Mike Wong is the VP of Marketing at onOne Software, located in Portland, Oregon.
I happened to be over at the Digital SLR User Magazine website and came across a link to a US commercial for the new Canon Rebel XSi DSLR. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth the 30 seconds it takes to watch it. All of the images in the video were taken with a Canon EOS digital camera. Check it out.
Today was my first full day in Birmingham and surprisingly, I felt pretty good today. Usually the jet lag gets me, but I did manage to sleep for about 9 hours last night so that might have something to do with it. We'll see how it goes tomorrow after a full day at the show.
Usually when I go on a trip like this, I either miss out on some fantastic weather at home or I escape the rainy weather in Portland and find myself in the cold and rain somewhere else. Not this time, seems that regardless of being in Portland, Oregon or in Birmingham, England, the weather is pretty much the same. See for yourself.
More tomorrow about the show and how it's going. I suspect the weather report from inside the show tomorrow will be the same as every other convention center in the world...
Like many photographers, I'm always on the lookout for a new camera bag. I've had a variety of bags from Tamrac, Crumpler and LowePro (in fact I should be getting the Lowe Pro Mag 2 AW Camera Shoulder Bag today that ordered from B&H). But I think this may be the next camera bag that I add to my wish list.
It's the Monkey Bag from Case Logic and it can be yours for less than $10. Okay, so it won't hold any of my cameras including my Canon G9, but I bet my daughter would love it.
Yesterday, I got my hands on a Canon 85mm f/1.2 lens from Lens Pro To Go. I've rented from them before and I must say that they offer a great service at a very reasonable price (plus if you're a NAPP member you save 10 percent).
Anyway, I've been wanting to play with this lens for a while (I don't have $1700 to spend on a lens) and boy is it fun. The lens is HUGE, but that is to be expected with that much glass in it. Anyway, it takes some getting used to with the depth of field you can generate with this bad boy. Here are a couple of examples of some shots I took last night.
Canon 20D, 85mm, f/1.2, 1/50 sec, ISO 200
Canon 20D, 85mm, f/1.2, 1/15 sec, ISO 100
I love how it blurs out the background. I'll be having lots of fun with this over the next week before I have to return it.
For all of you (or none of you) who have me on your Christmas shopping list this year, here's a late addition that is a match made in heaven for my Canon Powershot G9 that I picked up in October.
It's the Really Right Stuff BG9-L L-plate for the G9 which in and of itself is very cool (though I must admit, it would be pretty funny to see this mounted on the RRS BH-55 that I have).
Now, the L-plate is cool enough, but Really Right Stuff also has a lightweight Body Armor cover for the G9 (and the G7 too). You can get them both for only $130 which seems like a good deal to me. Here are some pictures of the L plate and body armor.
Check out the Really Right Stuff website for more pictures and details.
I got an email from my buddy Mike Bedford who runs the Plugs 'N Pixels website - a great resource for all kinds of Photoshop Plug-Ins. He's got a nice round up of Photoshop World in Las Vegas as well as some good coverage of some other plug-ins to help you maximize the all you can do in Photoshop - even if you don't have years of experience using it.
Check out the site and also be sure to check out eZine #10 - there's a fun picture of me with Jim DiVitale at the onOne booth at Photoshop World.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to go shooting with Canon Explorer of Light, Rick Sammon. Rick is a great guy and a lot of fun to hang out with and he really enjoys teaching photography and it shows.
Rick was in Portland for a couple of days working with Pro Photo Supply and Canon and he led a photo shoot in the Japanese Gardens. We had great weather and it was a lot of fun and I even got to try out the Canon EF 16-35 f/2.8 L II lens. Wow. I really want that lens now after shooting with it. Here's one of my shots that I took with it.
Later, Rick stopped several of us and reminded everybody to have fun while shooting and to try new things. Here's Rick teaching one of the attendees how to be creative by setting a slightly longer shutter speed, point the camera down at an object, start rotating the camera and then click the shutter.
Here's my attempt.
So if you ever get a chance to go shoot with Rick, make sure to get out there and do it. You won't regret it. If you can't go shoot with Rick, here's the next best thing.
If you can't get to one of Rick's events here's the next best thing. Rick has a new live-action DVD: Rick Sammon's Canon EOS Digital Rebel Personal Training Workshop. The 1.5 hour DVD covers everything you need to know abou the Canon Digital Rebel XTi and digital SLR photography in general. So even if you don't have a Canon camera, the DVD will help turn your snapshots into a great shot. Learn more here.
