PShizzy: The Blog

Backing up your drives is important. I don’t have any fun stories or anecdotes to recount about dead drives. There’s nothing worst than losing data because of a drive failure. Worse yet is when it’s at the most inopportune time. For example, the night before a big event, or a trip, your laptop decides that stage a coup against Windows XP. Now what?

Let’s install Windows. Where was that disk again? Countless reboots and hours later, you have Windows. But no updates. Reboot more, like it’s going out of style. Ok SP3, here we are. But no Photoshop. No Photo Mechanic. Crap, even my email hasn’t been set up yet. Oh and if you run Vista, you may just be better off going without a computer until Windows 7 shows up.

The last time my computer went out on me, I reasoned that it was old enough to not be worth saving, so I went and got a Mac. That’s how much I hate reformatting. Also, to be honest, I was simply unprepared. So how could having software like Acronis True Image have saved me? More on that, and the link to the article and info after the jump. [Read more →]

Tags: business, general by PShizzy
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Tomorrow, November 18th, starting at 6am PST, you can get a free copy of Zonealarm 2009 Pro for free. Lifehacker, a favorite site of mine, has more info. As soon as the link is available, I will edit this post and include the direct link. For now, check out the article at Lifehacker, or the Zonealarm site.

Note, this is Windows only, which makes me a sad Mac. Not really though, because I have a PC laptop.

EDIT: Link is up. Click on the links above, or HERE.

Tags: business, general by PShizzy
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First, Instant JPEG from RAW has been updated to version 1.1. Added support for new cameras (50D, anyone?) and some bugfixes make it a worthy update. Click on the image to head on over to their site.

Next up, I thought I’d test out a photo gallery. Photoshelter has recently updated their site to offer Flash based photo galleries. I think it’s pretty cool because it’s so easy to set it up. In fact, it’s retroactive, so I can set up a Flash gallery for any galleries I’ve already made. Creating the gallery itself isn’t too hard either, but this has further motivated me. So, I’ll give it a test run after the jump.

Oh, and I’ve been playing with a few D3′s lately. I really like the cameras. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from users over at the FredMiranda forum on a few posts about the D3 and my opinion on it. Link to that after the thread. It’s been a long couple of weeks. Preseason NBA, NCAA and high school football, even a local kids soccer game, plus other non sports shoots (wedding, and two schools) have kept very busy lately. It’s been great to be so busy, but it’s also been time consuming. And of course, it’s my favorite time of the year, with the NBA season finally starting. More after the jump! [Read more →]

Tags: photography by PShizzy
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One of the most common sources of frustration I have on a regular basis is that of filesharing. That’s because while everyone has the internet, how we have it and how we use it is so unique to each of us, that we often end up with a few incompatibilities.

Let’s take email. Everyone’s got an email address. But not everyone supports the same file size for attachments and downloads. I can send 20MB files (thank you GMail), but you might only support 5-10MB (like my Cox account supports). Now what?

How bout IM’s? Excellent. I use AIM. You use MSN? How are we even friends? Ok I use Adium. What? Ya, it lets me use AIM, MSN, Yahoo, etc. Great. Wait, does it let me share files across? Yes. But crap, I’m on a router, so now I have a firewall. What, you’re on a router too? But it says the file is sending. Of course, it’s said that for the last 10 minutes. And ya, I’m just trying to send you a small jpg, so this should have been done nine minutes ago.

Ok how bout FTP? Great. I have one. Do you have a server? What’s your ftp address. What, that’s private. Ok. I’ll post the file on my webspace. Wait, now it’s too public.

Using a common protocol is tough for sharing because we may not have any in common. Making a file public is bad because now the file is public. It’s funny because the answers we seek end up being their own problems. So what if I had a place where I could store files, make them public or private on a file or folder level, share them via email, a special link, or otherwise, and generally have the ease of use of a download for our users, while we have the security of using a service with its own protocol on our backend.

Oh ya, what if it were free too, unless you want to move single files that are over 100MB (which at the rate cameras keep upgrading the sensors and megapixels might be next year)? Keep on reading! [Read more →]

Tags: general by PShizzy
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So there you are, in the middle of or after a shoot. You have a small pause in your day, and you decide to start downloading your files. If you’re like me, you let the card download while you go get a snack or attend to something else. You wait for that familiar “ding” sound. Except this time, your download starts off with the “error” sound. It doesn’t kick in just yet. You figure it’s a forgotten setting or you had a hidden window asking you if were you sure you wanted to do what you just tried to do. So you set it up again. Ready to leave the computer to it’s chore, you get the error sound again. It’s starting to kick in: You may have just encountered your first (and unfortunately not last) corrupt card.

