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Speed Links for 8-28-2008

After getting back from one great Agile 2008
conference I had some time to get back to my grinding, head in the keyboard work kick back, relax and read some of the great content out there on the web.

I also remind you that there is about a week left to the grand finale' of the Portrait Professional 8 Giveaway. There are some really great entries both on the black and white category and on the color category. There are also some great tips on taking portraits, and I'm looking forward to getting more of those tips submissions.

And speaking of great project's Brian's still running the 50$ camera project - a great way to experience film and get some cool prizes.

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Yes, You Can Say It - The D90 is Out

Now that the rumors have ended and the Nikon D90 is officially out.I bet you'd like to know how it feels. and you may also be interested in how it shoots.

Chase Jarvis just released his videoed review of the Nikon D90. No - it is not available yet - unless your name starts with a Ch and ends with a ase. Read the full review over at Chase's Blog.

The D90 has some very cool features:

• Movies (there are called D-movies,  I guess the D is for "DOPE!, how come we did not do it before)
• Rocking 3 Inch LCD with Live preview (yes Live preview on a top level DSLR)
• GPS tagging
• The usual 12.3 megapixels, 4.5 FPS, Low Noise, great interface and ergonomics that you see from Nikon

Estimated at 1,200 USD I am suspecting that it will not be the price that will hold off buyers, but availability.

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Agile Photography

Charles Darwin said it was not the strongest of the species that survived, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

Yea, yea, yea... this is a photography blog and a DIY one at that. Why are you bothering us with biology?

As I mentioned at the last fun @ the pool collection, I recently attended the Agile 2008 conference and the fast and relentless stream of Agility opened my eyes to the way photography can (or already is) become Agile.

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Removing The Mystery From The Heart Shaped Bokeh Thing

One of the most popular posts here at DIYP is the Create Your Own Bokeh post - this is the one that teaches you how to make nice shapes in the blurred area of your image - AKA Bokeh.

It is a nice thing because, usually, those hotspots are just taking away from your subject attention, and if you apply this technique, those annoying hotspots can become part of your artistic say.

Creating your own bokeh shapes is easy and fun, however there are a few repeating questions that I frequently get by email and comments. This is why I was really happy to learn that manimal magic has done some great thinking and have solutions for all questions. Some of manimal magic's wisdom was found in the comments of the original post, and some was taken (along with the images for this article) from his (really awesome) Flickr stream. I am going to format this as a Q&A thing, cuz it really feels like he's answered all the hard questions.

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Black & White Cheatsheet For Photoshop

When it comes to black and white conversion, there is no definitive method that will get the best results every time. Some use the channel mixer conversion, while others will swear by black and white filter. Other just like the simplicity of the desaturate function. Which one is the best? It depends. This is why I was so happy when Ladislav Soukup from ladasoukup.cz (flickr) sent me this cheat sheet. Read on to find your best suited conversion in an instant.

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Rapid Fire By Chase Jarvis

Chase Jarvis put up a rapid fire video going from nothing to product-final in just a bit over three minutes.

So, OK, there is no way to actually do all the things in the video in three minutes. But if you are looking for some quick intro about what is the process behind commercial photography, you are in for a treat.

If you liked this video, you may want to check out Chase's blog. On the top right there is a bunch of more goodies and videos.

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Making a Softbox Just Got Easier

If you've been reading DIYP for a while now, you know that I am a fool for home made softboxes.

DIYP has featured all kind of softboxes, ranging from small light weight camera strobe to big studio photography strobes. Some are minutes to build and some are hours. Here is a list of some of the better softboxes we've had here on DIYP:

- The Best Softbox Ever (Image is from this project by Nick Wheeler)
- Two Great Weekend Projects - Striplight and Softbox
- Even Better Softbox Part One - The Build Process
- Even Better Softbox Part Two - The Test Results
- a home grown softbox
- Flash Mounted homemade DIY Softbox

One of the trickier parts of growing a softbox at home is the planning. The delicate work done by professionals to calculate the lengths of segments. The gentle work of trigonometry to calculate the angels. Light-less nights spent in dark basements with calipers.

