Smugmug Class - it's free

I joined a SmugMug user meet-up group a couple months ago.
The last meeting was about pricing your photography and the one this Thursday (3-31-11) is about Color Management.
2 experts are flying in from EZPrints from Atlanta to go through monitor calibration ,web submission and making final prints.
If you could, spread the word

Best part it's Free

Here's the website,
http://www.meetup.com/Twin-Cities-SmugMug-User-Group/

Jeff Henningsgaard

Minnesota Arts Council Census

The Minnesota Arts Council needs the input of all individuals and groups engaged in creative expression. Yes that means you! They want artists engaged in all creative processes to take a survey and let them know you exist. So take a moment to take the survey and help the Arts Council help all of us in the future. To take the survey go to mnartscount.com. You can get more information about the survey below.

Click on Image Below for Larger View

AC Johnson Workshops

For those of you who wanted to go to the badlands and found Rikk Flohr's May workshop full take note. You can still attend a workshop there in June with Alec Johnson. He is leading a workshop in the badlands from June 12 -16. He also has some space still available for his Lake Superior workshop in August. Go to acjphotoworkshops.com for more information and to sign up.

LIGHTROOM 3 AT A DISCOUNT

If you don't have Lightroom 3, but are ready to jump in, then now is the time.

Adobe is offering $100.00 off of the purchase price of a full edition of this software for a limited time only.

Rikk Flohr Spring Break Follow-up

At Rikk's Flohr's presentation durning Spring Break a number of attendees asked him to post instructions regarding the basic steps he uses for his Content Aware Scale and Fill methods demonstrated in his Holy Crop session. So here they are:

(CLICK ON IMAGE BELOW TO VIEW LARGER IMAGE)

Also remember, if you have any questions, or want to keep up to date on Lightroom, you can always follow Rikk's blog at: Holy Crop.

St. Paul Camera Club on HIstory Detectives

On March 20, 2011, St. Paul Camera Club Historian Gene Schwope was flown to Washington D.C. to be interviewed by the PBS History Detectives television show. The taped interview took place over five hours, at a town house in Arlington, Virginia, just up the street from the Pentagon. The crew included two Producers, a cameraman/lighting expert, a sound technician, a person to watch for continuity,and History Detective Wes Cowan.

The History Detectives program, which should air on a Tuesday evening in August, will deal with Marion Carpenter, a former member of the St. Paul Camera Club.

We will keep you posted as to the date it is scheduled to air on the show.


Watch for this History Detectives program In August for the complete story!


Photo by Pat Schwope

Above: Gene Schwope greets History Detective Wes Cowan, who is visiting
Gene's home in Arlington, Virginia for a History Detectives interview.
The cameraman, sound technician, Producer, and assistant are taping
for the show, which will air sometime in August.

Pat Malcolm, a member of the MLAPS is participating in the "60 Artists on 50th" exhibit being held on April 2nd. The exhibit is being held at the Burroughs School, 1601 West 50th Street in Minneapolis from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Below are the three beautiful images that Pat contributed to this exhibit:





ABOUT PAT: I have been interested in photography most of my life. Fifteen years ago I decided to venture deeper and see where it would take me. I have taken classes at Hennepin Technology College in the Professional Photography program, multiple seminars and recently workshops at the Maine Media Workshops working with Vincent Versace and Jay Maisel. Vincent Versace has had a tremendous influence on my work. __ Pat Malcolm

Crosstown Camera outing to Grand Marais - February

Peter Wong of the Crosstown Camera Club organized an outing last month in warm and sunny Grand Marais. It was sunny for three of the four days resulting in number of beautiful sunrise photos of the harbor there. However, it wasn't warm. At a sunrise shoot one morning the temperature was between -7° and -15° before the windchill. Despite the cold everyone had a very warm and wonderful time. We stayed at the East Bay Condos right on the lake and within walking distance to the harbor where many of these shots were taken. Despite the cold many of us ventured out to other areas around Grand Marais to take some of the shots seen in this video. Our thanks to John Olson for producing this video.

