A lens that causes a lot of intrigue is the Nikon 105mm f/2 DC. What does De-focus Control actually mean? Kai takes a look at Nikon’s very unique lens by shooting some of the street fashion in Mongkok, Hong Kong. Pricing reference: www.digitalrev.com
I thought today would be a good day to post a photo of New York City. I took this photo in the dead of winter while it was raining/snowing in Central Park.
Tonight’s Episode of Photo Talk Plus with my cohost Lotus Carroll will include five New Yorkers talking about photography — our special guest, New York Professional Photographer Daniel Krieger, along with our New Yorker panelists Alan Shapiro Leanne Staples Vivienne Gucwa (this is her first public hangout) and Google’s Titus Winters.
The New York G+ Photo Crew have hosted many photowalks there in NYC now and promise to give us some great tips about shooting in one of the most urban environments in the United States. Don’t miss this great episode tonight at 8PM PST right here in my G+ stream and on Keith Barrett’s Vidcast Network at http://vidcastnetwork.com at 8PM PST.
In this video by Riley Morton, photographer Chris Jordan discusses his Midway Project; a fine art photography series documenting the tragic phenomenon of the death of the local albatross population due to excessive intake of plastic from the Pacific Garbage Patch. Produced by Riley Morton Midway footage courtesy of Jan Vozenilek and Joe Schweers Music by McKenzie Stubbert
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Nikon has updated its photographer-friendly P series with the Coolpix P510 and P310. The P510 gains GPS and an extended zoom, now reaching from 24-1000mm equivalent. This 42x range is likely to be quite a challenge for its VR image stabilization system, so we’ll be interested to see how it performs. the P310 is a more subtle upgrade of the P300. Like the P510 it gains a 920k dot LCD and moves to using a 16MP back-lit CMOS sensor, with all the high-speed, multi-shot image processing modes it enables. More than any of the technology changes, we’re most interested to see the addition of a ‘Fn’ button on the front – if this can be set to control useful functions, it may improve the handling of an already pleasant-to-use camera.
Yesterday Louis Gray shared an interesting post based on a discussion kicked off by Thomas Morrfew and Thomas Tenkely. The post showed how to find out how many +1s you’ve handed out on Google+. I reshared the post here. So did my good Pal Robert Scoble here.
I thought it would be interesting to go around to the various posts and put together a list of the top 20 people who +1 on Google+. This list is wildly inaccurate in that it only includes the people who responded to these posts, but I thought it would be an interesting list of folks nonetheless.
I love +1ing on G+. It’s like handing out little pieces of candy for everything that I like. Some people have asked for a list of their +1s. Personally I hope that if Google gives us this list that they give us the option of making it public or private. I don’t like my favorites on flickr being stalked by people and would prefer to keep my +1s private.
Anyways, that’s neither here nor there, but here are the top 20 +1ers that I was able to sort of sort together based on these posts. Thanks to everyone who +1′s on Google+ and shares the love!
1. Kev Isabeth, 112,161
2. Dirk Talamasca, 98,240
3. Mark Esguerra, 61,072
4. Kerry Murphy, 56215
5. Billy Wilson, 51,602
6. Lotus Carroll, 46,196
7. Chelsea Leland, 44,823
8. Sandra Parlow, 40,541
9. Daniel Chen, 36,000
10. Louis Gray, 33,000
11. Rachel Blum, 33,000
12. Jaana Nyström, 32,239
13. Kol Tregaskes, 30,592
14. Jenn Kirkland, 25439
15. Lars Clausen, 25,251
16. Turtle Qiu, 24,270
17. Cameron Siguenza, 24,198
18. Celine Chamberlin, 23,184
19. Brian Kemper, 20,650
20. Mihailo Radi?evi?, 20.000
You can find out how many +1′s you’ve handed out by going and checking here. Lots of other interesting Google analytical information here too. I’ve done 45,802! Whew!
