Photo Video News Update : Sept 10, 2016
/Hey everyone, here's your photo video news update for September 10, 2016, curated by The Photo Video Guy!
Read MoreWelcome to The Photo Video Guy. I share training, ideas, opinions and tips to help you make better photographs and videos.
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Hey everyone, here's your photo video news update for September 10, 2016, curated by The Photo Video Guy!
Read MoreAs the summer winds down, manufacturers are starting to put more news out including new product releases. Enjoy!
Read MoreI've discovered in recent weeks that the amount of photo video news, that is actually "news" has become a small percentage of news feeds. So while I may not provide as many links as in the past, I'm trying really hard to confine them to news, or a link that I personally found interesting. For those who have been following individual posts on Google +, the update is now consolidated into a website post with all the links in one place.
Read MoreHey everyone,
I have been a bit lax with the news updates, so this post has many items.
A very good article by a professional photographer Dear Clients: Don’t Ask Photographers for a Reshoot of Good Photos
Composition Leveraging Lines Lines Reveal the Great Compositions in Famous Movies
Pretty cool video on how a shutter works Super Slow Motion Shows How an SLR Camera Shutter Works
Yahoo has been sold. What does this mean for Flickr? Flickr ownership changes hands as Verizon acquires Yahoo
Excellent article for models, and for photographers seeking to hire models Models, Beware the Warning Signs of Creepy ‘Photographers’
Photographer sues Getty Images for $1B for selling her public domain images Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1 Billion
Some really great ideas 10 Photography Accessories You Can Buy at the Supermarket
Astropad is updated Astropad 2.0 brings better performance and increased compatibility
I wanted to thank the folks who have taken the time to write me suggesting that it would be cool if there was a way for readers and podcast listeners to get updated when new content was made available.
So as of right now, I've updated the site in a couple of ways to make that work more efficiently. I've had RSS links in the sidebar, but I didn't know that sometimes they came up like ugly XML files. Now they come up nice and clean using the Feedburner service from Google and this makes them really easy to add to your favourite RSS reader, which can of course be your browser. I'm personally a big fan of Reeder 3 for the Mac, but there are lots of options. What's important is that there are two RSS feeds for The Photo Video Guy. One for the articles / blogs section and one for the podcast, so you can subscribe to either or both if you choose to do so.
RSS isn't the only way to ensure you get new content. At the top of the blog and podcast pages there is now a form where you can sign up to receive an email whenever a new article or podcast goes live. There are two separate lists, so you choose only what you want to receive an email about. Your email address is NEVER shared with anyone, and you can unsubscribe at any time. I am following the requirements for email subscriptions so when you subscribe, you will receive an email requesting confirmation of your request before your email goes into the secure storage area.
I hope that these enhancements will improve your enjoyment of The Photo Video Guy.
On March 24th, 2016 I got to spend the day with Peter Hurley. Thousands of people have done so in classes and workshops, and I count myself as fortunate for having done so, but yesterday was different and special. Peter was in Toronto to deliver his Illuminating the Face workshop presented by Henry's Learning Labs, and I had the honour and pleasure to both introduce Peter to the attendees and to help with the setup and assist him over the course of the day. It was really quite amazing.
Read MoreIt seemed for a while that there was no new glass coming out of Nikon. That's definitely changed this year and today Nikon announced three new lenses. Check them out below.
Read MoreI recently received a Nikon 1 V3 with grip and EVF kit along with a couple of lenses from Nikon Canada for review. While mirrorless adoption is growing, the Nikon 1 lineup has not garnered a ton of support in the marketplace
Read MoreWhenever new software comes out there's a rush followed by consternation about whether the upgrade is worth doing. As a Lightroom instructor of some vintage, I thought it might be worthwhile to get my thoughts down on the subject for readers of the site.
Read MoreRevolutionary? Probably not, but at minimum evolutionary and at best game-changing. Here are my 14 thoughts to help you make better photos and videos in 2014.
Most of all, have fun! Yes, a person dedicated to his or her craft can turn it into a revenue generating tool. Not to be harsh, but I have seen too many folks who really loved image or filmmaking pack it in or become jaded after turning it into a "job". Never forget the magical feeling you had when you first decided to get better. Cheers!
Yes, this is directed to Canon, but if you are a Pro or using Pro level gear from other manufacturers, feel free to change the name and model numbers because it applies to you too.
