Last week I purchased an iPad to bring with me on a business trip to Arizona. The primary reason for the purchase was for use in my photography. With the recent release of the iPad camera connection kit I would be able to take photos and instantly transfer them to the iPad’s nearly ten inches of pure LED beauty. This will provide instant feedback for my photos so I can see what needs to be adjusted on the camera. Couple this with the super long battery life, light weight, and small form factor, the iPad becomes the best travel companion.

Really Long Battery life

I started out my day of traveling with an almost fully charged (97%) iPad. After getting to the airport and through security I connected to the airports free wifi and downloaded the news reader app (awesome app by the way) and downloaded some RSS feeds. Then I spent some time reading a book I downloaded on the Kindle app and played some sudoku. After getting on the plane I patiently waited for the flight crew to allow the use of electronics, at which point I tried to connect to the in-flight Internet. Did you know they want $10 for that service? I think I can wait until we land to check my email for free……

After messing with that for a while, watching Top Gear and playing some iPad games (about 45 minutes of iPad use on the plane) we finally landed in Dallas. Once at the terminal I spent another 45 minutes on the iPad downloading my email and some new RSS feeds and another free game. Then back o. The plane and for the next two hours or more I read the caches news feeds, played and deleted the game I downloaded because it sucked, and watched most of the movie Taken. So altogether I had well over 5 hours of use on the iPad, probably closer to six hours. At this point I had 68% battery power left, granted I did turn the brightness of the display down a lot to save on power for most of the day (I had to turn it up again fir the movie) but still that is an amazing battery life for such a product.

After getting my rental car I looked up the address and phone numbers to the closest Apple store to see of they had a camera connection kit, which they actually had in stock! I had been looking for this thing every single day for almost a full week and everyone has been sold out of them, but finally I got close to one. So I quickly plugged in the coordinates on my gps, but by the time I got there they had sold out! What luck. Long story short, I got another apple store to hold one for me and I did finally get to purchase it, but more on that on my next blog.

Anyway, so after getting back to the hotel I did more surfing the net and checking out free apps, after which point I was down to almost 50% battery life.

So if you want to know how long the iPad lasts, I can promise you it is a long time. Screen brightness and wifi seem to make it drain the fastest but still that is a crazy amount of time.

I think I have spent enough time on that issue, now to quickly summarize what I like and dislike about the iPad.

~~~ Likes ~~~

The size, battery life, and usefulness through all of the various apps are great. And the screen is absolutely beautiful, large enough to easily surf them web and watch movies, and crisp enough to see details on photos. There is nothing to not like about the iPad’s display. Internet access is quick and easy to use and the keyboard is noticeably better than on cellphones. The user interface is very easy to use and has a natural feel to it. So much so that anybody can pick up the ipad and use it with extremely little instruction. All of this makes for a fantastic product that will be widely adopted by the public, geeks and non-geeks alike.

~~~ Dislikes ~~~

I know a lot of people complain about the lack of flash support, but I have not really found this to be a problem at all. So what if I can’t play some of the facebook games, every site I do need to access i can fully use, and the few that I can’t (such as pandora) they have apps to use.

The lack of multitasking has sucked. I can’t play pandora in the background while writing my blog post! But a fix is coming for that soon, in the mean time I will have to listen to the KLOVE app (KLOVE is a Christian radio station) which somehow manages to play in the background using Safari, or I can just listen to Pandora on my phone.

Even though the keyboarding pretty nice and fairly large in landscape mode it still is not as easy to use as a real keyboard. It is possible to type properly on this but be prepared for a lot of typos if you do. It is just too hard to know exactly what keys your fingers are hitting when there is no physicals separation of keys.

The size of the iPad is great, but it does feel a bit heavy after holding it up for a while. Some type of built in stand would have been very handy. Yet this is still really light weight compared to a laptop.

No video input. I know that it would be unreasonable to include a DVD player in such a small device, but allowing me to plug in a video source such as a DVD player would be awesome.

That’s about it. Even with these things I do not like there is just so much about the iPad to love. Overall I am extremely happy with the device and glad I purchased it, although it was a bit pricey.

What are your experiences with the iPad? Do you have any questions for me about this device or any complaints other than those already widely discussed on other blogs? I am interested non hearing your comments below.

At the beginning of the year I resolved to accomplish 10 things related to photography this year, and I have just completed my second item of that list, the blurred water effect.  This effect is not really too hard once you understand the dynamics of Manual mode and how all of the functions work together, but for this trip I used a mixture of manual mode and Shutter Priority mode.  Just set the shutter to a long exposure, usually 1/4 or more.  I experimented with several settings went up to 2 seconds (2″) which really changed the amount of blur captured.

