Cyberward.net

The first picture is a couple of bags worth of me doing my part to destroy the planet. I use my small flashes a lot, and go through batteries like crazy. I can’t tell you how long that is from, but with 3 flashes, one change of batteries equals 24 batteries. I don’t use all three each shoot, but sometimes I do, and I always want to get to a shoot with fresh ones ready to go.

The second picture is what spending $200 on batteries and a charger get you. You read that right, the 8 battery charger that can charge in as little as one hour cost almost $100, and luckily came with 8 batteries. I then purchased 4 more sets of 4 batteries, which at $20 each, throw in some shipping, and voila, $200.

Why did I pick these ones? Drew Gurian. He is an assistant to Joe McNally (and a great photographer himself), and when I was a DLWS workshop, Drew was showing us his gear. I figured, if these batteries are good enough for Joe, then they have to be good enough for me!

PS. The noisy pics were taken with my iPhone, and not really enough light.

The main reason that I got an iPad was to present photographs to people. I wanted to use it as an electronic portfolio. That by it’s self would be a pretty good use, but it has come to be so much more useful.

I had photographed a gymnastics event for the Richfield Gymnastics Club, and had taken stills and some video that I put into 7 videos of the event, from rehearsal to warm-ups to the actual event. The videos were put together into a DVD that the club will sell. I could have put the DVD into a computer, and pulled that out, set it on a table, and had people lean over to try to see the screen. Instead, I handed them an iPad with the videos on it and let them hold the device. It makes a world of difference. As the two people I had brought the iPad to show watched the videos, other came and looked over their shoulders. I really think the iPad was more effective than a laptop would be.

I was taking pictures at a wedding this last weekend, and I was not the official photographer, so I had some time in between the ceremony and the reception. I went home, did a quick Lightroom edit, hard drive export, iPad sync, and I was off to the reception. When I got there, I started passing the iPad around. People were flipping out. They loved being able to see pictures of an event they had just attended. Even better, some people hadn’t been able to attend the ceremony, but were at the reception, and were able to see what had just happened.

Later in the evening, after taking some reception and dance shots, I downloaded images from my memory card to the iPad with the camera connection kit, and then made the rounds again. The challenge will be to do the same thing at a wedding where I am the official photographer, and I don’t know most of the people there. I think it is worth giving it a shot though. It was so well received.

I also have images and video at the ready to pull out and show people as a portfolio. I have done this several times where I wouldn’t of likely had a book with me. Instead of just handing out a card and saying check out my website, I can show them the images I have on my site right there.

There are lots of apps that photographers can use that are not just for photographers. I have created blog posts while on the move, checked out Twitter, my RSS feeds, and verified some content from my website. I have even used the iPad via an app called iSSH to get a command prompt at my web service provider and correct some html on my site. Yes you can do these things on a net book, but you can’t do the portfolio things as well.

If I can get it out of the hands of my family, I take where ever I go.

Have you heard of the Justin Clamp? It is made by Manfrotto, and you can get it here from Adorama. It costs $54. Recently I saw a post via twitter on adapting it to work work with a SB900, because the clamp is for a SB800. I can’t find the article/pics, or I would link to it.

Anyway, I have put together my own clamp like this with parts from Adorama.

The above clamp is what it looks like put together. There are three parts that you need.

• Flashpoint Clamp with 1/4-20 Stud ($9.95)
• Giottos MH1004 Mini Ball Head ($12.95)
• Stroboframe Universal Shoe Mount ($9.75)

So, for $32.65 you get pretty much the same thing, but you get pieces that you can reuse for other purposes if needed. Also, this shoe mount will fit any flash, including the SB900.

Ok, why do I call this the Jeffery Clamp? Well, I order stuff through Jeff Snyder at Adorama, so that’s the name I gave it. Give him a shout if you need help ordering stuff from Adorama. (jsnyder@adorama.com)

So, what do I use it for? Well, it can be clamped onto anything, which makes is quite versatile, but here is one thing I used it for recently.

Look at the upper right of this image. See the light there? It is an SB900 on my Jeffery Clamp, connected to the background stand. No need for another pole. I used this like a hair light, or a side light depending on where I aimed the light. Here is a picture where the light was added to bring more light to the right side of her hair.