All images copyright Mike Wong 2007
I did it. I overcame my typical buyer's hesitation and went down to the local pro photo shop (Pro Photo Supply) and purchased a brand new Canon Powershot G9 today. My first impression was that it was bigger than I thought and a little heavier than I thought but after taking a few shots in the office today, those are going to be minor issues at best.
The 3 inch LCD on the back is gorgeous. There are even some cool visual effects as you change from P to Tv to Av to Manual mode. However, the really cool thing is that when in one of these manual modes and you dial in the f-stop or shutter speed, the LCD screen updates in real-time to give you a pretty good idea of what the change to the settings are going to do to your photo. If you're new to photography, or at least new to manual settings, this feature is going to help immensely and I can see this being used a great teaching tool.
The weather here in Portland is perfect. Sixty five degrees, a bit of a chill in the air and no rain. That's the weekend forecast anyway and I'm heading out to the pumpkin patch with the family and some friends so I'll get a chance to use the G9 quite a bit. Can't wait. I'll post my pictures and my second impressions later this weekend.
Earlier today while I was enjoying my morning coffee, I headed over to Matt Kloskowski's Lightroom Killer Tips blog as I often do. Matt has posted a great video on creating a very popular and cool grunge look to your photos. Be sure to head over to Matt's blog to download the video.
Here's a quick before and after example.
Thanks for the tip Matt!
Well, I was hoping that I'd be able to say that my latest toy was the new Canon Powershot G9 - and I'm sure I'll be saying that at some point soon - but today I got a new laptop stand for my 15" MacBook Pro.
It's the mStand from Rain Design Inc. and it is, hands down the best accessory I've ever purchased for any laptop I've ever owned. Now, I don't include bags and mice or my Wacom tablet as accessories - those to me are essential, must have items, but for years, I've used an old cigar box that I've had for over a decade as my laptop stand to raise it up a bit and get it close to the same level as my 23" Apple Cinema Display. The cigar box was cool and all, but a laptop stand is not what it was ever meant to do.
This new mStand though is fantastic. It doesn't budge - and I mean, it doesn't budge - on the desk so there's no fear of bumping it. The angle that it places the MacBook Pro is perfect and is much, much, much easier for me to see now. Even the keyboard is up and more accessible for the occasional times I use it's keyboard instead of my external keyboard that I typically use. To top it off, the design, color, etc match the style and color of the MacBook Pro and the aluminum bezel Cinema Display.
I can't say enough good things about this laptop stand. If you have a MacBook Pro or an older PowerBook G4 that you hook up to an external display or with an external keyboard and just want to get the screen at eye level, you need one of these mStands. For me, it's no longer an accessory, but an essential item to own.
This morning I received my monthly newsletter from DoubleExposure.com. In the edition was a tip from John Paul Caponigro entitled "Defocus". Typically, everywhere you turn, there's a headline on a magazine cover about "SHOOTING SHARP LIKE THE PROS" or a topic in a forum about the sharpest lens and how far you should stop it down to get the sharpest point, etc. etc..
So it was refreshing to read John Paul's article this morning (which will take you about 10 seconds) about composing your photo and then intentionally exposing the shot OUT OF FOCUS. I love it. Not only the concept and the tip on composition, but John Paul as given me some inspiration for a self-assignment the next time I'm out shooting in about 10 seconds. There's no extra fluff in the article. He gets right to the point and gets it across. He's also included a photo of his that I haven't seen before and it makes his point perfectly.
For those of you who attended the keynote at Photoshop World in Las Vegas last week, you will have seen this video - which is hilarious by the way. For those of you who didn't, check out the big announcement from Adobe...Photoshop CS3 Extended for iPhone!
Click the picture above or go to the Layers Magazine website to see the video.
A word to the wise, never ask to have a bite of a cupcake in the hands of a three year old. Well, at least don't ask my daughter...
Photo copyright 2007 Mike Wong
As some of you might know, there was a full lunar eclipse earlier this morning and since I've never seen one before and the next one isn't until next year, I figured I might as well set my alarm for 1:30 am, get up and take a look for myself. Of course, I took out my Canon 20D along with my 70-200 f4/L IS (which I was wishing was a 600 f4/L IS) along with my trusty (but aging) Manfrotto tripod and my favorite ball head ever, the Really Right Stuff BH-55 with quick release clamp.