The members of Crosstown hope to put on more organized photo shoots in areas of interest to its members and may send out notice of these outings to the other clubs as well, so any members can attend. One is already planned for Lanesboro Minnesota in August, and Crosstown hopes to have other day and overnight trips planned this spring and fall. Also, club members are participating in Rikk Flohr's badlands workshop this May. The May workshop is filled, but remember Rikk has another one scheduled in December and Alec Johnson is hosting one in June.

Untitled from Mark Karney on Vimeo.

Russ Borud's Flowers of Life

Eagle Migration in Southeastern Minnesota

The Minneapolis Star is reporting that eagles are flocking to Southeastern Minnesota on their annual migration north. Large numbers can be seen in and around Lake Pepin and areas south along the Mississippi River. To read more about where to go to photograph them see the article at: Mpls Star.

Also, if you are in the Southeastern Minnesota area and want to view and learn more about these and other birds go to the National Eagle Center located in Wabasha Minnesota.

Time Lapse of Aurora Borealis

Below is a time lapse sequence of the Aurora Borealis taken in Russia when the temperature was -25 degrees celsius (-13 fahrenheit). Cold, but Beautiful.

Nikon's New Compact with Manual Mode Capability

For Nikon, the P-Series designation is reserved for their highest quality and most technically advanced compact digital cameras. The Nikon P7000 is the flagship of the Coolpix camera lineup and was specifically designed to satisfy the needs of the serious amateur and professional alike. By combining the features of an SLR with the form factor of a point and shoot, Nikon has created quite an impressive pocket camera.
The Nikon P7000 replaces the year and a half old P6000. Typically new models are released with subtle upgrades and minor improvements over their predecessors, however the P7000 breaks that trend as pretty much the entire camera was redesigned from the ground up. The overall shape of the camera changed and is now made of metal, while the key control switches are now located in areas where your hands naturally grip the body. The camera still features a large format 1/1.7 inch CCD sensor. However, in order to increase low-light sensitivity, the resolution was reduced to a reasonable 10.1 megapixels. A noteworthy improvement was made to the camera’s lens. The P7000 now sports an image-stabilized 7.1x optical zoom (28-300mm 35mm equivalent) This versatile lens distinguishes the P7000 with the longest zoom lens in its class. On the back of the camera, the 921,000 dot LCD screen grew to 3 inches allowing easy image composition and playback. Fortunately Nikon has also included an adjustable optical viewfinder that is rather helpful when shooting outdoors.
One attribute that sets the P7000 apart from nearly every other compact camera is the ability to shoot in full manual mode. Being able to select the aperture and shutter speed combination you want allows much greater creative control. In addition to the standard JPEG picture file, the P7000 also supports the uncompressed RAW image format. ISO settings can also be selected manually and range from ISO100-6400. Other notable upgrades include 720p HD video mode with stereo sound as well as a built-in virtual horizon that helps ensure your photos are level. Operating the P7000 is very straightforward. You can quickly adjust important settings like ISO, white balance, picture quality, exposure compensation, and the shooting mode with just the thumb wheels on the top of the camera.
With its compact size and impressive feature-set, the P7000 has definitely earned its place at the top of Nikon’s Coolpix lineup. If you are interested in a travel friendly compact camera but still crave the creative control of SLR, the P7000 is a great alternative. The P7000 kit includes: one rechargeable Li-Ion batter, charger, USB and AV cable, neck strap, and the Nikon software suite CD-ROM. The P700 currently sells for $449.95.

BACKUP! ARE YOU SAFE?

Crosstown member Brian Billadeau has written an article concerning the use of an internet service to backup all of your valuable photographs and personal information to the "Cloud". It provides valuable information about the all-important need to protect your images and data from possible disaster. Excerpts are reprinted below:

BACKUP TERMS

ONSITE – backup to a hard drive, network drive, CDs or DVDs kept at same location as computer.

OFFSITE – same as onsite, but storage devices are kept at different physical location.

ONLINE – files are copied over the internet directly to a storage destination.

INCREMENTAL BACKUP – running a recurring scheduled backup (continuous, hourly, daily, weekly).

CLONING – using a utility application to make an exact duplicate of a hard drive.

