On podcast #19 during the Ballroom Dancing segment I forgot to mention something...

I often forget that lots of people are shooting with point-and-shoot cameras and I forget to address those issues when talking about techniques.

If you are shooting with a point-and-shoot and are indoors with low light, bringing a fast lens is not an option. So what you can do on many point-and-shoot cameras is set the ISO rating up a bit (like
400 maybe as a starting point) and many point-and-shoots will also allow you to set your camera in Aperture Priority mode ... if that's the case with your camera set it to the most wide open apertuer that you can (smallest aperture number).

Another technique I failed to mention that applies to all types of cameras is panning while shooting. Try to pan with your subject and you might just get a very cool shot with lots of blured background and a real feeling of action.

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 08:55 PM | Permalink

Screenshots from Search And Recover 4 Software

The Digital Photography Show Podcats #41 regarding Photographers Rights, Model Releases, Copyright, etc

Adobe CS3 on Amazon.com

Technorati Tags: Digital Photography, Allen Rockwell, CS3, Adobe, Creative Suite 3, File Recovery, Model Release

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 07:32 PM | Permalink

I need a favor from all of you.

If you subscribed to the podcast through the iTunes Store or clicked on the "subscribe" button that used to be on the allenrockwelphoto.com webisite I need you to do me a favor....

Please,

1. Open iTunes
2. Right click (or Ctl-Click for Mac users) on the title: "Allen Rockwell Digital Photo Podcast"
3. Select "Delete" from the popup menu
4. Click on "iTunes Store"
5. Click on Podcasts
6. Search for "Allen Rockwell"
7. Find the podcast and click the subscribe button
8. That's it, your're done. The podcast will appear again in iTunes as usual and will update as usual. You'll need to re-"get" the old episodes if you want them.

By doing that you will help me out greatly in my efforts to track susbscribers and downloads. This information will be very helpful to me and might someday result on some sponsorship so I can recover some of the money I've invested in doing this.

Thanks a lot,

Allen Rockwell

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 12:57 PM | Permalink

Listener Participation ... Yipee !!!!

This week I had two people send me photos to talk about on the podcast and one person sent me some results from his Kitchen Assignment.

Holly Sisson's photo of her son Noah. The composition is great, the focus on the eyes is amazing.

Here's Holly's picture showing that she cropped it very well using the rule of thirds. I added a little color to the face as I thought it made the photo a little more interesting. However Holly tells me that her photo fairly accuratly refelcts the tone of Noah's face.

Michael McLaughlin sent in this great photo of a young lady at a Quinceañera last summer in Parker Arizona. I love the photo and the use of the shallow depth of field to focus your attention on the young lady.

If I was to change anything in this photo I would crop the image a little closer to eliminate some of the forground clutter and take advantage of the rule of thirds.

Below are a few photos sent in by Martin Lorentzson that he took while doing the "kitchen Assignment".

Martin wrote:
"I grabbed my camera from the bookshelf and went into the kitchen... and it was a pretty hard assignment! I had my daughter with me and the only reasonable shot was the first one attached, with me in the background and Alice reaching for the camera. I had set the self-timer and I had a hard time keeping her from the camera!

After she'd gone napping, I had a little more time. I found myself longing for a macro and a tripod, but since I don't own a macro lens and the tripod was not attached to the camera, I shot at ISO1600 and used as much support as possible. It meant that I could not get the angles that I wanted.

Anyway, I enjoyed the podcast and the assignment, though I found it hard since our kitchen is pretty dark and missing interresting motifs ;)"

And finally here is a link to the image gallery for my Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens test.

Technorati Tags: Digital Photography, Allen Rockwell, 70-200, Canon, f Stop

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 06:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Chris from the Tips From The Top Floor podcast at www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com recently released two podcasts (#185 and 186) on a product called Disco Film.

Discofilm is a product that is designed for cleaning the crap out of the grooves in record albums. If you don't know what a record album is you need to go away, you are too young to be here :)

Discofilm is a liquid that is brushed on to the record and it dries into a film that can be peeled off. When the film is peeled off it takes all the dust and crap that was embedded in the grooves.

Chris' guest discovered that this product was a great product for digital camera sensor cleaning. Please go to Chris' site and view the video podcast to see how it work.