Unfortunately my wide lens started messing up while I was taking these photos and I had to continue with my zoom lens so I did not experiment as much as I would have liked.  To cut down on the brightness I used a Neutral Density filter.  I only have a 0.9 filter which helped a little, so I was very grateful for the cloud cover which really helped keep the picture from over exposing.

This is my third attempt at getting this effect to work.  Even though it is fairly easy to use, the two other times I went the water was completely frozen over.  Not much you can do there unless you bring a flame thrower.

Overall I am extremely satisfied with the results of these photos.  The only real downside was that there was a bright purple piece of trash right in the middle of the picture which for some reason I never saw when I was out there.  I was probably just too focused on my camera and trying to setup the shot, either that or my 3 year old son throwing a fit because he got his hands dirty.  But a little touch up in Photoshop easily saved these photos.

What do you think of these photos?

I love the amount of blur in this last photo.  Doesn’t it look more like fog drifting over the rocks than water? Very nice effect in my opinion.

A few weeks ago I decided to get some more pets, because our 2 cats and 2 snakes were not enough.  During a trip to the pet store to get food for the snakes we decided to get some hamsters to add to our collection of pets.  I would prefer to get a dog, but since that is not really an option right now I thought hamsters would do.  Actually the original idea came from me watching my son watch the hamsters and mice in the pet store.  So I bought two of the little guys and brought them home.  Along with being something else for Malikai and our cats to play with, it gives me another subject to take pictures of.

Photographing hamsters does not seem to be too tough of a job but there are a few challenges involved.  Because of their size it is hard to get close up shots where they fill the full frame.  A Macro lens might come in handy to help get sharp images up close, but I have not tried that yet.  I actually plan on trying that this weekend and of course I will let you know how it goes.  I have not had a lot of experience with macro shots, but I do have one lens I got for Christmas I can use.

Other than that hamsters are easy to take photos of.

The Hamsters

The first two hamsters we got (we have since bought two more) are Syrian hamsters. The beige one is named Houdini because he tries to escape every chance he gets, and has gotten fairly successful at it if we are not careful.  The other hamster, well, we don’t have a name for him yet.  I am horrible at coming up with names.

Malikai (our son) and our cats love to watch the hamsters, as well as trying to break into the cage and kick them when they are in the hamster ball.  We could have gotten fish instead, but they would not have been nearly as interactive.  Ever see a fish wheeling around in a ball on the floor or being carried off by a cat?  Well, you might have seen the latter of the two, but still the point is that hamsters are more interactive than fish would have been.

Currently we have both Syrian hamsters in the same cage, which I know everyone says never to do it, but so far it has worked out.  We do have an extra cage to split them up if they do start to fight, but so far they seem to be in the 1% of Syrian hamsters that actually get along with each other.  Either that or they are not yet old enough to develop that sense of wanting to be isolated and the fighting will begin in the next week or two.  So we watch closely and wait to see what happens.  With plenty of  space to run around in they seem to do fine together.

Well that is about all that I have to say about these two hamsters.  Here are the final pictures that we have for now.  Any ideas on what the name of the multi-colored hamster should be?

When doing something very frequently it can be difficult to measure your progress over time.  Just like when you see someone every day you do not notice changes as much as someone who has not seen you in a full year.  While doing project 365 I fell into this.  I knew I was learning about the camera and about photography but I did not realize exactly how much I have learned.  It was just in December when I said that I would not dare venture into manual mode because of how complex it was, but when I was at the park on  this day in mid-February I actually preferred it.

By the time we got to the park the sun was already starting to set plus the sky was overcast, meaning there was little light to work with. I had tried to shoot with the aperture and shutter priority modes like I normally do, but none of them were able to capture decent pictures with the fading light.  This left no other choice but to use manual mode, and I was able to capture several really good photos without sacrificing too much speed.  It was a tough balance considering Malikai was running around a lot, but after a lot of constant tweaking I managed to get it just right.

How did I learn Manual Mode?

Those that are new to photography (like myself) and want to learn how to use manual mode

will probably ask me how I learned it so quick. First I do want to say that just because I feel comfortable with manual mode now does not in any way make me an expert, I still have a lot to learn.  I have just gotten to the point where I like to use manual mode more often than not.  But how did I learn it and still get decent photos?