(Actually it is the drawing of the the
individual pieces before you glue them together that is the real hard task)

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A Passionate Film Project (And Cool Prizes Too)

Brian Auer has a passion - old skool film photography. His passion, as most passions are, is contagious. If you have not caught the Film virus yet, Brian came up with a project to help you get some film inspiration going.

The $50 Film Camera is one of those projects that is real easy to get involved in. all you have to do is shoot some rolls of film with a film camera of under 50$, post your pictures, and a camera review and you are in. (Don't forget to submit your review link).

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Learning About The Small Things

If you, like me, have little money to spend on big expensive lighting, you can start up your flash photography with a small flash (AKA strobe).

Actually some of those are so cheap, you can start off with a few, or add strobes as you go along. I started with 1 small flash: The Nikon SB 28, added the Nikon SB 800 when I got my D70, and when I needed more light, I added the Nikon SB 26. The SB 26 sells for about 100 USD on eBay and other small flashes like the famous Vivitar 285HV sells for about 50 on eBay and about 80 for a new flash.

If you indeed choose this path (which from now on will be called the strobist path) there are several very useful resources on (and off) the web for you to learn how to perfect your small strobe lighting technique.

I have deep appreciation for all photographers listed below, they all helped me learn and grow to the photographer I am today.
This is why I am shamelessly promoting sharing their recent and not so recent projects.

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Having Fun @ The Pool #4

The last week was very interesting week on my professional career, I was attending a software conference in Toronto called The Agile Conference 2008. The conference was all about making software better. (Any Agile practitioners here? Give me a shout).

I find that there are plenty of similarities between Agile software development and striving for photography perfection and style, and I intend to share this in an upcoming post. (Don't worry, this will not be a geeky-techie post).

While being away from home I had the pleasure of watching the DIYP Flickr group grow. We are now 2751 enthusiastic photographers, and sharing 2653 picture. Great work. While it feels great to be part of such a striving community, I noticed that the number of photographer is smaller then the number of pictures. That means that some of us are missing on the great opportunity to share our pictures and get ideas, critique and standing ovations from group member.

Here is my suggestion, if you did not submit at least on picture to the group, submit one picture now, and pick one of the other images on the group and make a comment. This is turn will encourage other to comment on your images.

Thanks for making my day great! Below are some of my favorites from the last month.

More Photodumps:
- Having Fun @ The Pool #3
- Having Fun @ The Pool #2 - What a Splash
- Having Fun @ The Pool #1

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Light Falloff Cheat Sheet Card

As part of my ongoing exploration of portrait photography in general and flash studio photography in particular, I wanted to examine the effect that a large light source will have on light fall off. This was a great chance for me to produce a new cheat sheet to companion the portrait lighting cheat sheet and reflector cheat sheet that are already out there. (And this time we have a special guest, read on...)

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Portrait Professional 8 Giveaway

UPDATE2: For a Flickr picture to be eligible to participate it must
have a short (or long explanation on why you took the portrait / the
person means something for you)

UPDATE1: See some Q&A at the bottom. I'll update those as more questions come in.

A little while back, Alasdair Townsend, one of the makers of Portrait Professional, sent me a copy of Portrait Professional 8 to play with. Apart from the great fun that I had with the software (review coming soon), he also suggested to give three copies of Portrait Professional 8 as contest prizes.
- No Way!
- Way! And to make it even better, I'll make those giveaways the studio high end version. (Valued at 239.95 USD).

So what do you have to do to win one of those three copies? You have three options to submit an entry:

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Japanese Fun Street Art (And A Peek Into My Living Room)

A few weeks back, I did a post about lighting a portrait from different angles - the portrait cheat sheet card. As part of the project I also posted the setup shot for creating the card allowing DIYP readers into my leaving room.

If you went supersize into my studio my wife's living room, you could see two pictures on the right corner. This, of course besides the usual mess and child goo left all over the floor.

Tuffer who is apparently moving to Brussels got intrigued by the mystery of my living room and asked what those pictures are. (Feel free to ask more questions about my living room. it is a wondrous place)

Those are pictures from a photography album called Fruits by Shoichi Aoki which deals with a Japanese fashion called (surprise, surprise) Fruits.

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The Easy Tripod to Reflector Holder Conversion

This is another fun project from the factory of reader Jerry Hamby.

