Photography Archive
Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
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A few days ago, in response to my post about Dell using one of my photos for some promotional purposes, a professional photographer e-mailed me. He was courteous, but wanted to know why I felt compelled to give my photos away for free, when other folks are trying to make a living at photography.
This isn't the first time I've been asked about this. I've talked to quite a few photographers on this subject, some of them are close friends. In the end, photography is a hobby so I don't look to derive any major income from it. If that upsets existing business models, then I'm sorry, but it's a reality...and it will only continue to get worse.
In the end I go back and forth on the subject. I understand how some folks feel threatened by the glut of free images out there, but a few friends are somewhat glad. Why? Well either they've used their free images on Flickr to transition to a paying career, or it's forced them to up their game and in the end get more work from clients that are willing to pay and understand/realize the value/quality of the work they do.
What are your thoughts?
Checking out Facebook on Saturday afternoon I noticed a photo/ad on the right side of the page that looked rather familiar. It was a small ad for Dell's new Facebook fan page dedicated to social media:
Clicking through the ad you'll see the larger photo which is used as the cover-shot of the intro video.
The photo is of Bob Pearson from Dell and I took it at last year's WOMM-U event in Miami, FL. Here's the original shot:
Photo geeks will notice that I have a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license on the photo.
How can Dell use the photo in this way? Well, last year Lionel Menchaca asked if he could have a number of shots I had taken of Dell staff at conferences for their use....I said no problem.
It's kinda cool to see my shot used like that.
"I've never shot with film" That statement caused the salesclerk at B&H Photo in Manhattan to almost fall out of his chair. Especially since I had a Nikon D3 slung across my shoulder.
It's half-true though. I remember using a few film cameras growing up, but nothing significant. When I became serious about taking photos I purchased my D80. From there I went to the D300, then the D3...obviously the logical next step was a used Nikon F4 from the late 80's.
Why? Well as bad as this sounds, I wanted to see what it was like in the old days. I also played a bit with Derek Miller's F4 at Gnomedex and was intrigued.
I purchased the camera and a few rolls of black & white film and set off to the streets of New York to learn. The Nikon F4 features dials for every setting (ISO, Aperture, Shutterspeed, etc) there are no LCD screens. The camera is build like a rock and heavy, but that's good in my book.
I wanted to see if shooting on film would make me a better photographer. Of course there is no preview or LCD to review your photo. There is also no cropping on processing you can do in Lightroom. What you shoot is what you get.
Suddenly I found myself thinking much more about composition and the settings. To cheat a bit I would shoot something with my digital camera and look at the final settings, then attempt to dial in something similar on the F4. But once again with no way to look at the photos I didn't know if any of them were turning out.
The F4 has the same lens mount as the D3, so I am able to use all my lenses. I primarily shot with the 50mm f/1.4 but did shoot a soccer game with my 70-200mm f/2.8. The F4s has the extra battery grip mounted and the speed at which I was able to shoot was just fine.
Over the next few weeks I shot two rolls of 36-exposure black & white film. With the instant gratification of the LCD preview gone I constantly wondered if I had gotten the shots I wanted. Now it was time to develop the film, which was an adventure in itself.
In my neck of the woods there are very few film labs left. Calling around to a few friends one suggested Sam's Club or Costco since they still developed film on-site. Heading to Sam's I was told they don't process black & white film on site, it's sent to Tennessee and has a turnaround of 3-4 weeks. Ouch.
Luckily there is a great camera store in Orlando called Colonial Film & Hobby which has a lab on site and can develop black & white film. I had the rolls developed and the negatives scanned to CD.
Looking over the photos I was actually quite surprised that I was able to get some good shots. Yes the exposure was off a bit in some, but overall I liked what I shot. The black & white is a bit of a crutch since it will mask many of the off-tone color if I had shot normal film.
I've uploaded all the shots to a group and will continue to play with the film camera. The only bad thing is now I'm carrying a number of cameras with me.
This past Wednesday night I was in New York. Shortly before nightfall it rained, and then stopped. Nothing better than neon and night combined with wet streets.
I had some of the same luck in Seoul earlier this year.
At some point last night I received my 1,000,000th Flickr view. I've said it here and at events, we take to what we're passionate about, and lately for me that's been photography. While this blog has dwindled, I've ramped up my attention to Flickr and the community there. Thanks to everybody that counted towards that 1 million. Let's go for two.
This is where my photo hobby began, my first camera, and my first digital camera, the Kodak DC290. Sure I had other cameras growing up, but this was the first camera that I actually cared what I took pictures of.
At the time I purchased this legend in early 2000 it was one of the first 2.1 megapixel cameras and cost a nice $1000. Throw in another $200 for the 96MB compact flash card and we were in business. Basically the same I spent for my Nikon D80 and a few 2GB SD cards :-)
How far we've come.
I actually lost the DC290 I originally had, but saw this for sale at a camera store today, $38.
Just a follow-up to my previous post on Golden Gate shots....here are some of my favorites. It's amazing how small tweaks in camera settings can lead to such different shots.
Some have noticed that I upgraded to a Nikon D3 this past week. I'll write up a full review in a few weeks, but the quick view is the camera is amazing. Here's a quick shot of the Bay Bridge I took on Sunday. Zoom in to see the detail.
I have a number of shots from Sunday to process, as well as the night shots of the Golden Gate Bridge.
BlogHer 08 has come to a close. It was my third BlogHer and as always, I had a blast. Here are some photo highlights. The entire set is here.
During BlogHer I snuck down to the Golden Gate Bridge on Friday night to take a few shots. Here's the first of many more to come:
Yes I will admit that carrying around a big DSLR camera is a bit of a drag sometimes, and there are other times I really don't want to take my camera to a certain environment, say the beach. For all the 'other' times I want a camera, which is almost all the time, I picked up a small Nikon Coolpix S600.
Why a Coolpix? Well I'm a Nikon fan, duh, but my interest in photography started with my original Coolpix 2100. I could take some pretty decent shots with that.
After using a DSLR for a while you do become a bit of a picture snob, that is you look at shots from a point & shoot and start to pick out the small little issues, i.e. quality, clarity, etc. But you soon get over that and realize that the smaller cameras can take some good shots. Scott Beale played around with the Fuji FinePix and discovered the same thing.
However I wanted to get as good a point and shoot as I could, while still keeping the form-factor small. The S600 has a glass Nikkor lens and uses the same VR technology that many of the high-end Nikon lenses use. The sensor is 10.0 MP and can shoot as high has 3200 ISO. Toting around the S600 for the past few weeks has shown me that the camera can take some great shots in the right situations.
Ultimately it's about knowing the camera's limitations. One of which is speed, as in a fast shutter. Using a DSLR like the D300 for too long you expect things to be fast, and there isn't really a fast point-and-shoot on the market. Trying to take 'action' shots of my son never quite works out. Shooting still-life, landscapes and a variety of other stable subjects works great. Here are a selection of shots from the S600 this past weekend.
If you look at the large version of this photo, the sharpness of the whiskers on my face is amazing, although somewhat disturbing on another level :-)
Shooting at night it's always good to have a stable platform. Yes a tripod can be overkill for a point-and-shoot, but what else can you prop the camera on? For this shot I just set the camera on a sign. Not bad.
