Photo.net Newsletter: October 16, 2009

Hi %%First Name%%,

Here at Photo.net, we’re gearing up for the fall season’s big photo expo, PhotoPlus Expo at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center in NYC. We’ll be documenting some of the show’s happenings on our Photo.net Blog, Facebook Page, and Twitter Feed, so keep an eye out for news and announcements there. And if you’re not already a “Photo.net fan” on facebook, add us! Our goal is equate our FB fans (currently at 2,477) with the number of registered members on Photo.net (currently at 768,550+) by the year 2012, or sooner.

We’re also preparing our annual Photo.net Holiday Gift Guide. If you have favorite cameras, lenses, software, books, lighting equipment, etc. that you’d like to be considered for the Gift Guide, please add your Holiday Gift Guide suggestions here.

This month’s editorial newsletter highlights a new series on multimedia photography applications, marketing travel photography, basic photography knowledge, creative photography tips and advice, and equipment previews and reviews. We also feature products from Adorama, community discussions, the POW, and a new Editors’ Picks: Fall Colors Photography, in honor of the season.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, please send them to us directly at contact@photo.net. Enjoy the newsletter!

Sincerely,

Hannah Thiem

Photo.net Managing Editor

Editorial Highlights

This month, we’re showcasing the start of a new multimedia series by Jay Kinghorn; the penultimate creativity column by Harold Davis; a continuation of the Missing Pages column by Jon Sienkiewicz; a building-your-travel-photography-portfolio by Lou Jones; a full-length hands-on review of the Olympus E-30 by Theano Nikitas, and a preview of the full-frame Nikon D3S.

Multimedia Photography Series: Intro to Multimedia

This marks the start a very thorough series of articles on the multimedia applications for photography. In the first article, Intro to Multimedia, Jay Kinghorn covers essential multimedia publishing (best practices for posting images on the Web, emailing photos to friends, and posting photos to your blog or Twitter account), surveys the multimedia landscape including publishing options currently available to photographers, and a how-to tutorial on using Photoshop’s Save For Web feature.

Read the Intro to Multimedia.

Becoming a More Creative Photographer Column: Setting Limits

Harold Davis’ sixth and penultimate Becoming a More Creative Photographer column, is all about helping us explore the creative side of photography. This installment is on Setting Limits and confronts the horror of the “blank page”. When you can write anything, paint anything, photograph anything, why is a particular subject worthwhile? And, where do you start? Harold guides us on how to set appropriate limits so we’re not paralyzed by the vastness of the array of possibilities of photographic creativity.

Take a look at Installment VI: Setting Limits.

Missing Pages Column: Megapixels

Jon Sienkiewicz contributes the 7th installment of his Missing Pages: Tips for using your camera creatively column. Learn what megapixels are all about: citing megapixels is a popular shorthand way to express the resolution of a digital camera in terms of how many millions of individual pixels (picture elements) are present in the image at time of capture. This installment offers an assignment to explore the resolution and compression ratios on your camera.

Check out Installment VII: Megapixels.

Marketing Travel Photography: Portfolio and Identity

Selling your photography is abstract. In the past two articles from Lou Jones, we looked at the principles and philosophy of marketing travel photography. But marketing is never the same for everyone. It is not cookie cutter. One size does NOT fit all. Any serious application must be customized. What works for one career may not work for another. This article seeks to deal with more practical aspects of marketing—your portfolio and your identity. Ultimately you have to put all that theory to work. We will deal with some of the decisions you need to make.

Check out Marketing Travel Photography: Portfolio and Identity.

Nikon D3S Preview

Presenting…the D3S, Nikon’s first FX-sensor DSLR with HD movie mode. This camera is an upgrade to the D3, announced two years ago. Many of the features are the same, with some improvements. Nikon has improved the 12MP CMOS FX sensor for the new D3S so that its rated ISO is extended by another stop to 12800 with additional Hi 1, 2, and 3 ratings all the way to a whopping ISO 102,400 equivalent!

Read the Nikon D3S Preview.

Olympus E-30 Review

Introducing a new writer on Photo.net, Theano Nikitas. She’s a full-time freelance writer and photographer and has been writing about photography for the past 15 years. Theano takes the Olympus E-30 for a test-drive and shares the ins and outs of the camera with us. The 12MP Olympus E-30 is a prosumer digital SLR (DSLR) that fills the gap in Olympus’ DSLR line between the flagship “pro” E-3 and the entry level E-620. As a prosumer level camera, the Olympus E-30 has more in common with the E-3 than the E-620 but shares some features with both models.

