
Learn more about what Adobe Revel has to offer here.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a review of a GPS device for Nikon DSLR cameras. The main reason is that I haven’t seen much movement or innovation in this space. The second reason is that I had kinda moved on to using my iPhone 5 as my GPS and creating .GPX log files that can be read by Lightroom 4/5. Since I always have my iPhone with me I could always just fire up the Geotag Photos Pro App and start recording my movements to a log file. With that said, there are some definite advantages to having a physical GPS device on the camera itself. First of all a physical GPS device will be more accurate. Logging apps only update based on a predefined interval. The next advantage is that a physical GPS just needs to be turned on. In a matter of seconds it locks on to satellites and away you go. Lastly, the logging apps on your smartphone will drain your smartphone’s battery sooner. Not to mention that there is no post-processing with a physical GPS. The longitude and latitude are written to the metadata of the images as you capture them. Yet, I was still using my iPhone more than the physical GPS devices I had. I think the biggest reason for this was the design of the GPS units I’ve used to date. Nikon DSLRs have direct support for external GPS units. On the more recent models like my D600 there’s a dedicated GPS port. Almost all of the GPS units I’ve used to date attached via a cable. This short cable plugs into the Nikon DSLR and the other end attaches to the GPS itself. This is what I never really liked. You either had to attach the GPS to your hotshoe or to your camera strap. The cable was always in my way. I was either constantly knocking the GPS out of the hotshoe or putting stress on the port that the cable was plugged into.
The Eco ProSumer GPS is one of the latest models from Dawn Technology. First off the thing that attracted me to this model was the fact that there is NO CABLE. It’s small and plugs right into the side of my camera. It’s not in the way! Like the previous Dawn models it allows you to use it in auto mode or always on. In auto mode it will turn on/off with the camera. So then what else is new besides the design? It’s lightweight at only 16g. It’s very power efficient at 19mA (1/3rd of the aging Nikon GP1). It’s also faster at acquiring a GPS lock. Basically it’s better in every way. There is a port on it that allows you to connect a cable release, and of course Dawn Technology sells those too.
I reviewed the Westcott Ice Light last fall and while this is a great, bright LED continuous light for photography, the one thing that hampers its use on location is the relatively short battery life of 60 minutes. If you’re near an AC outlet, no problem because you can just plug it in and run it for as long as you need. However, the point of most portable light solutions is that you can use them in the field on battery and 60 minutes for most just won’t be long enough for an extended shoot. Since the rechargeable battery is built-in there’s no choice but to plug the whole unit in once it goes dead. Westcott has addressed this shortcoming by offering an external battery.
This optional battery back can more than tripple the battery life of your Ice Light without being so big or so heavy that you wouldn’t want to travel with it. It’s actually quite compact considering the amount of extra juice you’re going to get out of it. Once you charge the battery pack you can use it to either power an Ice Light or charge it. The Ice Light Power Battery Pack runs for 2.5 hours and can give your Ice Light up to 5 hours total run time. Now we’re talking! 3-5 hours is great for the average half day shoot. Also if the AC plug is not right at the shooting location, you can charge the battery pack in another room and walk it over to the shoot in progress as needed.
Sounds great! However, my only issue with the solution unfortunately is the price. The external battery already adds to an already high priced piece of gear.
You can get the Ice Light Battery Pack here
You can get the Ice Light here.
See it here.
As a photographer there’s nothing more complimentary than a major publication or company wanting to use your work to represent their brand or products. As “hobby” photographer that compliment goes up 1,000%. Photography has always been a passion of mine, but mostly a hobby.
One of the ways that hobby pays off is when I’m contacted by a publication that wants to use my work commercially or when someone wants to buy my prints or usage rights of my work.
Those are the times that make me feel like my work (which could always be better) is good enough to be considered “professional”.
Usually the only time I pop up the flash on my DSLR is to use it as a Commander to control and fire my off camera Nikon Speedlight. If you ever see me using it to light a subject you can almost bet that it was an emergency, there was no other choice and I’m hating life in that moment. There are two ways to combat the horrific effects of on camera flash. Either bounce it or diffuse it. When it comes to my speedlights I’m a “diffuse it” kinda guy. However, for the tiny popup flash built-in to most cameras, the options to diffuse them are less. This is probably why you never (or hardly ever) see pros using the pop-up flashes on their cameras. Heck, my Nikon D4 doesn’t even have one. They probably figured if you’re a D4 customer, you know better.
I reviewed their original Lightscoop way back in 2007. While it’s a great product, I rarely carried it because although it was small, it was still an odd shape that took up space in my bag and there just weren’t gonna be too many times that I’d be using it. Now they offer a Lightscoop Deluxe.
Continue reading “Your On Camera Flash Sucks Less With Lightscoop Deluxe”
I’ve seen and read many books on digital photography. I’ve learned a lot about lighting, posing, setups, etc., but the one thing that I hadn’t seen before was a book that was all about lenses. “The Lens: A Practical Guide for the Creative Photographer” goes into great detail to answer the question “which lens should I buy?” Although I’m pretty set on the lenses I want/use on a day to day basis, that doesn’t mean that I always know which lens is the best to use for every situation. I go through trial and error sometimes. This book rocks when it comes to giving examples on not only which lenses to use in certain situations that may be obvious to some of the pros out there, but it gives examples of uses for lenses that you may not have thought about. I’m also guilty of using the same lenses for the same stuff that worked last time. This book gives me a refreshing look at what’s possible with the glass that I’ve invested in.
Whether you’re a pro photographer or you’re about to buy your first good lens, I recommend you take a look at “The Lens” by NK Guy. It’s available in print as well as Kindle format, which means that even though I enjoy the printed version I’ll be adding the Kindle version to my iPad to always have with me.
You can get it here.
The Lightroom 4.2 and Camera RAW 7.2 final releases are available. As usual the update to Lightroom addresses bugs and provides additional camera support
* Please note that the support for Nikon D600 is preliminary and there is a minor risk that the appearance of your images may change when the final support for Nikon D600 is available in an upcoming release.
The following bugs that were part the Lightroom 4 releases have been corrected. The team appreciates the very detailed feedback the community has provided on Lightroom 4 and we’re excited to correct a number of issues experienced by our customers. These issues have been FIXED:
Camera Raw 7.2 – Please use the update mechanism in Photoshop CS6
DNG Converter 7.2 – Windows, Mac
In this episode of the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast Terry White shows how to use Collections in Lightroom 4. Learn how to manage your photos better and how to use all the Collection types that Lightroom 4 offers.
See more of my Adobe Creative Suite Videos on my Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and get the App here. It features EXCLUSIVE CONTENT that no one else gets to see. This episode has a BONUS CLIP that is available only in the App! My iOS App is a Universal App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. I also have an Android version:
