Click To Listen>> Photography Podcast. PPS #64
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The Panel... Gavin Seim – Kevin Swan – Dennis Zerwas – Matt Bamberg
This week we talk about the latest, cool gadgets and great booking jobs.
Merry Christmas. It’s time to take a look at some cool gadgets and get optimistic and practical about profit in 2010. Don’t miss the last half of the show when we get down to serious business.
Gavins Lightroom Power LIVE online workshop. Registration is open.
Notable Time Indexes:
00:00 Introductions news and errata.
28:23 Christmas gifts and gadgets.
1:00:10 Business & Profit in 2010
Kevin throws the MK4. Also How to camera toss article.
High end point and shoot talk.
Olympus Pen E-P1
Panasonic GF1.
Canon G11
Honhl Light modifiers are pretty cool.
Canon LV 7370 projector.
Rocket Air still rules.
Neat Repeats is a great way to manage.
Carbon fiber monopod under $100. Add a spiked leg foot. Then an 486 RC2 ball head.
The Lensbaby 3G is really neat.
Water Shield disks are the best printable.
Canon 50 1.8 is a great $100 lens. Nikon also has one. Also the Canon 50mm 1.4 is even better if you want to spend a bit more.
Rstrap is even better than before.
Stocking Stuffers.
Digital Wedding Secrets Book.
Sima SL-20 LED light.
Bean Vac for you coffee lovers.
Portable first aid kit is great for the gear bag.
Matt’s photo tips site and his books on Amazon.
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Wall portrait selling basics article.
Kevin Swan Twitter.
Matt Bamburg Twitter.
Dennis Zerwas Twitter.
Gavin Seim Twitter.
F22 branding Twitter.
Some cool iPhone apps to check out.
One password.
Word shaker light
Run keeper pro.
Tilt shift.
DSR remote.
Google voice.
A fun show, as usual, but the description of tilt-shift lenses … oy!
A tilt/shift lens has two distinct functions. A standard lens focuses on a plane that is parallel to your sensor. A tilt lens merely allows you to tilt the plane of focus to a more convenient angle. For instance, if you’re looking up at a tall building, you can align the focal plane with the face of the building so that all of the building is in focus regardless of aperture and thus depth of field. Similaly, you can align the focal plane along the tops of a field of flowers to keep them all in focus. In front of or behind the plane, you still have the normal depth of field effect. There’s no selective focus a la lens baby. Rather, the plane of focus is different and thus the direction in which focus grows worse also changes.
The shift function is best thought of as offsetting the subject so that rather than the part of the subject directly in front of the lens being projected on to center of the sensor, the subject plane is offset so that the projection onto the center of the sensor comes from a portion of the subject above, below or the left or right of center. Equivalently, it’s as though your lens suddenly had a much larger projection circle and that you could move your sensor up, down, left or right to capture a portion of this image circle other than the center. This lets you, say, keep your camera’s sensor parallel to the face of a tall building to avoid having its vertical lines exhibit perspective convergence yet also be able to capture the middle or top of the building instead of just the ground floor directly in front of you.
Hope this clarifies things somewhat for people reading the show notes. If not, maybe someone else will build on this. In the meantime, thanks for a great series of shows.
Thanks David. Good info. I knew when we started trying to describe the science of a tilt shift we were in trouble.
Who captured the image for this particular podcast? It’s gorgeous! I love/hate when the podcasts go for 2+ hours. I love all of the content. I hate that it takes me 3 trips to and from work to listen to it.
True Kev, but just think of it like 3 shows. We only do one a month after all 🙂
The image is actually an iStock image. In the past I just grabbed one of my own, but I wanted it themed so I thought. Why do I need to find one of my own when I can get a Christmas’y image of a pretty girl to get their attention for a few bucks 😉
Gavin,
Another fun show to listen to. Which printer do you use to print the images on your DVDs/CDs?
Also, you might want to get a few more Nikon users on the show and even a few Droid users. 😀
Have a great holiday!
frank
I use the Canon Pro 9000 with a CD tray I got of ebay (US version does not include it)
As for Nikon. We always try and make sure DZ balances us out. As for iPhones. You should have heard the un-edited version. I have to clean out some Apple talk to keep this show about photography instead of becoming Mac Break Weekly.
Gavin,
The ending of the show with Kevin Swan was outstanding.
I must say that Kevin, once again, stole the show with his remarkable insight and advice on marketing yourself. I still think you should do an entire show with him walking us through more of his process on wedding sales. Personally, I am stuck between two fences based on his ideas. on one hand, I love his idea about having a cheaper entry point to book wedding clients in order to really connect with them, and thus have a greater advantage when up-selling books later on. However, I dont see how a couple who has the mindset to spend $500-$1000 on a wedding photographer, would ever be sold a $100 or more wedding book. I personally am in the $2000-$4000 range, and have had brides tell me that they dont have money to pay $200 for 20 extra pages in the book (ONLY $10 per page). I am really torn about this issue… can we talk about it?
Hey Gav,
Merry Merry! Absolutely terrific show. I like the longer shows, primarily when the roundtable (or yourself) gets into depth about a tip or topic. The marketing chats are always incredible and helpful. Kevin Swan truly was remarkable on the show. I particularly enjoyed his discussion on client relations, and his comment regarding finding your niche and creating your brand. It was completely encouraging.
BTW, I think you’d do just fine at a higher price point. It really does depend on what kind of business you want to grow into. It isn’t always about getting the most clients, but rather about being able to spend some time and hone in on your style to make it the best it can be and the true vision you want, work with clients who appreciate and desire it, and deliver a product that separates yourself from the crowded market.
You’ve earned it. Your work shows it. And I think just as your business grew when you increased your prices earlier, you’ll see it happen again.