After many shots at a variety of f-stops, shutter speeds and ISO settings, here's my best shot of the bunch. It's my first real attempt at night photography and shooting the moon so if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears and would love the feedback. I've got 6 months for the next one.
8/28/07, 3:01:52 AM PST, 1.0 sec at f / 4.5, 192mm, -2/3 EV, ISO 800, Canon EOS 20D, 70-200 f/4 L IS
Image copyright 2007 Mike Wong
Every now and then you get a nice surprise. Maybe you find a few bucks in your pants pocket after it goes through the wash. Maybe you get your cell phone bill and see that they actually owe YOU money. Maybe you go home and the kids are playing nicely together and dinner is on the table. :-)
This morning, I had a different kind of surprise. I have a bunch of Google Alerts set up to help keep me updated on a variety of things related to photography, Photoshop, what people are saying about onOne products, etc. And as often happens when I get one of these Google Alerts, I click on it to see the full context of the keyword that is being searched faithfully by Google. Sometimes you find what you're looking for sometimes you don't. Anyway, I went to one of the alerts I had this morning and it led me to a Flickr group that I hadn't seen before and discovered some amazing photography and some amazing Photoshop work.
The photographer's name is Rebekka (and I don't know all of the correct html codes to spell her last name correctly - sorry). Here's a link to her Flickr site. Absolutely stunning work. It makes me want to leave right now and go shoot. Thanks for the inspiration Rebekka.
Heads up all you Canon shooters out there looking to upgrade your DSLR bodies...Canon's finally announced (as anticipated by many) that the 40D is on it's way. Check out the release on the Digital Photography Review website.
I was thinking I'd save my money for the 5D, but at a list of $1299 (and I would think the street would be less than $1000 to compete with the D80), this could very well be my next camera.
Hmmm....now if only I can convince my wife that I need to buy a new camera. :-)
Okay, so I'm from the West Coast. Oregon to be precise. Portland to be even more precise and let's be honest, Portland is a relatively small city in the grand scheme of cities in the U.S.A. Growing up here, life has always moved along at a relatively easy pace. Not too fast, not too slow.
Now, I've been to New York many times over the years, but it never seems to fail that at least for the first day or two that I'm here, everything seems to move at a very fast pace, faster than I'm used to anyway especially when it comes to crossing streets and watching out for the crazy cab drivers who drive from one intersection to the next as if they are in a qualifying event for the Indy 500 or some other speed event.
So I thought I would try to capture that feeling in the first day or two before it wears off - usually just in time for me to fly home, get in my car and drive home from the airport like a NYC cabbie only to realize that...I'm not a cabbie, I have no fare and I'm definitely not in NYC anymore. Sorry. Here's the photo.
Canon 20D, 24-105 mm f/4 L IS at 1/2 second at f/9, ISO 200
For those of you who know me, you know that I love cappuccinos and am always in search of the best one.
I'm down in Los Angeles for some meetings for a couple of days so when I finished up early on Monday, I called Vincent Versace (because I owed him the latest copy of Genuine Fractals and he's fun to hang out with). After about 5 seconds of trying to think of a coffee shop that was close to where I was and where his studio is, we ended up meeting in Beverly Hills at Il Fornaio. If you're ever in that area and are in need of a cappuccino, look no further. It was probably one of the best cappuccinos I've ever had - though I still think the best one I had was back in 1999 at Trovata in East Sydney.
Anyway, over about 5 cappuccinos and 3 hours we talked about all kinds of things from Genuine Fractals to DSLRs, lenses, Lightroom, Photoshop CS3, Aperture and Capture NX. Vincent was also kind enough to give me some great photography advice as well.
But what I wanted to share with you was one of the strangest things I've ever witnessed. Vincent and I were sitting in the restaurant drinking our coffee and his back is to the door and I'm facing the front of the building and even with that, I can't see out really because of the placement of the windows, plants, etc. (this is important later).
In the middle of a sentence, Vincent stands up with a concerned look on his face, does a 180 to look behind him and says, "I'll be back in a second" as he hurries out the door. He comes back in about 5 minutes later to grab his wallet, phone and his motorcycle insurance and says "Sorry, they're about to impound my motorcycle, be right back." About 15 minutes later he comes back with a look of relief on his face and he tells me that he's managed to explain everything to the police officer's satisfaction and has avoided any tickets and getting impounded. But what threw me for a loop was that the whole time this went on, I didn't see the police pickup truck until it was about to leave and had moved forward. So if I'm facing the window and Vincent had his back to the door, how did he, how could he have known his bike was the subject of interest to Beverly Hills' Finest?
