Today i added a new section to my blog, the photo gallery. I will put up photos that I take every now and them. The ones that are up right now I took this afternoon when I got home from work in the cemetery across the street. I believe that these are some of my best photographs to date and I like the mood that they created.
In other news I am writing this post on my brand new MacBook Pro. I’m so happy that I finally have one, now I just need to get all the programs that I use on it like Lightroom 2 and maybe Photoshop CS4 when that comes out (if I can save enough money for it).
And in even better news I am back on the day shift at Timken. It has been so nice getting up to go to work at 7 am and get home at 3 pm. I will be once again be able to enjoy my life and get involved with the theater, I can start to look for a band to play with and take lot of photos. With all this new free time I hope to have more to write about so keep checking back to see what new in the world of me and my photography.
I’ve submitted one of my photos to the Aperture Nature Workshops photography contest. There are four winners selected and along with a long list of prizes you get paired up with a professional photographer and photograph the Grand Tetons National Park in Wyoming. I’m not sure what chance I have but I thought it would be a fun thing to do.
After hearing rumors for the past few weeks Engadget at 12:15am is reporting that Nikon will be release the D700, I am writing this at 1:00am. It’s a 12.1 megapixel camera with Nikon’s new full-frames (FX) sensor. I would love to get my hands on one of these but with a price tag of $3000 thats something that I wont be getting anytime soon.
Nikon also will be releasing the SB-900 speed light in August, a PC-E Micro NIKKOR 45mm f/2.8 ED and a 85mm version as well. Just more stuff to get my NAS going.
(Update) Here are is were you can find the official press releases from Nikon.
I just love this program from Animoto, it creates very professional looking slideshows. Here is one of the most resent Action on Impulse that was filmed on May 4th with a few pictures from previous shows thrown in as well.
Well the long awaited Lightroom 2 came out the other day in beta for and I downloaded it today. From what I have seen so far in my very limited use of it I like what they have added. They have made it easier to search the meta data (which I need to get better at tagging and all that), added dual monitor support (I don’t think Katie’s going to let me get a second one), the ability to do some pixel editing like spot removal. They have added a brush tool. Made the print module more powerful as well as adding different templates to the web gallery module. Some other things that I have heard other people talking about is even better integration with Photoshop CS3. Lightroom has helped with my work flow so much this past year I can’t wait to see what I will be able to do once all the bugs are fixed and the final 2.0 product ships in the fall.
Anyone can download a 30 day trial of the beta at Adobe Labs but if you own Lightroom already you can use the beta until the end of August 2008, or if you know someone that owns Lightroom they can invite you in and be able to use Lightroom for the entire beta period.
With everyone making the move to “cloud computing” these days there are a lot of online photo editors popping up, the latest one being Photoshop Express. Now me being a junkie for the latest in online things i signed up for the beta immediately. From what I have done with it so far is it does the real basic things you would need fairly well, it doesn’t do anything near what PS CS3 can do or even Elements but it’s great for if you have a photo on your Facebook profile in Photobucket or in Picasa you can pull it into the editor quickly and do some minor tweeking and get it back to were it came from with out having to download, fix, and upload. You also get a custom domain name when you sign up as well mine is bengagnon.photoshop.com but theres nothing really there yet.
There is another online photo editor that I have tried and it is called Picnik. Picnik right now works with more online communities like Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, Photobucket, and Picasa. I found out about it through Flickr when they started to offer it as a way to edit your photos right inside Flickr.
Both are very good but very basic, they don’t work with raw and like I said before they are not replacements for Photoshop. The are for if you want to do a quick little edit to something that is already online or if you don’t have a big desktop editor these would be great for someone just starting out.
According to the Stock Photo Market and Creative Digital Photography Guide Nikon will be coming out with three new 1.4 prime lenses. All three are upgrades to the current models, a 35mm, 50mm, and an 85mm and rumor has it a 24mm as well. It looks like Nikon is expanding the line to accommodate the new line of Full-Frame cameras the current D3, a D300x and a 24 megapixleD3x that are due to come out later this year. Nikon it’s self doesn’t have anything on there site about this and the people at Stock Photo Market don’t have any links or sources but it sounds like it could be true. We will just have to wait and see
This was a photo that I took back in the fall when Kate and I hiked up Mt. Monadnock with her dad and his girlfriend. I’ve just added it to a small photo contest at the TWiP Flickr group. So I’ll see what happens with it.
I’m really excited, I just ordered a new lens for my camera, the Nikon Zoom Super Wide Angle AF 17-55 f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor Autofocus Lens. I have heard so much about this lens and after saving up some money,previously using one before, reading a lot of reviews, and just general discussions with members of a photopgraphy forum I made the plunge and bought the lens. Now all I have to go is wait.
Nikon won the 2007 Camera Satisfaction in DSLR from J.D. Power and Associates. I think this is a big step for Nikon since it has seemed lately (until this and the release of the D3 & D300) that Nikon was falling further and further behind Canon. But in a survey conducted by J.D. Power Nikon users are the most satisfied with there DSLR followed by Sony, and a 3 way tie with Canon, Pentax, and Olympus. You can read the entire press release here.
After hearing rumors for the past few weeks 
Well the long awaited Lightroom 2 came out the other day in beta for and I downloaded it today. From what I have seen so far in my very limited use of it I like what they have added. They have made it easier to search the meta data (which I need to get better at tagging and all that), added dual monitor support (I don’t think Katie’s going to let me get a second one), the ability to do some pixel editing like spot removal. They have added a brush tool. Made the print module more powerful as well as adding different templates to the web gallery module. Some other things that I have heard other people talking about is even better integration with Photoshop CS3. Lightroom has helped with my work flow so much this past year I can’t wait to see what I will be able to do once all the bugs are fixed and the final 2.0 product ships in the fall.
With everyone making the move to “cloud computing” these days there are a lot of online photo editors popping up, the latest one being 
There is another online photo editor that I have tried and it is called 
I’m really excited, I just ordered a new lens for my camera, the Nikon Zoom Super Wide Angle AF 17-55 f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor Autofocus Lens. I have heard so much about this lens and after saving up some money,previously using one before, reading a lot of reviews, and just general discussions with members of a photopgraphy forum I made the plunge and bought the lens. Now all I have to go is wait.