The problem with Discofilm is that it's a German product that does not seem to be available in the rest of the world. After watching the video podcast (#185) and listening to the audio podcast (#186) I figured out that Discofilm is most likely a liquid latex rubber. ... and I just happed to have some in my garage. So an experiment was certainly in order.

As you can see from the photos below, my experiment was a sucess.

If you are interested in using this technique to clean your sensor and want to use this material please keep in mind that I am not reccomending this technique or material ... I'm just telling you that my test (on a CD ROM) worked and left no residue.

The liquid latex I used is packaged by Woodland Scenics and sold in hobby shops that sell model railroading products. Here is a link to Woodland Scenics that will allow you to buy it online Click here for Woodland Scenics

Technorati Tags: Digital Photography, Allen Rockwell, Sensor, Clean, Sensor Cleaning

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Update: After carefully reading the press release from Adobe again, the actual shipping date of CS3 apears to be a little vague. They say "...will be formally introduced on March 27, 2007". My guess is that "formally introduced" may not be the exact same thing as "shipping". Perhaps my April 24th prediction is actually closer to the real date. We'll see pretty soon.

Photoshop CS3 will be available on March 27th ... about a full month earlier than I anticipated.

Photoshop will be released in two version; Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended.

From Adobe.com:
Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended are at the heart of the Photoshop family. The Photoshop family of products is the ultimate playground for bringing out the best in your digital images and transforming them into anything you can imagine. Other products in the family include Photoshop Lightroom™, Photoshop Elements, and Photoshop Album Starter Edition software.

Photoshop CS3
Adobe Photoshop CS3 includes all the features you love in Photoshop CS2, plus many innovative new ones. Photoshop CS3 accelerates your path from imagination to imagery. Ideal for photographers and designers, the professional standard delivers new features such as automatic layer alignment and blending that enable advanced compositing. Live filters boost the comprehensive, nondestructive editing toolset for increased flexibility. And a streamlined interface and new, timesaving tools make your work flow faster.
Ideal for:

* Photographers
* Graphic designers
* Web designers
* Print service providers

Photoshop CS3 Extended
New to the Photoshop family, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended delivers everything in Photoshop CS3 and more. Render and incorporate 3D images into your 2D composites. Stop time with easy editing of motion graphics on video layers. And probe your images with measurement, analysis, and visualization tools.
Ideal for:

* Film, video, and multimedia professionals
* Graphic and web designers using 3D and motion
* Manufacturing professionals
* Medical professionals
* Architects and engineers (AEC professionals)
* Scientific researchers

Prices have not yet been released but I would expect that in a few days.

Technorati Tags: Digital Photography, Allen Rockwell, CS3, Adobe, Creative Suite 3

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 08:25 PM | Permalink

10.4.9 was released today via softare update. 10.5 can't be far away :)

The 10.4.9 Update is recommended for PowerPC and Intel-based Mac computers currently running Mac OS X Tiger version 10.4.8 and includes general operating system fixes, as well as specific fixes or compatibility updates for the following applications and technologies:

- RAW camera support
- Handling of large or malformed images that could cause crashes
- Image capture performance
- Mouse scrolling and keyboard shortcuts
- Font handling
- Playback quality, and bookmarks in DVD Player
- USB video conferencing cameras for use with iChat
- Bluetooth devices
- Browsing AFP servers
- Apple USB Modem
- Windows-created digital certificates
- Open and Print dialogs in applications that use Rosetta on Intel-based Macs
- Time zone and daylight saving for 2006 and 2007
- Security updates

For detailed information on this Update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n304821
For detailed information on Security Updates, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798

Technorati Tags: Digital Photography, Allen Rockwell, OSX, Mac, Apple

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 07:51 PM | Permalink

Websites and products discussed on the podcast:

The Digital Photography Show

Photo GPS by Jobo

Canon EOS 1D Mark III ... Again :)

Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS Lens

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 08:31 PM | Permalink

I was at PMA yesterday and had a great time ... not to mention the $600 I won on a $1 slot machine on the way home :)

Heres a photo of me with Scott Sherman and Michael Stein of The Digital Photography Podcast ... Great guys. (I'm convinced they are stadding on stacks of phone books ... I can't possibly be that short!)