Dear Canon,
Why do you insist on treating those people who spend the money on your Professional or near-Professional equipment with such disgusting disrespect?
I am a Canon Professional Services member. I own a 1D Mk IV (expensive), a 1Dx (expensive) and a C300 EF (even more expensive). If I want wireless connectivity, I can spend $849 retail for a chip in a hunk of plastic to do slow WiFi for file transfer. If I had gone to a 5D Mark III, I would get the privilege of paying over $1,100 for WiFi connectivity.
Considering that your entry line of point and shoot cameras as well as multiple of your non-Professional grade cameras have built-in WiFi, how can you even consider justifying the Highway Robbery of the prices charged for WiFi for your Professional level gear. Don't tell me it's about the quality. Your expensive products perform no more better than the Bob's Wifi I can buy for $24.99 for the laptop at the local computer store. In fact they have lower performance and poorer user interface.
It's thievery pure and simple. You charge Pros more for less because some turd in Marketing decided that the market would bear it. Find that idiot and fire him or her or the entire committee that made this stupid decision. Immediately drop the price of wireless to under $100 and do your highest paying clients a service instead of a disservice.
We use your pro level gear. We spend more on a single lens than your average customer spends on three cameras. We upgrade more often and your reputation gets enhanced because of the quality and commitment we put into our work. Please stop screwing us on the accessory front.
You don't need to prove you can treat pro level users as badly as Nikon does. They charge $899 for the WiFi adapter for the D4. They also charge $70 for the same capability adapter for their consumer lineup. Just because one major Japanese manufacturer screws their customers doesn't mean you have to as well.
I challenge Canon to DO THE RIGHT THING. I have no optimism that you will, but I'm throwing the challenge in front of you regardless. I DARE YOU TO RESPOND.
Sincerely,
Ross Chevalier
The Photo Video Guy
I'm all over the place regarding The Grid. Sometimes an episode is just fawning dreck, sometimes they just destroy aspiring photographers, and then there are the other times, in fairness - the majority, where they just hit it out of the park. If you've stopped doing HDR because seeing HDRs often makes your eyes hurt, tune in to Episode 117. The segment on How Not to Hate HDR is extremely well done and worth watching. Like many people, I have sinned in HDR and produced some truly nauseating offences, including halos, black clouds, HDR where it shouldn't be, HDRs in the worst kind of light and other crap. I don't publish them, because they suck. But there are photographers who think HDR is the cure for a lousy image. The list of things not to do, or to do only when you are absolutely sure is very helpful. They also show some decent HDRs from RC Concepcion that show how you can sometimes break the rules and get a nice image. HDR processing is highly subjective, but in this case, I have to say that the list presented is an excellent set of guidelines to leverage.
The first part of the episode deals with the recent plagiarism scandal regarding Jasmine Starr and others. Scott's presentation is balanced and reasonable and worth a listen. Because a photographer screws up (and the people involved, screwed up big) does not immediately mean that the individual is a failure as a photographer, or is an evil entity. They were stupid. Evisceration is a bit over the top.
Watch the grid on the web at http://kelbytv.com/thegrid/
I'm now ready to initiate a new offering for readers and listeners called somewhat unimaginatively, ThePhotoVideoGuy Q&A. I've been a photographer for quite some time and find myself asked questions about "how to do" pretty frequently. So if you have a question send an email to qanda@thephotovideoguy.ca. I will answer your questions on the site and perhaps on the podcast. There is no cost for this offering.
I was seriously disappointed when so many people started ripping Scott Kelby for trying to explain Creative Cloud. He didn't tell anyone to subscribe, he was trying to explain what he saw. I have a very good sense of what he felt like now. I announced yesterday on Google Plus that I had received an offer from Adobe targeted at CS6 Master Collection licensees and that following a phone conversation with Adobe, I decided to subscribe. For me, the annual fee is less than half of what I have consistently paid for upgrades over the various iterations of Master Collection and even before that when Macromind and Adobe were different companies.
Today, I am stupid, Darth Vader, a sellout, a transacter of souls, easily fooled by people with clipboards, a drinker of Koolaid and an abandoner of principles. Like Mr. Kelby, I did not tell anyone to subscribe, but I did relate that I had chosen to, because I have been vocal on why I don't like leased software in the past.
