Thursday, November 22, 2012

Camera Buying Suggestions

Black Friday is here and people will be buying cameras for the holidays so here are some suggestions.

Samy's is advertising the D7000 body with the 18-105mm lens for $997, a good price for the body alone.  I am assuming the D7000 will be replaced in the next 6 months but it is still a good camera especially with the 18-200mm DX VR II lens which Samys is selling for $600 this weekend ($250 off a great travel lens).  If I had to head the door with only one body and one lens this would be the combination I would choose, you can handle most anything with this set up.

Nikon's D3200, D5100, D600, and D800 are all good camera bodies with each offering different pluses.  The image quality of the D800 is supposed to be the best DSLR quality ever, and the D600 uses the same technology.  I am not as familiar with Canon but the Canon Rebel T4i looks like a good buy this weekend too, I have seen it advertised in a kit with a 18-135mm lens for only $1,050.

Samy's has "No Tax" on many products through monday, but not the Nikon camera bodies.  The Canon 60D on sale for $800 without tax is another good saving.  The Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens for $600 and no tax is another good deal.

For point and shoots I saw the Canon Powershot G15 for $450 with no tax.  Great Camera and great deal.  The Canon G1X is also on sale for $700 this weekend.  Canon point and shoots are by far the best out there.  Another consideration in the point and shoot market is the Panasonic Lumix DNC-TS20.  The Lumix is a sturdy waterproof point and shoot that is rugged and makes decent images, at $120 and no tax it is the perfect beach camera.

Do your homework on-line and good shopping this weekend.

www.KenRockwell.com

www.NikonRumors.com

www.CanonRumors.com

http://www.popphoto.com/reviews



Thursday, October 4, 2012

Photo thought of day

Modern capabilities continue to amaze me. I am still fascinated that while killing time waiting for five minutes I can create images that used to require developing film then making prints and post them for the world to see. Another comment on the double edged sword of technology but something that was on my mind again.


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Location:Castaways Ln,Newport Beach,United States

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Jazz Loft Project Exhibition at MOPA

MOPA's exhibition of W. Eugene Smith's Jazz Loft Project is in its final couple weeks, closing on October 7th.  This is an outstanding exhibition and worth the visit.  I was most amazed with how perfect Smith's working prints are.  The design of the exhibition is outstanding, not only do you see fininished product but the process how Smith got there.  If you have a chance to catch this before it ends do so.

http://www.mopa.org/exhibitions

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Henry Diltz - Morrison Hotel Gallery





Famed Rock 'n Roll Photographer Henry Diltz , Morrison Hotel Gallery, lecturing at Medium. Another awesome lecture, lucky to catch the last part of it after David Taylor's lecture going on at the same time. Henry's openness and story telling are fantastic. The value of this festival has been huge. Mary Virginia Swanson up next speaking on Presenting your Work to the Fine Art Community.

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Friday, September 7, 2012

Mary Virginia Swanson Lecture - Medium

Mary Virginia Swanson , author of Publish Your Photography Book lecturing at Medium. Awesome person and a great book. If you have DIY or major publishing project ideas this book is a perfect resource. She covers important topics which can make or break a project.






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Medium Festival of Photography





Platinum printing workshop but on by Medium's Managing Director Scott B. Davis. Fun workshop and Scott did a fantastic job showing the process. Waiting for Mary Virginia Swanson's workshop on Publishing next.

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Thursday, September 6, 2012

Medium opening





Magnum photographer Alec Soth was the keynote speaker for the start of the inaugural Medium Festival of Photography here in San Diego, very interesting. Looking forward to workshops tomorrow with Aline Smithson and Mary Virginia Swanson.




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Location:W B St,San Diego,United States

Medium Festival of Photography




Great start to the festival, awesome behind the scenes tour of MOPA. I always knew their exhibition space was great but had no idea how incredible their library is. I saw Winogrand images in one book I have never seen before (Thanks Holland!). If you like photography and are in San Diego you need to venture over to Balboa Park and spend some time at MOPA.

www.mopa.org



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Location:W B St,San Diego,United States

Monday, August 13, 2012

ADOX MCC 110 paper



 
I just finished a printing run in the dark room and used ADOX MCC 110 Premium Fiber Based paper for the first time and I am very impressed.  Great tonal range especially when using Photographers' Formulary Liquidol Paper Developer.   I was especially please by the weight of the paper and the surface.  Minimal curl and flattened well.  I have been printing for 30 years and this is probably the best paper I have used in that time.  The Freestyle advisory board member comments about the paper are more detailed and sum it up better than I can.  If you are still printing from negatives consider this the next time you restock your paper.  It produced a solid black and the tone came out very nuetral for me, which I like.   This looks like my new paper of choice.

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Saturday, August 11, 2012

Printing





Been too long but back in one of my most reverent places. Spent about four hours cleaning up outside toning sink & installing new fan - can't wait to get some paper in the trays. My darkroom is where I have my deepest focus on life. Also have the new Epson 4900 up and running so digital image prints coming as well. Exciting times, always feel more whole when making finished prints. Check back later to see available prints.

