New Cameras Abound

Finally! New professional cameras from NIKON. It's no surprise that Canon continues to release new upgrades in a consistent pattern, but hold the presses when Nikon comes out with something new for the professional.
Nikon even went as far as to publicly state their emphasis would be on "consumer" grade cameras for the near future. Great. Just what professional Nikon users wanted to hear.
Meanwhile, the financial Goliath of Canon marched on to their own beat with a constant barrage of new releases. And the principal from which they created the EOS-1D-MarkIIIn was truly something to behold. Canon did not grasp for more megapixel count, but instead redesigned the camera from the inside out. Brilliant.
To be continued...

WT-3A Boondoggle

Look, everyone can be seduced by technology. I finally gave in and purchased a wireless transmitter for the D200, and let's just say I am so glad my local dealer takes returns.
It isn't the fact the range is about 30 feet - which is only 150 feet shy of their published range (I already knew that). It isn't the fact that it takes a degree in rocket science to get the laptop communicating with the camera - I figured that out. It isn't the fact the WT-3A instructions are spread over the sorry manual and the CD enclosed with the unit.
WHAT IT IS about the WT-3A, IS the fact that it only works with the pathetic, sorry and worthless Nikon software Picture Project. This software is so amateurish that it is difficult to believe it even exists. AND that is the reason I immediately returned the unit for a full refund after never using it on the job.
NIKON makes cameras and optics not software. Who thinks "hey I have to have the latest version of Picture Project!"?

All I can say is NIKON should be very scared - their software is junk - most if not all of it, and if Canon gets their New 1DM3 straightened out, it is a killer.

If NIKON wants to find some way to get ahold of themselves they would make their wireless and RAW work with any free standing software now in existence. IMAGINE what you could do if the WT-3A worked with PHOTOSHOP right out of the box! Now you have something. NIKON's proprietary myopia will lead to it being in second place for the foreseeable future. Only to be outdone by a dozing giant by the name of Canon.

NIKON - discontinue all software development and "dance with the one that brung ya'" ---- you make cameras and optics -stick to that and give the professionals something of value before Canon becomes the indisputable DSLR of choice. I for one, am a hog's breath from making the switch to Canon - and that's after 20 loyal years to Nikon. What do you think about that?

BEWARE THE EPSON PHOTO R2400

Looks like the Epson R2400's are all exploding at once. I am also one of the unlucky owners of one of these and it now sits idle, doing nothing but taking up space. Anyone else?

Always Carry Your Camera

Always carry your camera because you never know what is going to happen next. I was caught on the TWU side of town during the deluge, and subsequent flooding.

QUICK COUNT OF INTERESTED SHUTTERBUGS

Should anyone be interested in locally offered photo classes with me in the near future, please speak now or forever hold your peace.
Classes would be starting this summer and based in the Center for Visual Arts in Denton, Texas.

For Those of you Waiting

For those of you class members waiting for a summary, please hold on. Or, ask questions here.

Fruit of the Orchard - Photographs by Tammy Cromer-Campbell

There seems to be a connection to UNT, but it is hard to tell exactly what it is.

Nikon Wireless for D200 Finally Hits the Streets

The long delayed and much anticipated WT-3A has finally hit the stores! But wait! You of course will have to spend just a little bit more as the range of the new wireless transmitter for the D200 is ten feet. Let's see, I have been shooting tethered with a 10 foot cord and that cost me 8. dollars USD. The WT-3A weighs in at a hefty 599.00 USD. If you want a greater than 10 foot range, feel free to add on the antenna at 119. USD.

Lest we forget, all this wireless has a cost. Where there were once two slots for batteries - rechargables of course - there is now only one. I wonder if the camera will draw less power with a wireless transmitter on board? I think not.

According to sources, the WT-3A was delayed due to F.C.C. approval which can take some time when we are talking about the growing wireless trend.

You can find the NIKON WT-3A here and the NIKON antenna WA-E1 here as well.

Nobody said it would be easy, but nobody said it would be this hard either. Grand total for gadget = 717.90 + s/h . OUCH! Get out the extension cord please!

Lexjet Making Changes

Just off the phone with my new Rep at Lexjet and she said there are some changes taking place there.

First, they are splitting up divisions between the big format prints / printers and the rest of the market so that they can more closely focus on the market's needs.

Second, when asked about the book covers for book making with Unibind products, they don't carry and will not be carrying any other cover sizes. She referred me to Unibind which currently seems like a company finding its feet in the US Photography market. We shall see.

Third, the old 10ml. rolls of semi-matte are being supersceded by "Lexjet Sunset Photo Semi-Matte", which apparently has a better top coating for use with the K3 Epson inksets.

last, don't be offput by their prices on the 220 ml. ink for Epson either. Just put it into your shopping cart to get the "real" pricing for the 220's.