The Macro function is easy to use, but I haven't tested it too much, the same goes for the high ISO. I'll play a bit more and post a follow-up.
So far I've been very happy with the Coolpix S600. I planed to turn it over to my wife so she could always have a camera, but I don't want to give it up. I might need to buy another.
My first 'big boy' camera was the Nikon D80. I purchased it in September of 2006 and never looked back. While the D80 has been a great camera I was putting some serious miles on it. In August of last year Nikon announced the D3 and the D300. The D300 seemed to be the next logical step. It was a notch-up in just about every aspect and was a bit more rugged than the D80. In March of this year I upgraded :-)
Upon first impression you see that the D300 is a bit bigger and heavier than the D80 (Paul Stamatiou also noted this). The difference is more in the width of the camera than the height. I always mount the external battery grip so a big and heavy camera is nothing new to me. Below are some comparison shots of my D80 and D300 rigs.
I was able to take the D300 with me to London and was amazed at some of the shots I got, some of which are highlighted below.
The things that drew me to the D300 were:
More Rugged: Have I mentioned this before? The D300 is a descendant of the D200 and the D100, so it's sometimes referred to as a pro photographer's second camera. The thought is most serious pros own a D2x/D2h (or the D3 now) and the DXXX serves as a backup. Often the DXXX has the same internal workings as the pricier sibling, just a smaller body. While the D80 is great, all the trips and conditions were starting to show on the camera body.
On the D300 the subframe is magnesium and you can feel it. The entire camera is almost a grip and feels great. The strap hinges are also more robust than the D300. Back when I was deciding between the D80 and the Canon Rebels one of the issues I noted was that the lower-end Canons felt too-plasticy while the D80 felt sturdier. The D300 is a step above this, you 'feel' that value/quality. Yes it's a minor point compared to other aspects of the camera's performance, but it is an issue.
D3 in a Small Body: Not entirely true, but much of the D3 lineage is in the D300. Yes it's still a DX sensor rather than the new full-frame FX, but did I really need that? There are an increased number of focus points as well as a nice 12.3 MP sensor (not going into the megapixel myth here though). On the back-side there is the nice 3" LCD. It's one of those small things, you think well that's slightly larger than the D80, but once you use it, you look at the D80 and say, boy that looks small. Combined with decent glass I am amazed at the clarity and color I can get (see below)
Higher ISO: Both the D3 and D300 have stepped things up in the sensitivity range allowing you to shoot at even lower light conditions. You can max things out at 6400 ISO, but I mostly shoot at 1600 in low light. Many times I'm shooting at conferences with low-light and the D300 has been great for this.
The photos below are a great example of the all-around package of increased sensitivity and speed of the camera. These were taken with the D300 and the 70-200mm lens at night in a hand-held position (as in no tripod). Could they be a bit sharper? Perhaps, but without a tripod I don't think so.
Speed: This thing shoots fast which is great for action photography or as parents call it, every day :-) Setting the camera to Continuous-High and pressing the shutter button is a good parlor trick, people are amazed at the speed. The photo below would be good if it wasn't for the poor framing on my part, i.e. the guy standing in the background with the point and shoot, but it shows the action you can grab. The cyclist was taking part in a local criterium, i.e. riding rather fast :-)
Liveview: Honestly I rarely use this feature. Liveview mimics the standard LCD as viewfinder format that most point and shoot cameras have. I know some people have raved about it for setting up shots on a tripod, but I rarely use one. Perhaps one day I'll start doing more landscape with a tripod.
What are the drawbacks?
Weight: Yes it is heavier and bigger, but I think that just comes with the territory. However it is interesting to compare the D300 to the D40 or even the Nikon Coolpix S600.
Controls/Settings: Yes I am that guy that picks something up and tries to use it without using the manual. I did the same thing with the D300 and noticed quickly there was no green 'Auto' setting. At first I thought, wow this thing doesn't have an auto setting. Actually it's there. It's P for 'Programmed Automatic' :-)
What took me a week or two to adjust to was the minor tweaks. What I mean by this is rarely now do I just point and shoot. I think about what I'm shooting then dial-in the settings I want, take a few test shots then adjust. Yes it's a few more steps in the routine, but doesn't really slow me down.
Cost: This is a variable depending on your budget. The D300 retails for around $1800 so it is an investment, however it is a natural upgrade path for enthusiasts that have been using the D80 for a while and want to take the next step. With the more rugged build I would also assume the D300 would hold up better over time than the D80.
Of course the camera is only one part of the equation, I am fortunate to have some good lenses. With the D300 I carry around: 17-55mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8, 10.5mm f/2.8 and a 50mm f/1.4. Those lenses will always stay with me even if I upgrade cameras again. I also use the MB-D10 battery pack/grip. With the battery pack I rarely (as in never) run out of juice. I can shoot for a few weeks at a time without worrying about chargine. As of yet, I still have no external flash.
Going back to my post: Which Camera? D80, D40, D40x or D60? There is now a new model in the mix, the D300.
How does the D300 weave in? Well if you're serious about the hobby then it's a tough call between the D80 and the D300. If you're lucky, you have a friend that's looking to upgrade from a point and shoot...sell them your D40/D60/D80 and go for the D300 :-)
What's next? Well the D700 was just announced and there is always the big-daddy D3. The D700 brings the full-frame FX sensor to the D300 body for a cool $3000.00.
Late last week I was able to take a brief vacation. Good times, but always too short. Back to work.
Last weekend (or was it the one before that.....) I was in Washington DC for BlogPotomac, here are a few highlight shots from the event. The entire photoset is here.
Of course while in town for BlogPotomac I spent some time snapping some shots of the DC-usuals during my time there. You know the drill....photoset is here.
I'll be heading to the DC area on Thursday for BlogPotomac on Friday. Anybody up for a photowalk on Thursday afternoon in DC or at the Air & Space Museum near Dulles?
When I was in San Francisco on Friday I stopped by the Citizen Space Co-Working office. Great space and people.
My last co-working stop was Independents Hall in Philadelphia, PA.
Following-up on my first post about the tunnel at Detroit Airport, here are a series of photos from the same spot showcasing the changing light. The last shot is purposely over-exposed:
I was in Indianapolis on Mon/Tue last week for the Regional Airline Association conference. While there I was allowed in to the new Indianapolis Airport which is still under construction. It was bizarre to be in such a large space with almost nobody in it. Some of the photos are here. The main hall features a huge open space with a massive skylight.
Speaking of big, here's a shot of the new Lucas Oil Stadium which will house the Colts starting this fall. This is also a very big building. More photos...
I've been on the road again this week, big surprise there huh? In four days I've been from/to/through: Orlando, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Detroit, Manchester, Atlanta and Miami. Yesterday I had a quick layover in Detroit. One of my favorite airport spots is the tunnel between the A and B concourses. I could stare at the lights for hours. I took a number of photos with the different colors which I'll post later (here they are), but for now I'll leave you with this one.
Speaking of airports, the other night I was part of a select group that toured the new Indianapolis Airport. It was somewhat bizarre to stand inside a huge empty building like that. I'll be posting those
A few more favorite shots from my London trip (Part 1 here):
I'm in Wyoming to speak at their Governor's conference. I spent some time today traveling outside of Casper, WY. Words just can't describe the vastness. More pictures to come soon.
