On September 1, Canon Australia announced that it will be closing its online direct to consumer marketplace, Canon Store, for the ‘foreseeable future.’ The store will close starting on September 30.
Canon Australia has determined that current Australian market conditions and challenges demand a shift in how consumers access products, services and support. Of the decision to shutter the online store, which was launched in 2011, Canon Australia says ‘…we are proudly streamlining our efforts in supporting local retailers to drive competition in the local market and bring you the best value product offers, promotions, services and experiences possible.’
The Canon Store will stop taking product orders on September 30. For any backorders not scheduled to arrive before September 30, Canon will directly contact consumers to arrange for a refund or refer the customer to a local retailer.
Image credit: Canon Australia
Any Canon Store gift cards and vouchers can be applied to purchases and existing eligible offers until September 30. Beyond this date, customers are advised to contact Canon Australia. Promotion codes and discount offers are valid until September 30 as well. Canon Store codes will not be transferable to other retailers, so consumers with any questions about codes and offers should contact the Canon Store.
The closure of the Canon Store will not affect Canon Australia’s 5-year local warranty for mirrorless cameras, DSLR cameras, video cameras and lenses. Canon Australia’s warranty for purchases made at authorized Canon sellers will also be unaffected.
In addition to closing the Canon Store, Canon Australia will continue to organize hands-on product experiences, promotions and special events with local retailers. Canon Australia’s statement ends as follows: ‘We look forward to bringing you the best of our innovative products, services and imaging solutions in new ways and trust that you will benefit from our strengthened arrangement with local retailers.’
For Canon customers outside of Australia, it will be interesting to see if Canon Australia’s decision is an outlier or a harbinger of what’s to come for other Canon online retail presences around the world. Different regions face varying market conditions and challenges, so the impending closure of the online store in Australia may just be a one-off situation.
The post How to Catalog and Store Your Photos so You Can Find them Easier appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Bond.
Keeping track of the photos you’ve taken is a vital element of the photography workflow. In this article, you’ll learn about different ways you can catalog and store your photos. This is important because, first of all, you’ll want to be able to easily find the photos that you took several years ago. You’ll also want to review your photos periodically to see where you can improve your work. This is easier with a well-managed photo library. Let’s take a look at the options available to you then.
Keeping your photo library up to date is vital.
Will you catalog and store your photos in the cloud?
The options available to store large amounts of file data have grown in recent years. It’s a good job because the amount of memory most photographers go through has also grown. The biggest rule here is that if you only have one copy of something, you might as well have none. The day your hard drive fails means you could lose everything, so diversify and keep multiple copies. Let’s look at some of the options you could take.
Internal hard drive
The first and most convenient place to store your photos is on your computers internal hard drive. Doing this means the files are easy to reach, and you don’t need to play around with wires to plug other devices in.
The drawback here, of course, is that most internal hard drives are limited in storage capacity, even more so if you’re using a laptop. At best, keeping photos on your internal hard drive should only be for your most recent photos. Even then, you need to back them up on a separate external hard drive.
External hard drives like these are one solution.
External hard drive
The next option is to use external hard drives.
The capacity of external hard drives continues to rise, and with the introduction of solid-state hard drives, their reliability has also improved. Large external hard drives that have terabytes of storage space are the best solutions for photographers wishing to back up their work. While you can have storage from flashcards and pen drives, it’s realistically far too small to database your library.
A word of warning though, most hard drives have a shelf life. That means for each external hard drive you have, you need a separate backup external hard drive.
Cloud services
The newest version of storage is cloud storage. It’s become increasingly popular, and with good reason. Companies that provide these services need to ensure your data is protected, as a result they need to keep several copies in the event one of their storage systems goes down. Your files being kept in a remote location is also safer, especially if you use cloud storage in conjunction with an external hard drive.
Dropbox – One of the first cloud storage services, they offer a good service.
Adobe – Anyone using Adobe products can sign up and store their photos on Adobe’s servers.
iCloud – Those using apple products will be familiar with the iCloud, it works as a hub to link up all your devices.
The downside to this type of service is that there is an ongoing subscription fee if you want storage sizes capable of backing up your photography. That compares with an external hard drive that has a one time fee. You’re also reliant on a fast, reliable internet connection, something you might not find if you’re traveling somewhere that’s more remote.
Cataloging your photos by type works well, this is a cityscape.
What’s the best solution?