It is a reflector holder from a $9.99 tripod, a 3ft long piece of PVC pipe, an elbow to fit, and a small clamp. (The Tripod is 9.99$ on July 26th on Amazon, but I bet similar tripods are always on sale somewhere). Like the previous project from Jerry, the Green Bean Hair Light, it's a short and fun project, and you don't have to make it in whole, if you like the idea, you can expand it to things other the tripods...

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The Green Bean Hair Light

Reader Jerry Hamby just sent in this great hair light project. It is made from a cheapo 45 ws ebay flash and - believe it or not - a green-bean super value can (the kind you don't want to eat too much of at one time). Just before sharing his tutorial with you, allow me to extend two small tips:

1. Empty the bean can before using it.

2. Do not empty it alone. 

Now, to the tutorial.

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Portrait Software Developer Want Your Help

Anthropics is a company that develops a portrait retouching software called Portrait Professional. Tony Polichroniadis who is the chief scientist over there is looking for some feedback on the package.

If you have any ideas, thoughts and wish-lists from this kinda software you can influence the next version of Portrait Professional. 

Use this flickr thread to share any thoughts you may have. If you just want to play round with the software and get the idea of what it can do (quite a lot), you can download a trial version here.

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Manual Focus - Practice Makes Perfect (Part 3)

In my two previous posts I discussed eleven reasons why you would ever want to use manual focus, and six ways to help you get a good sharp manually-focused picture.

As I said, it takes some practice to get sharp results, and in this wrap up post I'll discuss practice. One type of practice it easy and can be done a home. The benefit of this practice is that it is very technical and needs little preparation.

Here is how it's done:

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Six Tips To Take Great Manual Focus Pictures (Part 2)

In my previous manual focus post I discussed nine reasons to use manual focus. But wait, isn't manual focus slow and inaccurate? Not if you do it correctly.

In this post I will describe six ways to get the perfect (and fastest) manual focus. As will all things photography, practice makes perfect - You may not have your first manual focus pictures right, but as you keep practicing, you'll get better and better, until manual focus becomes a second nature to you. [image CC by parl]

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Nine Reasons to Manually Focus When Taking Pictures (Part 1)

Most Digital (and film) cameras today offer a nice feature called Manual Focus.  This has not always been the case. The older more experienced folks remember that in the good old film days there was a big excitement when auto focus was introduced as a new feature.

There are many reasons to use Auto Focus - it is fast, accurate, and let you, the photographer concentrate on composition, lighting, framing and other technical and artistic factor of your picture.

However, there are still many situations when Manual focus can give better results than auto focus. [image cc by dalantech]

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Speed Links for 7-9-2008

This has been a busy month again with a great ending.

As usual my day job was getting more of my time then photography, but some good things happened in the last week or so.

The first is that my son's teeth are finally breaking. It means that he plans to eat better, but it also means that I get some sleepless nights and wonder around the web to find great goodies.

The other good thing was a nice long vacation with no work email access (and actually no internet access at all - what do you know, it didn't kill me).

No I am back and would like to share some of the great sites and article I found during those sleepless nights.

• The 15 second DIY adjustable snoot!
  F/1.0
  If you liked the cardboard snoot and the better bounce card you'll love this adjustable snoot
• How to Reduce Camera Shake - 6 Techniques
  digital-photography-school
  Some great techniques to reduce blur when taking pictures. It all comes down to the way you are holding the camera. Techniques are especially useful, if you (like me) travel with kids which makes carrying gear virtually impossible
• Chase Jarvis SHORTS: Pimped Photography Van
  Chase Jarvis
  Yet again, chase shows us how to make photography business with style. Forget about the batmobile. It is time for the framemobile. The next challenge is to make all the equipment fit in this.
• The 75¢ Sandbag
  Nice
  Stabilizing your setup can not go cheaper then this. For 75c a bag times four you can get **some** stability. The idea is great just need to be multiplied a few times
• 10 things I hate about Flickr (and its users)
  Neil Creek
  Flickr has a lot of merits, but also a lot of vices. Neil gives a detailed analysis of how Flickr can become a better place. His comments can be used by Flickr programmers and Flickr users alike. Make sure you browse through the comments, there is a great discussion and opinions voiced there.
• quick video 3: studio setup for a large white background
  prophotolife
  If you've followed Zack Arias's white background series, you'll love this. A quick video on how to provide a white background in a full studio environment (A LA huge octagon and multiple flash units). Quick math produced 10,000 Watts/seconds.
• Seeing the Possibilities
  The f-Stops Here
  everybody can take a stunning image of a great location. David walks us through a idea to convert a boring location to a winning shot
• Alltop
  alltop
  A ton of great photoblogs. And by ton I mean A TON. A great place to freshen up your feeds
• Lighting 102: CTO Assignment | Discussion
  Strobist
  Great discussion from David on how to use CTO gels on your flash. I really like this one as it show just how creative one can get when assignment has a weird limitation such as Use a CTO gel on your flash. Dont miss the extra shot.

