Wednesday News and Tips

Great Shoot Yesterday
This image was from a "Senior Session" I photographed yesterday. The heat settled down here in Cincinnati, so the weather perfect for the shoot although I was wishing for a bit more shade. I used a Canon 30D fitted with a 70-200mm F2.8 IS lens. I made the expose at F4 to reduce depth of field to throw the background way out of focus. Shutter speed was set to 1/320sec. (I know native sync speed is 1/250 sec.) See the technique explained in my past newsletter #11 - here. All this at ISO 100. Off camera flash - Quantum T5d -was fired with my Quantum Freewire radio control. The flash supplied the main exposure giving me my much loved "loop light" pattern on the subject, and the ambient supplied the fill. Check out this link for a great explanation of "Loop Lighting."

By the way, if you want to sign up for our monthly newsletter - just click here.

Back to the Future
Anyone still remember the old Polaroid cameras (I sure do, I just had a birthday yesterday) - you know, the picture in a minute. Well, here is a new twist on an old idea. It seems a company - Zink Zero Ink- click here for info, is introducing a camera that will do just that later this year. As the photo world turns - always something interesting.

Changing Hair Color
I just found this short 5 minute tutorial on how to change hair color. The tutorial style is a bit different - no spoken words, just text, music, and mousing - but worth a peek. I did have the music set fairly low though. Click here to watch the video.

Another Freebie
I just ran across this new freebie and downloaded it - remember, you have to download and install today for the software to be no charge. Software to recover data from scratched discs seemed to be a useful utility, so I thought it was worth a look. Click here for the link.

That's it for today. Check out Suzette Allen's "Cloud Brushes" demo too and don't forget to check out the news items on the right.

Have a great one. --David

Suzette' Allen's Cloud Brush Demo

Suzette and I have been friends for a number of years. In addition to being a great photographer, she is also an extremely talented Photoshop instructor. While reading one of Will Crocket's SmartShooter newsletters - very informative, by the way - her "Cloud Brush" tutorial was featured. The "Cloud" brushes are very clever and lend a nice look to a cloudless sky, but her tutorial also has some good insights into how to use "Channels" and creative, quick "Masking" as well. For more info on Suzette's educational materials and seminars click here.

Enjoy the video. --David

Image of the Day

Effel Tower

David A. Ziser Photography

Tuesday's Notes

Readers have really liked the video tutorials I have been including the the monthly newsletters. I just stated using Viddler to host the videos. The reason I like Viddler is that they are the only site I know of that, in addition to all the other file formats, lets me upload much smaller Flash - FLV files, and up to 500megs! This makes for quick uploads that are great quality. They also make it very easy to post to a blog - the bottom line - look for some of the tutorials to start popping up here real soon.

Here is a site that I check now and then. It's SLRGear.com. They do some informative lens reviews from all the manufacturers. You might want to check it out before your next purchase.

Scott Kelby and Terry White both have nice blogs - take a peek. They are both very big on the new iPhone too - in fact, they wrote the book on it. Anyway, Scott had a funny link to a video showing a customer getting their first AT&T bill - worth a giggle. Click here so watch the video.

Don't forget to check out the ever changing news stories on the right side of this page too. That's it for now - Have a good one. --David

Image of the Day

The Lourve - Paris

David A. Ziser Photography

Ready to Go - Monday Mornings Musings

LaDawn and I just returned from France on Friday, got de-jet lagged, and are ready to go hoping to make this one of your favorite sites to visit. Check out the images from our trip - there is slide show associated with most of the posts, so give the page a minute or two to load. - Enjoy!

First a little news. A lot of people have been wondering when Canon might be releasing the new "Canon 40D". Check out Bob Atkins site for some tantalizing info on Canon's new baby. A quick "Google" search will hook you up with some more info.

I always talk about "The Difference Making the Difference" in your photography. But this may be going a bit far. Wedding Photographer, Mike Larson, literally throws his camera in the air with shutter button depressed to come out with some fascinating images. Check out the video here to see what I'm talking about. I think the comments following the video are interesting too. For me, I still like my "Pole Cam."

I just saw a report that digital camera sales are up 27%, but here is the real kicker - digital SLR's are up 75% over last year. You can get the whole story here at DPreview. How about this - National Geographic as just published a book entitled - The Camera Phone Book - How to Shoot Like a Pro. Anyway, just a little food for thought. It just means we have to continue to innovate our style, educate our clients, and excel at our photography - yep, it's still "The Difference That Makes the Difference."

