Digital Photography Life

All About Lightroom II Adobe Photoshop Lightroom product manager Tom Hogarty joins us today to discuss the awesomeness that is Lightroom II. Whether you already have the program and want to learn how some tips on how to use it, or if you just want to know what Lightroom II does, you'll enjoy Tom on today's show.You'll also have a chance to win a copy of Lightroom II for yourself. For full show notes with links, please go to www.scottsphotoblog.com. Tom discusses the advantages of Adobe's DNG format over the proprietary RAW files promulgated by some camera manufacturers. In Adobe's words: Raw file formats are becoming extremely popular in digital photography workflows because they offer creative professionals greater creative control. However, cameras can use many different raw formats — the specifications for which are not publicly available — which means that not every raw file can be read by a variety of software applications. As a result, the use of these proprietary raw files as a long-term archival solution carries risk, and sharing these files across complex workflows is even more challenging.The solution to this growing problem? The Digital Negative (DNG), a publicly available archival format for the raw files generated by digital cameras. By addressing the lack of an open standard for the raw files created by individual camera models, DNG helps ensure that photographers will be able to access their files in the future.Before we're joined by Tom, we talk about the digital photography stories that caught our eye in the last week. For the first time ever, the official Presidential portrait was taken with a digital camera. The camera was the - now fixed - Canon 5D Mark II. Looking for a full body condom for your camera? Camera Armor has you - and your equipment (so to speak) covered.How popular is the iPhone? A picture taken with it crashed Twitpic. You can find PopPhoto's favorite iPhone apps here.SmugMug is our favorite site for sharing and - how nice would this be? - selling your photos. SmugMug has two fantastic offers just for our listeners:50% off your SmugMug service at any level (enter code "Flickr" at checkout). This is a fantastic discount and you should take advantage of it in time to share your holiday photos!A free camera strap to any listener of Digital Photography Life: This one is just crazy. A high-quality camera strap that replaces the neck-slicing piece of canvas that your camera's manufacturer condescended to include with your DSLR. Get your freebie here.The Grand Prize Winner of our Joy of Photography contest will receive a terrific camera bag from ThinkTankPhoto: You get to pick which one fits your needs. Either:An Urban Disguise 40, which will hold more gear than you ever imagined, such as a wide angle lens with a hood attached, a 24-70 2.8 with the hood, a 70 -200 2.8 with the hood reversed, AND two pro-size SLR’s in the expandable front pockets (without the lenses attached). The beauty of the Urban Disguise line is that you won't look like you're carrying equipment, making yourself a lot less interesting to unsavory urbanites like me, ORAn Airport International V2.0: Designed for International carry-on, this roller provides advanced security features and peace of mind. Front security cable & combination lock allows you to lock a laptop to the front of your roller. Th is very effective when you are traveling with a laptop case stored in the front stretch pocket The included security lock allows you to lock it to immovable objects, and is very effective when you have to leave your gear for a period of time in a media room, wedding hall, hotel room, or other open area. It holds two pro-size DSLR's, as well as a bunch of other lenses and accessories. If all your equipment won't fit in this bag, you're doing a lot better than us.Thanks for listening, and remember - go to www.scottsphotoblog.com for full notes with active links.

Laurel Housden, The Photo Enthusiast, and The Queen of All Contests on Digital Photography Life comes on today to talk about her transition from enthusiastic amateur to pro photographer. Laurel is a long-time listener of our previous podcast, and the information she learned from pros like Scott Kelby, Rick Sammon and Kevin Kubota inspired her to try her hand at becoming a professional shooter. Have you ever thought of taking the plunge yourself. Laurel shares how she got her first clients, how she promotes her business and what photo and processing techniques she uses to capture her stunning images.Be sure to visit www.scottsphotoblog.com for links to Laurel's galleries and blog...including - we hope - her intimate and irresistible boudoir sessions. Laurel's a terrific photographer and a great friend - we wish her all the best as she becomes, we're certain, one of Florida's premier photographers. Our first photo contest is over, but you can check out the entries at dplife.smugmug.com. We thank Smugmug (www.SmugMug.com) for their sponsorship of Digital Photography Life and their support of our community. Hop over to www.scottsphotoblog.com to see their half price offer for the first year of service exclusively for listeners of Digital Photography Life.

Photographer and instructor extraordinaire, Steve Simon, joins us with his tips on how to make your subjects look better in your portraits. Be sure to check out www.scottsphotoblog.com for the full show notes and links to what we talked about in this week's show. Steve is our new best podcast friend - a terrific guy, generous with his information and inspiring in his art. He's co-hosted a number of episodes of Nikon's Look Good In Pictures, where he's worked alongside Carson Kressley, of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fame. Michael and I have talked about this free resource before. You should definitely check it out. Steve also participates in the podcasting juggernaut This Week in Digital Photography. Prior to Steve's coming on, we talk about the pluses and minuses of Apple's new facial-recognition features in iPhoto and the four full-frame DSLR's currently available for under three large ones. As always, we thank SmugMug for their sponsorship of Digital Photography Life. SmugMug is the best resource out there for sharing and selling your photos. Be sure to check out www.scottsphotoblog.com for a 50% code off your first year of service at SmugMug and an incredible offer for a free camera strap!