I finally finished processing and uploading all my photos from my London trip. The photoset has 417 shots, (including the PR Geek Dinner) but here are some of my favorites:
As Sandi pointed out, today is Big Ben's 150th birthday. As luck would have it, I happened to be in London this morning to celebrate (not really). Here's a shot of the clock, Big Ben, the bell, is inside with the birthday cake.
Mike and I took the train from Windsor and arrived in London early for some great light for photos. More photos from my UK trip are over on the Flickr.
Combine rain with a foreign city full of neon and you get a fun photowalk. Here are a few select shots from Seoul on Thursday night.
This past Saturday I had a quick up/back trip to Atlanta. During some downtime I walked over to the Georgia Aquarium and decided to take all my shots using my fisheye lens. It seemed somewhat appropriate for an aquarium :-) Photoset is here.
Back from San Francisco...quick, hectic trip. I was in town to help out with this and this. I did manage to get outside for a little bit to take some photos though.
Tomorrow at SoCon08 I'll be leading a breakout on photography and Flickr. What are your favorite things/tips about Flickr? Share them in the comments so I can work them in :-)
A colleague e-mailed me this morning asking which camera they should buy and which lenses? Over the past few weeks I have answered this question quite a bit and even more in the weeks leading up to the holiday season. I decided to just post my thoughts in lazyweb style, that way I can just forward this link in the future.
First off, it should be obvious I have a Nikon bias. It's what I use and what many of my friends use. Ok, that's out of the way.
One of the first questions I have back to anybody that asks for camera advice, "What's your budget?" The answer generally falls into one of three categories:
- Around $500-$600
- Around $1000
- Up to $1500
The second question I ask is, "How serious are you?" As in, is the camera just for fun, quick family shots, or are you looking to fulfill a photography hobby?
Typically the folks that are looking for fun/family stuff are usually in the $500-$600 price range. For this audience, the D40 and D40x are both great cameras with the basic kit lens. This past holiday season all the major box stores had great deals on both of these cameras and quite a few friends bought them and are very happy with them.
The D60 is the next evolution of this camera. With it's release the D40/40x will become even cheaper.
If you've been using a D80 or another standard DSLR, it's amazing to see how tiny the D40/40x/60 body style is. I've often toyed with the idea of getting a D40 and a simple prime lens for quick/everyday use.
While the D40/40x/60 line is great and an awesome entry point, there is one thing they're missing...an on-board focus motor. What this means is that you need to buy AF-S type lenses if you want auto-focus functionality. While this will not impact many users, if you ever want to expand your lenses you can hit some limits.
For example a few friends have bought one of the great 50mm prime lenses (either the f/1.8 or f/1.4). These lenses are not AF-S, so you need to manually focus. Sounds trite and trivial, but if you're attempting to shoot in low-light environments, auto-focus really helps.
This is the bridge to the next level of camera, budget and interest. I've seen a few friends say, "I only want to spend around $600", they buy the D40/40x and then quickly fall in love....and hit some limits. If they would have spent around $1000 they might be in a better position.
If you budget right around $1000 then you're into D80 land. You can buy the D80 with the basic kit lens for under $1000 and the body only for under $900. Sure you're stuck with the basic kit lens, but you have a platform you can expand on. Dave recently went through this. He started looking at the D40/40x but soon realized that the D80 would allow him to grow. I know he's very happy that he made the step-up.
Next up, lenses. I think many photography friends will tell you that then kit lens that comes with most camera's is usually the cheapest lens they make. There is nothing drastically wrong with the lens, but it's not the best :-)
When giving advice I ask, "How soon do you think you're going to buy lenses?" If you're going to buy soon, then get the cheapest kit lens, or the body only. If you're not going to make an investment for a while look to get the 18-135mm. It's a good versatile lens.
If you plan to expand your lenses, where to start first? For me the gateway drug was one of the 50mm prime lenses. In Nikon's lineup the 50mm f/1.8 can be bought for less that $100 and the 50mm f/1.4 is around $300. For many folks new to photography, these low-light primes lenses really get them excited, plus they're not that expensive (relatively speaking).
For future lenses, it also comes down to budget. Are you looking spend $500, $1000, $1500? In the next part (Friday), I'll be talking some more about lenses.
Comments, questions?
I'm not supposed to be in Seattle, but I am. I'm supposed to be in Spokane, Washington...but with 16 inches of snow and a plane off the runway we never made it. I spent the night last night at the Marriott Waterfront, aka the Gnomedex hotel. I keep wanting to walk across the street to the conference center...force-of-habit.
Anyway, I had some time this morning to play with my new 10.5mm fisheye lens. This is the rail-line in front of the hotel.
Most U.S. states have a Governor's conference. It's an event that brings together the various tourism and CVB (convention & visitors bureaus) from around a state. This year I've been booked to keynote quite a few of these events around the country. Here's the confirmed list so far:
Maryland Governor's Conference - Baltimore, MD - March 5 2008
Oregon Governor's Conference - Portland, OR - April 7-8, 2008
Michigan Governor's Conference - Lansing, MI - April 14-15, 2008
Wyoming Governor's Conference - Cheyenne, WY - April 21-22, 2008
New Hampshire Governor's Conference - Mt. Washington, NH - May 6-7, 2008
I'm looking forward to each of these visits. I hope to spend a few extra days on Wyoming and Oregon to get some photography in.
Cross posted from Media Bullseye:
A number of social media/pr bloggers are slowly becoming avid photographers...toting their Nikon or Canon DSLRs around wherever they go. They're always snapping photos at events, at home, just about anywhere. However, there is a method to their madness though (I think).
We're all familiar with the phrase, 'A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words'. A picture is an easy way to tell a story, to set a scene. Sure you can do it with words, but as we all know, sometimes words can't quite capture the moment like a picture can. If a picture is worth a thousand words, is it also a substitute for a blog post or a good addition to one? Of course!
A photo can be a great compliment to a blog post, but it can also be a blog post...just a simple photo, with a sentence or two. In that way it's a very efficient way of blogging that involves less writing. The right picture can also be a great inspiration for a post. Many times when I'm stuck in a blog-rut, just looking at photos can inspire a number of different ideas. The downside is that I find myself writing less and posting more photos.
Ask any friend that is a photography buff, "Would you rather spend an hour writing a blog article, or taking photos outside?" I think you already know the answer.
Like many of my blogging friends I was recently bitten by the photography bug. My interest came from the conference circuit. I was attending a number of events in 2006 (NewComm Forum, BlogHer, Gnomedex) doing the live-blogging thing at most of them. At each event I was always impressed with the photos that people like Scott Beale and Kris Krug were taking and posting. I wanted to do the same. Great photos could enhance the blogging I was already doing.
My gateway drug was the tiny Nikon Coolpix I carried around. Sure it served its purpose, but I needed to upgrade. In September of 2006 I purchased a Nikon D80 and haven't looked back.
But let's be honest, many of us are gadget geeks, and nice cameras are a big gadget. It's also easier to 'sell' the purchase of a nice camera to the loved ones, "Honey, think of the great pictures I can take of the kids!"