So, what does the Camera Connection Kit come with for $29.95? A SD(HC) card reader (left), and a USB adapter (right) that plug into the iPad. Seems a little high for what you really get, but hey, it’s the only option right now.

I tried both connections, and they both worked when done as intended. You can take images off your cards, and you can connect your camera via USB cable. However, you can’t connect a hard drive, and I couldn’t find a way to put images from the iPad onto a card. It appears to be a one way deal. iPad as a data consumer again.

When you connect a card or camera, you get the photo’s screen with a camera tab. The screen quickly fills up with dashed outlines for the images on your camera (or card) and then starts to fill in thumbnails.

There are now buttons at the top for “Delete All” and “Import All”. Once the image thumbnails are there, you can choose which images you want to upload to the iPad.

By clicking on a thumbnail, you can select individual images to import. You can flick up and down with your finger to scroll through all the images. These thumbnails are from my daughters field trip to a nature center this week.

Notice the buttons at the top changed from “Delete All” to “Delete Selected”, and “Import All” to “Import”.

Pressing the import button brings up a little drop down where they give you the option of importing all again. Not sure why this is necessary.

The screen shot above seems weird to me. This is where I ended up after doing my selective import. I guess we are here because there are sill possible images to upload, but with items still having that green check box, it is hard to tell if they are selected or imported all ready.

I pressed the Albums tab to get to the screen above. Notice that I now have a “Saved Photos” album with the screen shots I took, a “Last Import” album with the images I just imported, and a “All Imported” album that would have everything I had imported and not erased off the iPad.

What is think is cool about this, is that the images are NEF files. They are Nikon RAW image files, and they show up on the iPad. What I don’t know, is what you edit when you use a program like Photogene. Are you using a built in preview contained in the RAW image, or is the iPad converting. I am leaning to the preview, but it seems to be full size, which surprised me.

You can then get the images off the iPad as if it were a regular camera. Just connect your iPad to your computer via the sync cable. These images won’t transfer via iTunes, you need to import them. I tried Lightroom, iPhoto, and Image Capture on my Mac. The RAW files come off just fine, as if they were transferred directly from your card. One interesting thing I found, was that I couldn’t transfer the screen shots using Lightroom, but they showed up in iPhoto when I tried that. Strange.

So, the question going around seems to be whether this can replace field back up units like ones made by Epson and others. I am not so sure. The screen is big and gorgeous, but it is also big. I think the smaller units while having a smaller screen are more rugged and compact, but I don’t own or use one, so I can’t really comment. What I think would be ideal would be an iPod Touch or iPhone that you could connect this to AND a laptop hard drive or other SSD drive to make a backup to. That would be much smaller and eliminate the need for a laptop in many travel situations. But that is just wishing smoke.

Anyway, it looks like a fun accessory to play with, and I will experiment with using it as a backup device when traveling.

I took this picture, from my iPod, of an iPad showing off my portfolio. It looks amazing. The images are actually sized perfectly for this device. But there was something weird. All the images in the night album, and the occasional other image won’t show. I get the blue image not found icon. Very weird. I wonder if they are exported with some weird settings. Not sure how that happened.

I was also able to confuse the javascript by pressing on the album and next/previous buttons. I will have to take a look at that. As noted yesterday, it doesn’t work well on the iPhone either. I also checked Kelby’s site again, and it looks great too, just not on the iPhone. I am wondering how that device reports it’s screen size. I might just need to look for that browser and then display presized smaller images.

If you want to get a rough idea of what your site would look like on the iPhone, check out iPad Peek. It doesn’t show the broken images like the iPad did, but it will give you a sense of size and how your content will fit. Just enter your site in the address bar at the top.

Are you a photographer with a flash site? Do you know that the iPad, just like the iPhone, will not display flash content? What’s a photographer to do? Scott Kelby looked at this earlier today.

When Kelby first put up his flash portfolio, I decided to create a javascript only portfolio site to do the same thing. See my portfolio here, and my post here.

I think my code is successful, to a certain extent. It works great on the desktop, but doesn’t work as well on the iPhone, and I don’t yet know on the iPad. Need to try that out. Anyone that wants to comment about that, please do.