And now something for free. If you have the new iPhone - I don't by the way - this nifty little program may be just for you. It's called iPhone Slideshow and you can get it free today only by clicking here.

That's it for now, see you soon. -David

Travels in France

I mentioned in our last newsletter that LaDawn and I will be travelling throughout France till August 12. If you would like to follow the journey over the 8 days - and the photography - just head over to our travel blog - Dave and LaDawn on the Road - Enjoy!

Digital ProTalk Blog to Kick off

This is the start of a new blog entitled “Digital ProTalk” that will incorporate “All the photo news that’s fit to print.” (Where have I heard that before?) Well, maybe not all the news, but news, ideas, techniques, etc. Topics will include Photography, Photoshop, Lightroom, and anything else I think might be of interest to our readers.

You can check it out right now. I’ve posted a few interesting articles in RED on the right hand side of the site – take a peek. These will change a few times a week so check back often. I want it to be a great – need I say “geek surf spot” for anyone in this wonderful profession of ours. It will be a work in process, so give me your feedback on it.

A Stepping Stone to Stardom – Marketing-Sales

How many of us get phone calls asking us to participate in a fundraiser or similar charity event. It goes something like this – “Hi, I’m with ‘Best Charity Events’ and we would like you to participate by doing the photography for us at cost – we will give you a free ad in the program guide – can we count you in?”

Now I know all the calls are being made by well meaning volunteers for very deserving causes. Many of us jump on the chance to cover the event and settle for the ad.

How can we get more mileage out of our efforts? Well, first of all, offer to do it at no cost to the organization. Yes, take your complimentary ad in the program, but here is the key point. Ask for a level of sponsorship consistent with the product and services you will be performing for the organization. For instance, if you will making several hundred images of the event and special images of the board of directors, creating an album for their archives, providing them with a CD of the high-res images for unlimited use, etc. – the value of your services ads up quite quickly. These services may be in the “thousands of dollars” category, which should trade quite nicely for a significant sponsorship level.

Once you have negotiated a fair sponsorship level for your business involvement, be sure that your company name appears wherever they list the sponsors – newsprint, radio, TV, program guide, etc. Now you have some real “bragging rights” to include in your studio promotions. It’s a “win-win” situation – great PR for you because of your community involvement and great photography for your charity client. Good Luck!

Fall Workshop filling Fast!

We are almost 2/3’s booked for the Fall Digital Master Class, and we are more than two months out! We try to keep these classes to 20 - 25 participants so everyone has a chance to be involved. So, if you are considering coming, please give Susan a call at 800-292-2994 to register. You can get all the info at www.davidziser.com

Web Site of the Month

OK – here is a really good one. I was cruising the net the other day - using Google Reader, of course - and came across one of the more fascinating web sites I had ever seen – KITE PHOTOGRAPHY! Craig Wilson is the photographer and kite flyer.

Yep, he somehow attaches a camera to a kite and sends it soaring. His images are outstanding. He even has a book available – I’ve ordered mine already. Check it out at www.fromakite.com – you will get a “kick” out of it.

And You Were Worried Before !

80% of Americans will own digital phones by 2008. 903 million camera phones will be shipped by 2010. Now it gets really interesting. Gone are the days when mobile phone cameras had poor VGA quality of less than 1 megapixel. Today's camera phones average 2 megapixels, while the top-notch models from Nokia and Sony Ericsson now offer 5 megapixels and also come with an array of camera-specific features such as auto-focus, red-eye reduction, and xenon flashes.
So becoming a photographer is now even less of a big deal.

And the megapixel trend will rise further as cameras with 8 megapixels will be out soon. NEC plans to launch a camera phone chip in October and hopes to change things drastically. Top end camera phones will be equipped with 8-megapixel resolution in 2008, with mid-range phones ramping up to 5 megapixels and low-end phones at with 3.2 megapixels. I’m really not trying to put up a “big scare” but too many photogs out there are complaining about the downturn in business, and in many parts of the country, it’s true. That’s why it behooves us to constantly re-invent our products and ourselves so we stand out from the crowd.

