In 2007 I purchased the above camera, primarily so I would have something to take pictures with at MINI United in Zaandvort, Netherlands. I did some research, asked around and that’s the camera that was recommended more than others for high-end point and shoots. I sit here today, 5 years and close to 100,000 shots (I think) later, and it’s still a great camera.

It was with this camera that I became excited about my photography. It was with this camera that I’ve taken photos in 5 different countries and damned near every state in the US. It was with this camera that I discovered how fun it is to take photographs.

It was also, most recently, this camera that captured the following shots.

View the entire set here.

No matter what the lighting conditions are, colors are always fantastic and it’s easy to get great shots consistently. Dark rooms are still dark, but if there is any color, this camera grabs it. And, even though it shoots in jpg, the photos still take edits very well, especially for light and color correction. Much better, in fact, than many other point and shoot cameras, closer to the editability of photos taken with the iPhone.

I’m sure you keep hearing and reading that the best camera is the one that you have with you. I’m happy that this has been the one with me so often for the last 5 years. If you are in the market for a point-and-shoot camera, I wouldn’t hesitate to grab any of the Panasonic Lumix cameras.

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This Christmas brings thoughts of good cheer and tiddings to all readers of donburnside.com, and maybe a little geekery about iPhone photography.

iPhoneography

We all know that the iPhone is pretty amazing at taking photos. We also know that there are apps that improve the experience quite a bit, from cool effects and filters to ways that make sharing photos easy. Here are some of the things I’ve found so far, along with a couple new pieces of kit that I got for Christmas.

Apps

• Camera +. My favorite so far. It’s like photoshop for the iPhone with some great features that really make photos look awesome.
• Instagram. Or, what I’m learning, the new Flickr. I’m not a huge fan of the filters, but I am a huge fan of using Instagram to share my photos. 1 click sharing to all social media sites, plus a spiffy UI that makes it fun to discover new people to follow and see some great examples of iPhoneography!
• Diptic. It’s how the photo above was created. Very cool. Opt for the $.99 in app purchase for additional configuration options. Totally worth it.
• Flickr. It’s installed, but I rarely use it. More why shortly

Hardware

I scored this Christmas! Check out these two great things Stella got me!

• The Gilf. I saw this when it first appeared on Kickstarter and I was sad I didn’t have an iPhone to use it with. The minute I got my iPhone, the first thing I wanted was this. Allows you to easily mount your iPhone to a tripod.
• Joby Gorillamobile. Said tripod. This one comes with a case to use but if you have any kind of screen or back protection like Ghost Armor or a MotoringBadges iPhone wrap, it’s not a great fit. The tripod does work fantastic with the Glif!

Online services While Instagram works great for sharing photos to all of your social media sites, the way it works with Facebook isn’t that hot. Same goes with Flickr to Facebook integration. I think many FB users have those services blocked, so a lot of the time the photos go without being seen.

Enter IfThisThenThat, a service that’s been around a while but I haven’t used. You use it to build your own programs that actually do stuff. I will probably do an entire post on it later. You can even create recipes that are shareable, which is what I have done.

This will take any photo that has been uploaded to Facebook and automatically move it to Flickr including a link back to the original photo in Facebook. And, it works!

I’m still on the hunt for photo apps, but slowly. I know that some of you have more than a few you would like to share, sound off in the comments below. I’m sure Hipstagram is a favorite out there, but I’m not really a fan yet. I would love to hear others!

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Last weekend, the inaugural Arizona Balloon Classic took place at Wild Horse Pass in Chandler. Not really Wild Horse Pass, but a place called Rawhide. From their site:

>Witness more than 50 hot air balloons take flight both morning and night on November 18, 19 and 20 at Rawhide in Chandler, Arizona.* Don’t miss this unique visual spectacle during the perfect time of year.

50 is more than a bit of a stretch. The actual count on Sunday was closer to 12, and not a single one of them was there at sunrise. A fact I am supremely confident with since we were there at sunrise.

Once the balloons did show up, it was pretty amazing. I’ve never seen anything like this before, at least not up close and personal. Standing right next to each balloon as it was filled with hot air from propane torches that resembled rocket engines was awesome.

The main reason for us going was to snap some photos and video of the balloons, which I did using pretty much all of my gear.

That was shot with my Canon, which couldn’t be in the shot because it was busy taking the shot. Shots that can be seen in my Flickr stream.

And there is video. This video is comprised of video from my the The Flip Mino and Canon HF100. I was going to do some iPhone video in there, but decided against using a 3rd video camera because that’s just silly.

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This week’s location was in Downtown Mesa, an area that has been recently renovated. Lots of unique shops and architecture all centered around the brand new Mesa Arts Center. The building is amazing, and the architecture surrounding it is amazing, lending itself nicely to a beautiful morning’s photo walk.

I’ve shared what I think the best of the best are here. If you want to see the rest of the photos, you can here.

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Is it law that all photographers have to use the same Flash host serving the same Flash template that opens in a full screen Flash window?

