Six years in the making, ‘On Feathered Wings’ features the work
of seven extraordinary action photographers

American Museum of Natural History to host year-long photo exhibition

Barred Owl photo taken with a Canon EOS-1D Mark IIn and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens for 1/1,250 second at f/7.1, ISO 400, hand held. ©Richard Ettlinger 

Press Release—Nature photographer and author Richard Ettlinger is being honored by the American Museum of Natural History for his 6-year project photographing and collaborating with professional photographers on five continents to capture the beauty of birds in flight. “On Feathered Wings: Birds in Flight” (Abrams Books, $40) will be on sale in May, and the American Museum of Natural History will feature 35 images in a photo exhibition June 21, 2008–May 25, 2009.

“The work I did with six of the world's greatest action photographers took hours of study and endless patience,” said Ettlinger. “Our dedication paid off, and I am delighted to be recognized by both Abrams Books and the museum.”

Through 175 color images, the photography delivers amazing images of hunters, migrators, waterfowl and songbirds living on the wing—hunting, feeding, fighting, traveling and gliding.

The international group of photographers includes Ettlinger, David G. Hemmings, K.K. Hui, Miguel Lasa, Ofer Levy, Jim Neiger, and Rob Palmer, all specialize in capturing birds in flight, each striving to outdo the others. But the indisputable stars of “On Feathered Wings” are the birds themselves, seen in vivid sharp focus and amazing detail: a Peregrine Falcon in a 100-mph dive; two Black Skimmers fighting in mid-air; a Snowy Owl keying on dinner; an Atlantic Puffin coming in for a landing; an Arctic Tern fishing; and a Barn Swallow feeding her young. 

Continue reading "Books: Richard Ettlinger's "On Feathered Wings" Showcases Stunning Aerial Photographs" »

By Sarah Petty, CPP

When you’re new to the business, you’ve got time to be creative. Invest that time in your marketing technique and win in more ways than one.

When you start out in business, you have much more time than money. Time is something money can’t buy, so it must be a priceless. On the other hand, although you can spend time and you can waste time, you sure can’t eat it. You can invest your time, though, in thinking up creative marketing ploys that will grow your business. If you invested some time in, say, looking up the addresses of people featured in the newspaper and mailed them a custom-designed note card saying “way to go,” or “you’re so right,” or “thank you for the insight,” that investment could pay off well.

One of the best ways to learn, grow and challenge your marketing acumen is to enter PPA’s AN-NE Awards. More than a competition among peers, the AN-NE Awards are an opportunity to test and measure your marketing skills and learn how to capitalize on them.

New businesses can win, too. PPA just added a special category for emerging pros who have been in business five years or less. You don’t need to feel insecure—unlike print competitions, which are judged in front of an audience, the AN-NE awards are critiqued confidentially, and unless you come in first, the judges comments will go to you alone.
 

Continue reading "The Joy of Marketing: Win-Win-Sell" »

By Don Chick, M.Photog.Cr., CPP

Have you recently purchased a new light modifier for your main light? Maybe you have one that you’ve had for awhile, but you’re still not happy with the results you are getting. Your pictures just don’t look anywhere close to those dramatic images shown at the seminar where you ordered the product. The light falloff (decrease in the intensity of the light) across the scene just isn’t right! The part of the subject nearest to the main light is over exposed, while the other side of the subject is underexposed.

You’re frustrated. Now what do you do?

Do you send your new light modifier back for a refund? Do you put it in the closet with all of the other pieces of equipment that “don’t work”? Before you do anything else, go right to your camera bag where you will likely find a very simple solution to this common problem. Your light meter.

A light meter is a professional photographer’s best friend. If you’re not getting the results you expect, stop first to measure the amount of light output coming into your scene. Think of your light meter as being like a thermometer. A thermometer tells us if a temperature is too hot or too cold. Too high or too low means that you have a problem to take care of.

In similar fashion, your light meter is a gauge to show you whether there is too much or too little light falling into your scene. The good news is that you probably do not need to return your new light modifier or stash it away. This tutorial shows how to use your light meter to determine how a modifier affects the light. This one simple tool may just solve your lighting dilemma.

Continue reading "Tutorial: Measuring and Adjusting for Light Falloff" »

By Sara Frances, M.Photog.Cr.

Use of light creates meaning, defines photographic art and sets the pro apart from the beginner. It is the stock in trade of the boutique photographer. Environmental portraiture and events are rife with difficult lighting conditions that require modification and balance, all under time pressure. Wedding photography is perhaps the most exacting specialty because the photographer must know how to handle the light in any situation.
 
