Leica has just announced a few interesting things at PMA (Photo Marketers Association) in Vegas. Very interesting.

Updated M8 firmware that, according to initial reviews in the field, solves once and for all the random-white balance problem in AWB mode. I shoot Raw and mostly in b/w so this hasn't bothered me, but it is a boon nonetheless. I've already installed the firmware and it seems to be working. Leica has released quite a few firmware updates, all painless, and all very good at fixing issues. Their support has been tremendous, as you'd expect from an expensive camera. As a side not, i don't see my Canon 40d doing any better than the pre-firmware AWB of the M8. Maybe its just me...

Leica M8 cameras are meant to be upgradable - as new technologies come along, they'll upgrade your M8 to keep pace. I really like this idea. Instead of going for the 3 year cycle of disposability, Leica is trying to make your investment last. This is something most Leica users have come to expect from the M-system - a camera that eschews the bells and whistles and remains eerily independent of fads. After all, an M is a photographer's camera that takes great pictures with a minimum of fuss (well, beyond the fuss of actually paying into the club that is). The first update, available this fall, will provide a new, quieter shutter (very needed, although they drop the top speed to 1/4000 instead of the current 1/8000), a new LCD made of tougher crystal somethingorother, any firmware updates needed, re-calibration and cleaning, door to door service and a new 2 year warrantee. It ain't cheap, but it will keep your M8 up to date. I'm looking forward to the subsequent update that adds all this and a new full frame sensor, dust cleaning etc. Not sure if I'll jump for this right away.

The tag line: A future Proof Investment.

Pretty cool.

Tags:Personal Work, Dance

Managed to get back into the dance studio for some pictures with EBT's Creative Dance class - with all my recent travel, my time shooting daily classes has been somewhat limited, so it was nice to get back in familiar turf.

Here are a few of my favorites.

This is a bit of a different take on a subject I've been working at for over a year. Like some brown tone with that?

I'm heading to San Jose for a big company shindig next week - might be a bit more sporadic with the updates.

Also, I took Chloe to PNB's Romeo et Juliette tonight. It was gorgeous. Beautiful. Go see it if you live in the area. Really missed having my camera - there was so much visually to take in.

Tags:Leica

My shoot went well yesterday - I'm quite happy with the pictures.

Here are a few of my favorites...






Outdoor Photographer just posted an online review of Lightroom that presents a short but sweet take on Lightroom's position in the marketplace. My favorite quote:

"Develop is a place where magic occurs. This module mimics Camera Raw in some ways, but it makes working on an image so much easier, effective and faster than Camera Raw. The right panel of adjustments includes the necessary controls to allow you to get the most from your core image processing."

Easier. Faster. Effective. Yup.

Tags:Personal Work

Went for a walk at lunch today. I've been shooting so much client work that I've not spent as much time just walking and shooting - something I used to do quite a bit.

So at lunch today I stepped out and brought the Canon 40d with me (its not exactly a walk around camera like the M8, but its what I grabbed).

Here are a few of my favorites...





Tonight I have a shoot setup with a dancer at EBT - she got accepted to a couple of summer programs and needs a few more pictures to, ahem, seal the deal. She is a lot of fun to work with, so I expect some great things.

In the Lightroom world, David Ziser, a well known wedding photog and educator, posted a nice round up of a series of Lightroom tips he finds useful in his job. Some great stuff, and a good blog to follow for a professional perspective on the industry.

Tags:Personal Work

I spent the last few days at an "Urban Survival Course" with some friends of mine in Portland, Or.

Every year a group of us do a wilderness survival course to keep our outdoor skills sharp - its a fun way to get together and do interesting things and we generally come away from these classes learning a few things about what it takes to be self-sufficient in the backwoods. Predictably this has generally involved building shelters, food acquisition and other primitive living skills. This year we switched gears and spent a few days learning about how one might survive in an urban environment gone awry. Among other things, we learned to hide, evade detection while moving and even some neo-nefarious skills like picking locks and escaping from handcuffs. I may never look at a Kwikset lock the same.

I participated in the class, but was also there to shoot pictures for the guy who runs the school. It was a complete blast, and here are some out-takes from the weekend's events for your perusal...

I've got a few shoots coming up this week and looking forward to being home for a week before heading south again for a company shindig.

