Still alive

As the title suggests the digital SLR I ended up getting is Nikon D60.
But before writing about it I wanted to thank everyone who shared their experience and knowledge to help me select the best digital SLR for me.
I have to say that there’s a lot of joy in sharing my thoughts, techniques and practices on this blog but also one of the best things about having this blog is the privilege of having the access to your knowledge. See, as I was searching for information about digital SLR I realized that I don’t really care (or even understand) all this technical blabber and what I really need is to hear from someone who know these cameras first hand.

The main reasons I decided the Nikon D60 is the best camera for me were its light weight, the fair price and because I already have two Nikon lenses.

The verdict: I already had the pleasure of taking this camera out for a test drive and it was a delight! Fast, easy, quiet, light and with some great results. What I really liked about this camera is that it feels just like my film SLR, and that’s a great bonus for me.
The quality of images took me by surprise: not only they are bright and vivid but also there is no visible noise. Wow.

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There are two ways to make pinhole images with the Diana Plus camera: True pinhole and Magnum pinhole. When shooting either pinhole settings the aperture is set to P and the shutter to B, but with True pinhole the lens needs to be removed before the image is taken. Theoretically the magnum pinhole result in sharper images but frankly I couldn’t tell the difference.
According to the shooting suggestions you need to keep the shutter open for about 2 seconds when shooting in bright sunlight and 30 seconds in the shade, but 10 seconds in the shade will do just fine.
Maybe I’m missing something but the Diana plus instruction manual says the shutter needs to stay open for about 6-15 minutes if taking indoors pinhole and 1-2 hours at night… but it doesn’t say HOW to do it. I mean, how am I suppose to keep the shutter open for such long time when the only way to keep it open is by pressing the shutter button… Weird.
But anyway, stick to daylight pinhole and you’ll be just fine. Its actually quite fun.

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Here’s a preview of my latest book:
I am not an artist – unconventional and creative photography.

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If you are interested in displaying your book, magazine, article or any other document in a neat way, issuu.com will let you do just that.
I don’t even remember how I stumbled upon this site but right away I liked the fact that each and every publication displayed on this site looked good, and possibly even better than the real thing.
So basically its a stylish way of publishing your PDF document to the web, while you can get feedback from your visitors and also dynamically embed the document on your site just like I did here.

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So as some of you, or at least one of you, I think it was actually just Rory who suggested I won’t give up on my Canonet QL17 and give it another try.
So I did.
But this time I made a point to take my time when using this camera. Meaning, not to shoot it on the move as I often do. So for each picture I took, I actually stopped, took my time focusing and only then made the exposure. I have to say this was a (cruel and) unusual practice for me, but the end results definitely made it worth while to go a bit out of my way.
I know the standard practice in photography is to have the camera fitting and accommodating to our needs, and not the other way, but sometimes with classic cameras, well, it’s a good idea to slow down, be patient and more flexible.

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A hot weekend here in L.A. , always raises the same debate: should I drive and get stuck in traffic on the way to one of the crowded beaches, or should I stay home, indulge on popsicles, and wait for the liberator evening to get out and enjoy the cool evening air.
So I stayed home today. And what’s a better opportunity than this to get creative with photography, i.e. image transfers, mixed media collages, distressing prints or manipulating an extinct time-zero film.

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I haven’t followed the digital marketplace for quite some time now and so I’m quite overwhelmed with the choice of cameras out there.
I read a few reviews but actually got even more confused.
Besides, I would rather hear from you; which DSLR do YOU prefer? Nikon D80 or Canon EOS-40D? or maybe another DSLR at this price range?

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Other than the obvious things such as reducing unnecessary electricity usage, planting something, recycling failed photo papers, bicycling, walking or taking the bus to work, all of us photographers (and non-photographers of course) ought to just turn off our computers, grab our cameras and go out there (i.e. walk, bike, take the bus) to make pictures of our beautiful planet.
Ah? How about that?

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I don’t know about you but I actually like my pictures printed in a small size.
My Epson printer is capable of printing photos at a sizes up to 13X19 but I’ve never even tried printing at this size. I also have a few large prints that were professionally printed for me, but they all ended up in storage at the back of the closet.
so why do I like small prints? Because I like to have this intimate connection with my photos.
When you look at a small size print, you often have to step closer to the image in order to take a good look at it.
I’m not at all an expert on printing but I also think that as far as details and depth go, most photos simply look better when printed smaller.

But, maybe IT IS just me after all, because when people buy my photos, they often want them as large as they come.

And by the way, I have a few framed photos at various large sizes that I got “stuck” with after my last photo show was over and I have to say that I hardly ever really look at them. I mean, I see them when I walk in the living room but I don’t really look at them.

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I’m not going to write a review about ACDSee here, there’s no need to do such a thing as there are plenty of reviews all over the net written by experts who know much more than I do about photo editors.
But all I want to say is that if you have lots of photos to work with, and if you have thoughts about putting together a website or some sort of a catalog of your photos ACDSee can really make things faster for you.
I used to have an early version of ACDsee and I was definitely not impressed with it. It was merely an image viewer and I didn’t need one.
Recently I wanted to put together a website/catalog of my photos and was looking around for a tool which will help me working with the large number of images, organizing and displaying them. ACDSee turned out to be perfect for batch renaming images in a folder, tagging them and creating a PDF file or an html album which displays image information below each image. Perfect!

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