Quick Hit Monday: New Webcast Tuesday; Unlikely Fashion Shoots; Fun Videos; and More

Good Morning Everybody,

We finally landed back home about 7:30 p.m 5 hours late thanks to a cancelled flight. What a long travel day. But, like they say, there’s no place like home.  We had time to recharge over the weekend and even the weather cooperated and cooled things off just a bit here in the Midwest.

We are super busy this week, in fact I'm on the job shooting at 8:00 a.m. this morning and again tomorrow morning, too. It's actually a commercial shoot for a book publishing company. We'll be working with small children and their teachers showing how the publisher's textbooks are used in the classroom curriculum.

We are going totally portable for the shoot because of the locale. I'm also planning to shoot tethered into my laptop so the client and design team can catch a first hand peek as to how the shoot is coming together. I'll give you a further update tomorrow.

I'm pressed for time so let's get right on with today's post. Here we go...

My Peachpit Program Is Tomorrow! Prizes, Print Critiques, and More

That's right tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. EDT, that's 5:00 p.m. PDT, you can here my FREE 60 minute program entitled, "Make Your Lighting Exciting" at Peachpit's Photo Club. Here is the link right here to register. In that quick 60 minutes I plan to fly through some quick, easy lighting techniques that raises the bar on the typical wedding photography lighting being used these days. I hope to see you there.

Two Ways To Shoot Vacation Photos

I'll tell you, I had a nice "giggle" over the weekend. I was getting caught up on some of my blog reading and, as usual, headed over to visit uber blogger, Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider blog [link]. What a surprise it was to read that he had just returned from a 9 day vacation to Spain with family and famous photographer Joe McNally and Scott returned with NO photographs!

I guess what made me giggle was the fact that we also had just returned from an 8 day vacation to the New England area loaded down with nearly 2,500 images. And, I had just done a post last Friday [link] on how we handle our vacation shooting.

Hey, whatever makes the vacation work. I applaud Scott for giving his shooting time over to family and friends for the duration of the vacation. Maybe a lesson in there somewhere.

A Cool Fashion Shoot With The Unlikeliest Camera Of All

During my web surfing over the weekend, I found this pretty cool site called FStoppers.com which features lots of videos featuring behind the scenes shoots on all kinds of subjects. The one I'm going to point you to is their utterly fascinating behinds the scenes fashion shoot.

They hire the model and make up artists, setup the lights, placed the camera on a tripod and shot away. They even hire a retoucher to do the final enhancement of the images. The video is about 10 minutes long but worth every second just to see how they approach each different shoot with the model.

Oh, the camera they used - an Apple iPhone!!! Definitely worth the watch. Here is the link.

Flash Card Removal The Easy Way

Does it ever bug you as a PC user that when you need to remove your flash cards, you always have to stop the drive before you can safely remove the cards? It's always kind of a pain. Anyway, I subscribe to PC World's weekly newsletter and they had a quick shortcut on how to remove the flash cards much more quickly.

Here is the text of their instruction:

...The key to making quick removal safe is to ensure that Windows isn't writing to the card without your knowledge; if the operating system behaves itself, you can eject the card whenever you want without corrupting your data. To adjust your settings, first right-click the memory card in Windows Explorer, choose Properties, click the Hardware tab, select the memory card reader, and choose Properties; then click the Policies tab (you may have to click the ‘Change settings' button before Policies shows up), and choose Optimize for quick removal. Henceforth, you won't need Safely Remove Hardware

They had several other Windows tips and tricks right here. Enjoy PC users.

And Just To Get Your Week Off To A Fun Start

Check out these three links - there is a giggle in here somewhere.

High Flying iPhone

First, check out this high flying video [link] created by attaching an iPhone to three helium balloons and sending the iPhone aloft while attached to a kite wheel - pretty funny. Hey, there's even a capanion video showing how they put together the entire project.

Underwater 5D Mk II Video

Secondly, don't miss this video right here. It's pretty cool Canon 5D Mark II video shot underwater. Via the Imaging Insider. Aren't you glad you can shoot video with your DSLR?

Make You iPad A Second Monitor

And lastly for all you PC/iPad users - now you can use your iPad as a second wireless monitor for your PC with a new app called MAXIVISTA. Here is the link to the story and video right here.  Thanks to uber news blogger, the Imaging Insider for the story. Oh, and here is the link to the app right here. Don't say I don't point you toward some of the most scintillating links anywhere on the web ;~)

For Sale: Epson 9880 Printer

That’s right gang, since installing our Canon iPF 8100 inkjet printer, our trusty 44 inch wide carriage Epson 9880 – nearly new inkjet printer - hardly gets any use  around my studio any more.  It is about a year old in EXCELLENT condition, with “low miles” on it and comes with about $1,000 worth of ink. I’ll even thrown in a roll of paper or two.

LaDawn is handling the the sale of the printer, if you’re interested, email her at ladawn@ziser.com.  She’s looking at the first interested individual willing to pay $3,500. 

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Hey gang, that's it for me today. We are on the road bright and early. I'll let you know how the first of the shoot went tomorrow. Don't forget to join me tomorrow for another info packed Technique Tuesday.

I'll see you then, -David