I think for many of us photography is an evolution of the social media work we do in our everyday lives. Pictures allow us to communicate and convey messages in a different way. As I said earlier, photos can replace the written word, or enhance it.
It's another tool at our disposal, but it's also a gadget! (It's a floor wax and a dessert topping!)
--
In preparing to write this article I began to think about the friends/colleagues that now carry around DSLR cameras. The list is long, and got longer after the holiday season...many friends found DSLRs under the tree :-)
Of course there is the eternal Nikon/Canon debate, but among my friends Nikon is the clear winner. In the Nikon camp there are: David Parmet (D80), Brian Oberkirch (D70s), Jake McKee (D50), Dave Coustan (D80), David Alston (D80), Tris Hussey (D80), Jeremy Pepper (D80), Chris Scott (D40), Judson Collier (D40), Chris Gent (D50), Erik Hersman (D40), Tom Biro (D80), Paul Stamatiou (D80), Mike Manuel (D80), Stephanie Roberts (D80) and Mario Sundar (D80).
In the Canon camp there are: Chris Heuer (XTI), Brian Solis (XTI), Chip Griffin (30D), Howard Greenstein (XTI) and Alex de Carvalho (XTI).
With all these friends, photography is another touchpoint. It's a frequent topic of conversation at dinners and conference meet-ups.
During the holidays Cinderella's castle at Walt Disney World is covered with icicle lights. It's a sight to see, while it lasts. A few days before they're scheduled to be taken down I ventured out in the Florida cold (40's) to get some night shots with the new tripod. The full set is here. I also plan to post some fireworks shots as well.
The photo above the the 'standard' light for the castle, but as the castle lighting changes to different hues, it changes the look of the icicles.
One of my favorite castle shots is always from the side with the reflection in the moat.
One day over the holiday break I flew to Savannah and visited Fort Pulaski. I posted the majority of the photos in black & white to go along with the 'historic' theme. The entire photoset is here.
Did I fly to Savannah just to visit this fort? Nope, it was mostly an end-of-the-year mileage run to up my Medallion status on Delta :-)
Here's a close-up shot of a swan near our cabin in Highlands, NC.
Since I 'went long' on the last lens I thought I'd mix it up on the next lens. In fact, it's almost the exact opposite, a very wide angle lens. I'm looking at the Nikkor AF DX 10.5mm f/2.8. If I end up playing with it I'll let you know my thoughts.
This past Tuesday we visited ICE an interesting and very cold display at the Gaylord Palms resort in Orlando. It's hard in photos to do justice to the display. Many of the sculptures are so big you can't get a sense of scale. The shot below is a tunnel that's made completely of ice and lights. Very cool. The entire photoset is here.
It's been a few months since I received my Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, aka the 'stalker' lens to my friends. The low-light zoom was a good addition to the 17-55mm f/2.8 I picked up earlier this year.
If you read many of the reviews of the 70-200mm f/2.8 you'll see a consistent thread...it's an awesome lens. For much of what I shoot, the lens is the perfect solution.
I'm often at conferences where there is a speaker on a stage in a low-light situation. I want to get a nice headshot. This lens does it every time. Some of my recent favorite shots have been taken with this lens. What you need to realize is that for the headshots below, I was standing a good distance away.
The 17-55mm is my standard walk-around lens but recently I've been shooting with the 70-200mm in many situations. Almost all the photos I took at our recent trip to Animal Kingdom were taken with the 70-200mm.
John Frost recently complimented the shots I got of the Finding Nemo Musical, I could not have taken those shots without this lens. The combination of the low aperture and VR makes for great shots in a stage/theater setting. However, I've found that the VR does get in the way of sport photography, i.e. rapid fire shooting.
There are some drawbacks, but not many. The weight of the lens is something to contend with, but I find that you quickly get used to it. It's also, well....big. The final factor is cost, currently B&H lists the lens at $1600 (if they're in stock).
Any good lens is a major investment, but they're supposed to live through a few bodies so if you amortize the cost of the lens over that lifetime....justification in process here.... :-) In the end the lens is worth the investment if you can swing the finances.
This past weekend we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom to play a bit. It was the first time we've been since the new Finding Nemo the Musical opened so we caught the early show. It was an amazing show, well worth the visit/wait. If you don't know anything about the show, the performers are puppets, with a twist. The puppeteers do not hide, they are part of the action as well.
Of course I took some photos :-) You can find the entire photoset here.
We were lucky to make the visit with John Frost of The Disney Blog. John knows his Disney stuff and provided a number of trivia tid-bits during the show. You can read some of his posts about Nemo:
- Finding Nemo - The Musical, Now in Previews
- Finding Nemo - The Musical, Meet the Creators
Ever since I started using my Nikon D80 I've been a shoot and upload person, that is no post-production. I also never shot in RAW format, it was sort of a mystery to me, plus the whole processing thing took time and when I'm shooting at conferences I just want to get it online.
Lately I've been wanting to play around with Lightroom and take my photos to the next level, but it's a learning curve. At Gnomedex this year I spent a few moments with Kris Krug asking him about his Lightroom workflow and he was kind enough to share his process. It's not much, just a few tweaks for color-correction and sharpening.
Over the Thanksgiving break I decided to make the switch, that is start shooting in RAW and using Lightroom for some basic processing. I bought a new 8GB Ultra II SD card which will hold around 650 RAW shots (or 1,800 in the old Fine JPG format I was using). The first test was Bok Tower at sunset yesterday. Here are the shots:
On Thursday and Friday I was in New York City for a presentation. During my downtime I ran around the city as much as I could to grab some photos. The night shots are here, the day shots here. The highlight of the trip was being able to present in the boardroom of the New York Stock Exchange.
In the corner of the boardroom is a massive Faberge vase, the NYSE spokesperson said it was the largest piece that Faberge ever created. It was a gift to the Exchange from a Russian Czar for helping finance the Trans-Siberian Railway.
The 70-200 f/2.8 Nikon lens came in handy for this shot of the Chrysler Building (same shot in black & white).
And this shot of the Empire State Building (same shot in black & white)
I was also able to visit the famous B&H Photo Video, which, if you're into photography is like candy-land. Dinner on Thursday night featured PR bloggers Constantin Basturea and Stephen Davies. It was a quick trip, but a good trip.
Alicia Dorset, Dave Coustan and I took the afteroon and played a bit of hooky to visit the Georgia Aquarium and World of Coke in Atlanta. This was my first visit to the Georgia Aquarium since I wrote about their Flickr group. Aquariums are one of my favorite locations to take pictures, plenty of interesting subjects and plenty of contrasts. I love shots like this one below. I recently created a silhouettes group in Flickr to gather all my contrast shots.
At the aquarium it's hard to tell who is on display, the fish or the people. This fish is clearly mugging for the camera.
The scale of the main viewing room at the Ocean Voyage exhibit is hard to comprehend till you're there. This shot makes me think these people are stading in front of an IMAX movie screen.
And please folks, if the sign says no touching, don't touch. Complete set from this recent visit, shots from January 2007.