ENCRYPTION – securing data with a scrambling algorithm between source and destination.

VERSIONING – retention of multiple states of a given file.

Onsite backups cannot protect you from disasters such as fire, flood, or theft. The best protection is in the CLOUD today's buzzword for online storage and computing. With the growth of broadband and the low-cost of storage, it's no longer just for business. Home users can now get unlimited online storage space for as little as $50 per year, making this a smart and cheap technology investment.

This new consumer market for online storage is exploding with new companies popping-up regularly. So you have to be careful to consider the service that best meets your needs. Some block certain file formats, have different storage limits, poor security, or poor infrastructure. And of course you may worry about whether the company you chose will be in business years from now. After months of research, testing and comparisons, I have narrowed down my choices for Cloud backups to three sources:

CARBONITE

PROS: Unlimited Space • Automated Software • 128-bit Security • Remote Access to Files • Mac/PC

CONS: Does not automatically backup certain file types • File size limits • No external drive support • Power features not available on Mac • Speed Throttling

PRICE: Single User/Computer = $55 per year

MOZY

PROS: Unlimited Space • Automated Software • 128-bit Security • External Drive Support • Up To 30-Day File Versioning • DVD Restore Option • Mac/PC

CONS: Does not automatically backup certain file types • Possible file size limits • No remote access to files • 2x Protect feature Windows only

PRICE: Single User/Computer = $55 per year

CRASHPLAN+

PROS: Unlimited Space • Automated Software • Onsite, Offsite & Online Options with Multiple backup Sets • 256/448-bit Security • External Drive Support • Flexible File Versioning • Retains Deleted Files • No Auto File Type or Size Restrictions • Pre-Seeding Option • Hard Drive Restore Option • Mac/PC/Linux/Solaris

CONS: No remote access to files at this time

PRICE: Single User/Computer with 10GB storage = $25 per year, or Unlimited storage = $50 per year/Family Plan (2-10 users) unlimited storage for $120 per year

After testing all three, I went with CrashPlan+ because it best fit my needs. Carbonite and Mozy are good services, but CrashPlan+ software gives me the flexibility to take care of both my onsite and online backup with a single application solution, with features the other two don't have plus greater security. I do highly recommend CrashPlan+, but you should determine for yourself what service works best for your situation.

While an online backup could replace your onsite backup, I still feel the onsite backup is important as your first-line for recovery. Doing a full recovery from an online backup may take days or weeks to complete, or be expensive using their delivered drives or DVDs (to your location), whereas onsite recovery is measured in hours with no additional fees. It also gives you redundancy just in case your online service has problems.

Brian Billadeau

Hunt Camera Specials

Every so often we get a communication from Hunt's Photo and Video of New England about special offers they have available on cameras, printing equipment and software. The latest offers can be found at: Hunt's.

The prices on pocket wizards and Nik's Silver Efex Pro looked particularly good. Hunt's is the largest retail photography enterprise on the east coast. Club members who have purchased items from Hunt's have been satisfied with their prices and service.

Snapstick for Smart Phones

I was reading about a new product that will let users of an I-phone play web content directly from their phone on a TV called Snapstick. It seems to be revolutionary in the sense it allows an I phone user to play virtually anything they can access on their phone on a TV. I haven't checked yet to see if it works with the I Pad.

Check out the demo video here: Snapstick

"Open to Interpretation" Juried Competition

There is a photo competition open to all area photographers that is juried by Doug Beasley. The theme is "Water's edge". The interesting part of this competition is after the images are selected writers and poets will submit written responses to each selected image. then a book of the winning images and selected written works will be published in book form for sale to the public. Read below for more details on this call for entries.

Open Call for Entries for All Photographers

Open to Interpretation is now calling on photographers to submit images for consideration in a juried book competition.

