Master Photography

Questions of the Week:

* Gary Aidekman: I do editing on my laptop when I travel, and then want to put my edited photos on my main editing desktop at home.  How do I transfer the photos and edits?

* Ed Shanahan: What would it take for the other hosts to switch to mirrorless, and does Jim regret the choice.

Jim: Japan Report

Not speaking Japanese.  Hard to get around the country.

Food was TERRIBLE!  Beyond terrible!  Manapua

Getting the shot I had come for took only 2 minutes.  It was hard to come up with something new.

Autofocus WAS an issue in shooting the monkies

Really hard to find locations in another country

Photography is EVERYWHERE in Asia.  WAY more than in the US.  Nikon billboards everywhere.  Everyone shoots Fuji.

Nick – Hands on with the Canon 11-24mm L & Nick got a new ballhead

    The Canon 11-24mm

Very fun to shoot

insanely heavy

very nice image quality

very limited zoom range

would love to see a prime this wide, yet smaller

who is this lens for?

Distortion for real estate?

    The Acratech GP ballhead   save for my dodad

The benefits of an open ball design

The “Upside down feature”

Looks unique

The quick release lever plate is amazing

Very few drawbacks other than price, and force needed to tighten smaller knob

Jeff: Windows 10 coming, like it or not

Microsoft is being more aggressive pushing Windows 10 than they ever have

Put an icon in the system tray

This past month changed Windows 10 from an optional update to recommended

Windows 7 or Window 8.1 will only run on Skylake processors until July 17, 2017

Point is that if you are a PC user, you really need to plan to go to Windows 10

Upgrade process from 7 or 8 to 10 is better than Microsoft has ever done it

Can upgrade from 7 or 8 to 10 for free until the end of July 2016

Privacy concerns?

Microsoft wants to know as much as they can about how people are using Windows so that they can make it better.  They do gather information about how Windows is being used, they call this “telemetry”

Does not include personal information, just how you are using a product.  Where are people struggling to figure out how to do something.

Do have to trust that they aren’t stealing your data

Surfacegate 

Doodads of the Week!

Nick   Acratech GP Ballhead

Jim Really Right Stuff BH40 Ballhead

Jeff: Jabra SPEAK410 USB Speakerphone ($90)

 

IP Podcast Ep 160 by Jim Harmer: Photography Nerd

Question of the Week:

*  Nick Forsman

Hey all. I remember on a podcast from the almost distant past about lightning photography. You mention a gizmo that is triggered by lightning, yet also can be programmed to do a bazillion other functions. Any ideas what it was?

Main Topic:

Canon 1Dx Mark II announced and is available for pre order here

Specs

Newly developed 20.2 megapixel 35mm Full Frame Canon CMOS sensor;

Continuous shooting speeds of up-to-14 frames per second (fps) with Auto Exposure (AE) and predictive

AF for viewfinder shooting and up to 16 fps1 in Live View mode;

Dual DIGIC 6+ Image Processors that transfer image data at extremely high speed for extended bursts during continuous shooting – up-to-170 consecutive RAW images at 14 fps. When shooting JPEG images you’re only limited by memory card capacity 2;

Capable of shooting 4K 60P and Full HD 120P video with Dual Pixel CMOS AF;

Enhanced wireless functionality (with the optional accessory Wireless File Transmitter WFT-E8) that supports the new high-speed IEEE 802.11ac standard and the  ability to easily transfer photos and videos to compatible smartphones using Canon’s Camera Connect app*;

Digital Lens Optimizer to help correct aberrations in-camera (a feature that previously required post-processing on an external computer);

Improved 61-point viewfinder AF with expanded coverage and all AF-points selectable and supported to a maximum aperture of f/8;

Improved AI Servo III+ predictive AF algorithm for better accuracy;

Continuous red illumination of all AF points within the camera’s Intelligent Viewfinder II.

Compatibility with both CF and CFast memory cards for optimal performance and versatility.