(Cross posted from the VoceNation)
Social media strategy doesn't always involve blogging or launching a social network. I always say, why start your own, when you can join an existing one? Social media/commuity initiatives can start out small and focussed....and use existing networks. A great example is the recent Flickr photogroup created by the Georgia Aquarium.
The Georgia Aquarium is fortunate that their location is often photographed, and the results are usually quite stunning. A number of amateur photographers and just regular users upload their aquarium photos to Flickr....why not join the party? Or at least help cultivate the interest? That's what the Georgia Aquarium has done.
Back in October I received the following e-mail invite via Flickr. Of course I joined the group, and as of today there are 89 members with close to 400 photos. Why only 400? The aquarium has asked members to submit their best five photos. I don' agree with that entirely, but I can see their point.
The photo collection was part of their web site relaunch slated for November (which is now up). The plan is to feature the photography and stories of visitors from around the globe. Not a unique idea, but it still works well with destinations. Below is a screenshot of the new site featuring one of my photos.
The 'how-to' section instructs users to join Flickr, then join the Georgia Aquarium group...then upload their photos into the group. The description on the photo will be used as the 'story'. This use of Flickr is similar to what the University of Florida did with GoGatorNation.com. Rather than creating some proprietary and hard-to-use photo-upload system, why not just use something that everybody is using already? Smart.
Let's recap. Finding the photos is simple, just do a Flickr photo search for 'Georgia Aquarium'. As of this post there are 43,574 photos, not bad, but it pales to the 883,000+ you'll find for Disney. Once you've found the photos, create a group and begin to invite the users to the group. Of course you need a purpose or strategy for the group. In the aquarium's case it was to build out a sharing/story function on their web site.
What's next? You have a community, but you need to provide something of value to the community. I'm not sure what their plans are, but here are some ideas:
1. Host a private function at the Aquarium for the photogroup members and invite in a professional aquatic photographer to host an instructional seminar. Then give the photogroup access to the aquarium for a few hours all to themselves (before of after normal hours). I can't speak for everybody, but if they offered that, I'd fly to Atlanta on my own to take part
2. Provide photogroup members access to behind-the-scenes area for pictures.
3. Feature select photos on the primary home page of the Georgia Aquarium Site.
4. Take the best 12 shots (determined by a user vote) and produce a calendar.
What other innovative campaigns have you seen built upon user photos? For me the Nikon campaigns come to mind..how about you?
I'm not really at Buffalo Airport, I'm in Athens, GA for the UGA Connect conference. However, I did take some cool photos of the sunrise at Buffalo airport this morning.
At the end of this past week I spent some time with the Indianapolis CVB. As a CVB, they have some connections and were able to get me into some cool places. One of which was the RCA Dome, home of the Indianapolis Colts. I was able to have my run of the place, even on the field. I snapped quite a few photos, including some shots of Peyton Manning's locker, and his chair :-)
I even got to ride the turf fluffer.
On Wednesday of this week I was at a speaking event at Daytona Beach. Before my session I walked up and down the boardwalk area. This was a shot of the bandshell that I snapped.
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I stopped by BarCamp Orlando for a little bit today. Photos from the event are here.
The other day a colleague and I went to the airport at the same time and went through security at the same time. He gets held up by the TSA for the 'extra' bag search because he has a small amount of lip-balm in his bag. I walked right though with no problem.
What's in my bag? Or I should say, what's almost always in my bag? My Bogen Manfrotto 680B monopod. The thing weighs a few pounds, is made of metal and can be extended to five feet in length.
Yep, you can't take lip balm on board but a metal bat is OK. In all the trips I've taken this year I've never been questioned once about this, or received extra-screening. Of course I do use the CLEAR program so maybe that has something to do with it. However I mostly use CLEAR at the Orlando airport, they're just now opening up in SFO and other airports I frequent.
While I'm spending time in Mobile, AL for a conference I snuck away and spent some time aboard the USS Alabama. The thing is huge and photos don't do it justice. There is one sense of scale when you're on the deck, then you go below deck and keep finding room after room and story after story. I've uploaded a photoset from the afternoon. The bottom photo here is from the engine room. Lots of tubes :-)
In the past few days I have been receiving the following message when I visit Flickr. Needless to say it scares the shit out of me. I have close to 12,000 photos on Flickr, so when they say they don't have them....well it's not a good feeling.
A number of us use external services like Flickr or YouTube to store our content. Most of the time it's free and easy. In the case of Flickr it's not free, I pay the yearly subscription fee. In the end though, we're putting a tremendous amount of faith in their hands.
I think I just found my next camera :-) Nikon just released the specs for the D3 and the D300. While the D3 is sweet, it's also pricey...so it's the D300 that's calling my name.
Looking some more.....the D3 has a full-frame sensor. Perhaps I'll wait till the next generation when the full-frame moves down the family...perhaps the D400?
A few hours ago Chris Pirillo kicked off the 7th edition of Gnomedex in Seattle, WA. The wifi and EVDO is very slow so photos will be sparse today. Look for a massive upload tonight.
I have a new toy for the D80. It's a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8D G-AFS ED-IF VR Lens and as you can see it's big :-)
Nikon is loaning me the lens on consignment for a few months. I had planned to take it to BlogHer '07 but it arrived a bit too late. The lens would have worked out great during Elizabeth Edward's session.
I'll be using it at next week's FPRA Annual Conference and Gnomedex.
Last week I asked how many photos would be uploaded from BlogHer. Looking at the numbers exactly one week later it was 2,903 photos. If I look now it's 3,321. That's quite a few photos :-)
At some point the uploading from the event will stop, but who knows when. Each day a few hundred more photos are being uploaded. I'm going to put together a set of my favorite shots from the conference. What are yours?
The photo below is one of the most powerful images I think I've ever captured. It's a moment between Elizabeth Edwards and Jen Lemen. Jen was sharing a personal story with Mrs. Edwards. They spoke for quite a long time and as you can see there is a tremendous amount of emotion there.
One of the best 'booths' at BlogHer this year was Scrapblog. Carlos, Alex, Cindy and the rest of the gang offered hands-on demo of their product and a great photo opp for BlogHer attendees. Bloghers had a number of props and costumes available to 'dress up' and have a Scrapblog made.
During the event I heard a number of women talking about the booth and organizing group shots.
From a social media standpoint, Scrapblog has been uploading all the images created to Flickr and will be doing some follow-up features after the event.
Last year I noted that the BlogHer conference generated over 2200 photos on Flickr, I wonder how many will be taken/uploaded this year in Chicago? 3000? 4000? 5000?
As a baseline, I did this search. It shows 5,982 results as of 11:00 PM on Tuesday night before the conference. I'll do a search again on Tuesday after the conference.
Update: I did the same search at 11:00 PM this Tuesday and got 8.885. Doing that math that's 2,903 photos from the event. I think if I give it a few more days we'll easily crack 3,000.
At some point on Saturday during WordCamp my Flickr account passed over 100,000 total views. That's kinda cool. I missed the actual 100,000 but was able to take a screen-capture of 100,006.
After I sort thru my 300+ other photos from San Francisco and take quite a few at BlogHer I'll be well over 10,000 total photos online.
Last week I received the good news that one of my photos was going to be used in the print edition of BusinessWeek. They needed a photo of Randall Stephenson, the new CEO of AT&T.