Many photographers proudly say that they work only with natural light. But what is natural? They usually mean existing or ambient light, including daylight, shade, incandescent and fluorescent, which can all be broken down into even more specific categories. We use qualitative terms like diffused, direct, spot, down, specular and reflected to further define illumination. If “natural” includes reflectors, light bulbs and tubes, what possible reason is there to exclude strobe?

The photographer who says she doesn’t work with strobe, generally means she doesn’t have the skill or is unwilling to expend the effort required to meld strobe seamlessly with other existing light. Lack of skill is not a style. The boutique photographer knows there is no excuse for poorly lit, contrasty, blurry or noisy images unless she has chosen to use these devices to visually enhance meaning.

Photo by Karl Arndt

Continue reading "The Boutique Photographer: Learn to Love Strobe" »

By Stan Sholik

This article provides additional information on the digital projector calibration and profiling function of Spyder3Elite and supplements the Spyder3Studio review in the May issue of Professional Photographer magazine. 

A color-managed workflow is important at all times to professional photographers, but especially when we are presenting work to our clients. The Datacolor Spyder3Studio includes tools to ensure that they will see accurate color on your monitor, on proof prints and also on a projection screen. The same Spyder3Elite colorimeter used for monitor profiling can also profile a digital projector for photographers who use front projection in their sales room.

Projector calibration is very straightforward since some of the adjustments necessary in monitor calibration are unnecessary or unavailable with projectors. For example, the human eye automatically adapts to brightness and whitepoint in a darkened room, making these hardware adjustments superfluous if they are even available for the projector. 

So it is simply a matter of connecting the Spyder3, following the on-screen directions, and running the software process. The result is a profile for that projector and screen. At the end of the profiling process there is an option for creating two other profiles. These include adjustments for use in less desirable situations with more ambient light in case your sales room cannot be darkened totally during the day.

After selecting the option to calibrate a digital projector, you must set the Target Gamma and Whitepoint from the default 2.2-6500 to 2.2-Native. (Click image for larger view)

Continue reading "Product Review: Spyder3 Digital Projector Calibration and Profiling" »

Image ©Anita Marquis 

Branching out from portrait photography, Anita Marquis now designs and prints custom wall murals and large prints for commercial and residential spaces. For this 38 x 72-inch print at the Parkcrest Dental Group in Springfield, Mo., she combined the firm’s brand colors and slogan with portraits of the 12 children of the six dentists who work in the office. She created the design in Adobe Photoshop CS and output it using the ImagePrint RIP with a 44-inch Epson Stylus Pro 9600 printer and LexJet Sunset Select Matte Canvas. She sprayed the print with PremierArt Eco Print Shield, then hung it using Popco Snap Rails. “Now, when the dentists come to work each day, they can always see their children smiling at them,” says Marquis. “Plus, many of the dentists’ patients see my work as well.”  

Image ©Anita Marquis 

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2008 issue of Great Output and is published here with permission, courtesy of Great Output and LexJet. Great Output is LexJet’s bi-monthly publication for photographers who want to know more about how to print, finish, display, and sell digital images. LexJet also publishes a monthly educational eNewsletter for photographers called In Focus. For more information about subscribing to these resources, go to www.lexjet.com/lexjet/newsletters.asp, or contact a LexJet account specialist at 800-453-9538.

Some criteria to consider when comparing pro-photo printers

By Eileen Fritsch

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2008 issue of Great Output and is published here with permission, courtesy of Great Output and LexJet. Great Output is LexJet’s bi-monthly publication for photographers who want to know more about how to print, finish, display, and sell digital images.

A wide-format inkjet printer is a great investment. Every day LexJet customers tell us about creative ways they’re using wide-format printers to generate additional revenue. And, the potential for using wide-format printers to improve studio profitability has just begun to be tapped.

For example, you can combine your wide-format printing capabilities with your photography expertise to help some of the millions of photo enthusiasts equipped with digital SLRs create enlargements that look far more artistic and refined than any of the poster-size prints they can now buy at their nearest Office Max or Staples.

A 2007 survey of professional photographers suggests that many of you haven’t considered buying a wide-format printer because you think it might distract you from keeping pace with camera and workflow software upgrades or dealing with intensifying price competition and the shifting demand for photography services. But if growing your photography business is a top priority, consider the dozens of ways a wide-format printer can help you stabilize, diversify, and grow your photography business.

Which wide-format inkjet printer is best for you? 

Download a comparison chart that details the features and specs of the Epson Stylus Pro, HP Designjet and Canon imagePROGRAPH models. 