I think that my issue on the iPhone is the size of the images. I think they need to be smaller to save on bandwidth, and prevent the phone’s browser from having to scale the images so much. That may be the issue on Kelby’s site too, because his new non flash site didn’t work well on the iPhone either. His new portfolio is also a jQuery javascript site done by RC. It was too slow to be useable on my phone. I wonder if image size is the issue there to. Now his site was optimized for the iPad, not the iPhone, but I want mine to work on both. I will need to do some more testing with smaller images to see.

Old style star washer

I have had a black rapid strap, model RS-2 for a while now. I was really excited to get one, and loved it but…  Were you expecting a but? It wasn’t perfect. I loved the innovative way the camera hung at my side, hanging there waiting for the moment that I needed to quickly raise it to my eye. But, I had a few complaints I discovered after using the strap for a while. This is a bit of a RS-2 to RS-7 comparison. (Keep with with me, the complaints are all fixed)

• I didn’t like the connector thingy. (Technical term) It was just too bulky. It looked like a good first try from someone welding things together in their garage. It worked, but didn’t look pretty. And I lost mine. Twice. Some people even tried tying their strap with a little make-shift cord connector. That didn’t always work out.
• It was bulky. The strap seemed a little too wide. Too much material. It just felt too noticeable, especially with a jacket on. The model I had also had this whole extra flap that held memory cards, business cards, and had a pocket on it for a cell phone. This sounded good at the time, but just ended up feeling bulky. I felt like the cell phone pocket was right at my chin, like a poor mans hands free phone system. I eventually cut off the extra, but it still seemed a little stiff and bulky.

New Connector

• The strap wasn’t like better backpack straps that are curved to conform to your shoulder a little better. I found it would slip off sometimes too.
• My strap didn’t have a clip to hold the excess webbing strap. That was probably because I cut off part of the padding (the pockets) to make it smaller. It also seemed like it could use another clip to keep the camera from sliding around. If you switched shoulders it seemed like the clip was on the wrong side.
• The connector was completely re-engineered. It now looks very professional, and more importantly, works wonderfully. It is much smaller. It piece that screws into the camera is a much lower profile, and has a piece of rubber on the end. This does two things. Not having the lock nut and instead having the rubber make it more secure, and doesn’t seem to loosen anymore. The lower profile means that you can hold the camera with a portrait grip on it, which really wasn’t possible with the other connector. And last, using the locking mini carabiner allows you to remove the strap if you need to with needing to unscrew the whole thing.
• The new RS-7 strap is thinner. Much better profile, and this one doesn’t have any bells and whistles. Some people might like pockets and stuff on their strap, and they still have models that have them, and an accessory pocket can be attached to the RS-7, but if you don’t want the extra material, you don’t have to have it.

RS-7 vs Modified RS-2

• The new RS-7 is curved. Not by much, but it works. It seems to stay on my shoulder better, feels more comfortable, and seems less prone to sliding off. Seems great.
• This RS-7 is much more finished in every way. No matter which side of your head/shoulder  you wear this strap, it still fits well. There is a new clip that keeps the strap from flapping, and there are two clips that are designed to keep the camera in place, no matter how you wear the strap.

I did say I loved this strap didn’t I? Ok, at first I loved it, then as the issues came up, I stopped wearing it as much. Then the improvements started to come out.

The first strap I had felt like a great idea that was put together in someones garage. functional, but not the best finish. This strap is a whole new level. The straps, buckles, padding, connector, and even what they left off are seem perfect now. If I had to come up with one item for an update, it would be to have the material under the strap to be “stickier”, like a rubber or something that would cling to nylon/rain jackets better. This isn’t as important on a strap you wear across your body, but I sometimes fell it moves a little, and I have to keep putting it back in place.

That’s all I can come up with on the negative side. I love it. If you are replacing your strap, definitely consider this one. I think it’s worth the money.

So I decided to try the HI1.0 ISO setting on my Nikon D90. That is actually ISO 6400. This image was shot without a flash with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 at 1/20th of a second. I shot in RAW and adjusted the white balance a bit, and the brightness in Lightroom very slightly. Otherwise, this is the image.