I took a few photos of Randall last year at the Mplanet conference in Orlando. BW ended up using one of those in their June 18th issue, page 42 to be exact.
The relatives are in town, so that means a trip to Walt Disney World. While at the Magic Kingdom yesterday we also had the added bonus of a shuttle launch.
It's late Sunday night and I'm back from the Florida Keys. This little guy was outside our hotel room this morning, and as you can see, was a brilliant green.
Paul Stamatiou has learned that once you go DSLR, it's hard going back to a point-and-shoot camera. I have found the same thing to be true. The quality of shots you get with a good DSLR makes me ashamed to ever pull out my old point-and-shoot or worse-case scenario, the camera-phone. Sure it's a bit heavier and bulkier than a pocket camera, but it's worth it for me.
Paul received his Nikon D80 as part of Nikon's blogger outreach program, so did BL Ochman. While BL is also impressed by the D-80 she still likes the convenience of her Canon A-85.
The only downside to the DSLR addiction is cost. As some of the comments on Paul's post have pointed out, the cost of the DSLR body is only the start. The real investment is lenses. However, the investment in lenses only makes the camera (and hopefully) your photos better. My most recent lens purchase, a Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 cost more than my camera, but it's been worth every penny.
Now I'm saving for the 70-200mm f/2.8.
There isn't a week that goes by that I am not contacted by somebody wanting to use one of my photos from my Flickr account. Sometimes it's just a blogger, but more and more it's a publication. Recently there have been a run of chambers of commerce and CVBs who find my photos of their towns from my travels. I don't ask for monetary compensation, just a simple photo credit and a copy of the publication.
Like many other bloggers, most of the content I produce is covered under a Creative Commons license. You're free to do what you want with my photos and blog posts as long as you attribute me and share-alike. When I relay this story to traditional media audiences they are often baffled. Why do all these people give their stuff away, for free!
Well like many other folks I'm not in it to make money directly off my content by selling it or allowing advertising on it. I make money off the services I provide, so like Dave Winer has said, the content is the ad, for me.
Getting back to photography, I am constantly pointing folks to Flickr for stock photos. Chances are you can find somebody that has taken a photo under a CC license that you can use. All you need to do is following the licensing terms, or contact them directly if you wish to discuss using the photo in a way that doesn't fit the CC license.
When I attend a conference and take photos, I seek out other bloggers at the event and point them to my photos from the event telling them they're free to use them in their posts, "Take my pictures, Please!" The end result? Other blogs use my photos and link to me, and I am getting offers to attend conferences for free (or reduced cost) to take pictures. Who says giving something away for free doesn't pay off?
Coming out of New Comm Forum there was a roaring debate over live-blogging. Since I do quite a bit of live-blogging for conferences, I figured I'd put in my two-cents (Another great live-blogger is Joe Thornley). For the background you can read the following posts:
- Steve Crescenzo's original post
- Shel Holtz responds to Steve
- Shel Israel responds to the response
From my perspective, Steve didn't like what Shel Israel wrote so he questions the validity of live-blogging. Is this one of those shoot the messenger not the message situations, or perhaps in Steve's case shoot the message, the messenger and the medium?
One way to get called out on the blogosphere is to make a broad generalization like 'live-blogging is useless' or 'all women who blog are mommy-bloggers'. Do you agree with either of those statements? Didn't think so.
Much of the debate seems to hinge on the word live-blogging, or as I define it, writing real-time notes of an event and posting them during the event. It's an interesting phenomena. Last year at Mplanet, Ann Handley commented on this real-time process:
Josh -- I think I'm having a meta experience. I'm in the back of the room while you are live-blogging this...seeing these guys on the stage at the same time I'm seeing the photo here. Cool...and only a little scary....
One of Steve's main points is the quality and editing of the content. What happens though, if instead of posting during the event, I spend 5-10 minutes editing a post and then post it? Does that change things? For arguments sake, how about using the word
conference blogging?
If you're questioning why somebody is doing something than the Cluetrain hasn't taught you anything. Bloggers and individuals do things for a number of reasons. Questioning their reasoning or saying it's not worth their time is very short-sighted and selfish. It's my time and energy, I'll do with it what I want thank you.
I recently spent quite a bit of time live-blogging the WOMBAT event and Forrester's Marketing Forum, was that useless and a waste of time or was the quality of the coverage lacking because I live-blogged it? I don't think so.
There are new wrinkles to the discussion. Jeremiah talks about people using his concepts/content in sessions and not crediting him. Chip Griffin also talks about live-blogging and about video blogging and conferences.
One of the benefits I see about conference blogging is that it's forcing organizers to get good speakers. If you have lousy speakers or people that use the time to pitch their own products/services the word gets out rather quickly and kills the vibe about your conference. The long term relevance of blog content via Google is becoming key to conferences. Google the name of a conference, the first result should be the official conference web site. More and more though the other results are blog posts from attendees.
I choose to attend conferences not based upon marketing materials I receive but the comments and feedback I get from friends that have attended the conference or blog posts from attendees. In other words, conference blogging is becoming an important part of the 'marketing' of conferences.
There are now organizations like WOMMA, FPRA and PRSA that actively seek out and support conference bloggers. This is a smart move since they have a hand in the blog coverage of their events. This is where thing can sometimes get sticky though.
I am often asked and compensated to live-blog a conference. This usually includes free conference registration and sometimes partial (or full) travel costs and in some rare cases I am paid for the service. In this role I disclose what I have been given. I am also there to document the sessions and not necessarily critique them. If you read through my live-blogs of events you will see they are more of a play-by-play than an analysis.
Yes there have been cases where I am sitting in a session saying to myself, "Boy this person is useless, or this is a pure sales-pitch." While I might not come out and say this directly, I usually find myself writing less about that session than others. On the flip side if I am at a conference on my own dime I might call out a speaker, but I usually don't.
Looping back to the recent New Comm Forum which started this whole debate, I can say that there were a few sessions I would probably call out, but I didn't blog much from NewComm....why? Sometimes it's good to step away from the laptop and enjoy the sessions rather than covering them. Plus I'm having more fun with photography at conferences anyway :-)
The Sun 'n Fun Fly-In wraps up tomorrow in Lakeland, FL. Always eager to play around with the camera I made two visits to check out the hardware and snap a bunch of photos. If you're an aviation geek there is no better place than a fly-in. There was plenty of military gear around, including: F-14, F-18's, F-16's, C-130, KC-135, A-10's.
You can check out the entire Sun 'n Fun photoset on Flickr.
While walking through the French Quarter yesterday afternoon I spotted this pair of his & hers scooters. They even have the colors right.
B.L. Ochman blogs about receiving a Nikon D80 camera as part of a blogger relations program lead by MWW Group.
I had lunch with Tom Biro in New York last week and he clued me in on the program, very cool on Nikon's part. Quite a few friends and bloggers that I read will be getting a test-drive of the Nikon D80. Who? Gotta keep a secret :-)
Of course I am a Nikon fan for life since they helped me out in a pinch last year. I ended up purchasing a D80 last year and have loved the camera. It allows me to take shots like this:
Update: Gigglechick has also received a camera.
Update 2: Mike Manuel received one as well and has some photos of the packaging.
