Best Projector Ever; Time Lapse Inspiration, and Top 10 Lists Galore!

Good Morning Everyone,

I hope your Super Bowl team won yesterday and if they didn't I hope your buddies weren't too rough on you after the game.  You know, it doesn't matter if your a football fan or not, sometimes it's just fun to get together with family and friends.

I've never been a big football fan, but LaDawn has been her entire life - here Dad was a high school football coach and her kids were lettering athletes in high school and college.  She grew up on the game. She is nearly 100% percent right on any close call - when the refs go under the hood to review a close play, I swear, they're calling LaDawn to ask how she saw it - she is ALWAYS right!  Anyway, a good time was had by a few friends at the Ziser Super Bowl Party!

Best Data/Home Entertainment Projector I Ever Bought

OK, so the packages begin arriving from Amazon around Wednesday and my wife, LaDawn begins to wonder, "What's up?". Well, for our Super Bowl party we hosted yesterday, I wanted to have it in the larger studio portion of our home.  The problem was that there was never a TV or cable in that room.  I had always had a data projector for client viewing of their images which I covered in a post a few years ago giving our DPT readers a tour of my studio [link].

What I needed was a digital TV tuner that I could hook up to my data projector.  You see where this is going - super BIG deal, not really, Super Bowl BIG viewing of the game, a REALLY BIG deal.  My Kworld External Digital TV Tuner Box [link] arrived along with Terk HDTVa Indoor Amplified High-Definition Antenna [link] I needed to pick up the FREE digital broadcasts from the local TV stations.

We hooked both the tuner and antenna up as shown in the manuals and in about 30 minutes, we scanned for the local stations - the KWorld tuner box/Turk combo came up with 42 stations. And yes, I was amazed how much FREE content was available in the Greater Cincinnati viewing area. 

Next we hooked things up to the old Dell data projector and in short order were watching TV in big, bold living color on the 10 foot drop down screen on which I show my client their images.

The problem that now I had three devices, a TV tuner, a Internet ready DVD player, and my studio computer all wanting to use that projector at one time or another.  It was a real inconvenience to keep swapping cables every time I wanted to use a different device.  There had to be a better choice.

The Dell XGA data projector I had been using for over four years had done a decent job.  The 1024x768 resolution made the images look pretty sharp on the screen and the projector was plenty bright 4 years ago - projector bulbs don't burn out, they slowly fade away.  Still with the 1920x1080 resolution sources I was feeding into the Dell projector, the image quality was severely compromised. 

I decided to do something about it later that day.  After some quick research on the web, the very reasonably priced Benq W1000+ presented itself as an option - under a $1,000 and 2000 lumens of 1920x1080 hi-def wonderfulness [link].  I ordered one from Amazon and was due to receive it on Friday.  

Not only was it a hi-res projector, but it also had two HDMI inputs - that would take care of the digital TV tuner and the Blu-Ray DVD player.  It also had a separate VGA input for my studio computer and several other inputs as well.

It arrived mid afternoon on Friday and I had it hooked up in about an hour to all three devices.  The image was gorgeous!!!  What a difference the 1920x1080 resolution makes!  My client images looked sparkling projected on  the 10 foot screen out of Lightroom.  Casino Royale was amazing in it's Blu-Ray glory, and digital TV was equally amazing to view.  Now with the simple press of a button on the controller, I was good to go to present images to my clients, watch a DVD or Netflix on the DVD player, and even tune in the Super Bowl yesterday. Our party guests had the best time relaxing in the comfort of my studio watching the Super Bowl activities 10 feet large!!  Life is SOOOOO good.     

More Monday Morning Inspiration

During my weekend surf sessions, I found some super cool time laspe videos - that are amazing.  The first is entitled, "The PaOule Blue Dot" by Michael Marantz right here is an inspiring time lapse film with the late Carl Sagan reading that poem during the visually stimulating imagery.

The second is even more amazing!  It by Tom Lowes and it's entitled "Rapture".  I found it over at Vincent LaForet's blog and it is an astounding piece of work.  Tom has apparently been working on the "Rapture Project” for nearly a year and this is just a peak of what he is putting together.  Hit the PLAY button below and prepare to be blown away!

TimeScapes: Rapture from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.

 Like Those Top 10 Lists So Many Folks Put Together At The End Of The Year?

I also provide a glimpse at my Top 10 selections.  Fellow blogging buddy, Jim Goldstein, of JMG Galleries has put together a fine collection of 10 of the Top 10 photo blog listing for 2010.  His list includes things like the top ten Hubble space images, the top 100 sports images, top ten Vimeo videos, etc.  Here is the link right here.  A very worth while collection for your Monday morning dose of inspiration.

Also, Photoshelter.com [link] has a great set of top ten lists available. Their lists cover everything from Photo Marketing, Photo Gear, Photo Technique, Photo Inspiration, and more.  It's another worthwhile link to bookmark.  Here is that link right here.