Noise is quite obvious. It actually doesn’t look quite as bad in this little image, so I exported larger ones too, that if you click on the image you will see a larger version. There the noise is even more noticeable. I don’t think I would really want to use this setting. The only reason I even wanted to try it was a friend had taken some at this setting on his Nikon D5000 (about the same sensor) and thought they were fine. Me, not so much.

Now, it was taken while the camera had high ISO noise reduction on. I am wishing now I had taken another with that off for reference. Also, one in JPEG mode with and without it turned on. Sounds like another post.

Ok, I wanted to see if I could make the image usable, so first I ran it through the Nik Define filter within Photoshop. It may be that I don’t know how to use the filter yet (used default settings), or it could be that there was just too much noise, but I wasn’t that impressed. Then I turned it over to Nik Silver Fx Pro. I have used this filter a bit more, and I thought the BW turned out pretty well.

I think it hides the color noise, and looks more like grain than noise now. Maybe usable. At least it allows you to get a shot that you never would be able to get otherwise. Now, to be fair, it was really dark. Only my child’s night light was on. I had a hard time focusing. But the great take away from this is that it would be awesome to take pictures at this ISO, and you can with cameras like the D700 and the D3 versions. I am really starting to like the idea of a full frame camera. Someday…

Well, first go read this post, and if you just bought your camera, I will try to talk you out of buying anything.

So, why do you want a lens? Other than that glass is cool. Are you wanting more reach, to get images of birds in the trees? Are you wanting to take pictures of kids in low light? Would an external flash be better? Would you like something with a zoom, or something with a fixed focal length? Do you have $300, or $3000? Do you know what f/3.5-5.6 means?

You need to be able to answer those questions to make a truly informed decision. Reading the Digital Photography Book (post) by Scott Kelby would help with this too.

Ok, lets take a look at some reasonable (for photography) options.

Nilkon 50mm f/1.8

If you are looking for some “fast glass”, the traditional recomendation is the “nifty fifty.” Fast glass, or a fast lens, is a lens that has a very large minimum aperture size. This refers to a small aperture number, such as f/2.8, or f/1.4. The kit lenses are usually of a variable aperture, meaning they are not constant through out the zoom range. Zoom lenses are usually more expensive to make in a constant aperture, so most people look to get a fast lens with a single focal length. What does this do for us? By “opening up” the lens to a wide aperture, you let in more light, so the shutter speed can be faster when taking available light pictures. Also, your depth of field gets smaller, meaning that the area in the photo that is in-focus is smaller. This can be good and bad depending on the picture¬† you are taking.¬†

Nikon 50mm f/1.4 AF-S

The Nikon 50mm f/1.8 that most people call the “nifty fifty” has been a staple of most photographers, and the price hovered around $120 – $150 depending on where you get it. (amazon) There are a couple of issues with this lens though. First of all, your camera may not work with it. Cameras like the D40, and D3000 do not have a traditional motor drive in the camera body. This means that autofocus will not work with the nifty fifty. I used this 50mm lens manually focusing on a D40 for quite some time. Worked great for flowers, not for kids. You need a AF-S lens in Nikon terms to get auto focus. That means that the lens its self has a motor in it. But, it makes the lens more expensive. Amazon has this version for about $440.¬†

Nikon 35mm f/1.4 AF-S

Problem #2. The 50mm lens is a great lens. It used to be called the “standard lens” and many film era cameras shipped with just this lens (a 50mm). So what’s the problem? Sensor size. If you want to use your new “fast glass” to take pictures indoors without flash, the 50mm¬†can be too long a focal length. You might want to consider the Nikon 35mm f/1.8 AF-S instead. (amazon) ¬†On most digital cameras, the sensor is smaller than a film negative. This makes lenses appear to have a longer focal length, and why the 35mm works better indoors. 35mm x 1.5 = 52.5mm on a APS-C “crop sensor”. (I am not going to get into this anymore today, but there are lots of places to read about this,¬†like¬†here)¬†The good news is that the 35mm lens is cheaper. Amazon has it for about $200.