Our local community held a Sunset Celebration this past Saturday. Needless to say I took a few sunset photos.
This afternoon I stole away a few hours from working to attend the last Spring Training game of the season in Winter Haven, FL. The Cleveland Indians were playing the Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays won, 6-2. The complete photoset can be found on Flickr.
In reality the title of this post is a misnomer. It's not hard to 'sell' Flickr at all. Why? Just about everybody I ever show Flickr to says, 'Wow, that's cool, where do I sign up?"
For organizations, especially non-profits, the big 'selling' point of Flickr is the photo resize function. If you're not familiar with it, when you upload a photo Flickr will automatically (or is it auto-magically) create up to six different sizes for you. You can then easily use any of these sizes on your web site or blog.
Above is a screenshot of the 'All Sizes' function. As you can see Flickr has created the following versions for me: Square 75x75, Thumbnail 67x100, Small 161x240, Medium 335x500, Large 687x1024 and Original 1074x1600. All I have to do is cut/paste the code into my page.
Once you get started Flickr also becomes somewhat addictive as Amber is finding out. I recently noted my 5000th photo, a few weeks later I'm now close to 7000.
I'm not normally a dog guy, but Dave's puppy is just too damn cute.
For some reason I always think of 'Planet Houston' when I say 'Houston'. Perhaps Terence Stamp playing General Zod in Superman II made a big impression on me as a child.
Anyway I am in Houston for two days for some client work. I had hoped to do a photowalk of the city today but it's quite overcast. Gratuitous airport interior shot below.
A week or two ago I noticed that I was approaching 5000 photos on Flickr. I had planned to note which one was the 5000th shot and blog a bit about it. However in the rush of the past week with a number of events in different cities and states, I missed that moment. (For clarification, as of this post I have 5,204 photos on Flickr of which 4,355 are public)
Since I picked up my Nikon D80 the amount of photos I've been taking has increased quite a bit. A while back I even created a special section on my site to highlight my favorite shots.
So to celebrate the 5000th photo I've created a little mash-up of my photos. The photo on the left is a quick self-protrait I shot at the Hammock Beach Resort on Thursday. The image on the right is a mosaic of 500 random shots from my Flickr photo stream courtesy of Mosaickr.
I've been looking at getting a small external drive for my PowerBook to store some photos. Are those self-powered USB drives any good? I've been debating between one of SmartDisk's tiny, Firewire-powered drives or one of the USB 2.0 models. Anybody have any suggestions?
Ralph, one of the whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium died yesterday.
We were just at the Georgia Aquarium a few weeks ago (photoset here) and saw Ralph and the rest of the whale sharks.
I love good, unique design in airports. The interior space and lighting at Reagan National is quite the site in the evening.
The new 2G iPod Shuffle started arriving yesterday which means only one thing....unpacking photos. A quick search on Flickr for the tag 'shuffle' shows over 120 photos posted yesterday alone. There will probably be more today and an bunch over the weekend once the new iPods hit the retail shelves on Friday.
You have to hand it to Apple, they always benefit from the positive vibes generated by the design of their hardware and the packaging. If you were on the fence about buying one of the new shuffles, the onslaught of photos are probably pushing you over the edge. Apple has to love that.
You can check out some more unpacking pr0n at Unboxing.com. You'll notice that Apple products are often featured....wonder why?
Have you noticed that I've been bitten by the photography bug? Well in order to stop posting so much on the topic here (and perhaps boring those that are not interested) I created a basic little gallery blog at www.hyku.com/photography.
I still love and will always use Flickr, but this new little blog will just feature some shots I really like. The blog design is simple and features a horizontal scroll. (I'm always looking for a creative excuse to use a horizontal scroll).
One nice thing about having a decent camera is that you can create your own desktop images. Shown below are the two newest I have added to my rotation. I took both of these when I was in St. Augustine, FL yesterday. You're free to download/use them.
I received my Nikon D80 a few weeks ago and have been thrilled with it so far. This past Sunday was the first time I had the opportunity to really go out and play with it though. I posted a Flickr photoset from my play time. It's a variety of different shots including the standard flower shot.
I had heard horror stories about how Nikon would announce a product and then it would take weeks or months for suitable stock to hit the stores. Luckily this was not the case with the D80. I ordered mine in late August and had it by Sept 8th. It seems that most of the stores received their stock in the first week of September.
Up until a few days ago all I had was the basic 17-55mm kit lens that came with the camera. Yesterday I picked up a 70-300mm zoom, while I still wait on backorder for the 18-200mm VR lens that everybody raves/loves. The next purchase will be a straight 50mm 1.4.
I have also learned that megapixels aren't everything (which I had read just about everywhere when researching the purchase). I have yet to shoot anything on the highest quality settings.
I'm looking forward to playing more with the camera and then taking for a real spin at the Tour de Georgia and US Grand Prix in 2007. I might need to get this 80-400mm VR lens before the USGP though :-)
Update: If you've applied these tips to a conference blog, send me a link!
Having blogged a few conferences both on my own and with a team, I offer this quick 'how-to' for other groups looking to do the same. Feel free to use this to develop your conference blogging plan. Or you could just invite me to your conference :-)
At the most recent FPRA Annual Conference we had a team of four people blogging the event. Listed first are the tools we used. Following that, I'll talk some strategy.
The Tools
This is broken down into two major sections, hardware and software. As with everything, check to make sure all your tools are working ahead of time and that you know how to use them.
Hardware: Here is a list of the gear you'll need to lug around :-)
Laptop/PC/Mac - Obviously you'll need a way to post things online, laptops tend to work best at conferences :-) At this most recent event we had my PowerBook, two Dells and a ThinkPad.
Connectivity - You'll want some way to get online, either via wifi or a cellular technology such as Verizon EVDO. At the Ritz Carlton where the FPRA conference was held, there was not publicly available wifi in the conference rooms, but we had secured accounts in advance. As a back-up, one of the team had a Verizon EVDO card in his laptop.
Camera - Digital, point-and-shoot cameras work, but investing in a good DSLR will make a big difference. At FPRA I had a Nikon D70 and Chris had his Nikon D50. Make sure you have a way to easily transfer photos from the camera to your laptop.
Portable Audio Recorder - Some sort of device to record audio in digital format, MP3 is the best of course. I always carry an iRiver MP3 recorder. It features a built-in mic and a line-in jack to connect to external devices. A basic USB cable allows me to transfer the audio files.
Software: Make sure you're software is installed and ready to use. For web-based software, make sure you have an account.
Blog - Blogging a conference usually requires some sort of blog software :-) In some cases you can pick your platform, other times you'll need to work with the platform the conference is providing. For the FPRABlog we used MovableType.
Offline Blog Editor - Having an offline blog editor such as Ecto or Qumana can make a huge difference. Being able to compose your posts and then upload them in the proper format saves time. You might say, "I can use Word and then upload." Well sometimes that copy/paste from Word to the blog software can cause some formatting problems. An offline editor also helps when you have limited connectivity. At WOMMA this year we could not connect in the session rooms, but we could in the hallway. We would write our posts in Ecto, then step into the hallway to quickly post.