August 15, 2011 2:03 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@dbwilldo

db

Just through the course of a day I end up on some photographers website. Invaribly it’s something hosted by photobiz.com or wix, all done in flash with copy-righted background music playing and a crappy looking WordPress blog hanging off the side like dirty dish rag hanging out of the kitchen window. I keep asking why, but never get answers that I find acceptable.

Until I asked Stella the same question. Being the photographer of the house, I thought she would have good insight into the reasoning behind photographers having such horrible websites. Our conversation went a little something like this.

• dbwilldo: why do photographers have such yucky websites?
• Stella:because they are not nerds

Could it really be that easy? A person that has the ability to charge thousands of dollars for their services that they perform with (possibly) tens of thousands of dollars worth of very complicated electronic components just aren’t nerdy enough?

That must be it. I think the problem that we as nerds run into is in our thought patterns. Photographers aren’t nerds. Photographers are creatives, that just so happen to do their creating with digital equipement. A fact, I think, fools the rest of us into thinking that photographers know the same things that we do.

Which they don’t.

They just want a website that displays their portfolio and other information in a pleasing manner, just like everyone else. Sites like photobiz and wix have capitalized on this, targeted photography professionals with words like ‘easy to use’, ‘background music’, ‘elegant’ and ‘comic sans’ to lure them in. So they get stuck.

Makes me wonder. Do they not try to open their websites on their iPhone/Android/Blackberry? Have they not tried to open their site using an iPad or Android tablet? If they have, do they just shrug their shoulders and say “Oh well. I’m not a nerd enough to make something better”?

Or do they see Flash as their security blanket? Thinking that if their photos are wrapped up in flash, they can’t be stolen and used in nefarious ways. Nerds know otherwise, don’t we?

Instead, I prefer to think that we, as nerds, have failed the professional photographers. Failed in that we haven’t shown them the way to nicely display their photos on any device, on any platform and with any browser. We have failed to guide them in best web practices. Failed to help them save money by avoiding services such as these.

As nerds, we owe it to our photography brethren to show them the right way. The way to display their photos in a pleasing way that is easy to use and keep their photos as safe. The way to share their work with iPhone/iPad/Android/Blackberry users. The way to save money by not having to pay the rediculous rates that the other guys charge. We owe them.

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Photography over the years

From what I can tell, I started my Flickr account way back in 2005. I didn’t even own a digital camera at the time, but was using it to share photos that I took with my Motorola Razr and LG Env. Here comes the magic. Click any of the collages for a larger version.

Amazing. At the time, I was sharing photos for no other reason than to share. I wasn’t paying attention to how they turned out, proper framing of shots or anything. Just point, and shoot.

Moving forward to 2006, things really aren’t that much better.

Still stuck with a crappy camera phone my photos didn’t really improve much here. Enter 2007 and my purchase of the Panasonic DMC-TZ3.

Photos definitely getting better with the introduction of a ‘real’ camera into my bag. I start to pay attention to what I’m shooting, trying to get good shots.

Finally for today is the 2008 collage.

My camera got a real workout this year! All over the US for MINI Takes the States, AMVIV and a host of other opportunites to just take photos.

While I still shoot with the Panasonic, I have now moved into shooting with a DSLR whenever possible (it’s an older Canon Rebel). Not only that, but I have also upgraded from the crappy VGA camera on the Razr to the 3.1 camera on the Blackberry (best feature of any Blackberry, if you ask me, is the camera) to the 8.0MP camera on the Droid Incredible (not as good as the BB).

I still don’t think of myself as a photographer, but it’s nice to know that I’ve gotten to the point where I can count that as part of my skill set. None of my stuff is ever going to show up in print, but for my purposes I think I do ok.

And, if you are curious, here is my first Flickr photo. And you can find the app, called PhotoGrabbr, here.

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I’ve always been fascinated with stop motion animation (remember Gumby?) and time lapse photography. Since I do not have the time to make clay bits move about, photography is more my speed.

It’s really simple. Find what you want to shoot, set the focus, set the invalometer to the desired time and walk away. Come back to a either a dead battery or full CF card (yes, my camera is old. Let it go) and transfer them in. The video above was created from over 500 shots taken every 3 seconds.

I have a photoshop action that I use to resize the images to 720p, bring them into Google Picasa (yes, on the Mac), set the frame rate and turn ‘er loose! Once I have a completed movie, I can edit again in iMovie (to add sound or mix it with something else), which I have done here.

As a bonus, this one is short enough that I was able to post it to my Flickr stream, something I haven’t updated in months!

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Also, cameras work way better with batteries. #facepalm

May 9, 2011 4:14 pm via TweetCasterReplyRetweetFavorite

@dbwilldo

db

If I had a dollar (US$1.00) for every time I forgot the battery for my ‘good’ camera, I would have exactly 2 dollars (US$2.00). Really not that big of a deal, but I also did not have my old and busted and trusty Panasonic DMC-TZ3. What did I have?

My Droid Incredible.

Again, not that big of a deal, but this was for work. And the Canon takes really good photos, especially since I think I might have figured out how to actually get it to take good photos. And the photos get used to create documents that our sales staff then uses to help sell our products.