The Power of the Search

Sometimes all you have to do is ask. This "column on what makes a good portfolio" is pretty much timeless. Next time you have a question - just google it.

Another One Bites the Dust - Warehouse Photographic

Looks as if Warehouse Photographic, a staple stop for photographer in the old days, is on the way out. According to their web site, "after 35 years we've decided to call it quits".

My recollections of Warehouse were in my early days of photography about 20-22 years ago, when Warehouse Photographic was the place I would go to find something I couldn't find anywhere else. They had used enlargers, cold light heads, enlarger lenses and a wide array of consignment items along rows of their "warehouse" floors.They were also fairly competitve in camera name brand sales and a place to check prices. Ah, the old days, but lkie so many others gone, gone at last.

This is part of the trend I have documented on this site since its inception in 2005. Shrinkage will continue unabated for those who do not heed the digital change in the wind. Warehouse did redefine their business along the way becoming a locally popular lab, but when you can find superior prints online at vendors like MPIX and the labs work hand-in-hand with the digital revolution - the mom-and-pop handwriting is on the wall.

Snow Day

Always remember you can submit your photographs - of weather or whatever to dpii at anytime. Contributors to the upcoming UNT TWU Monthly Digital Imaging Contest are lining up. Rules and regulations will be out before February, and with the willful participation of our esteemed instructors - this should be GOOD!

Another One Bites the Dust - The Photo Place

The Photo Place on Teasley Lane, in Denton, Texas, has passed into history. During the heyday it was a very accomplished small town lab where you could count on good service at a good price. Many of the local photographers amateur and professional came to rely on the Photo Place to get their processing / printing and proofing done for professional purposes.

They saved many a trip to the gauntlet of Dallas and probably prevented an accident or two just by preventing that drive.

Unfortunately, they could not weather the digital storm like so many other Mom-and-Pops who did not change with the times. They did last longer than many, and we will never know if they could have figured a way to change and survive. I would love to think they could have, but now they will just be relegated to being a memory - just like the meomory of Landy working behind the counter day-in-and-day-out.

Thanks for all the good work over all the years.

Duck Weather Denton Texas

Weather suitable only for ducks - and newspaper photographers! Sent out to look for "wild art" as it is still called, Gary Payne of the Denton Record Chronicle whips out the long glass - a 400 f.2.8 (600 actually) - to get in on some ducks in the fog of North Lakes Park.

Motivational Microstock

Here's how to use microstock to help you in your everyday photographic life. Use microstock to force you to shoot. Use it for more than it's worth!

Create microstock assignments - complete from beginning to end and follow through your creative process! If you are a struggling student, and have no real income and no digital camera, you can forget all about this. (Digital is after all the fuel that fires the explosion of imaging in this century and specifically microstock photography.)

This is what the organizational flow chart looks like and taken from the new book "How to Grow as a Photographer - Reinventing Your Career", by Tony Luna.
1 - idea / project
2 - research
3 - organization
4 - development
5 - editing
6 - promotion

It is becoming apparent quite quickly that Specialists - that is photographers who specialize in a "look", or subject or have their own distinct style - will go much further than a generalist who attempts to be all things to all people. If they know WHAT "you" look like, then they will know WHEN they want to look you up for something in particular - be it a subject or a style.

Contest Update

We have another promise of contribution to the new UNT TWU digital image contest which now brings the promise of award up to 125.! Wonder if there are any students that could use that kind of money on a monthly basis?

Microstock Equals Micropayment

Microstock isn't a new beer name and it's not a rock concert either. Microstock refers to the new breed of online stock agency where millions of images reside for purchase for micropayment amounts.

Each agency has it's own structures, but they encourage photographers to post images they have already rejected anyway so that their paying clients can download the images free if they choose to do so. And, for some of the beginners that's all they want is to see their images online, on one of these sites. If it has to be free, then so be it.

In a recent discussion about microstock, I listened to how this would hurt photographers and drive pricing down, and for the most part I agreed that would be the case - in the short term.

My defense of microstock comes from the perspective that I do not rely on stock to make a living and that I take a long term approach to the stock photography business.

If you are making a living off stock images, you are in for some hard times. That is the truth. But, you had to see it coming. Since digital, we have all had hard times as amateurs pick up cameras and call themselves professionals - sans knowledge, sans education and sans experience. Stock photographers - WELCOME TO OUR WORLD!

