Home       Tutorials       Quick-Tips       Reviews       About       Contact       Podcast       Register

» Saturday News Nuggets

Saturday ain’t stopping me from sharing some news nuggets with y’all!

• One of the most debated things this week has been the iPhone application, I Am Rich which was priced at $999 and just showed a mantra if you bought it. Now, I say was because Apply removed it from the Apple store for unknown reasons, something many think is not fair. Sure, it is pointless, but if you want to buy it, you shouldn’t be stopped. Anyway there are a full eight people who apparently bought this app before it came to an end. Where do people get their money from?
   
• An article in the New York Times this week caught my eye. In it they wrote that "Tibet" can’t be in any hotmail address and suspicions arised that it was political. Now Microsoft has spoken and said that it isn’t Tibet that is blocked but that they are blocking usernames with names of banks and other similar to prevent fraud. The word that’s being blocked is actually "Tib" since there’s a bank with that name. A bit too much? Perhaps so…
   
• I want to send out the congratulations to my buddy Will King who will be getting to shoot college football games all the coming year from the sidelines, official! Congrats Will!
   
• To finish off this Saturday I’m going to send you looking at an incredible article a member of the Photography Corner forum wrote. It’s about how to shoot animals in the best way! It’s really really good!

That’s it for today, stay tuned for some tutorials tomorrow!

» Nikon releases several new compact cameras!

 Nikon has definitely set for a strong day today announcing several brand new compact cameras to their line-up, probably looking to get into the compact market again. There are six new models announced. The S60, S610, S610C, S560, S710 and the P6000. I’m going to start with the S60 and the S610/S610C and then you can follow along up the ladder after the jump!

Nikon Coolpix S60

The S60 is the "luxury" camera of them all here, mainly going up against the Sony T700. It features a 3.5" touchscreen LCD, 10 megapixels and face detection as well as the full HMDI out and many more connectors. It’s partly wide-angle starting at 33mm and it does reach to a full 165mm, making it a 5x zoom! Main negative thing about this camera seems to be the battery. It is reported to only take 140 images per charge, something that even a camera with disposable alkalines beats!

Nikon Coolpix S610 and S610C

These two twin cameras are identical in every aspect apart from that the C model has got WiFi and the other one doesn’t. It’s got the expected 3.5" LCD and a 10 megapixel sensor. The S610 will be available in many colours while the S610C will only be available in one. Battery wise, on a full charge with the EN-EL12 battery it is said to take a respectable 300 shots. 

» Thursday Newsflash

I’ve really got nothing exciting or interesting at all to write in the intro here today about the news that are today…so you just have to go along and read the news:

• Yesterday over at Photoshop Insider, Andrew Rodney (aka. the Digital Dog) was the featured guest blogger and Andrew (the king of colour management) wrote a great post about getting old with Photoshop and how Photoshop and Lightroom is different and how they play together and open up for creativity.
   
• While on the topic of writing; there seems to be a good amount of buzz right now about coding and how to make a website simply. A lot of the buzz is also around doing it in Sitegrinder or similar software and of course Dreamweaver. I’m writing a blog post with my take on things tomorrow, so stay tuned
   
• How does corporate graphic design work? Well, humorous but true this graphic from Graphjam explains it pretty good
   
• Olympus together with Panasonic announced the other day that they are developing a new lens mount series, the micro four thirds. It’s going to allow for smaller and thinner dSLRs as they remove the optical viewfinder and slim the lens mount down even further. I had the chance to talk with an Olympus rep yesterday to hear more about this and it does sound really really cool. Read the press release »
   
• Apple released an upgrade to the iPhone the other day, the 2.0.1 software update. It’s available from iTunes and I haven’t seen any problems with the upgrade at all.

 

» Monday Stuff

It’s another Monday, it’s another start of the week. I have a lot of things to share with you this week and It’s gonna be a really cool week. One of them is of course the artist interview as every week (and I’m not yet going to give away who it is). I’ve also got an article or two planned as well as some new tutorials! But let’s get started with some Monday Stuff!

• I do a lot of work with the WordPress publishing system and I really do like it. Obviously there are things I like to see in it, but overall it’s really really good and powerful. I do recommend it as a good and light cms + blog system. However it can be a daunting task to learn to customize any new script which is why I’m going to send you over to a series called Designing for WordPress by Chris Coyier at CSS-Tricks!
   
• Since I’m going to be working with moving computers around a lot today I’m going to give you a tip or two there to make it easier. They may seem obvious, but so many don’t practise it. Tidy the cables up. Especially good in small areas where it’s much nicer to have some cable foldings to put them in to minimise mess and possible outage. Also, if you’re opening the computer to do any replacement, make sure to both pull out the plug and set the switch to 0. Also use a special bracelet to ground yourself. 
   
