August 12, 2010

by Gavin Seim: In a few weeks I’ll be loading our the trailer as myself and my family will embark on a month long photo adventure. It’s like nothing I’ve ever done and I’m very excited. The final destination will be Twin Cities MN, where I’ll be teaching my HDR and LR workshops, but the trip itself will be all about photography. I intend to try new things, explore new places and push my skills a bit further.

With that in mind, plus the fact that I plan to embark on these sort of adventures more regularly, I’ve started a new site. Don’t worry, I’m not closing my other projects. But I’ve been planning for some time to make a site for my fine art work. I did that, but with a bit of a twist. Instead of just making another portfolio site, I did what I wanted to do. I made a travelogue and a journal. A book of notes if you will. It’s called f164.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy Pro Photo Show, Seim Effects, or my client blogs. But this is more like a diary where I can share what I learn, show what I’ve made and let me hair down (though my hair is not very long).

While on my trip and beyond there’s likely to be quite a bit of activity on 164. I hope you’ll join in and share our journey. Pro Photo Show will remain active, and some favorite posts from f164 may even make it over here. But if you want to see a bit more  of the emblazoned adventurous photograoher, come on over to f164.

PS. On a side note, I’m pretty proud of the f164 site. I built it all in WordPress, using the Twenty Ten theme and a lot of CSS tweaking.

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July 27, 2010

Summer is moving right along. Come September I’m hitting the road for a month in our new trailer taking a photo tour with my Family. My destination is Twin Cities and when I get there I’ll be doing a 3 day HDR workshop followed by my 1 day LR Power Workshop.

I won’t make this long. You can click below for info on either workshop. Whether you’re local or traveling in, I look forward to seeing some of you there. There’s also talk of some kind of a PPS meetup, so stay tuned… Gav

HDR Workshop 2010

LR Workshop 2010

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June 5, 2010

Click To Listen>> Photography Podcast. PPS #69
Review in iTunesVote on Podcast AlleyDirect Podcast Feed

Two After the Storm. Mentioned on this episode, Gavin caught this image using his E-PL1 with a 20mm 1.7 lens. The detail and quality would be easily adaptable for a 30-40 inch canvas. Processing was done using LR and the Pickles Preset from Color Fantasies.

Today’s Host... Gavin Seim. This week Gavin look at news, the new rangefinder, Photo CS5, stolen images, education and studying, focus ideas and more.

Podcast #69 forum discussion:

Notable Time Indexes:

  • 00:00 Introductions and news
  • 09:02 Photoshop CS5
  • 19:23 Gavin’s W0rkshops
  • 23:00 Stolen Photo (see notes for link).
  • 32:37 Mastering the Craft.
  • 45:30 Talking about focus.**
  • 105:55 Outtakes.

HDR Workshop in Twin Cities MN.

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June 3, 2010

Photo Walk Logo

by Jarrod Michael Gordon

Scott Kelby and company are at it again, announcing their third annual Worldwide Photo Walk, scheduled for July 24, 2010. If you don’t know what a photo walk is just think of it as a bunch of photographers getting together to photograph a certain location. A few friends and I went on last year’s photo walk and we had a great time. We met other local photographers, professionals and hobbyists, explored a new location and compared our photos over lunch afterward. You can find my photos from last year’s photo walk on my Flickr page. Another benefit of the walk is the opportunity to enter a contest. You don’t have to submit your photos for the contest but if you do your walk leader chooses their favorite image from the photo walk and you win a prize. But, the winner also is entered into a worldwide contest to see who has the greatest photo of the entire photo walk. It’s pretty intense to have the best photo out of THOUSANDS of “photo walkers”. I highly recommend joining a photo walk in your area.

For all the details please refer to the Worldwide Photo Walk website.

For a Q & A from Scott Kelby regarding the walk please visit his blog.

Enjoy!

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March 12, 2010

by Gavin Seim: Canon just released version II of the 70-200 2.8 IS, which may be their most legendary lens ever. My friends Ben & Molly from Nickles photography just got the new 70-200 2.8 IS II in their hands, so I went over for some tests (thanks for the help Ben). Being that the V1 is such a great lens, many (including myself) have been wondering how much it could be improved. And with a price tag of nearly $2500, it better offer something new. According to Canon the V2 “increases the speed, performance and optical quality of the 70-200, while maintaining all of the characteristics that have made it a legend“.

Well the images are in and so is this lens. I think Canon nailed it. Now granted their can be differences between one lens and another of the same model and my V1 lens is a few years old. It’s still in excellent working order however so I feel the comparison is pretty fair. These examples were all shot in RAW on the 5D MK2 under the same conditions and settings for each sequence. Images were processed in Lightroom 2, but no adjustments were added except that Camera Calibration in was set to Camera Standard.

Aside from the image quality I found a couple of interesting things. The V2 seems to shoot nearly 1/3 stop brighter and with a tad wider view than the V1. I checked this using a tripod for the detail tests to make sure the camera position would be the same. The V2 does indeed seem to be a few mm wider. I don’t know what that would be, I’m just showing what I found. I don’t see this as a big problem however. In fact the V2 letting in more light seems a good thing.

So far I’m impressed. See for yourself below. I’m posting full frames alongside tight details crops of each image. You can click any for a larger view,. You can also download the package of full res JPEG files at the bottom of the post if you want to take a close look. You can find this lens here on B&H or here on Adorama or here on Amazon. OK lets get started.

Image Stabilization Tests.
For each test I hand held 2oomm at 1/20th, supporting the lens barrel with my left and pressing the body firmly against my face. I took 5 consecutive shots for each comparison so I could account for variations in my own steadiness (or lack thereof). The results shown are the sharpest image from each sequence of five images, as well as crop zoomed in view of the same. While the V1 was good, the V2 of the lens was clearly better, producing consistently better IS performance.

It can't be said that IS is not useful. Even on the V1 it makes a huge difference. But on V2... Well read on.

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