Photography
A better way to share photos … wonder if PhotoRocket will be anything like this
Jul 14th
I take and share hundreds of photos a week. They are all loaded onto the Mac, edited and then distributed using Facebook, email, Twitter, Flickr, various web sites and occasionally on CD-ROM. I also frequently get requests from people to send them the original. All this takes time and there’s no easy record of what has been shared with whom. So over the past couple of years I’ve been thinking about creating a new way to share photos that would be easier for my situation and here’s my concept:-
In iPhoto (or any other photo management application) simply tag the photo with the email address (or group name) of the people you want to share it with!
Yes, that’s it! That’s all you would need to do to share an image with someone.
What happens behind the scenes is more interesting …
The sharing software makes a regular sweep over the iPhoto library and finds any newly tagged photos with email addresses or group names on them. If then looks up each individual and your preferred method of reaching them (email, Facebook, …) and it delivers the pictures to them. A management screen allows you to define groups and to manage the list of people with whom you share photos. For each person or group you can define how to reach them (Facebook, Twitter, email, Flickr, web site, CD-ROM, …) and you can also set a limit on how large a photo to send them and a limit on how many to send per day. Thus for a friend on a slow connection you might chose to only email them a medium sized version and limit it to one per day. They would thus get a daily email from you every day until all the photos tagged with their name (or a group that they belong to) have been delivered to them. It would also enable you to easily set up a photo of the week post to Facebook and to queue up images for future picture of the week posts.
I think this approach would be much easier than my current photo sharing process. Thoughts? Comments?
I also see that a local startup PhotoRocket has announced plans to revolutionize how we share photos. I wonder if there are any similarities between my ideas and what they are planning … we shall see soon.
Lunar Eclipse June 2010
Jun 29th
Video Editing 101: Use only one transition type and one effect type in your movie
Jun 7th
One of the pieces of advice I always give to amateur videographers is to limit how many transitions and effects they use in a single home movie. If you use every transition in the toolbox and mix in lots of different effects it just begins to look totally amateurish. I always used to say, back when I ran Windows Movie Maker, that the ideal video editing product would have thousands of transitions but only ever allow you to use one.
I’m not sure who said it but one of my favorite quotations on the topic is:-
Transition are for people who don’t know how to cut.
Well, every rule has an exception and today I came across a video that proves that you can use hundreds of different transitions and effects in a single video and still look really, really good! Don’t try this at home folks:
Latest toy … a Canon D10 Underwater Camera
Jun 7th
I’ve literally only had this camera a few minutes but I’m already very impressed with the image quality and underwater capabilities it has to offer. Check out this first test image – our freshwater parrot fish at close range. I must admit it was somewhat unnerving taking the camera out of the box and plunging it straight into the fish tank! Having lost thousands of dollars worth of electronics to water in the past that was a serious test of the nerves. Click the image to see all 12 mega pixels.
Seattle by Night
Jun 3rd
Seattle is such a photogenic city! By day we have the Olympic mountains or the Cascades as a backdrop, sometimes we have Mt. Rainier looming over the shoulder of a building and by night we have a panoply of lights and the ever present Space Needle which despite being dominated in stature by many of the newer office blocks in Seattle is still a highly visible landmark from many directions.
This shot was taken from Newcastle Golf Course with a Canon 70-200 f2.8 USM IS lens on a 40D.
Microsoft’s new Image Stitching tool works really well
Mar 18th
Canon Powershot D10 Underwater Camera
Jul 14th
Posted by Ian in Commentary
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I purchased a Canon Powershot D10 Underwater Camera recently and I love it! It’s a great little underwater camera costing less than many underwater housings. It shoots great shots both underwater and above water and I’m constantly surprised by just how good many of the shots look even when compared to my 70-200 f2.8 IS lens.
It’s a fun camera to have around because it can literally go anywhere: you can take shots above the water, underwater, or just close to water without any worries about your equipment getting wet. These pictures were all taken using my Powershot D10 over the last month, from Australia to North America. Click to enlarge any of them.