Burning to a DVD was once a way you’d store photo library’s, but this has now become outdated as storage size has far outstripped this method. The best solution is to diversify. Keep backup copies of your photos on separate external hard drives, and use a cloud service for that extra protection.
Which is the best software to use for your library?
Now you know what hardware you’ll use to store your photos, the next step is to decide which program you’re going to use to store them. Once again, there are several options, and here are some of them.
Catalog in folders
One option is to simply set up folders, and then subfolders on your hard drive. You can use these to store individual sets of photos. The problem is this takes a lot of work, and could quickly become disorganized if you’re not on top of it all the time.
Photos is the current storage option for apple users.
Apple Photos
Apple Photos is now the default photo storage program that comes with apple devices, be that a phone or a computer. It’s taken over from the older iPhoto, and the concept with the program is to share between devices. That means all your files will be synced to the iCloud account you have. You’ll likely need to pay the subscription fee for this functionality to be of any use.
The program comes with some basic editing functions, with the ability to catalog your photos into albums. You can further organize your work by putting these albums into folders. You can download Apple photos to use with windows as well.
Adobe Bridge and Lightroom
Adobe is the choice of many photographers, especially Adobe Lightroom.
There are actually two separate programs to create a library from. The two programs create folders on your hard drive, as opposed to Apple Photos, that has a closed-off app.
You can select the folder you’re going to use, so putting these photos on an external hard drive will work well.
Bridge and Lightroom allow you to organize your photos by folder, but you can also put them into collections. Where Lightroom differs from Bridge is that it offers an advanced photo editing suite. For many photographers, this is all they need.
As is becoming increasingly standard, there is also the option to store your photos in Adobe’s cloud service through these programs.
Adobe is the most popular service for most photographers.
Other options
There are many other options you can use to organize and store your photos. If you’re using a Mac, using Photos or Lightroom is probably the best move. If you’re using a Windows machine, Lightroom is a great option. However you could buy a different program if you wish, this article gives a list of some of the possible alternative options.
How will you subdivide your collection into folders?
The last step in organizing your photos is putting them into categories that will make them easy to find. This comes down to some basic organization. Typically, you’ll want to start with a broad way of labeling photos, and then get more specific for the subfolders you put these photos into.
The year
Every year it’s time to reset and look again at your photos. It’s also a good time to begin a new folder for that year’s photos. In doing this, you’ll prevent any folder or library from becoming too large.
A location like a national park is a good name for a folder.
The location
This is a category you can obviously narrow down further from the broad area of just the location. The following are some suggestions on how you might do just that.
Country – Every time you make a trip to a new country, this should have its own folder. In fact, you might decide to make a whole new library with the year and country as the title for this library.
City/Town/Village – The next step down from the country is the place you visit within that country. Often an urban center of some description will be the next folder you use.
National park – Visiting an area of natural beauty will be high on the landscape photographer list. These are often national parks, so this would also form a folder.
District/Market/Lake/Mountain – To further narrow down where the photo was taken, look to the district or market you visited in an urban center. Likewise, if you’re in the countryside, look for things like lakes or mountains to signify the photo’s location.
This photo could be labelled portrait, light painting, or wire wool.
The day
Now you’re getting down to the nitty gritty of how to catalog and store your photos.
How you apply this to your organizational structure will depend. If you’re visiting a country for one week you might dispense with the city or national park, and just name each day France day 1, France day 2 and so on. However, if you’re in a country for longer, you might decide to use Paris day 1, Paris day 2, Lyon day 1, and so on.
The event
Photographing at festivals and events is a great way of getting unique photos, as they’re dynamic and you’ll be constantly on the lookout for moments of capture. Events like these will typically lead you to take many photos. If the event lasts several days, you’ll likely want to catalog by day.
The photography technique
Another approach to organizing your photos is to do it by type. In this case, you might be working on a photographic project, and you’ll want to keep all the photos of a particular type together. Below are a few examples you could try.
Color – Take a series of photos that are all the same color.
Technique – Use a technique like silhouettes, light painting or Lensball photography.
Portraits – If you’re a portrait photographer, you’ll likely want to sub-genre this topic. If you’re a travel photographer, it might form its own folder.
Street – Street photography is a great topic to try out and lends well to anyone living in an urban center.
Urban – Urban photography could include things like cityscapes, architecture, or rooftop photography.
Festivals provide many photographic moments.