Easy Terabyte Network Attached Storage

I came across an article in PC magazine a while back talking about this new company –Hammer Storage. John Dvorak, the columnist, was mentioning what a great piece of backup hardware they made called ‘myshare”. “Myshare” is a network attached storage (NAS) device in the very reasonable $429 range.

NAS is very convenient when you have a number of workstations needing access to the same data – like image files. I thought I would give it a try and, so far have been quite happy with the results. It was fairly easy to set up – about 15 minutes – and when I ran into one “hitch” the company’s tech support was quick to pick up the phone and resolve the issue. That was a pleasant experience in this digital day and age.

We have it plugged into our gigabyte switch and can easily access our data quickly over the network. I set up the drive as a stand- alone 1 terabyte drive. The device can also be set up as RAID 0 (Stripe), 1 (Mirror), JBOD (Span) configurations.

I chose not to set the drive up as a "RAID" device with the data redundancy built in, but when it is coupled with another "myshare" drive for backup, it becomes a pretty reasonable solution for data integrity. I'll talk about some back-up solutions in an upcoming newsletter.

Rocky Mountain High - Photoshop Tutorial

How many times have you been in a situation when taking wedding and/or family portraits where the location, lighting, exposure, and background "wrestled" with each other in trying to get a good final print? Getting the right exposure on the subject would lead to not enough exposure on the background or some other areas of the image.

Of course, this happens frequently in the fast paced world of wedding photography where we have little control over time of day and location of the wedding. Being a JPEG shooter notches up the "degree of difficulty" a bit too. Let's take a look at one of these dilemmas and see how easy it was to rectify in Photoshop. By the way, this fix works on all versions of Photoshop from PS7 through CS3. Enjoy!

Great Week in California

We just finished a great week in California. We had a terrific group of people attend in San Diego. We even had 5 people who flew in from Cabo, Mexico!! What a beautiful city - I wish we had more time there.

Tuesday took us to Irvine - almost 200 people attended. Another high energy crowd. Thanks to everyone for all the very kind remarks about the program.

Wednesday took us to Burbank. The program went great! In Burbank, we had a gentleman come in all the way from Winnipeg, Canada! He gets the "long distance" travel award. Again, we had nearly 200 attendees at the program. Thanks to all for being there. I have to say, one of the nicest things about this visit - other that the people attending - was the Burbank Hilton's hotel staff. Never, in all my years of giving programs, have I ever seen such a responsive , knowlegeable, helpful group of individuals. They helped with the entire set-up, including helping LaDawn with getting all the images up on the wall and then back down at the end of the evening. Two thumbs way up from LaDawn and I for the Burbank Hilton!

Off to the Oakland, San Francisco area on Thursday - WOW! Over 225 attendees here for the program. Another great group - the nice thing for me as I travel through California is seeing and visiting with old friends I have made over the years. My good friend Hanson Fong came by as well as several others during the week.

We were happy to wrap it Thursday, because it was off to "wine country" on Friday and Saturday. We visited Healsburg in the Russian River valley and had a wonderful time sampling some of the best wines in the world. Heck, this is what makes the traveling so much fun - it's the little "pause points" along the way.

I am writing this as we travel through Oregon today - yes, you guessed it - we plan to visit Oregon's wine country today. We plan to catch up with my friend Jerry Aucker and his wife Gloria and head to Willamette valley. Hey, Pinots, here we come.

We will give you the update at the next posting.

--David and LaDawn

The "BUZZ" is Back!

...The BEST seminar I ever attended! ...Wow! Just what I needed! ...This seminar comes at the perfect time in our profession!

Yes, The Digital WakeUp Call Tour is underway again - an the attendees are loving it! While we had thought the summer months would provide some time to relax and enjoy the time off the road, we found ourselves busier than ever!! You know you're too busy when you're anxious to hit the road again just to slow down your daily routine!!

The week before starting the Tour David spoke at the largest - over 3500 attendees - PhotoShop World in Vegas. He headed up the first ever wedding track by giving 5 programs on Friday and also held an on-location Pre-Con session on Wednesday. We took the red -eye flight early Saturday morning 1:00 am. so David could shoot an all day wedding on Saturday. It was GREAT just busy, busy, busy!!