So of course, I asked him how he knew...
Vincent: "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Me: "Try me. I just saw it with my own eyes."
Then he told me the best way he could describe it in a way I might understand was that he felt a disturbance in the force around his bike. Well, growing up on Star Wars, I immediately understand the reference and I did see the whole thing happen and believe me, there was NO WAY he could have seen what was happening outside. Crazy. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.
Two things to mention...first, we've got an online forum setup now so onOne users can share information, tips, tricks, troubleshooting, etc with each other. It should serve as a great resource when you need immediate help or assistance and a good place to share any information that you have that might help others.
The second thing I wanted to mention is that as part of our forums, we've got a board that we're calling the Photo of the Month. The idea is that we want you to share and post your favorite photos each month with the new online community we're building. Each month, we'll pick the best photo and feature it in our monthly eNews and award a cool prize. So head on over and start posting photos. I've posted one to get things started, but I'm really excited to see what you'll post.
I'm in New York this week for a few days for some events and training at the Calumet Photo store. Acting like a tourist for a day, I did the last free thing to do in New York and took the Staten Island Ferry from Lower Manhattan, past the Statue of Liberty over to Staten Island. I thought it would be uneventful, but this is New York and anything can happen. Not to overreact here, but we had a bit of a hard landing. The ferry hit the pier pretty hard, more than a few people fell over contrary to what the story said, but I think everybody looked okay.
Anyway, here are some pictures that I took on the way from Manhattan.
Off to Boston tomorrow. If I get any good shots, I'll post 'em.
All images copyright 2007 Michael Wong
It's been almost 2 years that onOne Software has been in business. We launched our company back in June of 2005 but didn't make it official with a functioning website until a month later in July. Back then, I really liked the colors that we had picked out for the site - some nice soothing grays and a blue that my wife said looked like it came from a West Elm color swatch.
Even though I liked the colors, a part of me had wanted to make the site darker. Black. Dark grays. That kind of thing. Everything seems to "pop" better on a black background. Well, we're coming up on 2 years of having everything up and running and we've decided to revisit our color choices. If you've been to our site at all today, you'll notice a big change in the colors. The layout is pretty much the same, though we've added a lot more content to the individual product pages for those users who have been asking us for more information. We kept the same layout more or less so returning users wouldn't have to figure out where everything is, but we've drastically changed the colors. I'm quite happy with how the whole thing turned out. We've got a great guy working for us who knows HTML, CSS and a bunch of other web acronymns really well and was able to crank this out pretty quickly. His name is Chris and he occasionally answers the phone for Technical Support or Customer Service so if you talk to him, give him a "nice job" on the site redesign.
Yesterday was the first day of the 2007 Photoshop World Boston Conference & Expo and what a great day it was. It all started off with Johnny L from Adobe mentioning onOne Software in the Keynote, which was unexpected from us, but tremendously appreciated and exciting.
When the Expo opened, there was a rush of people who at first flew right past our booth and flocked to the Lynda.com booth (I still need to find out what that was all about), but shortly thereafter, we were busy talking to people and it never let up. A big thank you to all of you who stopped by our booth to say hello, ask questions and purchase products. I really enjoy these shows and seeing people get excited about our products and that's what keeps us going and dedicated to building great products.
One of the highlights of my day yesterday was spending about 20 minutes with Vincent Versace before the Expo opened. He showed me aboug 15 prints that he had done for his Black and White Conversion class. Vincent recently converted one of his 5 mega pixel DSLR cameras to a dedicated Infrared camera. If you know Vincent, you know that he likes Genuine Fractals to increase the size of his 5 mega pixel files large enough to be printed at 36" x 44". The prints were amazing. He said he'll give me some of them, so we'll see what happens later today...
The second highlight came when Judy Morse, an attendee & photographer stopped by our booth and rightfully shared with me that earlier in the day she received the Vincent Versace Award for her photo titled "Molokai Infrared". You can see the photo on the Photoshop World Guru Awards page. The thing that Judy wanted to tell me was that she used one of the frames from PhotoFrame Pro to finish off the picture. Looks to me like one of the vignette frames. Nice job Judy! Congratulations!