www.1stoptutorials.com – Hey everyone in this tutorial and the next we are going to be looking in to some techniques in darkening the edges of eyes. We need to make sure we dont go to crazy with this otherwise it will not look real. When doing things like this we dont have to be too concerned in making a mistake as we can use a mask and also lower down the opacity to make it not look so strong. Let me know how you get on. Thanks everyone
Video Rating: 4 / 5
www.essential-photoshop-elements.com With Photoshop Elements it only takes a few quick steps to achieve the Grunge Effect
Video Rating: 5 / 5
Twitter was a buzz yesterday with tweets from current and former Flickr staffers regarding a round of layoffs that took place at the popular photo sharing site yesterday. One of the most upset seemed to be former Flickr engineer Nolan Caudill who wrote a scathing post calling Yahoo/Flickr out over the firings.
“Flickr lost several good people today. If you had me name the top 10 Flickr employees that loved the site the most, half of them got handed pink slips today,” wrote Caudill. “Yahoo made a major mistake today and there’s no other way to interpret it. I’m mad and this is my soapbox.”
Equally troubling, Caudill seems to indicate that the layoffs were merely a symptom of a larger problem of Yahoo suits being out of touch with what is one of their most beloved properties by users. “Flickr-the-site will be fine but Flickr-the-culture took a huge hit today and those suits in Sunnyvale balancing some column or doing their thousandth “re-org” are completely to blame. I bet they don’t even know what they’ve done and that’s probably the worst part of the whole thing,” Caudill continued.
It’s interesting that layoffs at Flickr would be one of the first moves made by Yahoo’s new CEO Scott Thompson. I wrote an open letter to Thompson shortly after his appointment as CEO suggesting that Flickr represented one of Yahoo’s best chances for success with social. Flickr has been losing unique visitors (according to compete.com) over the past 6 months as competitors like Google+, Smugmug, Instagram, 500px and even Facebook continue to pull some of the best users away from the site — by the way, facebook is currently in the process of redesigning their photos page (it looks an awful lot like they are copying Google Photos here) and employees have been reaching out to popular photographers, promoting them on their new suggested user list, etc.
After flubbing a new product release (some sort of unusual chat with other users while you doodle on photos thing) that Flickr killed four months after launch, you have to wonder if laying off what are perceived as some of their best Flickr employees really makes the most sense as Flickr Chief Markus Spiering tries to push forward with the promised innovation that he blogged about earlier this month. On the other hand, sometimes in order to effect significant change you need to clear house. Sometimes a culture needs to be broken before it can be rebuilt and maybe this is partly what this is about as well. Perhaps this is more of a rebuilding to allow Flickr to clear the deck so to speak to build something better and stronger.
Still, if Flickr is planning on coming up with something better, it had better move quickly. It seems like post after post on Google+ these days are about how much users LOVE Google+ for photos/community and how many photographers are not renewing their paid Flickr Pro subscriptions due to a superior community culture at Google.
It is telling to me that newly appointed CEO Scott Thompson still does not appear to have even bothered to set up a Flickr account. By not having a Flickr account Thompson is publicly showing how little regard he has for the popular Yahoo property. It takes 2 minutes to tell an administrative assistant to set up a PR oriented public account and post a few old vacation photos on it.
That Thompson can not even be bothered to do that much makes me wonder not only what sort of message this sends to the day to day employees working on Flickr, but if Caudill might just in fact be right about the suits down in Sunnyvale having no possible clue about what they even have with Flickr. Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz never could be bothered to set up a Flickr account either.
By contrast, Google cofounder Sergey Brin is not only sharing his photos on Google+, he even showed up for a hangout that I was on with popular photographer Trey Ratcliff last week to personally talk live about some of his photos and his favorite photos by others. I’m surprised that a billionaire founder of one of the most successful tech companies of all time seems to have to the time to publicly support the photo sharing aspects of his product while the new CEO of Yahoo can’t be bothered.
Update: More comments here.