Flickr - If you're planning on taking more than a few pictures you'll want to use Flickr. The ability to upload, organize and include photos on your blog can't be beat.
Flickr Upload Tool - A dedicated Flickr upload tool can help speed things along. On the Mac I use the Flickr plugin for iPhoto from Connected Flow. I also have the standalone Flickr Uploadr tool installed. At the FPRA conference, our team installed the upload tool on their PCs as well.
Technorati - You'll want to use Technorati or some other blog search tool to track any conversation surrounding the conference.
Audio Editing Software - If you plan on doing any audio work you might need some tools to edit your audio files. In recent cases I have just posted the audio interviews as is without any editing. You learn to structure/format your interview in such a way that you can minimize or eliminate the need to edit your files.
FTP Software - Many blog tools have upload capabilities, but if you need to upload a large audio or video files FTP will work best. Like the Flickr Upload tools you can start a process and then move on to something else. Of course you'll need to have the proper username/password for FTP.
Strategy
The Team:
Not every organization has the luxury of having a large blogging staff (whether paid or volunteers). You might be all on your own, but having some helpers makes a big difference. If you plan to cover everything, your lowest common denominator is the maximum number of breakout sessions. For example if at some point there are four concurrent breakout sessions you'll need at least four bloggers to get the job done. For a standard 2-3 day conference here is my dream team of 3-4 folks:
Blog/Tech Guru - This person is ultimately responsible for everything that gets posted. They also provide tech support to the other bloggers. In addition they can take photos/upload them and do audio interviews as needed. In a pinch they will also write-up sessions.
Bloggers (2-3) - These are folks that can write good reviews of sessions as well as recaps of other events. It's a bonus if they can do some outreach and find other blogs or references that pertain to the conference/topic.
Photographer (Optional) - If you can swing it I would suggest having a dedicated person to handle photography. Their job is to take photos and more photos then upload them. If only we could clone Scott Beale.
Obviously knowing somebody ahead of time helps fill your roster. In other cases, do some research. Who blogs within the topic? Are they already coming to the conference? Is the organization willing to offer them a free registration in exchange for blogging? Many savvy organizations realize the benefits of conference blogs and will gladly offer free registration for bloggers.
Continue reading "How to Blog a Conference" »
I went ahead and ordered the Nikon D80 the other day. Indications is that it will ship sometime in September.
My dream set-up is the D80 paired with the Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens. All the reviews say the 18-200mm is a dream and a great single lens solution. But the lens is pricey. So I need to wait on that a little bit. With that I ordered the D80 with a basic kit lens (18-55mm) with hopes of buying the bigger lens as soon as possible.
Of course I'll be posting when the new gear arrives.
Update: Turns out that Ritz Camera has the D80 in stock now, I just ordered one and I am supposed to receive it on Wednesday (9/6). I still haven't canceled my Amazon order, but they still say their expected delivery date is Nov 13.
If you may remember I had a camera dilemma a few weeks ago. I wanted to buy a nice digital SLR to cover the FPRA conference these past few days. Sure my Nikon CoolPix is a great camera, but point-and-shoot doesn't always fit the bill. I was just about ready to buy the Nikon D70s when I heard that the D80 was coming soon, as in a week or two. Looking over the initial specs of the D80 it seemed worth the wait, but I didn't have time to wait.
To the rescue comes Nikon's PR team. They had read my blog and provided an amazing gesture. They sent me a loaner Nikon D70s to use at the event, on the condition that it be returned afterward (of course). This would get me over the hump so-to-speak and allow me to buy the D80 once it was announced.
The D70s worked perfectly at the event. I took over 1000 photos without a hitch. Of course, out of those 1000 I had to narrow it down to 400 or so to post online :-) The conference turned out to be an all-Nikon affair since one of my blogging partners had a D50 and the official event photographer was using a Nikon D1X.
Now that the Nikon D80 is officially out, I need to figure out how to get my hands on one.
Big thanks again to Nikon's PR team.
A few days before BlogHer I did a quick tag search for blogher on Flickr and ended up with around 1700 photos. As of 3:30 PM EST today there are now 3,900 photos. That's 2200 photos in the past four days or 550 photos per day or approx 23 photos per hour. If we figure 600 attendees then there are 3.67 photos per attendee.
Earlier this week I posted my camera dilemma. I was attempting to choose between the Canon Rebel XT and the Nikon D70s. Just when I was about to make decision, a friend said, "You know the D80 comes out in a week or two." Sure enough poking around on Engadget turned up some photos and a few specs.
Looks great, but the problem is I was going to buy something this week to photograph and event I am going to the following week. The release date for the D80 is Aug 9th, too late for my event. Ugh.
Update: The Nikon D80 has entered the equation
For quite a while now I have been contemplating buying a better camera, specifically a digital SLR. I don't have a Laughing Squid (Canon 5D) budget, but I want to get something good. For the longest time I was debating between the Canon Rebel XT and the Nikon D70s.
There are factors such as cost in the equation, but I don't have any existing glass so I can go either way. Seeking the advice of others in the past few weeks has elicited such tips as:
- What do you currently have? (answer: Nikon coolpix) Well then go with Nikon because many of the menus are the same
- What do your friends have? (answer: Canon dSLR) Well then go with Canon because you can share tips/tricks and perhaps lenses
Testing both cameras I am always discouraged by the overly plastic feel of the Rebel XT and that has swung me towards the D70s. Photographer friends say I should stick with Canon...but I don't like the XT's plastic feel...that now brings the Canon 30D into the mix. Yes it is more expensive than the two models I have been contemplating, but it is an investment of sorts.
Brian has the D70, Chris has the Rebel XT and Doc has the 30D? Any thoughts guys? Anybody else want to weigh in?
Walking by this store in Cocoa Village (caution: bad web site) I thought that Toby Bloomberg had branched out :-)
I just love the look of the Talmadge Bridge in Savannah, GA. Form meets function.
Dave Coustan over at the Earthlink Blog has added a script to randomize header photos on the blog template. It's a simple little thing that I've done for quite some time with this blog and with client blogs.
I love good, simple photography as a component of design, mostly as a background element. The random aspect always gives the user a fresh look for each visit. The photography you use should also be original stuff and not stock.
All the shots I feature on my blog are pictures of places I've been. The photography is a bit more personal in nature and also helps connect with users in certain markets. I've received quite a number of e-mails from people saying, 'saw your picture of XX, I was there last year.'
I think I am going to start posting small items about the new shots I am adding to the header rotation.
Looking at the picture below I wouldn't think 'Florida', but it is. The shot is from the south end of Hutchinson Island (near Stuart, FL). This section of coastline features a number of large coral limestone formations.
I've uploaded some other shots from the area in a Flickr photoset.
While visiting the University of Florida this past week I took a quick trip west to Chiefland, Florida to see an old friend. Just outside of Archer, FL was this incredibly green field. It reminded me of the Windows XP desktop. I stopped to take a few shots. The one on the top is my new desktop.
You can see the other photosets over at Flickr: The Field, University of Florida, Harn Museum of Art.
I've added seven new header graphics to the rotation. The shots are from my recent trips to: Animal Kingdom, Sanibel Island and Captiva Island. First person to e-mail me with the names/descriptions of the seven new shots will get a modest prize :-)