Favorites
Lastly, one of the best folders of photos any photographer can have is the favorites.
Each day you’ll choose your favorites from that day. However, at the end of the year or the end of a trip, it’s worth refining your selection further. To do this, go back over your favorites from each day and pick the very best images. Then use those images to create a portfolio folder for your very best work.
What’s your preferred way to catalog and store your photos?
There is a definite process you need to follow when you catalog and store your photos. This article lays out where and how to store photos so that you don’t lose control of your database of images.
There are many ways to do this, so how do you catalog and store your photos? If you use a different approach, we’d love to hear your ideas in the comments section.
Likewise, if you use any of the approaches in this article, which have you found the best? It’s always good to be organized, so organize your photos today so you can add more of them to your collection tomorrow!
The post How to Catalog and Store Your Photos so You Can Find them Easier appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Bond.
The post Don’t Lose Your Photos – How to Store Photos While Traveling appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Suzi Pratt.
Travel photography is one of the most fun and rewarding things to do while away from home. But whether you’re a hobbyist or pro, it’s important to have a solid backup plan for your photos. After all, it’s all fun and games until someone loses a memory card; or has a camera stolen; or accidentally formats a card. Catch my drift? There are countless ways to lose your images while traveling. In some cases, there’s a chance for data recovery, and in other cases, it’s pretty much hopeless. So it’s best to plan ahead for the worst case scenario with a backup plan.
Having just returned from several international trips that involved both travel photography and videography, I have a workflow that has kept my data safe. In this post, I’ll share how to store photos with my travel photography workflow.
It’s worth noting that I was traveling for a paid job that lasted three weeks, and I used four different cameras, so my workflow may seem like overkill to some.
However, consider this: there are a plethora of camera devices out there, such as drones, smartphones, mirrorless cameras, and waterproof point-and-shoots. Thus, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that some of you might also travel with multiple recording devices, even if just for a vacation.
What I bring with me
Memory cards
You can never have too many memory cards. Some photographers advocate for bringing one memory card for each day that you are traveling, but that can be tough if you’re away for more than 2 weeks. My rule of thumb, especially if I’m recording 4K video, is to bring enough cards to fill my memory card wallet. In my case, I use a Pelican 0915 case that holds a total of 12 SD cards, so I bring 12. When one card is filled, I have the label facing inwards so I know not to use it. If I can help it, I never format or delete a memory card when I’m on the road. Thus, my memory cards are one layer of data protection.
Two portable hard drives
I also bring at least two portable hard drives with me. One is a 1TB Samsung SSD hard drive, which I consider my secondary backup. It’s a bit pricey as far as hard drives go, but considering that it is a compact SSD hard drive, it is fantastic for doing photo and video editing on. I also bring a 4TB LaCie rugged hard drive. Its high capacity storage means I should never run out of space while on a trip. Also, in the case of both the SSD and rugged drives, they can take a bit of a beating, which is also important for travel. Don’t skimp on quality and bring a non-rugged hard drive with you. All it takes is a light blow to destroy them.
Laptop computer
Try as I may, I can’t find a viable travel photography workflow that doesn’t involve bringing a laptop computer, especially if I’m shooting for a client. It’s too important to be able to carefully review all of my work each night and sometimes churn out quick edits on the go. However, if you’re dealing with smaller files or simply lower volumes of media, an iPad could work for you, as long as you can connect your hard drives and memory cards.
Why multiple hard drives?
The thing about hard drives is that they will inevitably crash on you. Sometimes, it’s for an obvious reason (ie. dropping it), and other times it will happen for seemingly no reason at all. Plus, there’s also the danger of losing a hard drive or having it stolen from you. Thus, you want to have at least two hard drives, each with a copy of your photos and videos on it. When traveling, put the hard drives in different bags. That way, you’ll still have a copy if a bag goes missing.
My travel photography backup workflow
Before shooting
I almost always use multiple cameras these days including my primary Fujifilm X-T3, DJI Osmo Pocket, GoPro Hero 7 Black, and Samsung Galaxy S10. All four of these devices are capable of capturing high-resolution photos and videos, which is both a blessing and a curse. They all take the same type of memory card (SD card, or microSD with SD card adapter), so the first thing I do is label each memory card with a silver sharpie. I write my last name and a number so I can tell each memory card apart.