However, in the long run, look at what will happen. These folks with dreams of making it big in microstock (an oxymoron if ever there was one!) will fall by the wayside as the nickels dimes and quarters slowly add up in their accounts. These folks were drawn by the potential (and there is potential) of a single image to pay their mortgage in a months time of sales. Drawn like a moth to the flame. Before the "falling away" there will be sites and books telling you how you too can live the dream and get rich off your DSLR and microstock agencies. Guess what - they will get rich off the moths as they lead them to the flame. In a year or two there will be these stories about how many accounts there are on these sites that have accumulated a few dollars or cents and have been abandoned. A dollar here and a dollar there, but the dream has been replaced by reality. The reality is you have to be a good photographer producing good photography on a consistent basis.

The second thing that will happen to microstock is that the big buyers will tire, and are already showing signs of tiring, from seeing "their images" being used to promote other - even competitor's - products. Feel free to think! Anyone can purchase this stock. Finally, art buyers will see the value of original images for their specific usages - down goes microstock / micropayment. Back comes real photography from real photographers (a.k.a.-survivors), and at realistic pricing.

REAL STORIES

There really are people making money at the microstock game. All one has to do is look at sites such as iStockPhoto and check out download numbers from some of the "most popular" images. There absolutely are some people making a living at this and the quality of the images is unbelievable.

So, when a photographer has some downtime what does she do? Think of ways to make money with something that doesn't require work. What better thing to do than to recycle all of those images that have been sitting around for years - decades? So, fueled by the numbers she sees on the microstock site, and the hype that is all over the internet, she begins to scan all those old images. FIRST MISTAKE. Most microstock agencies are much more critical of film originals and scans than they are of digital originals. So, fully expect 50-75 percent rejection of your images based on technical difficulties. Oh yes, you also MUST HAVE SIGNED MODEL RELEASES for your images. What are the odds of you finding those people anyway?

Based on the rejections - which no photographer likes - she then decides she has to get something ... anything ... online with the agency. So, she sees what images are most popular on the microstock sites. "I can do a better flag shot than that!" SECOND MISTAKE. Read microsites carefully and you will see there are many subjects they consider to be "well covered", and they say so in not-so-tactful ways.

Perhaps then she decides to expand her research and join some groups online discussions of micropayment/microstock. It shouldn't take long to realize the folks in these groups know even less than she does - at least the vast majority know less.

So, how does one use microstock to benefit themselves - their art and their business? Tune into this post for the answer to that question.

The Photojournalist's office

The newspaper photographer's office still looks like this - a car, a scanner and mapsco always at the ready.

Looking for Micro Stock Experience?

The buzz on Micro Stock sites such as iStockPhoto, Dreamstime and others is quickly reaching a fever pace as urban legend, lies and truths blend into an online amalgam of discussion in which one must carefully row to avoid having their paddles rot off.

One could imagine the old school stock shooters - completely freaked out by images - big time images - selling for .50-cents on average for each download. They have to be going crazy. Imagine being a wedding photographer now getting paid by the image at .50 per! An average wedding would gross, say 300.!

But what exactly are the ramifications of microstock?

CMOS VS. CCD Sensors

The latest issue of Digital Photo Pro has a wonderfully detailed article on the differences between CMOS and CCD sensors - now the two dominant chips to inhabit the gizzards of popularly available DSLR cameras. If you seek the distilled essence of what makes your DSLR do what it does, click that link and read s-l-o-w-l-y.

This information gives you the insight to understand the limitations camera makers face, and to some extent separate the rumors (of new products) from what is factually possible.

If you are really into learning, it would be difficult to deny Digital PhotoPro as a great resource for the technical and artistic "behind the scenes" knowledge to help along the learning curve.

Weather Photos

The Dentonista took a "Ride-Along" yesterday with local photographer Gary Payne of the Denton Record Chronicle.
Not much has changed since the Dentonista's days of riding around looking for weather features, or whatever we could find! There's nothing like driving while looking left 40-percent of the time, right 40-percent of the time and forward, oh, maybe 20-percent of the time.

That feature ran page one of today's DRC, but the crux of the ride-along is I was able to scout a great new location and see more of the digital video Gary shot for an upcoming story - online.

The Dentonista is again getting a little of the "video fever", and sparked by Denton's Sesquicentennial, don't be surprised to see a history based video about Denton soon.

The big new is is that the new site shannondrawe.com is now live, alive and kicking. Much of the icy weekend is being spent optimizing that site and submitting to engines and listings.

FRESH STUFF

Finding the exact thing to say to make one look photo intelligent is always easier when you have the cliff notes. Try PHOTOQUOTES you'll be glad you did.

Then there's this site MultimediaShooter.com. Look if you don't already realize that a revolution is on for the Newspaper Business, I can't help you.

The charge to newspaper video locally is being led by none other than David Leeson of Dallas Morning News fame. In Denton, you could even see photojournalist Gary Payne of the Denton Record Chronicle carrying the same Sony 3-chip guys at the DMN are lugging around. It's here and it's happening now.

Of course the site that led off this drill down into video was the STROBIST. Spend some time there if you get a chance.