Ex-Yahoo Jaisen Mathai writes an open letter to flickrenos laid off asking them to consider working on his Open Photo project.
Update #2: BetaBeat’s coverage. Thread on Flickr Central. Graphic made by Flickr employee identifying some of those laid off. Andy Baio suggests Flickr management was blindsided by these layoffs.
Some cool visual art images:
Toegepast 15: The Meeting
Image by Z33 art centre, Hasselt
Jon Stam – Cabinet
photo: Kristof Vrancken / Z33
Knaresborough wall art
Image by jseft
This wall art is located near the station in Knaresborough. They were put there as part of Knaresborough’s annual festival of entertainment (FEVA) and visual arts one year and have been a feature of the town ever since.
Toegepast 15: The Meeting
Image by Z33 art centre, Hasselt
Jon Stam – Cabinet
photo: Kristof Vrancken / Z33
Part one: www.youtube.com In the news: MTA warned: Let photographers shoot www.baltimoresun.com MTA administrator disavows curbs on photography www.baltimoresun.com MTA promises to stop violating civil liberties — again www.baltimoresun.com ———————————————————————– This incident occurred at the Cultural Center station in Baltimore, Maryland on March 21, 2011. I was visiting from Oregon, and as part of my career interests, I explored the transit systems of Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. In each and every one of those cities, except for Baltimore, I had no problems photographing these amazing systems. This incident in Baltimore started with me enroute from the B&O Railroad Museum to Penn Station. I had boarded a light-rail train at the Convention Center, but realized that I needed to be on a “Penn Station” bound train, so I stepped off at Cultural Center Station in order to board the correct train. While waiting for my train, I snapped a photo or two of passing trains, and was immediately inundated with police officers confronting me about my photography. I also had a video camera on hand, so this entire incident, except for the last bit at Penn Station, was recorded. MTA Police finally gave back my farecard and ordered me to “cease and desist,” but continued to surround and bother me until I boarded the next Penn Station train. They followed me to Penn Station and got Amtrak Police involved …
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Flickr mucked around with the pricing on their Pro accounts today. The one year option stays the same price at $ 24.95. They reduced the 2 year option by $ 1.50 per year from $ 47.95 to $ 44.95 and they raised the price of a year of Pro $ 2.85 per year for those wanting to pay quarterly to $ 6.95 per quarter ($ 27.80 per year).
They also announced said that going forward your account would be set up on auto-renewal.
I did think the blog post on the pricing change was a little misleading where it says “We’re also dropping the price of a 2 year subscription to $ 44.95 (a savings of $ 10.95 off the 3 months at a time price).” This makes it sound like Flickr reduced their 2 year account by $ 11 when in fact they really reduced it by $ 3 from their previous pricing but now compare it with the more expensive quarterly payment option — but I guess that’s marketingspeak for you.
As far as the cost of a Pro account, it is still a screaming good deal for a photographer like me. Where else could I store 67,000+ full high res photos online for $ 22.48/year (I do the 2 year option)? Plus I’m participating in the Flickr/Getty stock photography deal that paid me over $ 500 last month so really it’s like Flickr is paying me, not like I’m paying them.
For many photographers though I think Flickr Pro is looking like a worse and worse deal. Google+ will host an unlimited number of photos for you for free now. Flickr’s free account only will let you access your 200 most recent photos and even worse if you don’t reup for a Pro account they hold the rest of your photos hostage on their site until you do renew.
I don’t think today’s pricing really is much of an announcement at all — and I think you’ll continue to see causal photographers letting their Pro accounts at Flickr lapse while they move to other cheaper alternatives like Google+. I also think that the higher end of the photography market is also increasingly moving away to sites like Smugmug (disclosure, they are a sponsor for our Photo Talk Plus show) which are more geared as high end galleries to actually sell your photos. Flickr doesn’t allow you to sell your photos on the site yourself.
Are you on Flickr? And if so will you renew your Pro account when it comes due? And if you do what option would you choose as far as paying for it?