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Related Links:
- Speed Links for 6-6-2008
- Speed Links for 05-09-2008
- Speed Links for 4-20-2008
- Speed Links for 2-23-2008
- Speed Links for 12-20-2007

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PRESSlite Vertex - Demo Available

The previous post about the Vertex flash light splitter raised quite a few eyebrows. First question was "is this for real?".

Ken at PRESSlite answers this question by providing an image gallery with sample shots and setup shots.

The nice thing is that the setup shots are linked with the sample shots. So you can watch a picture along with the how it was taken.

If you are considering getting one of those, watching the demo is a great fun. And don't miss the dancing flash show. (Click "Dual Panel Rotate and browse through the gray buttons).

Strobists - I'd love to hear what you think about this. share your thought on the comments.

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Reflector Card Cheat Sheet

My previous cheat sheet dealt with the impact of light position on portraiture. The idea was that you can print this cheat sheet and carry it around for fast consultation and getting fast results.

My next investigation involved a single flash again (this time shot through a shoot though umbrella) and different uses and positions for a 5 in one reflector.

Again I suggest printing the card so you have a quick look when ever you are not sure of what a certain reflector effect may be.

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Another Great Way to Create Lighting Diagrams

A while back I posted two great ways to create lighting diagrams: using Photoshop or using an online flash application.

Now, the online application as great, but it only allowed you to share a URL, there was no way to save or print your lighting diagram.

Reader Brian pointed me to a nice online application called PhotoDiagram that allows you to create a lighting diagram and then save it as jpg. NICE.

I'd love to see more modifiers in the application. If you feel like being nice, Drop Brian a line on what you'd like to see in the next version of PhotoDiagram.

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Two Great Weekend Projects - Striplight and Softbox

Do you know those weekends when it is just to hot to get out of the home? Well just for those weekends we have a great weekend project. Actually we have two weekend projects.

The first project is a Foamcore softbox. We've had those before, even for small flashes. But this one comes complete with build and assembly instructions by Paul Both. To top sugar with cream (or light with diffusion) Paul also made a nice strip light - again complete with plans and chocolate syrup. (The designs were made for the 580EX2 and 430EX Canon flashes, but will fit any flash with minor adjustments).

Paul said the role of inspiring muse for this creation was Nick Wheeler who made the best softbox ever, just a little while ago.

Download the plans for the softbox here and for the striplight here. Read on for assembly instructions (flickr set here).

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Having Fun @ The Pool #3

It has been quite a long time since the last post of fun at the pool, but now with summer kicking in big time, it is time to take a nice refreshing Ice Tea Beer and hang out in the pool.

In the last few weeks it was a great joy for me to see how the DIYP group is evolving into a group that shares more then pictures that show how to build stuff. Of course, pictures of how to build stuff are always welcomed, but posting images of fine art, extreme lighting, portraiture, and more are a great way to leverage the group to a place where photographers can talk, share and interact together (and of course, the discussion panel is always open). I also had great fun watching the at my home contest submissions accumulate into the pool, as great images and lots of fun. Again, thanks for everyone who participated.

Lastly, if anyone knows of a way to create the mosaic below by using a tag, I'll appreciate it if you share this data in the comments. I'll greatly improve the time it takes me to round the pictures into a post.

More Photodumps:
- Having Fun @ The Pool #2 - What a Splash
- Having Fun @ The Pool #1

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