I also go into each camera device and make sure the date and time are accurate and synced across all devices. This is especially important if you are on a long trip and are shooting with multiple cameras. If my camera allows for it, I also customize the folder name where the media is recorded to. This helps for distinguishing what media comes from which camera at the end of the day.
After shooting
At the end of each day, I sit down with my laptop and review the day’s media from each camera. I create folders on both hard drives and name the folders based on the date of the shoot, what camera the media is coming from, and how many total items there are (ie. 30 May_Fujifilm XT3_130 Items). Folder name structure is again very important if you’re shooting with multiple cameras on multiple days. It helps you keep your media organized and easy to find.
Going over this process is helpful not only for feeling more inspired to keep shooting, but also to ensure that my gear is clean and working properly. You can only see so much detail from a camera’s LCD preview screen. I make sure that if one memory card is full, I place it label facing down in my memory card wallet so I don’t delete it.
What about cloud backups?
I know some of you will wonder about backing up your photos to a cloud service, and this is certainly a possibility. However, this is highly dependent on two things: 1) what format are you shooting in and how large your files are, and 2) how fast is your Internet upload speed? Personally, cloud backups are not reliable for me mainly because I shoot RAW photos and 4K video. Each is too large to upload to the cloud unless I happen to have ultra-fast Internet speed. However, in a perfect world (i.e., my Gigabit Internet that I have at home), I do cloud backups of my photos and videos on both Google Photos and SmugMug.
In Conclusion
The key to the best photography workflow is to have one in place and do what works for you. Mine is based on my particular needs and shooting style, but it doesn’t have to be what you choose. What’s most important is to recognize that things do go wrong and it’s incredibly easy to lose your photos or videos.
So make sure you have a backup plan in place both on the road and when at home.
What does your photography workflow look like? Let me know in the comments below!
The post Don’t Lose Your Photos – How to Store Photos While Traveling appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Suzi Pratt.
As an online store owner, you are constantly striving to design your shop in the most appealing way to your customers. And the first step to success is to make your product photos shine bright like a diamond. Why Exactly You DO Need Great Product Photos for Your Online Store People don’t buy before they see. Some of them even Continue Reading
The post 5 Attributes of a Great Product Photo for Your Online Store appeared first on Photodoto.
Starting today, Adobe Lightroom is available in the Mac App Store. This marks the first time one of Adobe’s flagship Creative Cloud apps is available within Apple’s redesigned desktop app market.
Adobe lists two in-app purchases within the Adobe Lightroom listing: a $ 9.99 monthly subscription option and a $ 118.99 annual subscription option.
A screenshot of the Adobe Lightroom app listing in the Mac App Store.
Adobe says the first week of using Lightroom, which comes with 1TB of cloud-based storage, is free. After the first week, the recurring monthly payment is automatically charged to your iTunes account. As with other macOS subscriptions, you can turn off auto-renew in your ‘Account Settings’ within 24 hours before the end of your billing period and you won’t be charged for the renewal.
Alternatively, if you already have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription that includes Lightroom, you can also log into your account after downloading Lightroom from the Mac App Store.
The $ 9.99 monthly subscription is the same price in the Mac App Store as it is on Adobe’s own website while the $ 118.99 annual subscription option is just shy of a dollar cheaper than the annual prepaid plan Adobe offers on its Creative Cloud website.1
Adobe’s decision to keep the prices the same is an interesting one considering Apple is known to take a 30% cut of in-app purchases made within its desktop and mobile app stores for the first year and 15% cut for each year after that. Even with the decrease in revenue though, it’s safe to say Adobe isn’t hurting, considering its stock is at an all-time high after a record-breaking Q2.
1 Adobe has the annual Lightroom prepaid plan listed for $ 119.88
Update (June 20, 2019): Added text to clarify that you can log into your existing Creative Cloud membership even when downloading Lightroom through the Mac App Store.
K&R Photographics, located in Crescent Springs, Kentucky, is the latest camera shop to report the theft of expensive camera equipment. According to store co-owner Rob Kumler, who spoke with Cincinnati ABC affiliate WCPO, his 70-year-old wife and shop co-owner Wilma was attacked by masked, armed men who broke into the store on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 22.
According to Kumler, Wilma was thrown to the ground roughly and suffered a broken arm as a result. ‘Tens of thousands of dollars’ in high-end camera equipment was stolen. In addition to harming Wilma and stealing the hardware, the robbers accidentally dropped and destroyed a $ 12,000 camera.