I still don't like leased software. I still own CS6 Master Collection and if my experiment with Creative Cloud doesn't work out, I still can use CS6 in perpetuity. Would I prefer it if Adobe treated the Master Collection as they have Lightroom 5, that is to make it available as a subscription AND as a perpetual license, buyer decides? Absolutely. They didn't. Sometimes business makes decisions we don't like and we can follow or not, our choice.
I was pleased that Adobe reduced the subscription cost to a price/value ratio that is acceptable to me. Many are saying Adobe flinched and is in the process of caving in. Maybe so. There has certainly been a lot of negative flashback at Adobe for their decision but the data shows that over 1M customers have subscribed to Creative Cloud. I assure you, if the price/value ratio was not acceptable to me, I wouldn't have done it, and time will tell whether it's a good buy. The net is that I get to use all of Creative Cloud for one year for about the same cost as a one year membership to the Professional Photographers of America, a membership I have maintained for some time. I can assure you that I will get more value from Creative Cloud in terms of tools and revenue, but that doesn't make the PPA membership useless.
Having spent more than fifteen years of my life working for software companies, I understand the piracy challenge all too well so I discount some of the complaining about Creative Cloud because it makes it harder for people to steal software. Some complainers still have a principle argument against Adobe and despite their insults, I still support their arguments. In the end my data is my data, and as I use tools to get to finished product, and after analysis have determined that I go back and revisit a work to enter the edit process midstream later occurs nearly never. A finished photograph or a finished video are for me at least, finished. In some ways it's like renting a tool from Home Depot. Even when the tool is gone, I still have the cabinet I built with the tool.
I would definitely prefer if Adobe offered a license choice for Master Collection CC. If they change their mind, I will likely go that route. In the interim, I will try the components in Creative Cloud and make ongoing business decisions from there. For those who care to heap insults on me for my decision, whatever. You are entitled to your opinion, but in this case it's my money, my work, I don't tell anyone else to follow me.
I like to let the other guys get their predictions out of the way first, so by the time you get to mine you're either a) completely cynical or b) looking for some honest non-vendor serving opinion. Whatever works for you :)
In no particular order...
Ok that's it for now. Speak soon.
Ross
Rumour is that the amazing deals on the D600 and D800 seen last week in the US will hit Canada this week. The rebates are substantial and don't last long. Keep eyes open.
As mentioned in the Episode 39 of the podcast, Canon is implementing a MAP pricing policy. Most of us know of MSRP or Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price. It's suggested because to make it a requirement would be determined to be price fixing. Resellers tend to stick pretty close to MSRP in their advertised prices, especially on Accessories because it keeps the margin very high and if everyone does it, discounting on these items becomes rare. MAP is Minimum Advertised Price. This is a completely different game. Basically MAP is a vehicle by which the manufacturer does set the lowest advertised price for their products by any authorized reseller. Reseller authorization grants the reseller access to purchase the products for resale, MSRP provides a suggested selling price and MAP defines the lowest price that a product can be advertised for.
The theory is that MAP eliminates what social engineers (and I say those words with all the venom I can) call dog eat dog competition. It's also a way for a vendor to cancel reseller authorization if MAP is not followed. MAP does not prevent a reseller from selling below MAP, it simply holds an axe over their necks if they advertise a lower price. In Canon's case we saw the prices rise on many items concurrent with the advent of their MAP policy. I'd say I was surprised but Canon is simply following the same tune as others before them.
What this means to you is that if you are an educated buyer who has done his or her research you will not be able to price shop the way you have in the past as all resellers will be held to the minimum advertised price. There is a popular theorem that MAP reduces grey marketing, but this is spurious as warranty and serial number management make grey markets a caveat emptor entity already. It's not price fixing, but it's close.
So how will you get a lower price than MAP allows? Resellers work with manufacturers to prepare bundles that are reseller unique that have approved pricing thresholds. These bundles are not generically available, and so makes comparison shopping more difficult. It's an obfuscation scheme at best.
So how to deal with this buyer hostile model? Choose your reseller based on your needs. If you like the idea of a photographic centric reseller that will help you after you have made your purchase, and that provides additional service that you value, be they training programs, extended warranties and knowledgeable staff, then deal with that reseller and negotiate your own purchase to the best of your ability. Price match policies become useless when every reseller must hold advertising at a certain level, so the differentiation becomes the reseller added value. If you don't care about that, or think that it is fair to buy from a jobber or warehouse/big box store and then go waste the time of photographic professionals to whom you have brought only questions and no business that it your choice, although I do not see how this helps those resellers with a service orientation stay in business.