The trick, at least for myself, was to learn Aperture and Shutter priority modes.  Once you see how the changes affect the camera you can manipulate the camera for whatever environment you are in.  Once you can do that fairly well with both modes then it is not too hard to switch to Manual mode where you just mix what you know about how the two settings work together.  Whatever you do, practice a lot!  Taking pictures every single day helped me learn a lot more than I would have learned normally.

Photos need a LOT of light!

Along the same lines of learning how to use Manual mode I have also learned that cameras need a whole lot of light in order to take a photo. This has made me really appreciate the human eye on a completely different level.  When you compare how long it takes a camera to take in enough light to take a decent photo, especially in low light settings, it amazes me that we can see everything very clearly in an instant even when the sun is setting.

When it is really dark out our eyes need to adapt but within a few minutes we are able to see outlines in a lot of detail in an instant, without needing to stare at something for several minutes like a camera does.

The more I appreciate how the human body works the more I cannot fathom how people think that humans are nothing but a random cosmic accident.

About these photos

As much as I love taking photos and displaying them to the world, I hate trying to come up with things to say about them.  But oh well, moving on.

On this day (Middle of February I think, I know, sometimes it takes me forever to get these things uploaded!) we all wen to a park by our home and walked around it.  Malikai had a great time running ahead of us while Danae and I got to talk a lot.  It is times like this that I love going out for walks.  Sometimes walks can be boring, but when you have someone there to talk with it makes it a lot more enjoyable.

This is another one of those days that I would not have had my camera with me if I was not doing the project 365,  It is for times like this that I wish I was still doing the project.

A few of these photos came out a bit blurry due to how long I had to set the exposure to capture enough light for them, but many of them came out very usable.  I especially like this photo of Malikai looking behind him.  I got this one when he was running ahead of us.

Well I have pretty much run out of things to say so here are the rest of the photos.

Birds make for a very interesting and very challenging subject for photography.  Their size and distance from the photographer requires a large zoom and some careful focus.  Their speed and the fact that they like to hide behind branches makes it really hard to capture on film.  The other day I was out at Ute Park and I saw several birds and took on the challenge of trying to capture clear pictures of them.

Manually focusing a camera can be a very big challenge (at least to me it is).  When something is moving quickly across your viewfinder there is very little time to concentrate on focusing and composition.  It’s more of a matter of aim for what you want a photo of and then start shooting.

One thing that might help is the use of AI focus, which I have yet to expirament with.  AI Focus is when the camera tries to continously focus on the subject.  I imagine I will still run into the same problem I have with auto focus, in that it will focus on the wrong thing, but if a bird is moving hopefully the camera would pick up on it easier.

Practicing more with manual mode will help as well, and since that is one item on my New Year’s Resolution list, I should try to practice with it a lot more.

Despite the issues with out of focus images, I did manage to get some good ones.  I took almost 200 photos of birds this day to try and get images of birds with their wings spread while in flight or in the trees.

I find images of birds with their wings spread to be more interesting to look at than a bird that is just sitting there.  When a birds wings are spread it shows off a lot more of its detail and beauty.  I think I captured that as best as I could.

This photo was extremely hard to get.  It was in focus before the bird took off and I had to move quickly to try and capture it before it disappeared behind the trees completely.   Even though it is blurry you can clearly see the black and white pattern on its back as well as the deep black color of its neck and head.

These little birds were all over the place, mainly under the bushes digging for food.  Because of the amount of brush it was hiding under capturing this photo was hard to take due to the lack of light in that area.  I had to use manual focus on this picture but because the bird stayed fairly still I was able to manually focus it and get a really sharp photo.  It is amazing how much these birds blend in with its surroundings. I had to spend a few seconds looking for the birds after I heard them in the bushes next to me.

Finally I captured this image of a bird gliding through the air.  The focus came out pretty well but when I tried to crop it to make the bird larger it looked really bad.  I’m surprised I was able to capture this photo as the bird flew right overhead.

Birds have been my toughest subject from the beginning, but I am not giving up on getting consistant, decent photos.  Do you know of any tips to help me?  What do you think of these photos?  Please leave a comment below.

My three-year-old son, Malikai, knows exactly what to do with a tooth brush.  Give him one and loves to brush his teeth.  I think he just likes the feel of it rubbing on his gums, but either way it teaches him a good habit. at an early age.

Photography is a very fun hobby, being out taking pictures surrounded by nature, taking photos of family members, there is very little to not like about photography. There is a little bit of work to it of course, making sure composition and camera settings are all correct, deciding to you use a flash or not, but most of it is just finding what you want to take a photo of and just doing it.  But being out taking photos is only the beginning of photography. To get those pictures on the internet or printed requires a long tedious process that starts only after you get back to your computer.

