By Stephanie Millner, Cr.Photog., CPP

Your bags are packed, and you’re ready to go? Not so fast! Travel photography is very different from everyday client work, and how you travel is every bit as important as what you actually shoot. Consider the following tips for travel photography and your next trip should be smooth sailing as far as your camera is concerned.

©Stephanie Millner

Pack Light

This applies to your luggage and your camera gear. The fun you’ll have on your trip is inversely proportionate to the amount of stuff you have to lug around. Unless you’re traveling for a commissioned job, pack only the barest of bare essentials. Bring one camera, two batteries, a few media cards, your charger, and two lenses at most. I’ve traveled for weeks at a time without any other gear, and I promise you do not need to carry more.

Over-packing is uncomfortable due to weight and bulk, and it can be risky in some environments. Someone carrying a big expensive camera bag is enticing to pickpockets and thieves.

Also, think twice about using a backpack; it will make you a target. Because the pack is behind you, it’s easily accessible to thieves, particularly in large crowds. Leave it at the hotel. When you carry gear with you in a bag, remove any indications that expensive equipment is inside and wear it on your front in crowded areas and on public transit. Stay aware.

©Stephanie Millner

Three Must-HaveAccessories 

There are three more things you need to round out your travel kit: rain sleeves, a multi-plug adaptor, and a dry bag.

Bring several rain sleeves that fit your camera with your longest lens attached. A good rule of thumb is to bring one sleeve per week of travel. A good rain sleeve will keep your gear dry and sand-free, regardless of what Mother Nature dishes out. Keep one in your coat, one in your purse or day bag, and one in your luggage so it’s always easily accessible. A rain sleeve only works if it’s actually on your camera, not back in your hotel room. You can buy them online or from a camera store for less than $10 each.

Always carry a universal multiple-plug adaptor when traveling abroad. Most laptops, cell phones, and camera chargers have built-in transformers (or are dual-voltage), so you usually just need a plug adaptor and not a heavy travel transformer. Be sure to buy a multi-plug adaptor to accommodate different countries. Searching for an open electronics store because you have two dead camera batteries and you left your plug adaptor back home is not fun. I recommend bringing a USB-to-power plug and USB cord as well. You can buy a good one (or two) online for less than $10.

Vatican from Ponte Sant’Angelo, Rome ©Stephanie Millner

Most important, if you’re going anywhere that even remotely involves water, bring a dry sack. This single purchase has saved me from potentially thousands of dollars in damage. Purchase a sack that has at least a level-two water resistance, and get a bigger bag than you think you’ll actually need. In addition to keeping your gear bone-dry, even when completely submerged, they make handy beach bags and day totes. Use a dry sack any time you’re even thinking about traveling near water (beach days, boat trips, cruises). You can find dry sacks online or at a local dive shop or sporting goods store, usually for around $20. It will be the one of the best investments you’ll ever make for your gear.

Bonus item: The Grid-It organizer system is a fabric-covered board with sewn elastic pieces that securely hold everything in place. It fits into any backpack, dry sack or purse. I pack two: one for camera gear and another for toiletries—inside a clear plastic bag—so they’re easily accessible at airport security. 

Continue reading "Travel Photography: How to Get Fabulous Images and Still Have Fun" »

By Curtis Joe Walker

Portfolio Pro ($9.99) is a new app for creating a digital portfolio on the iPad, introducing Flickr and Dropbox integration as a welcome addition to the genre. Last year, we reviewed MediaPad Pro, and while we still like that app, Portfolio Pro greatly simplifies the process of populating and updating portfolios. It opens many new possibilities for photographers, and people in other fields as well, due to its ease of use.

The ease of use comes from integration with the Flickr and Dropbox APIs, allowing users to pull images directly from either of these cloud services into their portfolio. For photographers who have galleries already on Flickr, they can be imported on a set by set basis, speeding up the population of the app, using organization that many photographers already have in place.

Using Dropbox is similarly easy, and will work well for people who don’t want to use Flickr. Both services offer a free subscription level. Adding a step to your workflow that involves sending portfolio-worthy shots to either service directly from Lightroom or Aperture yields the benefit of having remote access to your best shots at any time, and the ability to tweak content during downtime.

