Useful one handed reflectors

I've tried a zillion different portable reflectors.  Or at least five.

I recently found the Lastolite Triflip.  Like many reflector kits, it is based around a flexible frame that starts with a diffusion scrim with zippered reflectors, white, silver gold and black.  Like other reflectors, the Triflip comes with a stand clamp, and folds up into a transportable flat package, roughly 12 inches in diameter.

The big differences are twofold.  The Triflip is roughly triangular in shape with a robust handgrip at the "point".  If you've eve tried to handhold a reflector in one hand and the camera in the other, you know how awkward the larger round reflectors can be.  The Lastolite Triflip is completely different.  You can not only mount to a lightstand but also handhold the reflector and exercise excellent control of the reflected light.

When decent multi kits exist from a variety of fune vendors, we all have choices open to us.  Since I shoot mostly on my own, and often am in situations where stands are inappropriate, this kit is really ideal.

Sell price is roughly $150 but I hit a sale and got the kit for $120.  While I haven't discarded my other multi-reflectors, I carry the Triflip clipped to my vest, or daybag everywhere.  For me at least, the key to useful kit it that it is kit you use.

Geotagging your photos - effectively and inexpensively with Geotag Photos Pro

With the advent of decent cameras in smartphones that also include GPS devices, it's become popular generically to start geotagging your photos.  That's all well and good and transparent if you have an iPhone 4 for example, but what if you have a DSLR or Compact Digital without a built-in GPS?

There are certainly options available in your favourite photo retailer that mount in the hot shoe and with only a bit of arm twisting and a bunch of money, you can now geotag photos you make on your better camera.  Sorry, too expensive and too much of a kludge.

I use an iPhone 4 and an iPad, both of which have GPS built in, so I went looking for a Geotagging app that ran on either platform, was fast and simple to use, and could handle large volumes of photos without needing days.  Fortunately most iDevelopers understand that to get people to buy your good apps, it pays to do a Lite version that may be feature limited to get the hook set.  So that's the route I went.  I searched for apps that had lite and paid versions with the plan to try the lites and then buy the one I liked best.

First thing I discovered is that there are a lot of these apps.  Second thing I discovered is that most of them are difficult to use, have bad UI, or require you to dislocate bones to make them work.  I won't dis any of those app builders by name, but I didn't go forward with their products.

I recently spent the day with my friend Bryan, owner / operator of Daytripper Photo, on a trip up to the Wye Marsh near Midland, Ontario.  Over the course of the day I shot over 350 images, with my usual ratio of junk this to keepers.  But befire I pulled them in to Lightroom and or Aperture, I wanted to have them geotagged.

In my testing, I settled on Geotag Photos Pro from TappyTaps.  The program is so simple and so effective.  Here's how it works.

1.  When you are ready to start shooting, launch the app and create a new trip and start recording the GPS locations.  All it takes is a one button press and a name for the trip.  You can control how often the GPS updates the log file from the preferences.  I chose 15 minutes in this case and it didn't do any real damage to battery life on the iPhone.

2.  Forget about the app.  Go shoot photos.  For however long you like.

3.  Once your photo shoot is over, stop the recording of the GPS log and let it upload to the website.

4.  Your workflow for managing your photos may vary, but I will share mine.  I load the CF card into the reader and copy all the RAW images to a dated folder in a directory for each camera on a Drobo.  Backup of original photos complete.

5.  I duplicate the directory in case something goes wrong wth the geotagging.  It never has but paranoia is offset by cheap disk space.

6.  I use the offline version of the Geotag Photos Pro application on my Mac Pro, but there is a web client if you prefer that.  I download the trip file and point it at the directory containing the copy of the RAW files.  It updates the geotag information in the EXIF data without issue and very quickly.

7.  I import the updated photos into Lightroom and or Aperture.  Lately I have been using Lightroom more, but it really doesn't matter.  Use the photo management product you like.  If it shows EXIF data, you will see your geotag info.  Now I have originals, backups and library references to my photos, with unaltered originals, geotagged originals, DNGs in Lightroom and native Canon CR2 in Aperture.  Like I said, disk space is cheap.  It also helps me have multiple copies because let's say I've deleted things in the past that I have later regretted.  Or made edits to JPEGs forgetting that JPEG edits are destructive.  You may be much smarter than I.  Or less paranoid about data loss.  PS all the data on Drobo1 is backed up daily to Drobo2 and my photo libraries get backed up to Crashplan every night.  Better safe than sorry.