Who does MAP help? It helps the manufacturer that implements it and the reseller that complains of price competition and who has no value to offer to buyers beyond a low price. It doesn't help the buyer and that may cause you, if you are a thinking person, to be suspicious of any manufacturer that uses MAP as a stick. No responsible reseller is going to sell below their burdened cost and their necessary profitability to keep the doors open. MAP is the closest thing to price fixing a manufacturer has and is only spun as a "value" to those foolish enough to believe that they can have their lunch and eat it too.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am an unabashed champion of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I generate personal revenue from training people on Lightroom. Readers should expect me to be enthusiastic about Lightroom. Now that the mumbo-jumbo is out of the way, I wanted to let all the members know that Adobe released Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.1 today. Existing Lightroom 4 users will be prompted to install the update. In addition to bug fixes and other enhancements it adds support for a number of new cameras including the Canon 1Dx, Fuji X-Pro 1, the 5D mark III, the Nikon D4, the Nikon D800 and D800e, the Leica M Monochrom, the Leica X2 as well as lens profiles for the new Sigma lenses for micro four-thirds.
At its new retail price of $149, imho there is no more feature rich and powerful image management and editing software on the market. Photoshop CS6 is certainly a powerful tool, but even Adobe says it is a designer's tool first and a photographer's tool second with Lightroom being their flagship tool for photographers. Even Apple Aperture evangelist, professional photographer and noted curmudgeon Scott Bourne is switching to Lightroom.
It's available in lots of places, online and in retail stores and comes to run on both Windows and Mac OS X.
If your photo editing software is older, or you don't have a catalog management system for your photographs and would like a great one with an integrated editor, you cannot lose with Lightroom.
Regular readers know that I am a very strong advocate of your work remaining yours. I've been fairly critical of web services that through their End User License Agreement require you to give all your rights away to your own property. While I know that there are workarounds for some photo sharing sites (use only small low quality thumbnails), in general I only recommend sites that protect your intellectual property and most times there is a fee involved. Recently the folks at Google opened a new service called Google Drive. Ostensibly it looks like it competes with Dropbox and to a lesser extent with Microsoft's SkyDrive. I am not snubbing SkyDrive, it's only that Dropbox is the 800 pound gorilla at the moment. I like Dropbox. One of the many reasons I like Dropbox is that their EULA specifies that what is mine is mine and that I can have everything on their myriad servers encrypted. I pay for the privilege of lots of reliable cloud storage.
Google Drive provides an initial 5GB of storage for free. A decent offer to be sure but if you care about your intellectual property, don't just click through the "by clicking here you agree to the license agreement that is really long and hard to read and located at this other place..." because when you click ok, you grant Google irrevocable rights forever to anything you put on Google Drive. That might be just fine with you, particularly if you buy into the argument that Google has a zillion customers and won't have the time to look at and redistribute your stuff. If it's not fine with you and you still want to use Google Drive for something then DON'T put your photos or videos or screenplays or anything you want to remain private up there.
The latin phrase Caveat Emptor has existed for centuries for very good reason. And as Robert Heinlein said very clearly over 50 years ago, TANSTAFFL.
(There ain't no such thing as a free lunch)
I definitely credit Google for making the service available and also for having an understandable if a bit lengthy EULA. They are far from the worst offenders and consistently let you know up front their intent. I have read an article that says they do this in their EULAs because people can email things from their account and since there is no way to know how many hops an attachment will take and where it will be stored en route, they have to do this. That email and attachments are stored (and are retrievable at any time) in myriad waypoints is factually correct, but the EULA makes no explicit commentary on this point, and is much wider ranging. Google has a business to run and are very clear that they could use anything you put on their services to foster that business. You do have freedom of choice. To say as the other writer did that the EULA exists to handle the risks created by unencrypted email is akin to using a 10 gauge shotgun to hunt sparrows. It's a spurious argument. Google is a business and provides services that someone has to pay for. If you aren't paying for them, someone else is.
If you don't like this reality, don't participate. That's your choice.
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