The app also works beautifully in conjunction with images stored directly on the iPad. For photographers whose favorite online image services haven’t been linked to, it’s still possible to pull selections from them with the browser. The same holds true for photographers who want to pull images directly from their own site. For those using the iPad’s Camera Connection kit, it’s possible to upload images directly from the camera to the device and then into the app.

Continue reading "Portfolio Pro Improves Integration for iPad" »

By Stan Sholik

From the incremental increase in product number and price, it is clear that there are no big changes in the Nikon SB-910 AF Speedlight from its predecessor, the SB-900. But the small changes make the SB-910 a worthy successor to the venerable SB-900.

Having personally experienced unexpected thermal shutdown of my SB-900s under conditions where my SB-800s were able to function, I appreciate the tweaks that Nikon made to the thermal sensor system. With the SB-910 there no longer is total shutdown until temperature levels decrease. Rather, recycle times decrease, allowing you to keep on shooting, just not at motor drive speeds, or so I’m told. While I tried to overstress the SB-910, I wasn’t successful. I think it would require higher ambient temperatures and humidity than the conditions I could test in, along with rapid firing. Wedding, sport and other photographers no longer need to fear their Nikon flash shutting down at an inopportune moment.

Thermal control didn’t come at the expense of flash function. Flash output of the SB-910 is identical to my SB-900s. This indicates that the SB-910 is using the same internal components for the flash system. TTL exposure accuracy is as good as ever, and repeated photos of the same subject still yields identical exposures.

Recycle time isn’t affected by the new thermal sensor system either. If anything, recycle time seems less with the SB-910, particularly at full power.

There are some tweaks to the shape of the flash body, but my RadioPopper radio slaves still align properly, so the changes are minor. And the PocketWizard ControlTL system interfaces properly also.

Nikon nailed the ergonomics and menu system on the SB-900, so there was little that needed improvement, but Nikon found a few things. The buttons on the back are now larger, and the three selection buttons below the display are backlit to ease operation in the dark. The Zoom button on the SB-900 is replaced with a Menu button to allow easier access to the menus.

©Stan Sholik

Externally, the SB-910 (left) is nearly identical to the SB-900 (right). Minor changes in the buttons below the LCD improve on the already excellent ergonomics. The menus on the SB-910 have been slightly revised also, and the brightness of the LCD has been greatly improved.

Continue reading "Reliability Boost: Nikon SB-910 AF Speedlight" »

By Ellis Vener

Are you in the market for a versatile high-quality pigment printer but your budget is a factor? The Epson Stylus Photo R2000 might be just what you are looking for. It isn’t a workhorse like the big Epsons and Canons, it isn’t even a quarter horse like the R3000, which uses Epson’s K3 Ultrachrome pigment inks, but the R2000 handles everything from printing on a DVD to 13-inch wide rolls, handles individual sheets of thick media, can print fast, can be connected to your computer a couple of different ways including wirelessly, costs less than $500, and most importantly, makes really good looking prints.

The heart of any printer is the inkset and the print head. The R2000 uses Epson’s UltraChrome Hi-Gloss 2 pigment inks. Eight inks total are installed, although only six colors of ink will be used whether you print on a matte or gloss type surface paper. The inks are Photo Black, Matte Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Red and Orange. The eighth ink is a clear protective “Gloss Optimizer” for use on Luster, Semi-gloss and gloss surface papers. Both the Photo Black and Matte Black inks have their own dedicated channels to and nozzles in the print head and that saves you both time and money when switching media types. With the R3000, for example, Epson estimates that switching from Photo to Matte Black consumes 1ml of ink and takes approximately two minutes while going from Matte to Photo Black drains 3ml and three and a half minutes. With dedicated channels and nozzles for both blacks this removes those considerations as operational cost factors. On the other hand, the lack of gray inks makes the R2000 a less than optimal choice for printing black and white images, as the grays are created by blending dots from all six inks.