One of the benefits of digital photography is you do not have to get film processed, which can be a very expensive , which allows photographers now to take hundreds of pictures without any thought of cost.  It ends up there is a cost, but not a financial one, but with time.  You must go through every photo to decide what ones are worth keeping or using.

Then after going through all of those photos you have to perform color correction, resizing, adding copyright info and a watermark.  All of this can add up to hours of post-processing per photo shoot.  I thought computers were supposed to make life easier?

Well now it can.

Automator for Mac

Mac has an application built in called “Automator” which makes it easy to automate several applications, including Photoshop if you have the correct plugin.  I created an automator script that uses the Photoshop CS4 Action Pack.  This pack allows you to automate all kinds of photoshop processes, from color correction, cropping, adding watermarks, or resizing.  Several of these I do not see a purpose for automating because every image is unique, but I was able to use many of these to apply changes that I like to make to every photo.

My Photoshop Auto Process Script

You can download the script I made from my other website (ZenorSoft Web Design) and modify it to your own needs or just make your own. (The Resize action caused the script to fail for some reason, so I had to use some of the other resize actions).

Here is my new post processing routine:

• Import all photos to iPhoto
• Go through all of the photos and flag the ones I will possibly use (and add them to an album for recalling later if needed)
• Copy all flagged photos to a directory on my desktop
• I manually modify all of my files for color correction and cropping in photoshop, then save it as a .psd (leaving the original is .jpg)
• I highlite all photos and drag them onto the script’s icon (which usually sits on my desktop)

Here is what the script does

• The script moves all photos to an Originals directory
• Then only .psd files are passed to the next part of the script
• The file is opened in photoshop
• Copyright info added to the IPTC fields (meta data)
• Images resized to no larger than 2560px wide (the width of my desktop monitor, for my photo gallery)
• Images saved to the Large Photos Directory
• Original .psd file is then reopened in photoshop
• Copyright info added again
• Images resized to no larger than 800 wide by 400 tall (for uploading to my blog)
• Images saved to the Small Photos Directory
• .PSD files moved to a Done Directory

The end result is that each .jpg original is moved to a directory called “originals”, and two copies of the photo are made, each from the .psd (not from the .jpg as to keep the number of compressions to a minimum), one photo is no larger than 2560 px wide and the other 800 px wide. The final step is that the .psd files are moved to a “done” directory.

All of those happen in just a few seconds for each photo.  The only downside is that the script takes focus so I cannot do anything else while it is running, but for the amount of time this script saves me I can live with getting off of my computer for 5 or 10 minutes while it processes 50 + photos.  My next step will be to add a watermark to this process.

If you have tried this script, let me know what you think of it.  Also, what else can be added to this script to reduce the post-production work load of all photographers alike?  Please leave a comment below.

It is usually really hard to get detailed pictures of the moon, especially a full moon.  The moon is so bright that it is easy to end up with a photo that just looks like a bright ball in the sky.

After messing around with the camera settings for a while I finally started getting photos where you can actually see the details of the moon.  The key in this case was a wide Aperture but short shutter speed, at only 1/200 of a second. I used my zoom lens (focal length 240mm in this photo) which helped too.  The only thing I’m not sure about on this photo is the focus.  I seem to always have trouble with that.  I think I was using Auto focus but either the focus was off slightly or me cropping the image and zooming it in that way made this image look a bit blurry.

Oh well, I was still happy with the amount of detail I was able to capture in this image, but obviously I still need to practice some more.  I think it is the best moon photo that I have taken so far.

What do you think of this image? Please leave a comment below.

It gets a bit boring just staring at photos for a while, no matter how awesome those photos may be.  To help make the slide show in the photo gallery more interesting we have added some very relaxing music.

Dave Villano

Dave Villano is a Christian music artist that makes some beautiful, relaxing music.  I met Dave at a mall near our house back in 2007 where he was playing music near the food court.  After talking with him for a while and listening to his music I had decided to buy every CD he had (4 of them I believe).  I really enjoy listening to his music and have it in my regular mix of music for when I want to relax after a long day.  One day while listening to his music and looking through my photo gallery the thought occurred to me.  Why not have his music play for everyone who views my photo gallery?

I took the time to write Dave Villano and waited (and waited, and waited) for a response, which finally came a couple of weeks later saying “Please feel free to use the music for your site.” Awesome!

