Eshin Direct

Flickr releases 3.0

I am a fan of Flickr but one of the nagging gripes I had about the service was that it was a lovely Herculean task to try and upload my photos. I was simply unable to just drop a folder with photos¹ in the Flickr Uploader and let it upload away. It would always fail to upload all the files and it would need constant attention²

With the release of 3.0, I’m quite a happy bunny as I can now upload in fire-and-forget mode and am comforted that I don’t have to wait and supervise the upload of my images to backup. Unfortunately my MacBook fell ill and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to recover two memory card worth of photos. Luckily I have the high quality JPEGs but it is still upsetting to lose the RAW files.

Now, I no longer have to wonder about whether the 300-400 photos, constituting approximately 1 GB made it to Flickr. And, I’m up to date now as I have all my photos on Flickr³.

1. Approximately 3-4 MB in size each [↩]
2. To be fair, it could have been my Macs but both being unable to sustain an upload? I don’t think so. [↩]
3. Yes, yes, I will make some more public eventually. [↩]

BlackRapid RS-1

I should offer the same advice I offered to folks looking to eat peacefully at Newton Market to those looking to brave the photo equipment stores in Singapore. After a particularly tough week, I decided to see what was to be had for my photograph craving and naively walked into the store with an itch to buy something and no clear idea of what I wanted. A foolish, and potentially dangerous, situation.

Continue reading ‘BlackRapid RS-1′

Forays into Black & White

I do like shooting in black and white. Personally, I think it makes things uncomplicated and you can focus on the fundamentals like composition, lighting and to coin a term from Ansel Adams, forces you to “previsualise” the shot¹. Of course it is a little more complicated and there is a whole wealth of learning needed to make some great shots using black and white. Afterall, in the history of photography, most of the techniques and disciplines have all been developed with black and white in mind.

I’ve picked up some books specifically on black and white photography². I’m also back to my 28-80 kit lens from my old N80, shooting it at 35mm with the lowest aperture I can use, which is 3.5. I like grain, so I set the ISO at 1600 for black and whites. At least where possible. I’m trying to develop a discipline with my shooting but it’s hard with so many goodies on the D90 that you just want to play.

Here are some results of my early forays into black and white³ (forgive the lack of post-production⁴ ):

1. While his term entered into the photographic lexicon, he later did say that the pre- was perhaps a little superfluous. [↩]
2. Or grayscale photography, since this is probably a more accurate term. [↩]
3. Not a complete selection mind, since I’m still trying to establish the workflow. A little hard since my computers are in two different flats. [↩]
4. Although, you should really be able to get the photo right without the post-production. [↩]

Lowepro Slingshot 200 AW

After the past couple of weeks and with the last SMART Expo behind me, I decided to treat myself to something for my photography fetish. New friend Simon was bragging about his new Lowepro Slingshot 100 system and I’ll be honest, I was a tad bit jealous of him. Apparently shifting faster than you can say paparazzi, the Slingshot 100 is often out of stock, leaving the larger Slingshot 200 feeling like the ugly second cousin and on the shelves.

Not bad for me since I snagged one this evening at a photographic store in Peninsula Plaza¹. This is an ideal bag for the mobile photographer² and a biker all rolled into one.

Continue reading ‘Lowepro Slingshot 200 AW’

1. No, not Cathay Photo as it was shut. [↩]
2. Of course, most photographers are mobile… [↩]

Digital Photo Workflow Evaluation

Now that I have my new Nikon D90 in hand, the volume of my photos taken has increased and I am giving some serious thought to my digital photo workflow. Previously, I didn’t really have an efficient workflow when I was working from film to online, so it is was all rather haphazard¹. One week into the using my first DSLR, I’ve shot over 800 photos² so a simple process would be needed for organization and getting my photos in a state that I’m happy to show them off, retrieve them and well, do things with them.

I found three articles online that have helped me with my initial thinking although in practice it remains to be seen how well it works.

Continue reading ‘Digital Photo Workflow Evaluation’

1. I spent so much time just scanning in photos that I eventually decided to have them scanned onto CD which just added to my cost that made it additionally prohibitive. [↩]
2. Admittedly, this did have an F1 event included in this timeline [↩]