Inside the Advanced Micro Piezo AMC print head, each ink is distributed to each of 180 dedicated nozzles. By varying the electric charge (the micro piezo technology at work) on the nozzle as the ink reaches it, the droplets jet out in three different sizes ranging down to 1.5 picoliters. Ink droplets are measured by volume, and the smaller the amount of ink used to form a printed dot the smaller the dot on paper will be. This influences color balance and print resolution. Inkjet printers are very highly engineered machines designed to work at incredibly fine tolerances. Consider that even the mass-produced R2000 delivers droplets as small as 1/1,500,000,000,000th of a liter and it has to consistently deliver these tiny amounts of each ink on top of each other to form the image while the head is moving across and down the length of the page. If you are printing at 360 dpi, an 8x10 print will be made up of 201,600 precisely sized and placed individual droplets of ink while a 12x18 inch print will use up to 544,320 droplets, for even finer print resolution double that when printing at 720 dpi. By varying individual ink droplet size Epson’s Advanced Micro Piezo print heads printers create a continuity of tonal and color transitions and detail resolution that even the pickiest of magnifying-glass-carrying pixel peepers will appreciate.

Continue reading "Budget Friendly, High Quality: Epson Stylus Photo R2000 Inkjet Printer" »

Photography is a visual medium. Promoting photography requires a visual media, one that not only lives up to the aesthetic appeal of the imagery but also provides the functionality to help photographers succeed. In today’s world, that means a website—a striking, easy to use, secure, professional website. Whether you prefer a blog style setup or a traditional portfolio site—or both—the design and development of your Web presence is critical to your business.

With all this in mind, Professional Photographer surveyed some of the industry’s leading Web experts on what it takes to develop a professional presence in the virtual world. The following are their recommendations for photographers on the World Wide Web.

What are some common design mistakes that photographers make when they try to do their own design? What should they do instead?
What’s the best way to protect your online images from theft?
What resources can photographers use to choose their color scheme for their website if they don’t already have one for their business?
What information should be on my home page? What can be one or two layers in?
If I create a video slideshow without music, what’s the best pace for photo changes?
What do I need to know about Flash, HTML5 and how they affect my SEO?
Does a splash page hurt my SEO?
What sort of products work well if I want to use an online shopping cart for my clients?
What can I do to make my purchase options as easy as possible?
What can I do to make my website look good on a mobile device?
How often should I put up fresh content?

What are some common design mistakes that photographers make when they try to do their own design? What should they do instead?

"The most common mistakes usually come from the opposite ends of the design spectrum. Photographers either go too minimalistic and design a site that could belong to anyone, or they go overboard with custom elements and create something that’s very hard for their visitors to navigate.

Like a good frame and matting, a good photography website complements the photos displayed rather than distracting from them. Allowing the work to speak for itself is always a safe approach. Picking a color palette of three or four distinct colors and using them consistently throughout the site will create a professional, well-branded look."
—Nataly Livshits, Zenfolio, zenfolio.com

"Getting too fancy. The focus instead should be on usability. Does your site load quickly and without plug-ins like Adobe Flash Player? Do you have a separate site optimized for a smart phone?  Music can be very distracting, especially when your clients already have Pandora running in the background or try to watch a slideshow on your site that also has music. Keep it simple, and focus on getting a potential client to love your images and contact you."
—Mike Smith, MorePhotos, WeddingDetails, morephotos.com

"A common mistake is a gallery with too many images in it. Your portfolio site's galleries should be a display of your best images. Generally, 30 to 50 images per gallery is a good range. If you need to show an entire shoot, your portfolio site is not the best place for it. Those are better displayed through a proofing application or a slideshow tool."
—Mike Caston, BIG Folio, bigfolio.com


What’s the best way to protect your online images from theft?

"The best way is still watermarking the image using either a built-in tool from the website admin or from Photoshop. Right click protection provides minimal protection against the basic user, but anyone who truly wants to steal the image will be able to using a screen capture. One of the biggest reasons clients take the images off a website is to post them to social media sites. This has started a new trend of providing low-resolution (about 500 pixels on the longest side), watermarked images for use on social media sites with the request that the poster links them back to your site. This helps your clients to show off your images at the best quality while building a potential referral source."
—Jenifer Martin, Portfoliositez.com

©Amanda Gros Photography

Amanda Gros uses a discreet logo watermark on her gallery photographs that deters theft or uncredited posting of her photographs.

"There are services that can monitor your photos and tell you if they are being used anywhere on the Internet. That can help ensure that your images aren’t being used in a manner to which you object."
—William Bay, Flaunt Your Site, flauntyoursite.com


What resources can photographers use to choose their color scheme for their website if they don’t already have one for their business?
 
"Using color swatches that are already paired together will ensure your site looks coherent and professional. Some good options include Adobe’s Kuler tool (kuler.adobe.com) and Pantone (pantone.com)."
—Jenifer Martin, Portfoliositez.com

"Colourlovers.com is great site for color inspiration as well."
—Michael N. Caston, BIG Folio, Inc.