In the Lightroom world, we just recently launched a community help system called "The Lightroom Learn Wiki" that aims to help users communicate and expand on the typical help system information. Sean McCormack has an interesting blog note on his Lightroom Blog regarding this new development. Should be interesting, so stop by and check it out.

Tags:Lightroom

Looks like we parted the veil this past week. Scott Kelby visited San Jose and got an NDA'd look at Lightroom 2.0...

His response: …it’s going to make a lot of people very happy! (Myself included).

Just about a week ago, I stumbled upon Scott Kelby's wish-list for Lightroom 2.0 and forwarded it to the team for comment. Of course, we've been hard at work on Lightroom 2.0 for awhile now and we've done an incredible amount of research/work on where it needs to go. We take our customer's needs seriously and have our fingers in all kinds of places to make sure we are accurate and focused. Software development, for those of you not in the know, is an incredibly complex process and this team is the best I've seen at really doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right people. Nothing on the list was new, and certainly nothing hadn't been debated hotly in the last 6 months.

The upside to all of this is that it is a heady, wonderful time to be a photographer (as Scott points out in his blog today) and nowhere is it better than on the front lines developing software to make photographers more effective, efficient and their work shine more - all with less computerese and the peripheral crap for which the software world is famous. Man, I love my job.

Here is a post, from our own Tom Hogarty on the Lightroom Journal regarding this...

For those who want to put in their own two cents, use our feature submission form

We look at everything, and it never hurts to hear it again.

Tags:Personal Work

My son's soccer season ended yesterday.

They were finally bumped out of the quarter-finals in a closely contested match yesterday afternoon. I made it for the last 10 minutes, flying in from Prague just in time to see them go down 1/0. Too bad. My son had a great tournament - he works the midfield and did a great job of the things such should do - making plays and poking a few in when the defense wasn't on top of things.

Well, as it happens, this team's defense was always on top of things, and despite a great struggle, they couldn't complete before time ran out.

Regardless, the boys of EFC Blue did really well, considering things didn't go so well during the regular season. Apparently we are a tournament team. We went farther than expected and it was a fun ride.

In looking, Aidan had a great season, grew as a player and scored his fair share. His first year in premier club soccer was a success in our eyes.

So in celebration, I threw up the lights and coaxed my son into a few poses. Here are a few I really liked...

Tags:Lightroom, Training, Photoshop

I found an interesting link on Noisy Cameras today regarding an interesting set of Lightroom/Photoshop learning resources. It looks like photographer Steve Paxton might have some useful material to share. And it looks like he's based in Seattle.

Steve Paxton's Digital Image Processing Tutorials

I'll be looking over his workflow stuff on the plane ride home from Prague, and will give an update when i get back, but in the meantime, check it out and leave a comments if you have some thoughts...

As to training, thanks to all those who have contacted me about the Lightroom Bootcamp training sessions that I offer for photographers. I've booked several sessions as a result of a post on Seth Godin's blog and hope to be sharing some insights as I progress.

Just a note: the pricing for the sessions is currently at $150 for the first two hours. This introductory pricing will last only until January 31, so be quick if you want to score a super deal.

Also, please check out my series of pictures from Prague (Set 1) (Set 2) pictures...

Tags:Travel, Personal Work

Today was grand. I spent all day just wandering thru the meandering streets of Prague, and I can see why so many people rave about this wonderful city.

I woke up early and headed out on foot to explore the other side of the river. My hotel is on the big square in the center of town, and most of the tourist landmarks are within easy walking distance. I found the streets to be easy to navigate (much more like slot canyons with bars/cheesy souvenir shots than some cities I've been to) and I easily found myself walking across George's Bridge and to Praque castle where I (and about 30,000 other friends) enjoyed a wonderful day. The sun was out, and a slight wind in the morning only got chilly in the late afternoon. All around, great conditions for a itinerant photographer.

I did have an issue with my M8 - my first battery died way too early and by 4 PM I'd killed my second battery and was done. I was kicking myself for not bringing my charger with me as the restaurant I had lunch in had a plug right by my chair and I could have easily recharged during my meal. Doh! Ugh. I came back, recharged while downloading the memory cards and headed back for a bit of night shooting (its winter, the sun goes down by 4:30). That and when I went to put on my CV 15mm wide angle lens for a few shots I realized I'd left my screwmount adapter at home on my Canon 1.2. Ugh.