It's the best of digital photography, as we talk about the best new lens for Nikon DSLRs, the best laptop for photographers, and Popular Photography's best camera for 2008.Among today's hot topics:Nikon's awesome new prime lens for cropped-sensor DSLRs, the super-sexy AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G. OK, maybe the name isn't very sexy, but the lens is.The crazily tricked out Thinkpad W700, a laptop that automatically calibrates its own monitor, has a built-in Wacom tablet and even a second screen. A dual screen laptop? Insane!Popular Photography has chosen the Panasonic G1 its Camera of the Year. Uh, the what now? Yes, Pop Photo goes out on a limb and proclaims the "micro four thirds" system The Next Best Thing. To which I say "meh."DPReview.com has a 40 page review of the Canon 5D Mark II. And although the editors give the camera their highest rating, they don't seem to give it any credit for its outstanding and industry-leading HD video capability. Where's the love, DPReview?For the full show notes, as well as active links to all the above, please visit www.scottsphotoblog.com.

Are you hesitant to approach strangers on the street to ask them to take their picture? Do you need to immediately connect with potential clients? Would you like to improve your ability to make your models feel comfortable in your studio?If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions, you'll really enjoy our guest, Nicholas Boothman, author of How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less." According to Amazon.com. "The average person's attention span lasts about 30 seconds. That means first and immediate impressions count, and big. In this modern-day update of Dale Carnegie's classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, former fashion photographer Nicholas Boothman instructs you in how to mold those 30 seconds to your greatest advantage and connect with others at business and social functions.Boothman, now a lecturer and licensed master practitioner of neurolinguistic programming (the art and science of how the brain affects human connections), says that the key to making others like you quickly lies in establishing a rapport: you have to find out what you have in common or, if you seemingly have nothing in common, purposely try to become like the other person for a short time. He then goes on to offer simple techniques for getting a rapport going: adopt a positive attitude; make sure your words, tone, and gestures are all saying the same thing; synchronize your attitude and body movements to those of another person's (which makes the person feel comfortable with you--although he or she may not know why); and ask lots of open-ended questions. Boothman also describes how to figure out a stranger's favored sense for receiving information about the world--some rely on visual cues, others on auditory or kinesthetic (touch) input--and use it to your best advantage.If discovering how to connect with others is the secret to business and life success, as Boothman contends, then employing the strategies in this book will make you instantly likable and give you a leg up on the competition."Boothman's suggestions are very helpful, and you'll really enjoy hearing his thoughts. Not only will his techniques improve your rapport with your photographic subjects, but they'll be helpful in other areas of your life, too. We also welcome Lensbaby as a new sponsor of Digital Photography Life. They have a great deal for our listeners - a free 0.6x wide angle/macro conversion lens with the purchase of a Lensbaby Composer from any retailer. Check out this great offer at http://personallifemedia.com/pages/lensbaby.And thanks always to SmugMug for their sponsorship, too. Find out how you can get a free camera strap and half off the price of the first year of their great service at www.scottsphotoblog.com. And, if you get a moment, please take a moment to light a candle for Michael's ailing Nikon D200. Thanks for listening and we'll talk again soon.

How to Make Your Spring Pictures SingOn today's show, we talk about how to take great spring pictures. Whether it's capturing the right light, putting the focus on your subject, or taking advantage of spring backgrounds to beautify your portraits, we have you covered.We also talk about Olympus's calling an end to the megapixel wars (hooray!), the new book by Joe McNally "Big Light from Small Flashes" and Canon's recent upgrade of an existing digital camera to shoot RAW - pretty cool, Canon. Michael also raves about the iPhone software "Focalware," which calculates the position of the sun and moon from rise to set anywhere in the world, at anytime of the year by utilizing your location and date information.You can find more information about these stories, as well as links to the sources and the coupon codes from SmugMug, by visiting www.scottsphotoblog.com.Thanks as always to SmugMug and Lensbaby for their support of this free resource. And thanks to you all for listening!

The latest digital photography news, the cameras we're spending our hard-earned money on and more are all here in the long-awaited Episode 15 of Digital Photography Life. First off, where have we been for the past four months? It's a long story and we don't want to bore you. So, let's just say we're back now, better than ever. Well, maybe not better. Give us some time, dudes. But back, for sure.Today, we cover a ton of new cameras, including the Nikon S1000PJ, the Nikon S70, the Nikon D300s and the Nikon D3000. But it's not all about Nikon! We share our experiences with the Olympus Tough 6000 and the Panasonic TZ5S and the Canon HV40 camcorder. Michael talks backup solutions Mozy and Drobo and we ponder who would want a Sony Party Shot. What's a Sony Party Shot? You'll have to hear it to believe it.So, take a listen and join us as we resume our Digital Photography Life with you.For extended show notes, links and coupon codes, be sure to visit www.scottsphotoblog.com.