"If you're just starting your photography business, finding a web design that doesn't detract from your photography is really important, so a black or white background is most definitely the way to go. However, as your business is growing, you'll find that establishing a unique brand will get you the higher paying clients, and build more loyalty. At that point in your business, being different and being 100% custom is the most important thing. Smashingmagazine.com is a fantastic resource for both website inspiration and design tutorials, and for color combinations, Adobe's Kuler tool is really inspiring."
—Caroline Tien-Spalding, SmugMug, smugmug.com/pro

"The best resource would be a skilled designer. Not only could they help in a color palette creation for you, but they can also help determine where colors can be most effectively used on your site. They would also have an idea of what types of colors go well for certain designs (retro, art deco, classical, etc). For the DIYers, there are color palette generators online. You can start with a favorite color and it will define for you complimentary colors to go with it."
—William Bay, Flaunt Your Site

©Froxy Photography

Photographers Naomi Frost and Xanthe Roxburgh hired Flaunt Your Site to design their page. It uses bold colors to reflect their quirky image, and the keyword-rich and brand-building content on the home page helped it rise to the number-three result for "Newcastle wedding photographers" in the first month it was live.

What information should be on my home page? What can be one or two layers in?

"A slideshow of the photographer’s signature images on the homepage is the easiest way to capture the visitor’s interest and represent the style of photography. The logo should be clearly visible, so that the viewer can easily identify who owns the website. A tagline (whether part of the logo or part of the welcome message) will tell the visitors more about the type of work. A concise, keyword-rich welcome message will speak to the visitors and improve SEO. Contact information and a call to action are final must-haves for the homepage. Whether there’s a contact form directly on the homepage or a link to 'book your session,' the visitor should never struggle to find a way to reach the photographer.

“Additional information such as 'about me,' 'contact,' 'client area,' 'pricing,' and 'testimonials' can be listed on separate pages, but needs to be easily found. A consistent site menu with links to specific galleries, pricing information and other details will keep the homepage clean and the site information well-organized."
—Nataly Livshits, Zenfolio, zenfolio.com

"Any question you get within 10 seconds of introducing yourself in person should be available as level-one information, which should be visible on your home page or in the main site navigation. Who are you? Answer with 'About us' section. What kind of photography do you do? Offer links to categories of work. Do you have examples? Display a portfolio or gallery. How do I contact you? Provide a contact form. Things like accolades or side projects can definitely be a second level of content."
—Caroline Tien-Spalding, SmugMug, smugmug.com/pro

©Laura Tillinghast Photography

A good home page delivers a message to the reader and search engines. Laura Tillinghast Photography shows the photography in large format, with information supporting the images, but not competing with them visually.

©D. Host Photography

The D. Host Photography home page includes information about the studio, and the slideshow illustrates four styles: classic, creative, contemporary and cool.

If I create a video slideshow without music, what’s the best pace for photo changes?
 
"Rhythm for your slideshow is everything—go too fast, and the prospective client won't have time to savor your shots, and go too slow, and your prospect client will move on to the next photographer. I've found that .7 second per slide is a nice moving but relaxing pace."
—Caroline Tien-Spalding, SmugMug, smugmug.com/pro

"For a standard website portfolio slideshow, 2-3 seconds is perfectly fine. You just have to gauge interest levels of your particular audience. What works for some target markets or parts of the country might not work for others. This is where having tools like Google Analytics can help you figure that out. Are people getting bored and leaving your site before the slideshow is over? Well, the slideshow might be too slow, or too long. If you have access to this information, you can make informed decisions about it."
—William Bay, Flaunt Your Site

Continue reading "Expert Web Design Advice for Photographers" »

By Betsy Finn, M.Photog.,Cr.,CPP

With film cameras becoming a thing of the past, and many studios relying exclusively on digital darkrooms, we're seeing a new generation of photographers that has never known the joys of developing and printing film. Despite this, many photographers search for the ultimate action or filter to get that old-school film look for their images. It's tough to find something that closely approximates the look of film, but I think I've found the tool that's up for the challenge. Whether you're trying to capture the look of a daguerreotype, or a specific year of Kodachrome, Alien Skin Software’s Exposure 4 has the flexibility to get you there. Running as a plugin within Photoshop or Lightroom, Exposure 4 offers a wide array of features and customization options. 