• Finally, I’m going to leave you with a podcast or two today. First off, go and check out my Creative Suite Tips and Tricks podcast for tutorials, weekly, on the entire creative suite. Then if you are a photographer, go and check out the Image Doctors from the Nikonians Talk Radio. 

» Friday Newsreel

The beauty of weekdays is that there is always so much going on that is always as fun to share!

• Earlier in the week we saw the release of Lightroom 2 and I then also told you about some great resources to learn all the new features and also posted a review of the missing FAQ book. Now the presets are rolling in. First out here are some really cool ones from the great guy Sean McCormack over at the Lightroom Blog. He’s released a collection of more than 70 graduated filters. The collection is available for only €5.00 from his site with samples there as well!
   
• More Lightroom 2 things. I’ve just finished the recording of my walkthrough and just editing it up to post it to the Creative Suite Tips & Tricks Podcast later. I’ll also be making it available here on the blog but then you have to wait until tomorrow. Podcast subscribers get the scoop first
   
• Are you blogging? Do you want to do it from a desktop application? If so you might be interested in this article from Smashing Magazine where they review 15 Desktop Blogging Tools.
   
• If you’re coming along for the Worldwide Photo Walk on August 23rd you might want to know that there have been a lot more cities added over the days, making it a 113 total at the moment! That’s some really cool numbers. I’m going to be leading the walk in Gothenburg, Sweden (the city where I live) along with my buddy Rickard Niklasson. Our walk details have been set and posted on the site now so check it out!

I think that wraps it up for today. I’ve got the video coming up later and I’ve got cool things planned for the entire next week as well (and the weekend) so see you then!

» Wednesday Artist Interview with Will King

There was a while ago that I used to be running these artist interviews pretty often but it slowed down a bit a short while ago because it’s been hard finding people that want to be interviewed. Nominated however by a friend of mine, Elizabeth was this time around the great photographer, Will King (who by the way nominated another person you’ll perhaps see next week) who shoots some really great photography. Now, Will is one of these cool photographers that masters a lot of areas. He shoots very nice landscapes and yet he captures some truly great wildlife photos. Anyway, enough with the intro talk and let’s get right to it!

Tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a husband and a father of one boy. My daytime job is a Network Security Analyst. I’ve been an avid photographer for about three years and have been using Photoshop for about two years now. I love and respect all genres of photography. My favorite subjects to shoot are landscapes and seascapes with dramatic light.

Do you have any formal training/what is your background in art?

I have no formal training in photography or art. I study the works of others and ask a lot questions. I have read several photography and Photoshop books and of course I’m a NAPP member which has been extremely beneficial.

» Worldwide Photo Walk, Saturday August 23rd

On Saturday, August 23rd there will be a worldwide photowalk held in promotion of the upcoming Photoshop Lightroom 2 for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby. I’m going to be hosting the one in my home city of Gothenburg, Sweden. Go and check out the full deal over att Scott’s Blog and view the video below that explains it as well. I haven’t finalised the details for the walk here in Gothenburg just yet but they will be in a day or to. So if you want to join in my photo walk, check out the page here.

» Photo tip from the road

I’m in southern Sweden with my cousin and his family this weekend as I previously wrote. However I thought I should give y’all just a little on the road tip. When you are out shooting and travelling, do stock up on memory cards, even if you have your laptop with you. You don’t want to be loading all the shots over to your laptop and throw them away from the cards. You’ll want to keep them on the cards and load it over to the laptop. That way you have an extra backup copy of the shots, just in case anything should happen to, say the laptop during the travel or a HDD failure. You’ll probably not have had the time to do a backup on your photos. Don’t learn this the hard way!

» The deal about Copyright, Model Releases and Public Shooting

There are a lot of discussions going on always about what you can do and can’t do when it comes to legal issues and photography. As Ed says in the interview, photographers have a trend to ask other photographers to get a simple solution to the problems. Well, most of them aren’t true and most times don’t apply to the situations as you think. Scott Kelby however took a little different approach and asked Intellectual Property Attorney, Ed Greenberg to come on as a call-in guest on Photoshop User TV which is airing next week. Scott posted the clips of the interview yesterday on his blog however. In the interview, Ed clears up the major things about Copyright, Model Releases and Public Shooting.

• Listen to the Interview

» Soirée pacifiques

 

Soirée pacifiques
^{© Erik Bernskiold 2008}

This was taken yesterday at a beach just by the house I’m staying in here on the island of Northkoster. Really beautiful sunset at a very beautiful beach. The title "Soirée pacifiques" are French for peaceful evening.