So now every gallery you look through on this site has music with it.  The down side is that the slide show software has one song per gallery and switches songs when you switch galleries, even if it switches on its own after reaching the end. But besides that the system works perfectly.

Please take some time to check out my Photo Gallery and listen to the music.  Let me know what you think of it in a comment below.

By the way, the photo above was taken at a place called Waldo Canyon, which I will write about in the near future.

One of the real treasures of photography is having pictures of family that we can look back on.  Pictures of family have an odd attribute about them.  Unlike pictures of mountains, stars, or other landmarks, nobody really cares to see pictures of family except for other family members, and even then it is often just close family that will appreciate them.

That is kind of what makes them so special.  There does not have to be anything remarkable about the composition, lighting, or any techniques used.  In fact, when a nice technique is used those are the photos that draw in the public’s attention and they hone in on how nice of a picture it is, but when there is nothing “special” in the photo, that is where the real beauty comes out.  When we see a photo of someones family, everyone thinks “aww, that’s cute” and then they move on, but for those special few people that the photo has real meaning on, it is those people who stop to smile and really appreciate the photo.

Please do not get me wrong, I am not trying to critique or criticize anybody; I am just making some observations about human behavior.  Why is this standing out at me? Probably because it is 6 am, I am really tired and will be going to bed after I get this blog written so my mind is really starting to wonder in weird directions. (I write multiple blogs and schedule them to be release several days apart.)

Several photographers have said that when taking a photograph one should think about what story they are trying to tell by the photograph.  Me personally I just take snapshots of things I want to remember or something I think may look good as a picture.  But it does make you think. What story is being told by these photographs?

That is my wife, Danae, throwing some rocks that were on the side of the trail.  What story is there in this?  I’m not that creative to come up with much, but what this photo shows me is someone having a fun time, enjoying the outdoors (and maybe wanting to be just a little destructive).   I know they say a photo is worth a thousand words, but I struggle just coming up with 50 words to describe the story in a photo.

Here is my son, Malikai, copying his mom and throwing rocks off the side of the trail.  He had a great time doing it, maybe even more fun than mom had.  We had gone for a hike out at Ute Park this day and did a small loop around the park after being out for a while running errands.  It was a nice, relaxing time, especially when Malikai was wanting to behave.

As much fun as it will be for me to go to the Grand Canyon this year, or to visit Yosemite or other such places, and as much as it will be awesome to see the wonder of God’s creation, it is these moments, the ones with family doing things together that will mean the most.  Pictures of scenery and trees can be taken again, maybe not in the exact same light or season, but a similar photo can always be taken of scenery (Just look at the book Colorado, 1870-2000 for evidence of the same picture being taken 100 years later) but photos of family are the ones that you can never again capture.  Kids grow up, things happen, it is these photos that you will regret not capturing, or you will truly miss if something happens to them.  Seeing the smiles on the face of my 3 year old son as he throws a rock can never be had again… because now he is 3 years and 2 months old!

I guess what I’m ultimately trying to say is that as I get into this hobby and get my mind set on traveling to new areas to take photos, I can not forget about what is really important, my family.  Taking a lot of time to do things with them and to take photos while we go out to places will bring a bigger smile to me (and to Malikai’s grandparents no doubt ) more than any photo of a mountain range.  Even when kids are being stubborn and not wanting to continue walking on the trail and not wanting to be held (such as is the case in the above photo) a camera can still capture a photo that will mean more to me than all of my nature photos combined.

I guess the point of this long-winded post is to keep in mind what is really important in life.  Take some time from your busy schedule to look around at what you have and  to be grateful.  Spend some time with the family you have now, because they will not always be there.  And if you do have a camera, no matter if it is an SLR, Point and Shoot, or even a cell phone camera, take pictures of your family, and lots of them.  You will not regret it.

And if you are ever having a hard time, you will have those photos you can look back on to appreciate and enjoy.  It is those moments in your life, not your promotions at work or any other accomplishment, but those moments with the ones you love that will truly stand out to you and mean the world to you.  And even though others may pass right by those photos not knowing how special they truly are, you will know, and you will appreciate them.  Like a secret hidden in plain site, everyone will see it but only a few will appreciate and understand it.

A great photograph is worth a thousand words, but one thousand words that cannot be expressed as words, but as emotions, memories, and bringing to mind a spirit of worship towards God who gives us everything.

And by the way, this post is exactly 1,027 words

And I am sure there are 1,000 blades of grass in this picture….

Please, leave a comment below if you appreciated this blog.