Read on to learn more about the features and functions you need to understand when evaluating a wide-format printer for your business. 

Continue reading "Choosing the Right Wide-Format Printer to Grow Your Photography Business" »

Adobe has released updates to the Photoshop Lightroom and Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in to correct for issues found in Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4. 

The Lightroom 1.4.1 and Camera Raw 1.4.1 updates are available immediately as free downloads at http://www.adobe.com/downloads. Senior Photoshop Lightroom Product Manager, Tom Hogarty, has included a complete list of the corrections on his blog.

The following list from Hogarty's Lightroom Journal blog post details the issues found in Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4.

Lightroom

• Lightroom 1.4 incorrectly modified the EXIF time date field of images that had a metadata update applied.  This incorrect modification does not appear in Lightroom or Bridge and is only viewable through third party EXIF tools.  This error has been corrected in Lightroom 1.4.1 and all files in a Lightroom catalog that have been incorrectly modified will be corrected on their next metadata update. (Metadata can be updated by selecting the files in the Library grid view and choosing Command or CTRL + S to save and update the metadata.)

• Olympus JPEG files could render incorrectly in Lightroom 1.4, displaying an artifact in the exported file.

• Any conversion to DNG in Lightroom 1.4 (Windows Only) would cause the DNG file to become unreadable by Lightroom’s Develop Module or Camera Raw 4.4 in Photoshop.  The issue has been corrected and files can be converted to DNG again in order to resolve the issue for existing files.  Returning to the original native raw files is not necessary.  The affected DNG files can be selected and converted again using the DNG • Converter 4.4.1 available at www.adobe.com/dng/.  This process is not required but recommended to ensure that a correct validation value is stored within the DNG files.

• Lightroom 1.4 provided degraded import performance relative to Lightroom 1.3.

Camera Raw

• Camera Raw 4.4 incorrectly modified the EXIF time date field of images that were saved as TIFF or JPEG files from the Camera Raw dialog.  This has been corrected in Camera Raw 4.4.1

• Olympus JPEG files could render incorrectly in Camera Raw 4.4, displaying an artifact in the exported file.

By Shawn Soni

For Windows XP/Vista only

“Press Burn Go” clearly describes the capabilities of the Lite-On EZ-Dub Optical Drive DVD+RW burner.  This medium-sized appliance has an included “foot” to allow it to sit vertically on your desktop. Although loading and unloading it while vertical is a bit problematic, vertical positioning takes up very little real estate on your desktop—a definite advantage.

The drive is a USB 2.0 device and comes with a cable and power supply to facilitate a simple hook-up. Once plugged in and powered up, Windows will find your device and attempt to install generic Microsoft drivers for it. It appears to recognize the name of the device, and will do a basic installation of a DVD burner. But don’t be fooled, if you want to get the full functionality of the drive, you still need to use the included drivers to complete the install.  

To begin the setup, it is best to install the included Nero disk-burning software before the installation of the EZ-Dub software  If you try to install EZ-Dub first, it will prompt you to install Nero first, and then allow installation of EZ-Dub. A word of caution here, when installing Nero, a dialog box will open asking if you’d like Nero to be the default application that opens all your files (including JPEG, PSD, and TIFFs). It is probably not the best idea to select Nero as the default if you are installing this drive on the main workflow computer for your studio. That’s the only real “gotcha” that you need to look out for in the install process.

Continue reading "Product Review: Lite-on EZ-Dub Optical Drive DVD+RW Burner" »

By Ron Eggers

X-Rite's newest color management product is the ColorMunki, a professional color management system available in two versions: ColorMunki Photo for photographers, and ColorMunki Design, for graphic artists. It was developed by X-Rite in conjunction with recently acquired Pantone, developer of the color-matching system.

ColorMunki Photo is for social, wedding, portrait, event and serious prosumer photographers. The Design version is for graphic artists, small to mid-sized agencies, individuals and creative teams in larger agencies and corporate in-house graphic arts departments. Even though the measuring devices are different colors (Photo is black and Design is white), the hardware for the two versions is the same. The difference is in the software.

The all-in-one Swiss-engineered true spectrophotometer-driven ColorMunki Photo lets photographers quickly and easily control colors all the way from what's represented on their displays to what's generated by their printers in a very simplified manner, giving them considerable color control for all of their digital imaging requirements. The all-in-one, true spectral device can be used for monitor, projector and printer profiling. For optimum output, it's designed with new automated printer profiling technology that simplifies monitor and print matching. It can also be used to measure ambient light and spot colors.

Continue reading "Product Closeup: ColorMunki Color Management from X-Rite" »