Ben’s Photography Thoughts

Well if you have been asking yourself that very question then pop over to this post here. Very good post. I love my 50 1.4, you should have one for sure.

Quick note before we get into the post, this is a start to a new series called ‘Photographer Resources’ and while I don’t claim to know them all, I am going to be passing along likes and resources that I use to find what I need.

Today’s photographer resource is about purchasing, specifically where to look to buy your gear, and what gear to look for at these places. If you have a great resource that I missed that fits with this topic please leave it in the comments, I will be sure to check it out.

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So over the past week or so there has been a lot of talking going on with people recommending new features for Photoshop, see these links:

Matt Kloskowski Started us off here.

Then Scott Kelby Held this vote.

Then the results came out.

Then John Nack from Adobe responed.

Now Jeff Revell is getting into the mix.

But none of these solve the problem, which is really simple to solve.

Make Photoshop multiple monitor friendly! That simple. The reason there is all this dialog about having transparent this and that, is so that we can see more of our image while we work on it. Well with programs like Aperture you can utilize both monitors in a fashion that allows you to see the entire unobstructed image while the tools and dialogs are on your other monitor. As far as workflows go it is tops. Now why cant Adobe do that? Make the palettes slide off to the other screen, make Photoshop recognize and utilize a multiple monitor set up!

Well that is my $0.02…

Staring at a young age he is 9 and a top 30 photographer. Wow.

Read More.

Man what a bombshell this camera is. Yes I had heard the rumors, but I always take those with a grain of salt all the while hoping that it is true in the end. But the D700 is quite the camera it is a D3 that is a little cheaper and just as awesome. Now don’t get me wrong I am a Canon guy all the way, but it is hard not to be envious of the current Nikons.

Before I delve into my thoughts on this a little more I want to get something out of the way. I am not going to switch to Nikon. I am jealous of the D3 and D700 (not so much the D300). Above all else I welcome these Nikons as it will spur competition with Canon and we Canon users will start to get some great cameras (5d mk II anyone? Please!).

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I use Google Reader to keep up on all the blogs and websites that I follow, basically if you don’t have RSS or ATOM I am not looking at your site. This doesn’t mean that I don’t go to these sites, but I only open the articles that interest me. When it is all said and done I have 486 subscriptions with about 42,000 some odd posts a month.

So what does this mean to you? Well I want to post up all the photography related links that I have. I am going to break it down in two categories for you, Photoblogs, and Non-Photoblogs. A couple of notes here, I do not know any of these people I am linking to, nor was I asked to link to these blogs. Some are better than others. I look at so many for one reason: Ideas. And ideas inspire me to shoot more.

The links after the jump…

I have talked about using a B&W conversion to hide the high-ISO shots that you may take. But now I want to talk about the techniques that you can use to get an image into black and white. Many people just desaturate the image, while this is not wrong, it never yields the best results in my opinion. But that being said, it is your opinion that counts, not mine.

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With the 4th fast approaching us here in the U.S. it is important to think about how you are going to get great fireworks shots. Here is a handy list over at This Week in Photography (TWIP).

Linkage.

The past week and a half have been brutal on me. I have been really busy at work, and while it has only equated to one or two additional hours of work each day, it has really worn me down. I spent this weekend recovering; a.k.a. doing nothing. It was great, but it also means that I have not picked up a camera in quite some time.

The weather has been gorgeous, but I have been putting the miles on the road, racking up close to 700 miles in the past week and a half. With gas prices where they are it has not been cheap. But such is life.

I have now climbing back on top of everything and seem to be getting pretty good control of things here at work once again. And though I am headed out of town once again this weekend I hope to find a few moments to take some great shots this week.

I have a few ideas on some shots that I have been working on so hopefully those pan out.

Macworld has an article today helping people decide on what camera lens to buy next. Overall the article is good, not the best but good. I would recommend to to those just getting started with buying a lens, that and forums.