Photography

What do do with your old cameras

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If you have an old camera you’re not using, consider donating it to LOVE – Lens of Vision & Expression. I donated my Canon S100 and A75 to them today.

LOVE partners with non-profit organizations by providing cameras and digital photography workshops to marginalized children in third world countries. The children from LOVE’s workshop have documented their lives photographically and the issues surrounding them: their living conditions, environment, work situations, as well as their dreams for the future. Proceeds from the sales of the student’s work are used to further their education and realization of their dreams.

You can visit their Flickr stream here.



Pisoth 2, originally uploaded by LOVE_LensOfVision&Expression.

A few favorite photographers

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Since I’ve been writing a lot about photography lately, I’d like to showcase a few photographers that inspire me.

  • Trey Ratcliffe makes some of the most amazing HDR images.
  • Thomas Hawk creates some of the most eye-catching compositions.
  • Paulo Jordao, the leader of our local photo walks, always captures the perfect moment.
  • Michael Mistretta is one of the best young photographers I know. He does amazing work with light and perspective.
  • Jordan Chark, another young photographer, makes excellent use of color and depth of field.

Click the links for their Flickr photostreams.

The D90 looks like a winner

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Nikon officially released D90 today and it’s everything we expected. One lucky photographer, who usually uses a D3, got an opportunity to use a few D90s for more than a week and he’s very pleased with it.

The D90 includes all of the D80’s features plus a higher 12.3 megapixel resolution using the D300’s CMOS sensor, a live view, movie recording, and several new auto focus modes. It also comes with a new 18-105mm VR lens, which is a nice step up from the 18-55mm kit lens that ships with most current models.

I’m definitely getting one. It’s exactly the step up from the D40x I was hoping for.

D90 specs & pictures leaked

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Nikon Rumors has posed a few pictures & official specs for Nikon’s soon-to-be-released D90 camera. It was accidentally leaked at target.com and taken down quickly.

The highlights include video recording, 12.3 MP resolution, a 3″ LCD with live view, and face detection. That’s a very interesting combination of features more commonly found on point-and-shoot cameras with professional DSLR features. The included 18-105mm lens also looks very interesting.

The major reason I want to upgrade is for internal auto focus, since none of Nikon’s prime lenses have a built-in AF motor. The leaked specs don’t mention built-in AF, but the D80, which it is replacing has an AF motor. I’d be surprised if they left off one of the D80’s features. On the other hand, the new lens is AF-S, which wouldn’t be necessary if the camera has an AF motor.

Aperture tip: track photos uploaded to Flickr

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I don’t know if this is documented anywhere, but I found that it’s possible to create a smart album to track photos that have been uploaded to Flickr using the FlickrExport plugin.

Smart Settings: Uploaded to Flickr (Photowalk 2)
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

FlickrExport adds a metadata tag with the Flickr URL when it uploads a photo. When you create a smart album, one criteria you can use is ‘other metadata’, which you can select from the ‘+’ popup in the top right of the window. One of the metadata options will be ‘Flickr URL’. Choosing Flickr URL is not empty will select all photos which have been uploaded to Flickr. Alternately, ‘is empty’ will select photos which haven’t been uploaded. Combining these options with star ratings make it easy to choose photos to upload when you have a lot of them.

Using that trick I managed to finish going through the rest of my photowalk photos and uploaded many more today.

Beach Access

PhotoWalk was a success

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We had a great time at the photowalk today and the weather cooperated. I took over 700 photos (many of them in continuous shooting mode), so I still have a lot more to process.

I uploaded a few that I really like, with a lot more coming later. This one is my favorite so far. I like doing these kind of shots in continuous mode. The ocean was pretty calm, but I did see these two surfers. Every time he got into the water, I started shooting and managed to capture a few great moments like this one.

Wipeout!

PhotoWalk Tomorrow

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The Worldwide PhotoWalk takes place tomorrow, with over 8,000 people in over 200 cities around the world. The Fort Lauderdale photowalk will be led by Paulo Jordao and will begin at 9:00 AM at the Lauderdale-by-the-sea pier at the end of Commercial blvd.

We had a lot of heavy rain & flooding, so I hope the weather will be OK for the walk.

I plan to bring my D40x with my 18-55mm and 55-200mm lenses, 3 fully charged batteries, and 2 8GB SD cards. I might also bring my 50mm/f1.8 lens.

Photo walk next week

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The second Fort Lauderdale Photo Walk is scheduled for next Saturday at 9 AM, meeting at the Commercial Blvd pier. This is part of the World Wide Photo Walk event, which will take place in over 200 cities around the world.

In preparation, I picked up a Quantaray Neo Air strap for my D40x, which should make it more comfortable to walk around with. At the last photo walk, I regretted not bringing my 55-200mm lens, so I’m definitely taking it this time.

Zooomr supports Flickr API

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Until I started poking around in Flickr’s Objective C code, I didn’t realize that Zooomr supported a variant of Flickr’s API. I found that it’s fairly easy to port code which uses Flickr to Zooomr. In less than an hour, I had LOLCats working with Zooomr. I plan to include Zooomr support in the other iPhone Flickr app I’m working on.