Make sure you don’t miss a single Photofocus post – point your feed reader to the free Photofocus RSS Feed here and subscribe.
N O T E - We had problems with this show and had to post the raw feed. Sorry for any inconvenience.
PLEASE BE PATIENT – OUR SERVERS SEE LARGE LOADS ON PUBLISHING DAYS. THE DOWNLOADS MAY GO SLOWLY BUT THEY WILL FINISH.
Download episode…
Photofocus Episode 103
Host: Scott Bourne (www.scottbourne.com or www.twitter.com/scottbourne)
Special Guest: Richard Harrington (www.rhedpixel.com or www.twitter.com/rhedpixel)
Show notes by Bruce Clarke (www.momentsindigital.com or www.twitter.com/bruceclarke)
Welcome to Episode Number 103 of Photofocus with Scott Bourne and special guest Richard Harrington. Photofocus is the show devoted to your questions about anything photography related including gear, technique, locations, etc. Your questions will shape the direction of this show so be sure to send your questions to photofocus@me.com. We will try to answer as many as we can but we get a lot of questions so we’ll try to take a collection of questions that represent a particular topic and present them together. This week, Scott and Rich recap the WPPI conference
Discussion – WPPI Wrap-Up
Scott recently returned from the Wedding & Portrait Photographers International trade show. He found it to be smaller than they said it was and there didn’t seem to be a lot of new announcements. Scott thinks there is a trend away from these mega photography conferences and a move to more boutique conferences where you have a better chance to meet people. The reason being is that most of the information that is shared at these large conferences can now be shared over the Internet. Rich is seeing similar things happening at shows like NAB and MacWorld. For both Scott and Rich, networking is still one of the best reasons to attend these conferences. If you can’t afford the education components of these conferences, most of the trade show exhibitors will be able to provide you with free passes to the trade show where you can often see many of the same speakers at various booths throughout the the trade show floor.
The next big show coming up in Vegas is NAB and both Scott and Rich will be available for some private consulting prior to the show if you’re interested. Just email Scott at photofocus@me.com for details. Rich will also be teaching a workshop on dSLR video at Photoshop World in Washington DC.
Google+ and Creative Commons
Scott has always been a proponent of rights managed images whereas Trey Ratcliff has built his business by going creative commons and getting his work out there. Trey has challenged Scott to go Creative Commons with his work on Google+ to see which method makes more money. Scott has always allowed people to use his images for non-commercial use if they’ve asked. What is changing is the mechanism by which he agrees to that use. Scott has agreed to try it for one year and will licence his images under creative commons for non-commercial use. Keep in mind that even if you go creative commons, you still have to register your images with the Library of Congress so that if someone infringes on your copyright or uses the images for commercial use without your consent, then you’ll stand a better chance in court if you sue for damages. Scott is going to try Google+ as an experiment and may evolve the Photofocus podcast to Google Hangouts to see how they go.
Sponsor – SumgMug
SmugMug is a great place to host and sell your photos and your videos.
Sponsor – Borrowlenses
Borrowlenses.com rents just about any piece of camera gear you need. Contact them today to rent the gear you need for your next shoot.
Discussion – Glamour Photography vs. Porn
A recent post on Google+ by RC Concepcion regarding the misuse of the term Glamour photography created some lively discussion. The post was about how RC feels many photographers try to pass off what is essentially porn for glamour photography. Scott feels that much of what we see in terms of nude photography isn’t porn and although he doesn’t condone sharing these types of images with children, he maintains the right take these types of photographs and doesn’t feel anyone can tell him not to. Richard thinks that if you are into that type of photography, you can register your site with the various safe surfing sites as having adult content on it.
Listener Questions
This week we kick things off with a question about the Canon 100-400 Push-pull telephoto lens:
Question One – MacBook Air for Photography
Scott recently replaced his MacBook Pro with a new i7 MacBook Air and many people wrote to ask if it is good enough to do photography on?
Scott: Yes, it’s good enough to do photography on. It’s much lighter but it’s not a full replacement for a desktop such as my desktop iMac with 16GB of RAM and a 27″ screen. With the addition of the Thunderbolt port, Scott has been able to hook up his MacBook Air to a 12 TB Promise RAID drive.
Rich: I thinks it’s a wonderful mobile solution thanks to it’s GPU but isn’t a replacement for a desktop computer. I also really like the SD card slots and love using SD cards because they are cheaper and not as bad as people make them out to be compared to CF cards.
Question Two – Telephoto Lenses
Several people wrote in to ask about telephoto lenses and how long they should be for shooting sports or wildlife?
Scott: For football, a 400mm is likely the most lens you will need or will want if you’re running up and down the football field. 400mm will probably not be long enough for most wildlife photography however. A 600mm is perfect for wildlife photography but would be too much for football. My advice would be to buy the one you’ll use the most and rent the other one when you need it.
Rich: You could also consider a 300mm lens with a teleconverter.
Scott: With a teleconverter, there will be more chromatic aberration and you will lose at least one stop of light. Your technique also has to be much better when you’re using a teleconverter as they are much more touchy.
Sponsor – Animoto
Animoto will replace what you think of as a slide show. Upload your photographs and Animoto will make an amazing slide show for you. You can try it for free and create short slide shows. Head on over to Animoto.com and try it today. They now offer 720p videos.
Sponsor – Viewbug
Viewbug is a great place to find out about and enter great photo contests. Visit http://www.viewbug.com/photo-contests to learn more. Stay tuned to Photofocus as we’ll be having a contest soon and giving away over $10,000 in photography gear.
Wrap Up
We want themes and questions from you. Be sure to visit the blog at PhotoFocus.com for articles, how-to’s, videos and more. E-mail us at photofocus@me.com follow us on Twitter. Don’t just take pictures – make pictures.
Scott Bourne is at www.scottbourne.com or www.twitter.com/scottbourne or www.3exposure.com or www.carloves.com
Richard Harrington is at www.rhedpixel.com or www.twitter.com/rhedpixel
Show notes by Edmonton Wedding Photographers Bruce Clarke at www.momentsindigital.com or www.twitter.com/bruceclarke