We packed our rental van all day Sunday and for the first time on the Tour we hit rain in our travels. Unfortunately, the rainy conditions followed us from location to location the first 4 days. We started off Monday, September 11th in Columbus, then Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Thursday in Buffalo. We then drove to Sturbridge MA for the PPANE Convention and Trade Show. David spoke on Saturday while I ran the tradeshow booth and we both worked the booth on Sunday. At the close of the tradeshow hours, we quickly packed up and started the DRIVE to Nashville, TN. an 18 hour drive. Yes, many are questioning if we are NUTS!!

Our plan was to get as far as Allentown PA, just over 4 hour drive, check into a hotel and meet up with old friends for dinner. To our amazement, Allentown PA was holding an Agricultural Convention and the first 5 hotels we attempted to check into were fully booked. We finally had to settle on a Red Roof Inn. We drove approximately 9 hours on Tuesday and completed the drive Wednesday morning to reach Nashville for Wednesday evening program.

Our audience was terrific in each city. We kicked off each program with an ete opening lighting demo which David popped on the screen with Canon's wireless transmitter. It was a "kick for all.
ColorVision and ExpoImaging joined our sponsors list for the second half of the tour as well and added substantially to the door prize give always. We are giving away about $1700 per city for the second half of the tour. Kudos to all of our sponsors.

-LaDawn

Digital WakeUp Call Fall Tour Underway

Wow! Where did the summer go. We were at Photoshop World in Las Vegas 2 weeks ago presenting their first ever wedding track of programs. What a great crowd - the largest Photoshop World ever - over 3500 enthusiastic participants! LaDawn and I hit the road again last week and had a great kick-off week for the second half of the Digital WakeUp Call Tour. We visit Nashville on Wednesday, and head for the West Coast next week.

I promised a review of Canon's new ProGraf5000 inkjet printer over the summer. It arrived 2 days before we left for Photoshop World 2 weeks ago. As soon as we land back home we will get it up and running and give you an update. We are at the PPANE Convention this weekend and Canon printed off a few images for me - they looked fantastic!!! I can't wait to get it fired up. Check out the review at Luminous-Landscape's site - www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/printers/canon-ipf5000.shtml - lot's of great info on the printer.

We will check in a bit more often now that we are back on tour.

All the best to everyone.

--David and LaDawn

Nashville, Phoenix, Portland, and Seattle Added to Fall Swing!

We had so many people calling, emailing, and writing that we were not coming to their cities. Well, we looked at the calendar and added Nashville, Phoenix, Portland, and Seattle. Check www.digitalwakeupcall.com for dates and locations. Hope to see everyone there.

--David

Wrapped Up Spring Tour - Can't Wait Till Fall!

WE MADE IT!!!

22 cities completed and almost 3400 photogs in attendance. It was great to visit with so many people along the way. It was great to get to know our sponsor friends and "hang" with them for a "cool one" at the end of the evening.

Part of the "joy" too was seeing he countryside and geography as we drove from state to state. By coincidence, we had not one "rainy Day" on the tour - Sunshine every city.

LaDawn and I are looking forward to a few weeks at home. It has been a GREAT adventure and we have had the opportunity to meet so many photographers along the way. The comments have been overwhelmingly very complimentary to raving approval of the presentation.

Thanks again, everyone!

--David

Washington Notes

We had a wonderful weekend in Washington DC over the May 13th and 14th. We actually played like tourists and attended Mass on Sunday at the National Cathedral.

After attending the service I was photographing the interior of the Cathedral when I noticed another guy carrying a camera bag and shooting with a Canon 5D. I struck up a conversation with him to ask about the camera and what else he might have in his bag. I was excited to hear that he also had with him the 70-200 IS lens and the 580 flash and much more gear back at the hotel. So I asked if he was a professional photographer, assuming that he probably was. Imagine his surprise when he found that No he wasn't a professional photographer but a real estate agent from Seattle!!!!

Never to let an opportunity pass --- I invited him to the workshop Monday evening in Tyson's Corner. He showed up with his wife and loved the seminar.

Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful comments. We had great attendance for the whole week.

Washington DC 265
Richmond VA 125
Raleigh NC 190
Charlotte NC 155


We left Charlotte early Friday morning to make the 8 hour drive back home. We arrived home around 2:30pm. I quickly touched base with "the girls" changed into a suit and left by 4:00 to shoot a wedding Friday night. Then woke early to shoot a 12 hour wedding on Saturday!! Sunday was indeed a day of rest.

--David