In order to develop realistic film looks, the developers at Alien Skin software studied film grain photomicrographs of available film stocks and conducted test shoots under controlled light situations.  For discontinued film, they relied on photo archives and the expertise of a number of photographers. This attention to detail paid off, in my opinion, as the results are the most realistic film grain and processing effects I've seen to date.

There are a number of impressive new features in Exposure 4: the redesigned interface (see below), improved speed, group presets, and thumbnail previews, to name a few. I found the plugin to be very user friendly, and was able to dive right in without even having to watch any tutorials or read directions. 

The plugin consists of a main image viewing area (center), and two side panels that can be minimized. The center area includes the image, and a menu bar that spans the width of the window.  This menu bar includes a button for saving custom presets, zoom functions, and a before/after view option. On the left panel, there is a thumbnail viewer and all the various settings that you can apply; there is a tab for factory settings as well as user settings. There's also a search bar that you can use to query keywords. On the right, you'll see a number of settings tabs that allow further customization and tweaking.

When you save your custom setting, you select a name, choose a category, and can even add a description.

Continue reading "The Joy of Film, Without the Mess: Exposure 4" »

By Curtis Joe Walker

Air Display by Avatron Software ($9.99) is an app available for both iOS and Android that turns a tablet or smartphone into a wireless touch display for Windows and Mac. Other versions can turn computers (such as an iMac, or an otherwise useless old laptop) into a wireless secondary display as well.

Wireless linking means there's a bit of a delay in the mouse movements. Using Air Display as a primary screen while editing photos is not the purpose of the software. Rather, it allows a mobile user to eke out a bit more desktop from their laptop screen for parking toolbars and other essential clutter. It allows a desktop user to actually walk around the house with a screen backed by a full-powered computer in the den, driven by a virtual keyboard and a touch interface.

While the device is in use, jumping between other iOS apps will cause the connection to the desktop app to be interrupted, however Pandora can still play in the background, thankfully offloaded from the precious CPU cycles of the main computer. Accessing basic functionality through the 4-finger-swipe method will not interrupt the connection, and many iPad functions are unobtrusively maintained.

The software may not revolutionize one's workflow, but it gives a very powerful and useful capability to something otherwise likely to be sitting unused on a desk for part of the day.

Bonus: When used in conjunction with an Apple TV ($99), an iPad can wirelessly mirror itself onto a big screen TV or projector, effectively turning any HDTV into a wireless computer monitor.

Geek Bonus: Users itching to try out cutting edge operating system touch interfaces as they are being developed in Windows 8 and Mac OS 10.7 will now have an inexpensive means of testing out OS-level touch interface integrations using a tablet they may already have lying around.

iOS - http://itunes.apple.com/app/air-display/id368158927?ign-mpt=uo%3D6&mt=8
Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.avatron.airdisplay

By Maria Matthews

Chances are you’ve received scam e-mail, such as one saying you are the lucky winner of a huge cash prize, and all you need to do to collect is e-mail back with your address, place of work, and for tax purposes, your Social Security number. You’re on to those, but what about one from a frantic bride begging you to cover her destination wedding in just a few months’ time, because the one she had booked suddenly disappeared? Watch out! Not all scam e-mails are clearly phishing schemes. There are plenty of more advanced scams that cast a smaller net, aiming for you.

Whether it’s a wedding, a commercial shoot in an exotic locale, or the cover shot for a high-profile magazine that requires immediate travel, watch for a few things that can alert you that your dream job might hook you into a financial nightmare.

Warning signs

• The client asks to pay you prior to seeing your contract, or even discussing your fees
• The client asks you to be responsible for paying other vendors
• The client says they reside in another country, frequently travel internationally, or require you to travel on fairly short notice
• The client’s “major event” just suddenly came up
• The event is to be held at a venue that does not exist
• The client wishes to deposit payment directly into your bank account
• A check or money order arrives that’s substantially higher than the negotiated fee—the client “accidentally” overpaid and requests a cash refund or wire transfer
• The client asks you to provide your services or products without a contract in place and without paying beforehand
• The client’s e-mail address is the only way to reach him, and they cannot provide a valid physical address or telephone number for whatever reason

Continue reading "Identifying an e-mail scam before it's too late" »