Nikon 55-200mm f/4.5-5.6

How about if you want to make small, or far away subjects look bigger in the viewfinder? A longer zoom? Or move your feet. Seriously. Many shots can be taken by simply getting closer to your subject. Also, telephoto lenses are not just for “making things bigger”. They also compress the scene. They make the background and the foreground appear closer together. For birds and¬†other critters, you may not be able to get close enough with your feet. If you want a telephoto, you are looking at getting something that zooms to 200 or 300 in a variable aperture, or you are spending really big money.

Some of  you may already have this lens, the Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 AF-S VR. (amazon) Sometimes this lens is bundled in a two lens kit with some cameras. This lens is only $200 Р$250, and for a lens of this price, is really quite good. The VR (vibration reduction) helps to reduce hand shakyness, especially at slower shutter speeds. This was my first lens purchase, and one that I found useful.

What about macro? Fixed focal length zooms? Wide angle? All in one zooms? Take it slow. Learn your camera and the lens you have. See how close¬† you can get with your lens. You can get fairly close “macro-ish” shots with a kit lens. Move your feet and get closer to subjects. The 18mm of most kit lenses is reasonably wide. Learn how to use that. That said, I will tackle some of these options in another post soon.

Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 AF-S VR

If you want a little bit more reach, a sharper image, and have some extra money, the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G AF-S VR is considered a very¬†good lens for the money. You can find this item for less than $500. (amazon) ¬†At $500 the cost is getting more expensive, but is still reasonable in the world of camera lenses. I don’t own this lens, but many people I respect have and like this lens.

 

Happy Shooting.

The picture is an old office cube of mine taken with an iPhone, and has nothing to do with the post, other than it is about the office. But not “The Office”. I am a part of a large group that has been told that working Saturdays for the next 2 months is mandatory. Many have been working overtime for several months already.

So, why do people ever need to work overtime? Pretty simple really: it is perceived that there is more work to get done before the delivery date than managers think can get done within normal working hours. What I started to wonder, is if this will really get more done. If you do simple math, adding 8 hours to everyone’s day sounds like it gives you more time to get more done. Sounds like it, but you take human emotion out of the equation.

We can all do more for short periods of time, especially if we see the value in it. We see value sometimes when we feel like it is our responsibility to contribute to the company, or when we feel a sense of loyalty to a product, or group that will use the product. Or, we can see value to us in particular when we are given something in trade. This can be extra income, time off, or something else that is seen as a reward, and that our time was valued.

When this sense of value is missing, it becomes a very different equation. It is also why contractors (like myself) are not as annoyed by mandatory work. We get paid by the hour usually. We get paid more for coming in. On the other hand, when a salaried employee is forced to come in, they need to feel a sense of value. When the employee only sees the employment as a job, or starts to feel like they are being asked too much, management no longer get the extra they are looking for.

People want to feel valued, and feel like the effort they are putting in is compensated accordingly. When someone feels like one side of the equation has been altered, they change the other side. Sometimes this is even done subconsciously. People may not rush into work. Take longer lunches. Go for a longer coffee break. When someone would normally work an extra 15-30 min at the end of work to finish something, now they no longer start something new 30 min to an hour before end of work. Maybe they decide to use the sick days when they have a cold that before they would have worked through. That extra day, it isn’t an 8 hour day. In late, out early, going off site for lunch…

Don’t forget the lasting issues. Contractors come and go. Some might go early… Employees can look for other work. It is expensive to lose business knowledge. The feeling of loss of trust and being undervalued are very difficult to get back. You can loose it in a single email. It can take months to get back, if it ever does…

So what do you do as a project manager and your project is behind. You need the employees to feel invested in the extra effort. And you need to ask. You may be surprised at the effort you get when you ask. Trust me, whether it is telling kids or adults they have to do something, or giving them a choice, choice wins out every time. The other issue, is that people have lives outside of work. Saturdays may not work for some people. What if they would work 48 hours a week spread out over the week? What if they could squeeze more into the day than they do right now? What if you and the employee could agree on the extra work that needed to be done, and then let the employee get it done on their own schedule? What if they are offered something out front whether that is some time off, or even movie tickets. What do you think the response will be?

Which takes more work out of management? A mass email, or an individual meeting with each employee to discuss the situation that you are in? Pretty obvious, but the bigger problems will come if you take the easy way out.