The masked thieves were reportedly armed with a gun and a hammer; they are said to have immediately moved toward the most expensive equipment in the store, indicating that at least one had likely been in the store prior to the robbery. Four security cameras were live in the store at the time of the assault and theft.
Kumler points out that due to the expensive, high-end nature of the stolen equipment, the thieves will likely struggle to find buyers who both need the gear and are willing to purchase it without asking questions about its origins. ‘High-end cameras,’ Kumler said, ‘that’s a small market.’
The store maintains a Facebook Page, but hasn’t yet posted about the robbery; it’s unclear whether police or Kumler plan to publish a list of the stolen equipment’s serial numbers. The public is encouraged to contact Villa Hills law enforcement with any information related to the violent robbery.
The Camera Store, located in Calgary, Alberta, has reported a camera theft incident that involved an attack on staff using bear (capsaicin) spray. The incident took place on May 16 at around 5PM local time, according to the company, which says the thief took off with a Sony A7R III camera and Sony 16-35mm F2.8 G Master lens.
The thief is described as a middle-aged man wearing a grey jacket, dark pants, sunglasses, and light running shoes. The Camera Store’s Evelyn Drake said in a post on the company’s blog, ‘We knew there was something ‘off’ about him since the moment he walked in, and our team was on high alert.’
As the security footage shared on YouTube shows, the man attempted to run away with the camera and the store’s employees took off after him. To evade them, the thief sprayed two of the employees with bear spray before fleeing in a black pickup truck.
‘Although it is not our policy to chase down thieves, the loyalty and bravery of the staff who risked their safety are commendable,’ Drake said.
The stolen Sony A7R III camera body has the serial number 3372445 and the stolen lens has the serial number 1803243. The Camera Store is seeking reports from anyone who finds the products for sale or who has knowledge about the theft.
As an online store owner, you are constantly striving to design your shop in the most appealing way to your customers. And the first step to success is to make your product photos shine bright like a diamond. Why Exactly You DO Need Great Product Photos for Your Online Store People don’t buy before they see. Some of them even Continue Reading
The post 5 Attributes of a Great Product Photo for Your Online Store appeared first on Photodoto.
Google has removed 29 malicious camera apps from the Google Play Store according to security company Trend Micro. Researchers identified 29 Android camera apps, many of them ‘beauty apps,’ that compromised user security, including presenting full-screen malicious advertisements when the user’s phone was unlocked and potentially keeping user images on remote servers.
Of the 29 apps, 11 were downloaded more than 100,000 times, and of those instances, three were downloaded more than 1,000,000 times. The three removed apps with the highest download numbers were Pro Camera Beauty, Cartoon Art Photo, and Emoji Camera. Other removed apps include Art Editor, Super Camera, Art Effects for Photo, Art Effect, Prizma Photo Effect, and Pixture.
According to Trend Micro, some of the apps took steps to conceal their malicious nature, as well as hiding its icon so that users would struggle to uninstall it. “A user downloading one of these apps will not immediately suspect that there is anything amiss, until they decide to delete the app,” the company explained in its report.
Though it can be difficult to determine whether an app is malicious, users are advised to review existing user reviews before downloading for any warnings from others about potential security issues.
This past week, Hunt’s Photo and Video, a small camera store located in Manchester, New Hampshire, had thousands of dollars worth of camera gear stolen from its stands and cases overnight.
Detailed in a video produced by NBC10 Boston, CCTV footage shows four thieves breaking through the front of the store with the help of an axe. Once the entrance is cleared, the thieves run inside with four containers and smash the display cases to access the gear. The thieves subsequently fill each container with thousands of dollars in camera equipment and slide them across the floor as they make their way towards the exit.
In less than a minute, the smash and grab netted the thieves more than $ 50,000 in equipment, according to Mike Mitchell, VP of Hunt’s Photo and Video. The high quality CCTV footage captured a partial identification on one of the thieves when their mask was lifted, but hasn’t led to any definitive identifications as of the publication of this video.
Four months prior to this break-in, Hunt’s experienced a nearly identical break-in wherein the thieves made off with another $ 50,000 in gear. Local authorities are working alongside Hunt’s Photo and Video to identify and capture the suspects and believe the two break-ins are related to each other.
DPReview has contacted Hunt’s for more information on what was stolen and what the serial numbers are. This article will be updated accordingly if Hunt’s responds with the information.
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