You panic, of course. It’s an important shoot. It’s a memorable family gathering. It’s an image of you with Charles Barkley. Whatever it is, it’s lost. You think it’s unfair. You always backup (you do, right?), having two or more copies of a file, offsite (so both copies don’t burn down in a fire or short out in a flood), perhaps online (so that you always have access to it), and in different mediums (DVD so you can’t overwrite a file incorrectly). But how can you backup something that’s corrupt before you even get to a computer? Forget that. How can you at least get back a single copy of all your images? Oh God, what’s it going to cost?

We’ve all read about those companies that will recover your files for you. They often have engineers in bunny suits (cleanroom outfits, not the mall kiosk gig). Those bunny suits ain’t cheap, and neither is the service fee for file recovery on any sort of disk.

So how about FREE, and Mac/PC friendly. Link after the jump. [Read more →]

Tags: general by PShizzy
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Aside from the silly name, this is going to be a fairly serious post about travel. I am no travel expert, as I only travel a handful of times, so I will link to the real expert on this kind of stuff. I have a video as well, featuring my packing of a Think Tank Airport Security bag, as well as repacking some of that gear into my Lowepro Computrekker AW.

This post will feature a set of Youtube videos (the 10 minute limit means I had to cut the piece into two sections), as well as a Mediafire link to a higher quality download.

On top of that, I’ll go into some detail as to my “philosophy” on packing and travel. I don’t expect that everything I do will be copied, but I hope that the video and this post will at least give you an idea or two to try out on your next trip.

Oh, and one last thing: A turducken is a turkey stuffed with a duck, which itself is stuffed with a chicken. It just seemed fitting for a post title about how my bag is packed. If you want to make one, Paula Dean has a recipe on Food Network. Oh, and if you happen to make one, mind sending me some?

Read on! [Read more →]

Tags: equipment by PShizzy
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Luminous Landscape is an interesting site. While it may not be the common fare for a lot of photographers, because of the niche the site caters to, it’s still a great read. I especially like James Russell and his views. In the latest LL, he discusses a commercial shoot for Phase One, the digital back company. Think sensors the size of LCD screens. Think 40 plus uh, make that 60 megapixels. Think 30 plus thousand dollars. Ok ignore that last part, because it’s depressing.

I love how honest James is. He goes into the somewhat gory details of the commercial shoot, including the pros and cons of doing the shoot (I love how he mentions the low profitability). Later he talks about the adventure of getting to the shoot, and how unglamorous it is, which is refreshing. Often we may think of some photographers, especially at the higher end, as making a large sum of money and living it up, jet setting across the world in private jets and Maybach whips.

Not James apparently. He rolls to Paris (ok that IS cool) in a truck with his friend who doesn’t know that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, and drinks coffee that apparently is heated by a small nuclear reactor.

Oh, and he does actually talk about his steps in getting it all done, from start to finish. It also helps that James is a kick ass photographer. So, great read.

He has another article, about the D3 and his use of it for sports. Again, great read.

Two last tidbits: First, I’m sorry I haven’t posted recently. X Games was great, but upon my return, I’ve had to play catch up with the rest of my life. Secondly, the video of me cracking open an Airport Security bag like a camera piñata is on it’s way to me. I plan to post it as a mediafire download and a youtube video. If its treated like the Minitrekker video, I may end up dying in photographic infamy (again).

Tags: business, photography by PShizzy
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12:30 Friday and I’m headed back out soon. The first day of X Games 14 was interesting. First, a fast run to the Home Depot Center, simply to get our credential. This wasn’t news to us, as that happened last year. At least they gave us the coolest USB flash drive, the X Games SkateDrive. I actually needed a new USB drive, so it kinda worked out. So after getting our credential, we had to drive all the way back to downtown LA to the Staples Center.

First up: BMX Freestyle. It was a new venue, the Event Deck, across the street from BMX, but it was also about 4:30pm in direct sun. No dreams about cloudy days offering solace, or at least some beautiful golden hour. I tried a few basic shots, and they came out looking like they were shot in direct sun. But I tried a few different things, and eventually got a few shots I liked.

A basic backlit shot. It’s not new, but the idea is that it doesn’t have that super blaring direct sun look. I adjusted the WB in the camera to 10,000 Kelvin, shot about a billion stops under, and it almost looks sunset-ish. Also, I had to do this shot from the media spot under duress after security told us that no media was allowed in the bleachers, where the fans sit. A fisheye, or a long lens to get a nice clean background woulda been great.

Read on for the link to the gallery, including shots of Skateboard Big Air.

Update on the Airport Security video: It’s been shot and basic edits applied. With X Games underway, and strategizing where to go and what to shoot, it’s been hectic. But it will come out in a few days. [Read more →]

Tags: photography by PShizzy
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