Well, we just finished up a great show in Las Vegas (WPPI) and now our booth is all packed up and on a plane for Boston. Can't wait for the show next week, as it should be lots of fun. I'm sure Adobe will be doing all kinds of fun things with Photoshop CS3 since the public announcement earlier this week.
Anyway, the point of this entry really was to let you know that if you're going to be in Boston next week for Photoshop World, be sure to stop by our booth and check our theater schedule. I'm working with Jim DiVitale, Helene Glasssman, Rick Sammon and Vincent Versace to have them give a short demo or slideshow or whatever they want to do for 20 to 30 minutes. Kevin Ames usually stops by to say hello as well and no matter how busy he is, always takes time to talk to attendees. The schedule will be finalized late, so stop by booth 303 to see when they'll be talking in our booth. Given that most of the time any of them talk at an event, it's in a standing room only room of 1000 or more, it will be a great chance to meet these talented and incredibly nice people in a smaller and friendly environment.
I'm in San Antonio this week for the annual Imaging USA Conference and Expo. After a nice long delay in Dallas, I finally got into San Antonio last night. I've never been here before and was quite happy to see that the downtown area is so nice. It's a great place to walk around, especially along the River Walk with all the restaurants and people watching.
If you're in San Antonio this week, be sure to stop by Booth 1255 and say hello to us. We'd love to see you.
Another inspired shot from Julianne Kost's book, Window Seat. I shot this one with my compact Canon SD550 on the way from PDX to ATL. After a bit of Photoshop work, here's what I ended up with. The frame you see on the picture is from the Jack Davis Collection of add-on frames for PhotoFrame Pro.
I'll post a short tutorial on how I ended up with this final picture in the next few days.
Before PhotoFrame Pro:
After PhotoFrame Pro:
Images copyright Mike Wong
I've been hearing this a lot lately. Someone says something like this where they say "I've got a friend who is a professional photographer who is a beta tester for Adobe's Lightroom". What a coincidence, so do I. In fact, I've got non-professional photographer friends who are beta testers for Lightoom. For that matter, I AM A BETA TESTER FOR LIGHTROOM.
When a company makes a beta program public, anybody can be a beta tester. This kind of stuff just cracks me up. Sure, being a beta tester for some kinds of software still has some "I'm on the inside track" excitement for those who care about that kind of stuff. But when a program like Lightroom is a public beta and all you have to do to qualify to be a "beta tester" is fill out a form and give Adobe your email address, well, it's not that big of a deal.
If someone was a true beta tester for a non-announced, non-public program, they would be under Non-Disclosure Agreements and couldn't (or shouldn't) be talking to friends who aren't on the beta program under a similar (or the same) NDA.
I don't mean to single the above referenced blog post out, it just made me realize that I hear and read this all the time now and I think it's silly.
No posts from Day 2 of my Atlanta stay, but it was a good day at the Epson Print Academy. They had a good turn out and I got to talk to a lot of really great people during the breaks. For those of you who stopped by and bought one of our products, thank you very much! Be sure to check out our online tutorials to help you get up to speed with your new purchase.
I had a day to myself today, which is rare on these types of trips, so I took advantage and went to the Georgia Aquarium with Jim DiVitale. Thanks again for taking me Jim! The highlight of the day was seeing the enormous tank (6.2 million gallons held back by 2 feet of acryllic that spans 63 feet in width and about 40 feet or more in height) where there are 4, count 'em 4, whale sharks! These are incredible animals and to see one up close was something amazing. Here's a picture of the largest one whose name is Norton. The other male is named Ralph and the two females are named, Alice & Trixie.
Next stop on my trip is Tampa to visit our good friends over at NAPP.
I'm now in Atlanta. First time ever. Everyone always calls it Hotlanta, but I gotta tell you, it's more like Chillylanta or Windylanta today. It's brisk and windy outside. Nothing hot about it. I'm on a quest to see if I can find a place that serves Pepsi. I don't give myself very good odds seeing how I am in the land of Coke. In fact, it appears that the Coca-Cola headquarters are just behind me past the Georgia Tech campus.
Here's a shot from my hotel room balcony. You can see the Georgia Tech football stadium in the background.
The traffic here looks horrendous. It's only gotten worse since I've been here. But with a population approaching 5 million, what would you expect.