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Sunday, July 15, 2012

Olloclip





Another post related to the iPhone. I recently added an Olloclip wide angle lens attachment for the iPhone to my arsenal. Have to admit it captures some amazing images and it is incredibly sharp. It features a fish eye lens on one side, flip it around to a wide angle lens, and take off that ring and it is a macro lens which gets extremely close (limited to one focal plane up close but still fun and better than nothing). The camera phone world gets better and better.








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Saturday, July 14, 2012

Snapseed




I have been focused on being more productive especially regarding photography. A couple months back I produced another book, "Is that a Camera in your Pocket?..." for consideration by the Cleveland Museum of Art for their Photographers & Books exhibition opening next month. With this book I looked inward and examined what images I was capturing and creating with my iPhone. Cell phone photography and video capture has become so common place I wanted to take stock of what images I was capturing and what I was doing with them.

I have written before about the double edge of technology in today's photography, on one hand it is easier to capture and create fantastic images but on the other hand everyone has access to this technology and there is a glut of untrained photographers and our culture is saturated with images. Today's post is on one of the positives.

I use Nik software with Photoshop, particularly the Silver Efex Pro 2 for Black & White conversion. On my iPhone I use their Snapseed app for most my image corrections when I want to bump something up. I would guess that over half of the images in the recent book were processed in Snapseed. It is amazing how simple it easily it edits images. Below are some recent examples of Snapseed images

One more example of technology is the fact this post was made from my phone while down by the water.





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Friday, April 20, 2012

The Photo Lab - Costa Mesa


People often ask me for technical advice related to photography, and recently I have had a couple people ask me where was the best value to get prints made.  For the last ten years or so my place for the best value has been The Photo Lab in Costa Mesa.

There are lots of low budget options for printing now in the digital age. Costco, Walmart, on-line printing sites, on-line photo sharing sites, you name it. Some might produce decent prints but the overall quality is not always there. The old saying holds true with most of these, “you get what you pay for”. I have not found a low budget option the rivals the quality and control of a good professional lab, and I am lucky that one of the best labs in Southern California is less than a mile away from me.


In the digital age where all our information is stored on a hard drive, in a device, or in a cloud someplace some people may question why even make prints anymore? We make prints because the images are special and we want them to last. We want them readily available to view and we want to hold on to the special people and moments the images documented. If you agree with this opinion then to me it only makes sense to make the best possible prints you can. It’s not like the days of film when prints were often more like proofs. Get the roll developed and let’s sees what we got doesn’t happen anymore. We know what we have, we have edited and chosen our images and we have made most of the corrections. The only thing left to do is produce a good output of the image.

Low budget labs are not set up to have the same level of control for color accuracy and often use lower quality materials. Prints curl, images fade, and surfaces are less scratch resistant. Prints are less likely to be archival which is a huge issue for me because if I make a print I want it to last and I want it to look as good as the day I had it printed.


The Photo Lab has shown me consistent quality and they are reasonably priced. I know the owners and all the employees, everyone is nice and they know what they are doing. They care and if there is ever an issue they correct it. Beyond regular prints they provide most any photographic service you could imagine. They do especially well with large prints, doing those all on site.


Monday, January 23, 2012

2012 New Camera Releases

Low light photography is getting insane, if we are not there yet we will soon be to the point where the camera will capture exactly what our eyes see. From my days as a Police Officer I have come to love the night.  4pm to 1am are my body's prime hours and all this new technology suits that perfectly.

What has my interest for this year:

I have seen examples of Canon's G1X high ISO images and they are awesome.  Love my G10 & G11, same body configuration, the G1X takes it to the next level.  Only knock is the lens is only equivelant to a 28 to 112mm, would love a longer lens on this.  But the f/2.8 in wide angle and an ISO up to 12,800 are awesome, the sensor size is also impressive, as DP Review's diagram shows.  Price is creaping up though from G12.

The Nikon D4 image examples I have seen look incredible as do the specs for this new flagship.  Not happy about the dual card slot being CF and Sony XQD Memory Card.  SD is an industry standard and easy to find.  Unless this XQD technology is going to push out SD then whats the point? Other than Nikon cutting a deal with Sony for $$$.

Fuji continues to make a charge with X-Pro 1 and X10 models.  My X100 makes great images although its lag time is a problem,  Using it like my Leica on the streets of NYC last month was a problem.  Had to leave it on and make images every few minutes so it would not got to sleep.  Lost some images because of that, but the size and feel worked the same.  If I needed it quickly I used my D7000 and hoped the larger camera body didn't draw too much attention.  Within the next year or so I hope to find the perfect range finder solution for my City work (Fuji or Canon will get it there, competition is a good thing in regards to technology).

Ken Rockwell covered the CES 2012 convention and his review is the most concise coverage you will find, worth the visit to his site as always.