I have been working with candy for a few weeks, so here is a video of my latest shoot – photographing candy. As you know, food photography is one of the things I love most. The hardest part is being stuck with all the sugary goodness after I am done shooting. Whatever will I do with it?
Technorati Tags: candy, photographing, food, photography
I just got a Nokia N95 cell phone and am delighted with its camera capability. Actually, this post is a might bit premature, as I have not even paid for it yet, officially still testing it out, on loan from my friend Don.
One feature I was especially excited about was being able to connect to ShoZu. ShoZu allows you to directly send photos and videos darn near anywhere you might want them online. I love to share photos on Flickr and quickly got online and signed up at ShoZu.
It didn’t work. I tried again. It didn’t work. After messing with it for a while, I said to heck with it and took it off my phone. As a last-ditch effort, I emailed their tech support. They got back to me today and explained the drill. It took about three minutes to fix. I quickly posted on Twitter about this solution and had more than one person ask me for the solution. Apparently it wasn’t obvious to many people.
It’s wicked easy to fix but not obvious, as their initial instructions online don’t seem to work. Here is the solution. If this helps you get set up, let me know and show some link love!
It sounds as though you may have activated ShoZu
on your phone as a ‘new user’ rather than an ‘existing user’. To see if
this is the case, open ShoZu and click on ‘Options’ -> ‘Go to’ ->
‘Settings’ -> ‘My account’. If the username displayed on the ‘My
account’ screen is different to the one you log into the ShoZu web
portal (http://www.shozu.com/portal/login.do) with you will need to
deactivate ShoZu and then reactivate it using your existing username and
password. You can deactivate ShoZu from the ‘transfer status’ screen in
the settings menu and when you reactivate just make sure you activate as
an existing ShoZu user (this can be done by clicking on ‘Options’, then
‘Sign-in to account’).If you added Flickr as an upload destination from the phone, you would
have been sent an email with a Flickr authorization link. Clicking on
the link will authorize ShoZu to upload images to Flickr on your behalf.
If you did not complete this step, this may explain why your images
aren’t arriving at Flickr.
And now here I am, happy as a clam that everything works:
Technorati Tags: Nokia, N95, cell phone, camera, ShoZu, Flickr, Twitter
Thank you to Camera Samurai fan Steve Garfield, who sent me a link to this video by all-around tech guru Robert Scoble. I have to admit that I did not follow all the technical discussion in the video but certainly found it interesting. At the end is a jaw-droppping moment that blew my mind a little.
It was so powerful, in fact, that I exclaimed not too quietly, “Wow!” My coworkers all think I am a nut anyway, but this pretty much added to the reputation. If this doesn’t make you want to run in circles and howl at the moon, I suspect you don’t get excited about things like this.
What this technology means to the world of photography is that focus may end up being a relative concept and that adaptive technologies such as this can save more pictures from the rubbish bin. To me, that is exciting.
Watch it!
Technorati Tags: Camera Samurai, Steve Garfield, Robert Scoble, technical, technology, photography, focus, adaptive technologies
Have you fallen in love with your new DSLR camera and now you want to go pro? Join the club! The good news is that you are in good company. Many of us have gone down this road as well and have found it to be quite a rewarding, interesting process of lifelong learning (so far, anyway) and an enjoyable way to make a few bucks or more. I think you should pursue those dreams and make them realities.
To that end, let me relate a story. A few days ago I was driving from one job to another when I got a call from a colleague who is a videographer. She was working with a newly minted photographer whose camera was giving her problems.
I spoke with the photographer, who described the problem she was having and I quickly diagnosed it. “It sounds like your exposure compensation is out of whack,” I suggested. There was silence on the other end.
“Do you know what exposure compensation is?” I asked. More silence. I tried to be helpful. “It’s the mechanism that lets you adjust the exposure in small increments, like one-third of a stop at a time. Normally you might hold down a button and turn the thumbwheel to adjust it.”
I quickly learned that this photography neophyte really did not know much about how the camera worked. That’s fine with me for two reasons. First, her job is to create a great picture for her client. If she can do that without knowing all the intricacies of her camera, that’s fine. Good for her. Second, if she fails to deliver on this contract, that’s one more bit of competition gone. This may sound heartless but it’s true.
So what’s the moral of the story? Know how to use your tools. In addition, bring your owner’s manual with you to every shoot. It’s a great resource and indispensable for those times you need it. If you don’t need it, it won’t take up much room in your kit bag.
Another moral of the story is to act gracious when someone, especially a competitor, tries to help you out of a jam. For my good faith effort of trying to help this person, I got a “goodbye.” I know she was under pressure but a quick thank-you call later on or perhaps an offer to network and help each other out would be nice. It’s the polite thing to do and may lead to more business. I’m just saying.
Those of you out there who need help, please ask each other, ask me or ask somebody. But if someone tries to help you, be gracious about it. And if someone asks for your help, please give assistance liberally. You never know who could become your greatest ally and who could become your greatest competitor. Even more important, you never know where your next friend might come from or what that little bit of assistance you offer could develop into.
Technorati Tags: DSLR, camera, photographer, exposure compensation, competitor