It's that season again - tons of new cameras and gear to discuss. We'll get into some of the latest and greatest, and tell you how to take better pictures on sunny days with the equipment you have now. But first, a bit of catch up - on our last show, I mentioned an online back service that will mail you a hard drive with your data, saving you weeks of downloading your data should you crash yours. I couldn't remember the name, but have since looked it up - it's BackBlaze. $5/month or $50/year for unlimited storage. If you ever need to get your backed up data on physical media, it'll cost you $89 for a DVD's worth of data (?) or a more reasonable $189 for a USB hard drive with your files. Both prices include shipping and handling. The hard drive seems like a great value to me. Our listener and guest-Tweeter Landya McCafferty kicked butt again, winning the Photowalk Contest for her city for the second year in a row! Go Landya. Of course, her city is Placenta, Wisconcin, and she's the only resident with a camera. Kidding! Not only did she win, but her photo was featured on Scott Kelby's blog. You'll also see some great examples of both naturalistic and surrealistic HDR shots. If one LCD on a camera is good, two must be better, right? The people at Samsung hope so. Maybe it will convince you to buy a TL220 or TL225.The names certainly won't. Back to basics with the Canon S90. Great sensor, clicky controls and manual settings. I want this camera, but I agree with Michael that the G11 offers more functionality, but its not pocket-friendly. Shoot a lot? Toshiba's announced the World's Largest SD Card - 64 big fat gigabytes of goodness. Although wouldn't it have been funnier if they meant an SD card that was like 12 feet or something? They should save that announcement for April Fools Day. Oh wait - the card uses the new "SDXC" format which won't work in your current camera anyway. Turns out, the joke really was on us.The iPhone is the second most popular camera on Flickr and Camera Genuis makes it better. Maybe. You can read a review on TUAW here. The user reviews are mixed, but for 99 cents, you can afford to find out for yourself. SmugMug is our favorite site for sharing and - should you chose to accept this assignment - selling your photos. SmugMug has two fantastic offers just for our listeners: 50% off your SmugMug service at any level (enter code "Flickr" at checkout). This is a fantastic discount and you should take advantage of it in time to share your holiday photos!A free camera strap to any listener of Digital Photography Life: This one is just crazy. A high-quality camera strap that replaces the neck-slicing piece of canvas that your camera's manufacturer condescended to include with your DSLR. Get your freebie here.

Take your landscape photography to new heights with great tips from pro photographer Marc Meunch on today's show. Marc covers the best gear, shooting techniques and digital processing tricks to give your shots that cover-quality magic. Marc is a fantastic guest on today's show, which you'd expect given his outstanding resume. Marc has photographed for book publishers including Time Inc. He's represented Canon Cameras in several ad campaigns, and appeared on ESPN's "Canon Photo Safari" for eight season. He's published and co-published several books of photography. He's also "artist in residence" at SmugMug, our favorite photo sharing and selling service. Would you like a real expert to tell you how to improve your photography? In today's show, we'll tell you how you may get a personal critique from Marc on your landscape photos. That's worth the price of admission alone! Marc tells us how he got into the photo biz and gives tips for those of you looking to break into it, While Marc is accomplished in many areas of photography, in our interview we focus on landscape shooting, particularly, how to get outstanding shots in autumn, when the beautiful colors get every photographer's fingers itching to snap.Marc's tips include the best equipment to buy and use, the two lenses he considers must-haves and how to use a flash to achieve the perfect balance of light. We also talk filters, tripods and cameras.There's a ton of sites we mention in today's show, including the one that will take you to where you can submit your photos for Marc's evaluation. Be sure to visit www.scottsphotoblog.com for all the links you can eat.

What do you buy when you want it all? Today, Michael tells us not only about the new Nikon D300s he just picked up, but about all the swag he got to deck it out, Digital Photography Life style. Some of the things Michael added on were the enhanced battery grip, the enhanced Nikon battery for the camera, next generation NiMH rechargeable batteries with a truly space-age charger, and an external battery pack for his flash. It's all listed for you on www.scottsphotoblog.com. Of course, I can't blame Michael for upgrading his gear - I'm totally hot for the upcoming Canon 7D, which we talk about in some detail. Great specs - we can't wait to see if the output matches the camera's potential.We also discuss two high-end cameras coming out from Leica - the Leica M9 and Leica X1 - nice sounding gear, but with the price tags to match.For full show notes, links and your codes for terrific savings and free stuff from SmugMug, please visit www.scottsphotoblog.com.Thanks for listening!