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» Photoshoot in the Sun

 Today was a portrait photoshoot day with two of my friends as models. We had a blast doing the shots and I have two spontaneous ones to show right now and in my mind I think the spontaneous ones are the ones that usually get the best as well. Anyway I did a couple of shots but it turned out as most a get together and a chance for us to hang out for a while on the holidays and enjoy the nice weather. But check the shots out

       

» Brand New Tripod

If you remember I told you back at new years about my tripod…loss. Or rather the loss of a vital part on my old cheap tripod. So now I got a good excuse to be buying a new tripod which is excacly what I did today because I really did need a new one. I had just decided for the Manfrotto 055XPROB mainly because of a couple of suggestions here from blog readers, other buddies and also from my own searches and looks and so far I think it looks nice although I’ve yet to really try it (gonna do this week though and give you a more detailed report then).

Now you are probably wondering which ballhead I got? That took some more pondering but I decided to go with the Manfrotto 486RC2 with quick release plate. I’m happy with this purchase as well and I think it’ll serve me very well in the future!

» Apple Releases 10.5.2 update with loads of fixes!

 Apple has just released the 10.5.2 update to Leopard which contains over a hundred fixes and comes to you at a filesize of 180mb+! Change areas include Active Directory, AirPort, BTMM, Dashboard, Dock, Finder, iCal, iChat, iSync, Mail, Preview, Safari, Time Machine, and more! Below are a little list of some of the upgrades but you can find the full list here at the Apple site.

AirPort: Improves connection reliability and stability, more.
Dashboard: Widget performance improvements (as in Dictionary), more.
Dock: Updates Stacks with a list view and folder view options, and an updated background for grid view.
Mail: Improved data detector accuracy, hurts Growl users in disabling GrowlMail version 1.1.2 or earlier (to avoid issues), but also has tons of other fixes.
RAW support: Now supports more RAW formats / cameras (presumably more on Apple’s site).
Time Machine: Adds a menu bar option for accessing Time Machine features (the menu extra can be enabled in Time Machine preferences), among other things.

» Thoughts about the Nikon D3!

I just got to play a little with the Nikon D3 today, just a quick look but I was pretty impressed by it, especially with the performance on the 6400 ISO level, images which are useable! The white balance preview when in Live View is pretty cool as well although I find the focusing in live view mode pretty clunky and overall the camera sounds quite loud when taking photos (there is of course the wonderful shutter sound though). Also the portrait grip is pretty uncomfortable and oddly balanced. It feels like I’m going to drop the camera any second because of overload in weight. In the end though I think it is a wonderful camera, given the quick look I had on it!

» Wednesday Postings

 First off today I’m happy to say that I’ve been starting to post my tutorials onto Pixel2Life, the best tutorial search engine out there and they are beginning to roll on! So far I’ve added about a three tutorials but more are in the que and more will be online there soon so more people can find them.

• I’m myself in the middle of a week with two tests, one yesterday and one tomorrow which is pretty big stuff so that’s why you are getting these news quickes all this time. 
   
• If you are interested in lighting and such; check out the great website Strobist which has all kinds of info regarding lighting as well as tutorials and inspiration.
   
• More websites tips, if you are interested in Web Design and especially the latest trends and possibly discussing them as well in a more discussive kinda way then head off to Web Designer Wall which is run by famous artist Nick La.
   
• If you are interested in some digital photo frames, David Pogue of the New York Times just posted an article about their development he took a look at a couple of the frames on the market. The article can be found here.

 

» Monday Stuff

 Here are some quick monday updates because I don’t have a whole lot of time today, it’s basically the evening before one of my biggest tests (I’m lucky enough to have two of them this week).

• Adobe has released the ACE Recertification exams for most of the Adobe applications. Current ACE holders should have recieved and e-mail from Adobe about the recertification. You’ll have until the 30 April to recertify. The full test seems to be rolling out as well with a test prep. guide coming soon! Check out the ACE page.
   
• Adobe has also announced that they will discontinue the Adobe Stock Photos service because it apparently is not as big of a hit as they predicted.
   
• I want to give a big heads up to Corey Barker yet again for his wonderful class Photoshop Extended in Motion. It is just mind blowing stuff that is really cool to learn! Go and check out Corey’s stuff over at Planet Photoshop as well.

That rounds up my quick monday stuff and I hope some more will be coming tomorrow. Oh and by the way, if any of you use or have used the Manfrotto 055XB tripod and have any comments on it, I’d like to hear them because I’m in the market for that tripod with a good (in budget) ballhead as well. Any suggestions welcome (although exlude the BH-55, I don’t have that big of a budget).

» Sunday Quick Stuff

 Alright, so after the jam packed updates this weekend we are soon onto a new week with a lot of things happening (at least for me) before a full week vaccation that I have from school in the week after. Onto the news:

• As you can probably see, the site has been updated with some new buttons here and there, a new header look (quite similar to the old, yet a litle updated) as well as a new footer, which I think works great.
   
•  If you remember, I wrote about the Photography Corner, Photograph of the Year contest a while back. The contest is now finished and voting is over. The winning entries have also been announced and I’m astounded on the good quality of the winning entires, and I would like to congratulate them all (especially my buddy Younes Bounhar for winning it all!).
   
• Speaking of contests, the Photoshop User Awards are over as well and you can find the winners right here. Some of the winners are just amazing!
   
• If you are into the blog reading, Joe McNally has launched a brand new blog that you can check out right here.
   
• I’ve had some more time to watch the classes over at Kelby Training and some of them just blows me away and makes the whole month membership I’m signed up for worth it, in just one class. I can really recommend the Photoshop Extended in Motion class by Corey Barker as one of the best I’ve taken in a long time. You can read my review on the service right here.

That’s about it for my Sunday Quick Stuff. I’ll be posting here again tomorrow for some more cool stuff that always happens on mondays!

» Site Update Galore

 There’s just about only one reason to why you didn’t get a news post here yesterday. I’ve been working hard, especially yesterday, to expand the tutorials sections a little bit and I’ve made a long list of subjects to cover, so far in Lightroom, Photoshop and Bridge but I am going to make some lists for the other applications as well however. If there is any subject or effect or anything you would like me to cover in a tutorial, please leave a comment on this post and I’ll read and add to my list (as long as it is possible to do).

Now the good thing isn’t tha tI’ve made a list, it is that I’ve started recording many of the tutorials and I’ve even posted a bunch of them up on the site! Lightroom has gotten an amazing number of new tutorials over two days;

• Using the Find panel in Lightroom
• Exploring the Lightroom white balance tool
• A quick look at the develop module
• Using the Identity Plate
• Learn how the Painter Tool works
• Exporting from Lightroom

The Photoshop category has also got some updates which are currently being uploaded and processed so check in there later today. If you guys have missed it, I’ve added a brand new category, Pixelmator. I was getting a lot of requests for Pixelmator tutorials so you’ve got them! 

Alright so that pretty much sums up the changes to the site right now (the reviews are also being updated frequently) and I have some further plans for it coming very soon so sit tight! Also later today I’ll sum up the recent news.