Theme: Water’s Edge

Juror: Douglas Beasley, Photographer and Educator

Early Submission Fee: $30 for 5 images, $10 each additional

Deadline for early submission: April 26, 2011

Submission Fee: $35 for 5 images, $10 each additional

Deadline for submission: June 7, 2011

Results Announced: June 20, 201

Awards

$300 Jurors Selection Award

Project Details

Open to interpretation is a juried book competition of photography, poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction. Each book begins with a themed call for photos. The chosen photos become the literary inspiration for the writers’ submissions. A book is created that matches each winning photo with two stories or poems that offer different interpretations of the image. The unique collaboration adds new dimensions to both the photos and the written word.

Juror

Douglas Beasley's personal vision explores spiritual aspects of people and place and is concerned with how the sacred is recognized and expressed in everyday life. He hopes that his photographs act as prayer-like offerings and are meant as a departure point for the viewer's own visual or spiritual journey.As founder and director of Vision Quest Photo Workshops, Beasley provides workshops that emphasize personal expression and creative vision over the mechanics of camera use. He believes in helping each student find their voice rather than making 'pretty pictures'. His workshops are held in places such as Santa Fe, Maine, New York, Hawaii, Guatemala, Peru, Japan, China, Italy, Africa and Bali as well as the Trade River Retreat Center, his cabin/retreat center in Northwest Wisconsin.

Much of his personal work, including Sacred Sites of the Lakota, Disappearing Green Space, Silent Witness: Genocide and the Landscape, Sacred Places and Earth Meets Spirit are supported by grants and commissions and have been widely exhibited and collected. His work has been published internationally and featured in numerous magazines such as Zoom, The Sun, B&W, PDN and PhotoVision. His first book: "Japan; A Nisei's First Encounter," offers insight into his journey to his mother's homeland. His second book Earth Meets Spirit will be coming out in late 2010.

Doug continues to explore the notion of what is sacred in his photography and in his life. He lives in a passive solar home surrounded by trees in Saint Paul, MN. When not out traveling the world he can be found tending his Japanese gardens or enjoying a strong cup of coffee while listening to loud music. Personal heroes include Jimi Hendrix, the Dalai Lama and whoever invented the espresso machine.

Entries are submitted online at www.open2interpretation.com/

Tsunami HIts Nikon Plant

Nikon manufactures its professional cameras at its plant in Sendai, Japan that was at the epicenter of the earthquake/tsunami last week. the maps below show the location of the plant (A) in detail. The press release about on effect of the disaster on electronics manufactures said:

Japan suffered a monumental earthquake earlier today measuring 8.9 on the moment magnitude scale, followed by a devastating tsunami. The epicenter is reported to have been near Sendai, where Nikon produces the D3s, D3x and D700 models.

The region is also home to other manufacturers. Panasonic's Yamagata lens plant is further to the south-west while further south Canon's main lens plant at Utsunomiya is still well within the affected zone. All three are likely to have sustained damage, but the repercussions aren't likely to be known fully for several days.

Japan's Camera Plant Damage reports

Reports from Canon, Nikon and Epson on damage in Japan - Fuji had moved most digicam plants to China, but they have halted production of the new X100 due to damage to the factory in Sendai.


http://www.canon.com/news/2011/mar13e.pdf
http://digitaljournalofphotography.blogspot.com/2011/03/nikon-japan-issues-statement-on.html
http://global.epson.com/newsroom/2011/news_20110314.html

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Japanese people and we hope for a swift stabilization and recovery.

Crosstown Member Peter Wong's image of Malaysia

Peter Wong is a professional photographer and member of the Crosstown Camera club. He is currently traveling and photographing in Malaysia. Attached is a link to his blog where he has posted his first images. Malaysia looks beautiful and warm!



Peter Wong's Malaysia gallery.

Peter Wong's blog.

How to record a screen Video

Below is a short video tutorial on how to record both video and audio on your desktop in Quicktime and then upload it to Youtube for viewing on the Camera Council Blog and Website. You can use Quicktime to record anything on your computer screen, as well as, your audio input at the same time to produce a short movie that can be saved and later embedded on our blog or website for viewing by all members.



NOTE: You can click on the button on the lower right hand side of the moive to view it full screen.

Red Wing Photography Club Exhibit

Remember to keep March 25th open so you can attend the art opening of the Red Wing Photography Club at the historic Anderson Center in Red Wing, Minnesota. It will feature works by members of the club who have submitted over 70 images for this exhibition so far.