I went out looking for a place to eat, and I didn't get very far from my hotel when I smelled what could only be that unmistakable combination of deep fried oil and french fries. It was like there was a forest fire and you could smell the smoke for miles. Well it turns out, I was approaching an Atlanta institution known as The Varsity. Apparently, the downtown Atlanta location is responsible for more retail sales of Coca-Cola on an annual basis than any other single location in the world, a record which has stood for many years running. If you look towards the bottom center of the picture above, you can see The Varsity. It's huge. The parking lot, including the drive in area, was completely full. Maybe I'll have to stop in before I leave town.
I couldn't bring myself to stay in there tough. I just got rid of that BBQ smell from Mobile and didn't want to replace it with the unmistakable, if not somewhat appetizing, smell of french fries.
Off to dinner soon with Jim DiVitale. He lives here in Atlanta ya know. I'm looking forward to catching up with him.
Image copyright Mike Wong
En route to Atlanta for the Epson Print Academy this Saturday, I stopped in Mobile, AL for a couple of meetings with a reseller. For lunch yesterday, we went to this great BBQ joint. Damn it was good food. I still smell like a mixture of BBQ and smoke - and I don't mean BBQ smoke. I mean cigarette smoke. Coming from Oregon where you can't smoke inside any public building, it was a bit of a shock to walk into two different restaurants where smoking is allowed. When you don't smoke, walking into it hits you like a brick wall. At least it does to me.
Anyway, I escaped the cold weather of Oregon this week - or so I thought. When I left Portland, it was about 33 degrees F and wet. Landing in Mobile, it was 75 and HUMID. This morning on the way to Mobile Regional Airport, it's a bit brisk. 39 degrees F by all of the electronic bank billboards on Airport Blvd.
Here's some Mobile, AL trivia for you. Did you know...to the delight of children everywhere, Lonnie Johnson of Mobile, AL invented the Super Soaker.
More later when I get to Atlanta.
Just before Thanksgiving, I headed down to Ojai, CA for a few days to the Lynda.com Development Center to record several hours worth of training for Mask Pro. There's nothing quite like sitting in a recording booth for 2 days straight. :-)
The weather was great though for the time that I was outside.
All images copyright Mike Wong
Wow, November is almost over. I can't believe it. This has been an incredibly busy month for us at onOne Software. We were at the PhotoPlus Expo and had a great show. I'm posting a few pictures here that I took with my compact Canon SD 550. I call it "New York in Motion".
Continue reading "Super Late Post - Pics from PhotoPlus East" »
In the spirit of the season, here's a quick way to turn that (boring) Haloween snapshot into something a little more interesting using PhotoFrame Pro 3. Here's a picture of the pumpkin I carved with my (then 3 year old) son a couple of years ago.
Nothing too exciting or unique about this picture. But let's take a second and add some frames from the Paranormal collection in PhotoFrame Pro 3 and it becomes a little spookier and more in the spirit of the holiday. The first thing I did was to increase my canvas size by 1 inch on all sides.
All I did was experiment with several different versions of the Paranormal frames. I layered several on top of each other and adjusted the size and blur of each just a little bit. There's no right or wrong here just have some fun.
I'm heading down to Southern California tomorrow to do some in-store, retail trainings for one of our partners, Calumet. San Diego, Santa Ana, Los Angeles & Santa Barbara. I'm hoping to get a chance to take some pictures while on the road.
I stumbled across this Coca Cola commercial this morning while drinking my morning coffee at home. I thought it was absolutely fantastic. I love the creativity and take off on the video game Grand Theft Auto (which kind of scares me how popular that game is for how incredibly violent it is - maybe I'm just too old, though I was a big gamer in my day - I heard an interview with Joe Pantoliano who did a voice for Grand Theft Auto III who said something to the effect of "don't buy it, I can't believe how violent it is". Anyway, I digress...). Watch this video, it's fantastic.
My mom sends me stuff like this all the time. I have no idea where she finds it or who sends it to her, but I thought I'd share this one. So from my mom to you, here goes nothing.
HP has a slew of new cameras with a new feature built-in "Artistic Effect" called Slimming. The technology looks interesting, because in the demos on their site, only the subject gets affected and the background (at least appears to) goes unaffected.
If you know anybody who has one of these cameras, I'd love to hear what they think. Seems a bit strange to me...