Regardless, a great day. I even got to see a great photographic exhibit with quite a few Sudek photos - someone who spent alot of his time wandering the city in similar circumstances. And don't forget Koudelka. What a history.

Here are my favorites from the day's shooting...

Getting ready to head back home - it is hard to be away from the family and I'm looking forward to seeing my kids tomorrow.

Cheers.

Tags:Travel, Personal Work

I arrived in Prague this morning and had a chance to explore some of the city before sun down. As I often do in new cities, I sat down with a map for a few minutes, planned a basic route for where I wanted to go and then headed out.

And, as I often do, I immediately went another route and ended up just meandering for hours in a maze of wonderful buildings and hoards of people. I had heard that Prague was quite touristy, and true enough, it was full of people jabbering in all languages. Lots of Germans, a few French and several parties of Brasilians. Its amazing what you can find just meandering about.

Here are a few photos from my walk...

I'm going to head to several big touristy spots tomorrow, including the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle.

Cheers...

Tags:Travel, Personal Work, Lightroom

I'm heading to Prague today - taking the train in a comfy couchette. I ended up late at the office last night, as evidenced by my walk home...

Walking back to the Hotel

Scott Kelby has an interesting post today on his blog regarding what he'd "Love to See in Lightroom 2.0". It was an interesting read, and given the amount of research we've done over the past year, few items surprised me.

Its great to work on a product that has such potential and its heartening to see lots of great feedback from our esteemed customers.

Scott Kelby's LIghtroom 2.0 Wishlist

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Tags:Travel, Training, Personal Work

Been busy this week with work. I've only had a few minutes here and there to get out and take some pictures around town - that comes when I get on that train and head to Prague/Budapest.

Here are a few snaps for your edification...

A few from Hamburg

James Duncan Davidson (linked to in my sidebar) has a great post on the Inside Lightroom blog regarding storage and backup. This is a much neglected area for many photographers and one that, given the rise of digital, can be a real problem for photographers who don't know what they are doing.

He recommends a series of drives sync'ed with software (he suggests a well known backup software for macs). I actually went that route before buying my Drobo and I wouldn't go back. Things happen to a software solution and I found it slow and tedious. I much prefer the automatic redundancy that Drobo provides for online storage. Yes, its USB only, but for me, it works fine and I store all my photos on the Drobo. However, I do save the lightroom catalogs and assorted info on my local drive because they are faster. He does point out that they just released (at Macworld) a NAS solution for putting your existing Drobo online. How cool is that?

Another Drobo review...

Note that uberfella Seth Resnick of D-65 workshop fame also recommends Drobo to all his workshop attendees. This is a great workshop and highly recommended. I met Susan Meiselas there one year...

Finally, backup is something I cover in depth in my Lightroom Bootcamp 1:1 training seminar for photographers. Getting a solution that works for you is very important, so if you have not done this, please focus on it as one of your new years resolutions.

Tags:Lightroom, Training

I just noticed that 1001 Noisy Cameras just featured me in their "Photography Soup" section. Wow. I'm flattered.

Well, welcome friend!

Might I suggest viewing a few lovely photographs in my Portfolio section, or maybe read more on the referenced workflow training session I offer, called Lightroom Bootcamp: Workflow for Busy Photographers.

Kick around. I hope you enjoy yourself and find a thing or two that will brighten your day.

Tags:Travel

I arrived in Germany yesterday after the typical 10-12 hour flight. It went pretty well and I slept more than I was awake - which helped pass the time.

I'm staying in a hotel much closer to the Adobe offices here in Hamburg, which cut down my walking-to-work-time and hence my shooting-as-I-walk-to-work-time.

Here are a few pictures for your edification...

En Route - Hamburg

Tags:Emerald Ballet Theatre, Dance

I've just posted a new gallery of EBT images taken over the past two weeks.

Enjoy.

A Note: I'll be traveling to Europe for the next two weeks, so posting will be a bit irregular. Watch for some great photography from some notable eastern european cities as a sort of payback.

Tags:Dance, Personal Work, Portraits, Emerald Ballet Theatre

Had some time to spend a few hours at EBT with my favorite dancers. As I'm going to be traveling to Europe for a few weeks, I wanted to spend some time in the studio shooting before I left. I took some lovely photos, and even was there to witness one of our dancers go up on point for the first time. I hope to get a few pictures from the past few weeks online soon.