Read more: http://www.canonrumors.com/official-press-release-canon-eos-1d-x-mark-ii/#ixzz3zAMDvvFZ

Nick’s 5 min rant

Nick – To flash or not to flash at basketball games….

adding flash created a nice dramatic look, but perhaps not worth the hassle, or practical for shooting for newspapers

Doodads of the Week!

* Nick

* 1  –  Amazon Basic batteries

* 2  –  Vello wireless shutter release

 

IP Podcast Ep 159 by Jim Harmer: Photography Nerd

Question of the Week:

*  Alan asks     “I’m thinking of branching out from printing merely on paper to printing on canvas and metal. Canvas seems pretty straight-forward, but how can one tell if a photo will look good on metal, short of ordering it? Not sure I want to invest the money if there’s a chance it’ll end up on a scrap heap”

* Michael Humber asked “I recall this being discussed before but did a search and nothing popped up. Does anyone know of a free software to recover deleted files from a compact flash card? I have a Sandisk card.”

* Jeff: Keep the boxes your memory cards come in, or at least find the code inside the pro level ones that gets you free access to a recovery tool.  SanDisk has the code on a sticker stuck to the inside of the back of the box.  Lexar has a little pamphlet insert with the code on it.  If you can’t find one, and you need the software, might be cheaper to buy a new card just to get the code to the recovery software.

Main Topic:

* Only one, somewhat significant new feature – panorama merge boundary warp.  Analyzes the image and auto warps the edges so that you don’t crop away a huge portion of the pano.  Jeff tested it using a bunch of shots he took while snowshoeing last week and it works much better on multi-row panos, not so great on a traditional pano.  Especially tends to make the horizon uneven.

* Supposed to do a much better job of “preemptively building” 1:1 previews, which means you shouldn’t have to do that on import anymore – the 1:1 preview will be done as you are zooming into photos and culling them.  But I tested this by importing a set of photos and waiting for the 1:1 previews to be built in 2015.3, then going through them one at a time in the develop module as fast as I could but waiting for the “loading..” message to go away.  Then I upgraded to 2015.4, deleted my Lightroom cache (to get rid of the 1:1 previews that were generated), and imported the same set of photos from a different directory.  I didn’t get through the images scrolling through them in the Develop module any faster.

* Thumbnail updates do seem significantly faster.  After you sync or paste settings to a lot of photos the thumbnail updating the view of the photo with the new settings applied was visibly faster.  Didn’t time it, but it was a lot snappier.

Drones

* DJI Phantom 3

* Destination weddings.

* a cave wedding.. how in the world do you light that

Doodads of the Week!

 

Jim: Atmosphere Aerosol

Nick: Vallerret photography gloves

Jeff (1/28): SteelSeries QcK Gaming Mouse Pad ($10)

* Jim 2: Glorious Extended White Gaming Mouse Mat

IP Podcast Ep 158 by Jim Harmer: Photography Nerd

“After 11 years of growing ProDPI from our living room to where it is today, we have reached out to our friends at White House Custom Colour to purchase ProDPI. This will allow for us to focus on Magic Hour Foundation a non profit organization created to provide charitable photo sessions for cancer patients and their families.  The ProDPI brand will remain within the industry and your ProDPI experiences will remain the same, including Fuji Paper, ProDPI roes, ProDPI customer service and all other products and services. In the future, ProDPI staff will help transition production to WHCC in order to benefit from the throughput, scale and expertise of their facilities and staff.”

Kauai Workshop

Jim’s “Real Estate Photography Starter Pack”

 

Doodads of the Week!

 

Jim: Fuji X Pro 2

Bose headphones

IP Podcast Ep 157 by Jim Harmer: Photography Nerd

Main Segment: Nightmare shooting scenarios

Jim’s trigger gone

Nick – moving subjects in the dark (Sparkler sendoff at wedding)

Brian – Large conference group shot flash reflecting off metal waterfall

Majeed – not having a tripod

Announcements

Kauai workshop!

Doodads of the Week!

Nick – Feisol ct 3472lv tripod

Brian – Yongnuo Pro LED Video Light – food photography

Jim – Yuneec Typhoon H

Majeed: Wacom Intuos Pro

New Cameras And Storage Woes by Jim Harmer: Photography Nerd