Read the Olympus E-30 Review.

Photo.net Community Discussions

Do you have a Workstation Wishlist?

Last month in the editorial newsletter, we discussed workstation wishlists. What’s on your wishlist for your workstation? You never know when dreams may come true…and the holidays are around the corner. The original forum thread is here. There were some really great responses, many that gave me ideas about my own workstation and setup. The problem is, my list is now even longer than before!. Feel free to add your additional wishlist desires to the forum thread.

Some of my favorites:

Lior Kravitz:

Hardware: I’d like to see some sort of WiDi (Wireless Display) standard up and running quickly, so I could just bring my laptop home and not have to find the darned cable to connect it to the “real” display. However being in this business (Wireless communications) I know this is going to take much too long for people like us till it hits the market. I would also like the option of having an integrated CF reader in my laptop, hopefully one with really high speeds (PCIe should smack even 800MHz FireWire). But again, we’re not an important segment so this option isn’t even on the radar of most laptop manufacturers.

Software: I’d like a simple photo browser/sorter with really strong tagging capabilities. Keyboard shortcuts for tagging and un-tagging photos (and multiple selections, at that), searching by multiple tags, creating tags from EXIF data etc. Right now I’m resorting to folders, which is a hassle and gobbles up disk space like crazy. Another nice thing would be a third-party photo editing or media management suite that can make sense of Nikon’s convoluted implementation of EXIF metadata, and translate it automatically so the rest of the world could read it as well.

Andrew Macpherson:

I want a printer driver that will just queue the image at the size I have configured, without demanding that I create a custom page size. I then want a roll paper layout tool that will allow me to position cut lines where I want them, possibly multiple cut lines in a job. Finally I want an easy configuration of colour profiles papers other than the printer manufacturer’s own manufacture

Patrick Lavoie:

Any Mac Pro that are at the Apple Store now with 8 or more gig of ram, RAID disk setup, snow leopard as my OS, mid range video card, 2 NEC 26inch monitor, batterie backup, Wacom Intuos 4 6×8 graphic tablet and a Klipsch sound system..oh wait! It’s my station currently…so happy ; )

Don’t dream it, get it now, while you can and can afford it for your ACTUAL NEED…not just to impress friends…and still have to pay it in 48 months. If you can’t pay it under 18 months the system is too big for you or you don’t make enough money out of it to justify getting it. Get an Imac 24 inch, 6gig of ram and live more than happy.

replace Mac with PC anywhere you see a Mac word, for those who like windows

Want to join in the discussion? Add your creative tips to Where to find new inspiration with photography… forum thread.

Special Deals from Adorama

Tiffen 77mm Photo Essentials Filter Kit—Tiffen’s Photo Essentals Kit packages the minimum necessary filters for your creative photography.

• Ultra Violet lens for UV filtration and lens protcetion.
• Circular Polarizer for increased contrast and color saturation. Polarizer also eliminates glare from highly reflective surfaces such as water and glass.
• Tiffen’s exclusive 812 Warming filter for improve skintone, and to restore color warmth on overcast days.
• pouch

Buy now from Adorama: Tiffen 77mm Photo Essentials Filter Kit [$55.20 + free shipping, regular price $99.90]

Other deals from Adorama:

• Nikon D3000 [sale price: $546.95 (includes instant $50 rebate), regular price: $599.95]
• Kodak Ektachrome EPY 6118 64T Tungsten Color Slide Film ISO 64, 4×5in, 50 Sheets [sale price: $114.95, regular price: $139.95]

Find great deals on thousands of other products at the Photo.net Adorama Store.

What’s Happening In Our Forums

• Portraits and Fashion (20 Responses) Photoshop Extreme

I wonder if ads will start to use Photoshop to put pounds on plus size models. If they do, will there be such a controversy? I dare say there are more obese girls then there are anorexic girls. Should we criticize companies that use plus size models? Are they promoting obesity? You really can’t win. There will always be someone against anything and everything. Read More...

• Wedding and social event photography (33 Responses) Be Careful
• Canon EOS (81 Responses) full frame digital or 4x5 photography
• Nikon (195 Responses) Nikon WedNEsDAy PiC #42
• Video (4 Responses) Basic Lighting Kit for interviews

Go To Photo.net Forums. »

Editors’ Picks

Take a look at a new selection of Editors’ Picks: Fall Colors Photography.

Samples:

Also, take a look at what the Editors found worthy of selecting in previous months:

Fashion Photography

Rangefinder Photography

Insect Photography

Textural Photography