Here are a couple of pictures of Viktoria - founder and danseuse extraordinaire...

Tags:Lightroom, Workflow, Training

In the wake of Imaging USA, Peachpit Press has added a Lightroom Resource page that has a bunch of content for learning about how to use lightroom, both from a larger workflow integration standpoint and a "down and dirty" techniques perspective.

They include links to the two best Lightroom books, interviews with the authors and others using Lightroom in their professional work, and some great video tutorials.

The thing that really makes me love Lightroom even more than its efficiency is the great groundswell of enthusiast support - there are free resources all over the web that will get you into using Lightroom.

Not to be outdone, but O'Reilly's InsideLightroom blog posted a whole host of mini-tutorials as well...

Speaking of Learning and Lightroom, I should I remind you, if you are in the Greater Seattle area, you can take advantage of having yours truly custom tailor a Lightroom solution for your specific workflow at a very affordable price.

Tags:Portraits

The boys were feeling left out as I shot some pictures of Chloe (see yesterday's entry) so I popped them into the frame for a few shots each.

Lovely kids, and both are real hams. I wonder where they get that from.

Tags:Portraits, Client Work

Well, sometimes clients change directions and ask for something else.

Nothing new with that. After posting the selects from a recent shoot for a Summer Intensive ad and even getting as far as image delivery, the powers that be changed their mind. No longer was the image to be a just a "happy girl" with a big smile. It needed to say "dance" as well.

Yes, I know.

I specifically asked about this and was told that it wasn't necessary.

Ok, round two. We re-shot a series of images more along the lines of what they now wanted - 3/4 portraits with elements of "happy girl" and "dance" thrown in for good measure.

Hey, I can do that.

Here are some of the out-takes (my favorites, only some of these were selects for the client):

I'm very pleased with this set and more-so with my wonderful model. What a trooper. And I love the colors I was getting out of Lightroom tonight. Sometimes things click, and especially the blue tones were really working for me.

I caught a video on YouTube of imaging wunderkind and all round great guy Seth Resnick (of D-65 Fame, highly recommended) at Imaging USA today:



Forgive the goofy video, focus on Seth's pearls of wisdom.

He's singing Lightroom's praises and I understand why. Today I was asked to go back in my archive 8 months and get a picture for a client - it took me less than a minute. I found it amidst the 60,000 other images I shot last year. Nice.

Finally, I worked late into the night working on a book for a client - 90 images in 50 pages. The prototype looks great and I'll be excited to send it off to the printers...

Tags:Client Work, Emerald Ballet Theatre

Today I took a series of photos today for an upcoming Emerald Ballet Theatre ad. The idea was to capture a cute young girl with a big smile - as if to indicate that whatever they are doing (hint hint, summer ballet intensive, hint hint) is a heap o' fun.

I took about 30 exposures and came up with a gallery of potential images and sent it off to the decision makers. I love assignments like these that leave it mostly wide open for me to explore. For this shot, I had a chance to bring out my giant Calumet 3-D Reflector and positioned 2 lights shooting right into this massive diffusion unit (one above, one below). I love what this setup can give for shoots like this.

Here are a few out-takes from the past few days. Sometimes the goofy stuff in between the "serious" stuff can be wonderful.

Also, this evening saw me working on a custom book for a client in-between print sessions - I've had several orders come in over the past few days (10 or so prints from the Nutcracker galleries from Emerald Ballet Theatre) as well as some orders for the audition photos I shot last Wednesday. A couple of those required some extensive Photoshop work as I have foolishly been neglecting the need for a 13' backdrop and tried to fit things onto a 9' one instead. The arabesques really just don't fit without some serious focus on the dancers part (all the while also trying to nail technique), so needless to say, I had some stray hands/feet.

Time to pick one up...

Tags:Emerald Ballet Theatre, Training, Canon

I printed and shipped a big order today. This was for a series of pictures I shot for Emerald Ballet Theatre as part of their 2007 Nutcracker rehearsals and performances.

Emerald Ballet Theatre Galleries

There are some wonderful images in these galleries and I'm glad to see parents/grandparents taking advantage of this opportunity to have high-quality archival fine art prints of their young dancers in an important performance.