But I only had the Droid Incredible. And my only battery was a hour away and an hour back.

I kept remembering everyone that has ever told me it’s the photographer, not the camera. This week I put that to the test and, if I’m honest, everyone was right. The photos below all came directly out of my phone. Ok, maybe not directly in the strictest sense, but if directly-via-photoshop counts, then yes, directly from my phone.

Sure I could have used an app like Vignette to process them, but in my experience with this phone, the photos that it produces aren’t suitable for my needs. Photos apps on the Droid introduce a lot of noise, do weird things with color and only make a photos that fans of Instagram seem to like.

While I had the right tool for the job, I had the wrong tool. So, I made due with a little trickery. And I think they turned out pretty ok.

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Maybe it’s just me, but lately I’m noticing a lot of laziness around me. Laziness and, if I’m honest, half-assed work. Details going unnoticed, pieces missing and work not complete.

This might not be making any sense to you, so here are some pretty pictures that might help. Taken from the roof of a very swank hotel in a very swank city in Arizona. Look at the first pic closely and I’ll continue to tell you what I’m on about.

Nice right? Colors match, the fire gives that feeling of warmth and comfort and the flowers help to soften the hard edges. At first glance it looks amazing. Until you notice the details.

The yellow circles show off some very not-blending-in chrome table legs that look like they came from a desk chair about the same time this particular hotel was built. Top left is a cable that is coming from the fire pit, presumably to light it, running someplace. We’ll ignore that one for now since it’s not as glaring as shiny chrome.

I’ve been told not to sweat the details in the past, but I always ignored it. I’m going to tell you why.

The details make a difference.

You see in our example above, if the table cloths were bright red, or if the fireplace wasn’t lit, then seeing the table legs would probably be perfectly a-ok. It would appear, however, that a great deal of work went into the planning and decoration of this particular space for this event. Allowing the table legs, at least to me, while a minor detail, is one that takes this otherwise great looking scene down a notch or 5.

It’s just half-assed.

If you are going to do something half-assed, don’t be half-assed about it. Be consistent. Rip a table cloth, break some glass, forget to sweep. Consistency is key.

If you are going to spend the time, effort and money on making something truly kick ass, then make sure it is, in fact, truly kick ass. Mind the details. Cover those crappy looking table legs. Give the glass a final polish to make sure there aren’t any spots. Sweep the floor.

When the details are missed is usually when it is the most noticeable. Go for perfection or go for half-assed, just don’t do them both at the same time. It makes you look bad.

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Handle Your Photos

Just like our good friend John says above, your camera is not the best place to store your photos. I mean, why look at those old pictures on that tiny screen of your camera when you can upload them to your computer and view them on the screen or easily get them printed? Let’s jump right in!

This is going to be geared toward you Windows users among us. But many of things we are going to discuss, like getting prints made, will work for anyone.

The first thing you need to do is find a way to suck your photos off of your camera to your computer, keep them organized and be able to do some light processing on them (cropping, red eye removal, color adjustments). If you have anything installed on your PC now that contains the words Sony, Adobe, Kodak or Roxio along with the word(s) photo, picture or image, go into the control panel and uninstall them. While some people may like them, I find they are too complicated, move your photos to odd places on your hard drive and usually not terribly stable.

Done? Good! Now, go over to google.com/picasa and click the download button. Once downloaded, click run and let it install. VERY IMPORTANT. You will see 2 screens once Picasa is installed. One of them is to let it handle all of your images. Leave that one alone. The other will be asking you where you want Picasa to look for images. Unless you want to see every image on your computer (including those from your internet cache), I highly recommend selecting the Desktop and Documents option. Once that is done, Picasa will start building a database that contains all of the photos on your desktop and in your photo folder.

Easy right?

As soon as the database build is complete, plug your camera into your computer either by the supplied USB cable or by inserting the memory card into a slot on the front/side. Picasa should open automatically and ask to import those photos to your computer. Go ahead. Heck, you can even let it delete the photos when you are done. No, really, it’s ok.

Now that your photos are organized and easily accessible in Picasa, spend more than a few minutes poking around to see what it can do. Don’t worry about making changes to anything because Picasa, much like iPhoto on the Mac, does non-destructive edits. That means no matter what you do to a photo, you can always revert back to the original.

How about some prints to show those photos off to friends and family? This one is equally easy and there are more than a few ways to do it.

You can burn the photos you want prints of to a CD and take them to your local CostCo and they will happily print them for you. Good quality, fast turn around and not too expensive. You can also go to Walgreens.com, upload the photos you want printed and pick them up at your local Walgreens Drug Store. Again, good quality, fast turn around and not to expensive. Not to mention super duper easy!

The only thing left is backing those photos up! I’m gonna hammer on you about this until the end of time, you know that, right? I don’t care if you email yourself the most important documents and photos, get an external drive or sign-up for an account at Carbonite, just make it happen, ok?

Comments are open if you have any questions! Myself and the rest of the donburnside.com readers would love to help!

Happy 4th of July! Be safe and sane out there. If you can’t manage that, at least blow something up with enough explosives to leave a good sized divot in the backyard.

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