The opening reception begins at 6:30 and the exhibit opens at 7:30 pm in the main gallery. Click on the image below for details. For more information or directions to the Anderson Center call 651-388-2009, or visit the clubs website: Red Wing Photo.

SPRING BREAK - VENDORS AND DOOR PRIZES

The vendors that will attend Spring Break have been announced as follows:

A C Johnson Photography
Creative Memories Digital Software
Fleeting Glimpse
Hoodman
National Camera
Prop It Up
Tamron
Tamrac Bags
West Photo
White House Custom Colour
Worldesigns Tours

There will be a number of door prizes given away that currently include:

A free workshop by AC Johnson Photography
Cotton Carrier camera vest/ carry-lite belt
Lowepro Outback 300 AW Camera Bag
4 Gift certificates from WHHC
Photoshop CS5 for PC, and Lightroom for the Mac
Two Tamrac bags
2 West Photo gift cards
A bottle of great wine
A software photo album

And many others to be announced at the event.

Red Wing Photo Club Exhibit

For more information about this exhibit, its location, or the Red Wing Photo Club go to: www.rwphotclub.org.

FInepix X100 - Professional Compact Camera

Fuji will release this month a new compact digital camera whose design reflects the classical designs of past film cameras, particularly the Leica M3. It will contain a 12.3 digital sensor and sports a fixed lens designed just for this camera that has a 35mm equivalent. The target market for this camera Fuji claims is professional and advanced amateurs who want a high quality digital camera that is compact and travels well. It is built to look like a professional film camera and Fuji claims its build quality matches its looks. The base price for this camera is $1195.00.

Below is an excerpt from Fuji's press release for the camera that describes the camera:

To learn more go: here. To see a Youtube video of this product go: here.

Eastern Sierra Workshop

Jansen Photographic Expeditions is offering a small group workshop in the Eastern Sierra mountains at the very reasonable cost of only $475.00. It runs in early May and there is another one offered for fall colors. Click on the images below for more information.

Mark Jansen also has a fine art photography website that showcases some of his images, and the wide variety of workshops he offers all over the world. You can check it out here: Jansen Fine Art.

New Judging Class is Being Offered

Last year's judging school was a resounding success. The clubs will soon have access to more experienced judges for club salons. It was such a success it is being offered again to those club members interested in becoming certified by the Camera Council as a judge.

The class size is limited and last year it filled up quickly. So if you are interested, you should contact Ron Timm quckly to make sure the course isn't filled and you have to wait until next year (assuming it is offered again).

National Geographic is coming to Minneapolis

National Geographic Traveler magazine is featuring a one day traveling seminar titled "Photos that tell a story". The seminar has dates in Dallas and New York that are sold out.

It is coming to Minneapolis April 3rd. Given the popularity of Nat Geo and this seminar it is likely to be sold out like the previous dates. So read the information below and if interested register online at: Nat Geo.

SPRING BREAK UPDATE

Below is the updated information on Spring Break including the seminars being offered. Click on the image below for a larger view.

150 Photography Related Websites

If you have an interest in learning more about your craft, want to view tutorials, view others images, read informative articles, get information about new or future equipment, or just spend time perusing photo related websites to glean more information, check out the PIXIQ website. It lists, in no appreciable order, 150 photo related websites, some that you may already know and/or use (Flickr, Red Bubble, Nikonians etc), and many you probably have never heard of, but may enjoy (Photo Rumors, Photo JoJo, my sentimental favorite Photo Attorney, etc).

PIXIQ has done a good job assembling "the list" of sites that it found will add to your knowledge of all things photographic, and of course use up a lot of your time. But visiting many of these sites and picking your favorites to follow is a good use of that time.

Scott Kelby's "Light it, Shoot it" LIve

Scott Kelby's is bringing his online class on lighting and retouching to Minneapolis for a live full day seminar. It will be held April 4th at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The cost is $99.00, but only $79.00 for NAPP members.

You can learn more about this seminar and register online at: Kelby Live.