Moving along, I found a great resource (linked from the excellent The Online Photographer blog) that links to a sizeable gallery of free tutorials for various Adobe products. I'm glad to see we are finally putting these together in a single place and with a comprehensible browser to find what you are looking for.

Adobe's Design Center Tutorials

Here is an photo I took last night at EBT friday night...

The new Canon 24-70 L 2.8 lens I purchased is actually working out quite well. Its sharp and although not quite wide enough (argh, 1.6 crop factor!) its pretty nice. I'm afraid I'll have to go to primes for the same IQ as my Leica glass (if even then) but its more than acceptable. I should really look into putting Leica R glass on this camera, but I hear things about flakey adapters (and I loose AF). Primes? No AF? Sounds like my M8...

Tags:Canon, Tech

Well, I've spent a few more weeks with the Canon 40D and have a few new things to add to the mix (the original summary review is here- scroll down a bit).

1. Lenses - I gave up on the 17-55 2.8 EFS IS lens. The second lens came from B&H and demonstrated the same issues - things were just not sharp. Now granted, I'm spoiled by decent Leica glass (and funny enough, I don't own the nicest Leica stuff - my lenses are all older generation technology) but they are sharp and give me beautiful results. I ended up buying a 24-70 2.8L last week and I'm much happier. The lens is finally giving me results that I'm happy with. Funny, but even my old D70 and its kit consumer lens was loads better than the 17-55 2.8 EFS IS. Go figure. I find the 24 is not wide enough (I really loved the 17 end of the previous lens) but I didn't want to lop off all those MM for a 16-35 L lens, despite the great things I'd heard about it.
2. Auto-Focus - I've come along way in understanding how to use all the various modes on the 40D. Several of you even emailed some hints on what would help and I find they are spot on. Thanks
3. CR2 - man I still hate converting them. I swear that copying files from the 40D takes twice as long as my M8 files.
4. I ended up just buying some bigger CF cards (2 12 GB Sandsik Cards) as they had a great rebate at the time of purchase. Wahooo.
5. I bought the battery grip. It makes a big/heavey camera even more unweildy, and I've only shot with it on a few occasions, but I like the vertical shutter and the extra power (I'm sure it will come in handy). But man, that camera is big.
6. I ended up needing a larger Domke bag to carry it all in (ended up with the excellent Domke Super Sachel) and I'm loving it. Its big and heavy, but I just wasn't fitting into the F2 anymore. Domke bags rock. Seriously.
7. I'm probably going to get the alternate focusing screen - the FTM focusing on these lenses is kinda cool sometimes, but not nearly as cool as the focus tab on my Summicron or that wonderful rangefinder patch. Its nice to have both cameras in my bag.

Enamored? Yeah. Will it settle? Yeah.

Here is another picture from yesterday's studio shoot.

Tags:Client Work, Emerald Ballet Theatre

My youngest was in dire need of a haircut. I generally do them myself as its more work than its worth to drive them down to the Kuttin Korall when all I generally do is shave them nearly bald and call it done. Of course, I *always* shave it into a mohawk and act like I'm done, and then after the appropriate whooping and then wife-scowls, I finish the job.

To my utter surprise, this morning she let me get away with it. Well, mostly. I couldn't get her to let me go completely bald on the sides (just the smallest comb), but it looks really cute and he loves it. And honestly, knowing the tidal wave that he is, it fits him perfectly.

But why a mohawk? You see, my wife and I were punk rock back in the day. We reveled in the music and the straight edge lifestyle - as did all of our friends. We were hardcore - boots, painted/studded leather jackets, bright green Manic Panic dye and yes, the most awesome haircut of them all: the mohawk. I wore one for awhile - jet black and almost a foot tall. It was supreme when put up, although it made driving a chore as I'd have to tilt my head at a very uncomfortable angle. Yes, imagine it. I even met my mother-in-law to be for the first time in such glory.

But time crawls on, and 15 years later we are a happily married couple with 4 kids and the lovely family baggage that generally entails. Soccer. Ballet. Boards of Directors. Corporate lackey. etc. So I wax nostalgic at times regarding our more, ahem, vivid lifestyle.

So here is one for the mohawk. Go Liam!

PS. Kids today have more-or-less normalized what was fringe and exciting about punk, which kinda makes me sad. But I do see some of that original spirit every once in a while, so it ain't all posers and corporate "edgy" garbage.