_______________________________________________________

Hey gang, that's it for me today.  Have a great Monday today and a fine beginning to this week.  I hope I got you off to a good start today. I'll plan to see you for another Technique Tuesday tomorrow.

See you then,  David

A Fascinating View Of the World With Time Lapse Photography

Sometimes things just strike me as really fascinating to watch - Time Lapse photography is one of these things. Maybe it goes back to my days watching the Disney nature specials watching the flowers open up at the beginning of the day. Or, maybe watching the PBS series "The Planet Earth" that keeps me intrigued.

Anyway, here are two of my favorites - I hope you enjoy them too. By the way, scroll down for a few more YouTube links with some very cool time lapse videos you can watch over the weekend. Exotic Places--



Mount Tamalpais--


More cool time lapse videos--
Golden Gate Bridge - very cool.
Vienna, Austria - just beautiful.
A Year On Arctic Ice - mesmerizing.
Being Pregnant - really intriguing.

So are you hooked and now want to give it a try yourself? Check out these video tutorials on just how these amazing videos are created. Here is the first video right here and here is the second right here. Enjoy.

Hey gang, we are heading out the door in just minutes, so I'll visit with everyone from Mexico next week. Adios, --David

Frozen In New York

On a cold Saturday in New York City, the world’s largest train station came to a sudden halt. Over 200 Improv Everywhere Agents froze in place at the exact same second for five minutes in the Main Concourse of Grand Central Station. This is a fascinating video to watch. Take a short break and enjoy the video below. Very Strange!!!

Want to see one more video where 200 actors don't freeze, but go into slow motion, head over to Improv Everywhere right here for the story and video. By the way, they have a few more "giggle" links over there, so when you've got a few minutes to waste, give them a peek. It's definitely something to do when productivity isn't the expectation for the day, but still fun and Very Weird!!!

Compressing Time From Months Into Minutes

Too many images , too little time - here is about the best information on time lapse photography I have found. It was posted over at Photojojo.com right here and is really worth a peek. Everything is covered from the shoot, the edit, and making the final movie. The links at the end of the article are worth a look too. Hey, gang, enjoy this one.

Monday Morning Wake Up Call

Good Morning World,

Boy, that's kind of how I feel this morning. I just checked the stats on the site and - drum roll please - Digital ProTalk is being read in 69 countries (or territories) in 35 languages around the world!

Canon and Nikon Follow-up:
This is going to be less of a "News" day and more of an "Info" day. The dust has yet to settle on all Canon's and Nikon's news last week. If you've been on safari in Kenya, hiking the outback in Australia, or stranded on a remote desert island all last week, you can check out all the news over at dpreview or Rob Galbraith sites. Both sites have posted follow up stories and images to the announcements.

Adobe Lightroom Tip:
I'm kind of new to Adobe's Lightroom (intro and feature set here) but I am always looking for good info on how to get the most out of it. We are currently investigating how to best incorporate it into my wedding/portrait business. More to follow here in future posts. But in the mean time, here is a nice little video tutorial on how to get the best black and white conversions out of Lightroom using the Auto-Adjust Grayscale button in conjunction with the White Balance sliders. The video takes a few minutes to download, but worth the wait. Click here for video link.

Developing Greatness: The Origins of American Photography:
If you are a photographer and live close to Kansas City - like within 250 miles, then head over to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and check out this exhibit running from June 9 through December 30. Here is an excerpt... "A groundbreaking exploration of the first generation of American photography. The exhibition presents classic works from this pivotal era, as well as many newly discovered images that have never before been exhibited or published. " The exhibit is featuring Daguerreotypes and paper prints. Here is the link to the Museum's site. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and click on their links to get a sampling of the images - fascinating!

So What's a Pixel Look Like?
That has been a burning question in my mind ever since I went "digital" in 2000. Well, you can say you saw it here first - unless you saw it somewhere else first. Click here and behold a Pixel. My life is now complete.

News Alert - Keywording Scam:
I receive the Professional Photographers of America's e-newsletter and caught a very interesting article in it. They were discussing a new scam on how some studios are using "keywording" to drive google searches to the sites. Some photographers will add a competitor’s studio name to their own website in order to appear when a search is done for that competitor. This way it is possible that a competitor will also appear on a list of search results even if your studio name was the one searched. Just a "heads up. You can sign up for the PPA e-newsletter here.

Pretty Cool Video:
I have always been fascinated by "time-lapse" photography - you know, one picture taken every minute or so. Maybe it goes back to those good old days watching Walt Disney World on TV when I was a kid. Every now and then, they would show the flowers opening , the sun setting, etc. Anyway, I just came across the "time-lapse" video where the photographer made it with his Canon 20D camera. Check out the separate post following this one to view the video - pretty cool.

That's about it for today - have a great Monday. --David