Seitz Phototechnik AG has an insane 160 megapixel camera that they are now taking reservations for. Worried about not having enough space on your CF or SD cards (or needing 100 more!)? Don't worry, they've set it up so you can transfer directly to a computer (like a Mac Mini) via gigabit ethernet like so:
And in case you're wondering what a 160 MP camera looks like, here's a picture from their site.
I read this over on John Nack's blog and had to repost. Of course, this begs the question, spend $36,653 on this camera or $159.95 on Genuine Fractals? :-)
Well, Photoshop World has come and gone and oddly, it feels like it was a long time ago, but it was just one week ago that I was on a plane heading down to Vegas. Here's a quick recap of my week in Las Vegas.
After landing in Vegas, went straight to the Mandalay Bay hotel, checked in and then went down to the Convention Center to set up our booth. Of course, though, the booth wasn't there so we had to sit around a wait for a couple of hours. Here are a couple of pics from my cell phone while I waited at the loading dock and of the rest of the onOne crew killing some time in our (empty) booth space.
Of course, everything eventually showed up and we got it all taken care of. Afterwards, I was fortunate enough to be invited to a dinner sponsored by American Photo magazine where I was a guest with others including Greg Gorman, Jeff Schewe, John Paul Caponigro, Dan Steinhardt and Andrew Rodney. FYI, Greg knows how to pick a good wine. We went to the Red Square restaurant in Mandalay Bay and I had an amazing filet mignon. Here's where my week gets interesting.
Prior to this trip, I had 2 general rules that I follow when I travel for tradeshows.
Rule number 1: Never have any more than 2 drinks the night before I have to demo. Like most lessons, I've learned this one the hard way. During my days at Extensis, I've been known to have a few drinks with friends and co-workers only to suffer the next day on the show floor. Not good. So, no more than 2 gin & tonics and all works out well the next day.
Rule number 2: Never eat fish on the road. Last year at Photoshop World Boston, I ate fish the night before the first day of the show. I'm in Boston, so I should be safe eating fish right? Wrong. Man, that was a tough day. I was sick like I've never been before. There's nothing quite like getting sick like that on the road. Fortunately for our company president, we each had our own rooms at that show.
Rule number 3: New rule established just this year at Photoshop World Las Vegas. Never eat a salad on the road. At the dinner I mentioned above, I was good and had only one glass of wine (thanks Greg) and steered clear of the Ahi Tuna that looked good and ordered a filet mignon with a house green salad. That was to be my undoing. Hours later, I'm sick as a dog. Get this though, it was 1 year TO THE DAY that I had gotten sick in Boston.
After a full day of laying on my back and watching some horrible tv including 10 varieties of Judge Judy and the People's Court, I finally rallied and pulled myself together around 5pm and eventually made my way over to the After Hours Party at Game Werks that we sponsored. Miraculously, I ate a little bit of food and a couple of Cokes and I felt like a million bucks.
At the party, I got to meet Moose Peterson in person finally (we'd been trading emails for months) as well as Joe McNally. That's the great thing about these shows is the people you get to meet. Both of these guys were incredibly nice and I was honored to meet them.
Day 2 of the show was great. Our booth was packed and were we able to talk to a lot of users out there and show them our latest stuff including PhotoFrame Pro 3 and Mask Pro 4. There's nothing like talking face to face with you guys and I love every chance that I get to do it.
The highlight of my week though was going to the Art of Digital Photography Show. My friend Jim DiVitale hosted it and he told me not to miss it and I'm glad I didn't. I always love seeing Jim's amazing montages. If you've not seen Joe Glyda's Self Assignments, you don't know what you're missing - you've go to see them. They are fantastic. Joe McNally's slideshow was great and I'd love to know what songs he did his show to. Of course, Jay Maisal's work is fabulous and he treated everybody to a slideshow that documented the first 13 years of his daughters life. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed seeing that many pictures of someone else's family. :-) Last but not least, the work of Moose, Vincent Versace and John Paul Caponigro is wonderful and inspiring.
I was surprised at how many people in the audience had never been to a PSW before. Over half of the audience.
All in all, it was a great show, food poisoning aside of course. Looking forward to seeing everybody again either at PhotoPlus East in November or PSW east in Boston next April.
Wow. I can't believe that Photoshop World starts tomorrow. We've been pretty heads down lately getting a bunch of stuff ready for the show. We've got a brand new booth that I can't wait to get set up and we've got some other announcements coming tomorrow as well...
I'm hoping to get a chance to post some more from the show and post some pictures as well. More later...