A complete report is coming later ... I just wanted to post this real quick.

Technorati Tags: Digital Photography, Allen Rockwell, CS3, PMA

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 11:00 AM | Permalink

The last few days have several updates being pushed from Apple including iTunes 7.1.59 for the Mac, iTunes 7.1 for the PC, Quicktime 7.1.5 for Mac and Windows, Airport Extreme update.

What does it all mean?

It probably means the Apple TV is about to finally ship. All three items (Airport, iTunes and Quicktime) will be critical to the operation of Apple TV.

I really wish iLife and iWork would get released ... not to mention Leopard ... but I'll bet we still have a bit of a wait for those items :(

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 10:14 PM | Permalink

We are pleased to let you know that the Photoshop family is growing!

Photoshop software has always been at the forefront of digital imaging innovation and we've given you a taste of things to come with the Photoshop CS3 beta. Today, we want to share the news that Spring 2007 will bring not just one, but two versions of Adobe Photoshop: Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended.

We want to share this exciting news about our upcoming product release plans. Pricing and availability information will be provided at our announcement in the spring.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended
New to the Photoshop family, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended software delivers everything in Photoshop CS3 and more. Render and incorporate 3D images into your 2D composites. Stop time with easy editing of motion graphics on video layers. Enrich your images with accurate measurement, analysis, and visualization tools.

Photoshop CS3 Extended is ideal for:
• Multi-media Creative Professionals
• Film and Video Creative Professionals
• Graphic and Web Designers who are pushing the limits of design with 3D and motion
• Manufacturing Professionals
• Medical Professionals
• Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Professionals
• Scientific Research Professionals

Adobe Photoshop CS3
The Photoshop CS3 beta is currently available to Photoshop CS2 users worldwide. Adobe Photoshop CS3 software accelerates your path from imagination to imagery. The professional standard delivers new features, such as automatic layer alignment and blending, that enable advanced compositing. Live filters boost the comprehensive, nondestructive editing toolset for increased flexibility. And a streamlined interface and new time-saving tools make your work flow faster.

Photoshop CS3 is ideal for:
• Professional Photographers
• Serious Amateur Photographers
• Graphic and Web Designers
• Print Service Providers

Both applications will be available as a Universal Binary for the Macintosh platform as well as for Microsoft® Windows® XP and Windows Vista computers, providing faster launch times and increased performance.

Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended are at the heart of the Photoshop family—the ultimate playground for bringing out the best in your digital images and transforming them into anything you can imagine. Other products in the family include Photoshop Lightroom™, Photoshop Elements, and Photoshop Starter Edition software.

Technorati Tags: Digital Photography, Allen Rockwell, CS3, Adobe, Creative Suite 3,

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 08:51 PM | Permalink

Links to sites mentioned in the podcast:

iStockPhoto

Canon EOS 1D Mark III at Imaging-Resource.com

Canon EOS 1D Mark III at Canon.com

PocketWizard

PMA Show

Canon EOS 1D Mark III on my blog

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 08:14 PM | Permalink

Tonight's photo assigment; grab the camera, go in the kitchen and take a dozen photos.

The rules were:
1. No flash
2. Use whatever lens is on the camera
3. No supplemental lights
4. No tripod

Shot with a Canon EOS 20D and Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens. All photos were shot at f2.8 due to the very low light.

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 09:52 PM | Permalink

I just recently found this cool app at http://www.xslimmer.com/

The looks at each app (the ones you point it at) and deletes the unnecessary code, language support, etc that you don't need. For example on an Intel Mac it will delete all the Power PC code and on a PPC machine it will delete all the Intel code.

They claim you'll save tons of disk space and your apps might even launch faster since they do not need to look at all the junk code that they will never use anyways.

From their site:

Xslimmer the friendly way to right-size your apps without losing functionality.

Xslimmer not only frees space wasted by unused code, it can even increase your Mac's performance. Some of our users have reported applications loading in almost half the time, because OS X does not need to analyze Xslimmed applications in search for the most suitable version of the code.

Here are my results from trying it on my MacBookPro laptop

Technorati Tags: Digital Photography, Allen Rockwell,Slimmer

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 12:55 PM | Permalink