Shutter Mike Photography

I’ve reviewed several canvas photo printers on Shutter Mike including Canvas on Demand, Arts Cow, Easy Canvas Prints and ZaZa Gallery.  Each has its good and bad points, but in the end they are all pretty similar (except Arts Cow, I was not impressed with them).  So even though I have never ordered a canvas print from Canvas Pop I’d guess they are probably pretty similar to the others.  And what better way to test them out than with a coupon?  Living Social has a Canvas Pop coupon for the next few days.  It is essentially a 50% off coupon, buy $80 worth of credit to spend on Canvas Pop for only $40.  Looking at their price guide it looks like that should give you a variety of sizes to pick from.

But do not delay, this deal is up tomorrow.

The University of Arizona has a strong connection with photography.  It is home to the Center for Creative Photography started by Ansel Adams and houses a collection of prints and photography related materials in its archives unmatched by almost anyone else.  Now, in an effort to preserve the works of photographers and make them available  online “…to increase access to unique and rare material…,” the U of A’s Special Collections is digitizing thousands of photographs.

The most recent collection to be digitized and made available to the public is the Jack Sheaffer Photograph Digital Collection.  Consisting of more than 10,000 photographs spanning the period from 1955 to 1975 the images document the growth of Tucson, AZ and Southern Arizona during this period.

Sheaffer photographed tragic accidents, civil rights and anti-war marches, politicians, athletic events, celebrity visits and local beauty pageants, and the collection is continually growing.

This collection is a valuable resource for its documentation of Southern Arizona history.  But it is also cool to just browse the vast collection of images.

Costco Warehouse is holding its International Photo Contest again.  This  year’s theme is “Give Us Your Best Shot” which is pretty open to interpretation so there is a lot of room for creativity.  Being an international company,a s the name of the contest says, this is an international contest.  So there are prizes at the international level (like the grand prize) and at the national level.

International Prize:

$2,500 Costco Cash Card (I could easily spend that)

National Prizes:

First Place: $1,500 Costco Cash Card

Second Place: $1,000 Costco Cash Card

Third Place: $500 Costco Cash Card

All winners also gets a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 9

Now for the fine print:

• You must be a card carrying member of Costco to enter.
• Entry deadline is September 30, 2011
• Only one entry per person
• Must be 18 or older to enter
• Read all the finer print rules here.

Find or head out and take your “Best Shot” and enter the Costco International Photo Contest 2011 here.

And for inspiration check out the Costco International Photo Contest 2010 winners.

I came to the HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography party late.  Before I really understood what HDR was all about I saw so many photographs processed using the “grunge” and “painterly” settings for HDR and I thought they were just too over-processed for my taste.  So I associated all HDR with those looks.  But after I started playing around with it I realized there were so many more options.  Also, for architectural and real estate photography HDR can save an image by allowing  you to expose for both the light and dark areas of your subject and then merge them into one perfectly exposed image.  There is still room for artistic interpretation as well and if the grunge or painterly or another custom processing of your image works then that is great too.

Here are two images to give an idea of what you can do with HDR photography versus processing the same image in PhotoShop.

This is the PhotoShop edited photograph.   I did not do much here but I did increase the vibrance and saturation a bit and lightened the image overall.  This is not a bad image in general.  But the sky is very dull and the shadows in the lower left corner are a little dark.

This is the HDR processed version of the image above.  It is a combination of three exposures of the same scene; one exposed normally, one over exposed and one under exposed.  This is the essence of HDR photography in that it allows you to correctly expose for all areas of the scene with different shots and then merge them all together.  This image is not perfect either; the saturation could be toned down a bit and the patio furniture has lost its true color.  But those things are easily corrected and it is more a matter of personal taste.  What is more important is the sky and the dark areas.  I was able to expose for the sky alone in one image and capture the blue hues and the glow of the late afternoon sun.  The shadows on the back wall and around the rocker are also now gone.

A lot has changed in my camera bag since I last wrote a “What is in my camera bag?” post, including the bag itself.  So it is time for an update on what I use for my photography.

Starting with the bag – or bags in my case.  I have several including the newest addition to my collection and most frequently used,the Crumpler 7 Million Dollar Home.  Love, love, love this bag.  Read my review of it here.

So inside my Crumpler is quite a bit of camera equipment (it holds a lot!).

First the camera.  I have had my Sony Alpha 850 for a little over a year now and still love it.

Sony Alpha 850 Full Frame 24 mp DSLR Camera

And now the lenses:

Sony DT 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6

Sigma super wide angle zoom 12-24 mm f/4.5-5.6

Minolta 50 mm f/1.7 -(22)

Quantaray 100-300 mm f/4.5-6.7

Kenko 25 mm Extension Tube

Next are the camera accessories:

Sony Alpha HVL-F42AMFlash

Sony VG-C90AM Vertical Grip

Finally a few miscellaneous but still very important contents of my camera bag.

Back up batteries, memory cards with a case and a lens hood.

Sony NP-FM500H Info Lithium Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery

Hakuba Hard Plastic Digital Media Storage Case

LensPEN Lens Cleaning System

Giottos Rocket Air Blaster

Who knew the Roomba was good for more than just vacuuming?  But someone got creative with their Roomba, and LED light and a camera.  Using a long exposure and letting the Roomba do its things in a dark room with a light attached results in some cool images (especially if you have a team of Roombas to work with).  Check out a variety of Roomba photographs here.