There are lots of geotagging apps, but I have standardized on this one.  The developers update it regularly, I haven't hit any major bugs and it does what I want.  The app is available on the iTunes App Store for $3.99 and is also available for Android, wherever one might buy Android apps.  BTW, I don't know if English is the developer's first language as some of the text on the site can be a bit awkward.  Focus on the quality of the app, you'll be very pleased.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

UPDATE: Canon 5D Mk II new firmware released

If you shoot with the Canon 5D mk II, you may not be aware that Canon released a firmware update for the camera date stamped May 31, 2011.  This brings the firmware in the 5D MkII to 2.0.9 Firmware updates are optional for users, but I tend to try to keep all my kit current.  According to sources the updated firmware does the following;

1. Improves writing/reading speeds when using UDMA 7-compatible CF cards. 2. Fixes a phenomenon where the IS function will not work when custom function C.Fn III-2 is set to [5: IS start] and the lens attached does not have an AF stop button. This is because custom function C.Fn III-2 allows users to assign IS start to the AF stop button on the lens 3. Corrects misspellings in the menu screens displayed in Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai languages.

Unlike other updates, this one is relatively minor, but you might want to keep up to date regardless.  To download the firmware go to the Canon download site

Canon Pixma Pro - Getting the red out

Hey everyone! I was a devoted Epson printer user in the past but moved away to Canon because I grew really weary of the printhead on the R printers jamming up when not used daily, turning a nice machine into a boat anchor. So, I switched to Canon Pixma Pro, choosing the 9000 in my case. I'm kind of like a lot of photogs I meet. Shoot a lot, print a little. Sometimes it's just a lot cheaper and less time-consuming to have my stuff printed commercially. But following the purchase of the Nik Software Complete Collection, I've been printing a lot to validate that what I am learning is actually resulting in better images.

I thought I was screwing up. I had all the right ICC profiles, I had current drivers, I had current versions of Aperture, Photoshop and LIghtroom. I had my screens calibrated with a Huey Pro. But my prints from everything looked a little bit red. So after wasting a lot of time and a lot of paper, I finally turned to the web to discover, hey, I'm not alone, lots of folks find the Canons print too red.

So I checked with Canon. Despite making great gear and passable software, let's just be polite and say that they weren't very helpful. So I started working through that bucket of software that comes with Canon DSLRs. My whole kit was stolen in April while I was in Barcelona so I had current SW as part of the replacements. I found a few things.

First is Canon Easy-Photoprint Pro. It's a plugin for Photoshop that allows you to leverage the Canon print engine, albeit through a goofy model. (HINT - don't look for it anywhere near Print). You can select non-Canon ICC profiles with the plugin, but the UI is lousy so you'll spend time looking. If the results had been good, I would do a screencast on using the plugin, but as you'll see there is no reason to do so. Some reviewers said it gave them exactly what they saw in Photoshop. Not so me. What I got was darker, greyer, flatter and generally looked like something the cat puked up. Trashcan that.

Then I looked to using ICC profiles from Aperture. Just like Photoshop, I did not get what I saw on screen, what I got was too red. Ok zero for two, or more accurately zero for four since I got the same output as Photoship CS 5.1 and Lightroom 3.4.1. Seriously ticked off

Then I came to Canon Easy-Photoprint EX. I launched the program as it is standalone and navigated to the folder on my Drobo where the images are stored. It found the Lightroom images without problem but if you use Aperture, well it doesn't even see the Aperture library so that sucks. I opened some images that I had done work in using the Nik tools into Easy-Photoprint EX and they looked right on the screen, unlike how the Easy-Photoprint Pro images had looked. I loaded some Ilford Classic Glossy 4x6 in the printer. I could not find any way to select any ICC profile in Easy-Photoprint EX, other than the default Canon ones so I picked the Canon Glossy profile and printed the images. Surprise! They came out looking fabulous, exactly the way they did on the screen. Doing side by side compares with direct prints from Aperture, Photoshop, Lightroom and Photoshop using the Canon plugin reinforced how lousy the other images were, either too red or grey and flat (Easy-Photoprint Pro plugin).

All is not perfect. The UI for Easy-Photoprint EX is not Mac-like. It's not even Windows like, more pencils and ugly-like. It's also dog slow to load and to get your images open, selected and to the print phase. Once you do get to the Print dialog, it moves along very nicely indeed, and I cannot complain at all about the image quality. So at this point I have an answer to my printing concerns, but it's not a good answer as it involves yet another app and yet another set of steps. Clearly it is possible to get colour accurate prints out of the Canon Pixma Pro printers, so why can Canon not make them print properly without using their proprietary app and only their ICC profiles? C'mon Canon, fix this!

Welcome to thephotovideoguy.ca

Welcome to the group! The idea behind thephotovideoguy is really simple. We encounter tips, tricks and traps when creating photographs and videos. We write them up and share them with you. If we're really lucky, you post your own thoughts and tips and comment regularly. As we evolve we'll add projects and theme drives to help you become a better photographer or videographer. We don't sell any gear, and we don't have affiliation with any reseller or manufacturer. We'll tell you about what we find to work, and where we had issues. If we or you have a great experience with a retailer, we should say so. No flaming, we'll keep it positive because this should be fun for all.