Posts from — August 2007

This will seriously want to make all photographers throw up! Check out this Photo Minute video featuring Mike Larson and somewhat of an appearance by Mike Colon (is it him?). Something to try out on your next wedding with that spanking hot new Nikon D3!Also, I am working on a ‘Trash the Dress Session” if you are interested please let me know. It will be sometime in mid to late September, stay tuned.

A big thank you to B&H and LowePro for knowing what it takes to exceed customer’s expectations. These companies both know what taking care of the customer means. I specifically want to thank Henry Posner from B&H and Maury Cohen from LowePro. Both companies assisted me with my recent experience ordering some Tamrac gear.

As a photographer shooting mostly in RAW my disk space gets used up extremely fast. The task of keeping up with the ever growing need for more disk space is monumental. As part of my workflow I use Apple’s Aperture to manage all of my digital assets. Aperture’s incredible power and flexability make it the core of my digial workflow. I have been using Aperture since version 1.0 was introduced a couple years back. Fortunately, one of the many enhancements Apple has added since the 1.0 release is the ability to keep files outside of the Aperture Library. All my files are now kept outside of the Aperture Library.My file storage structure is as follows:

• Images->
• Year, Client Last Name, Client First Name (this is the name of the folder) ->
• RAW, Exports, Others (three folders)

My entire Image folder is backed up daily with any changes made in the previous 24 hours. Using a backup program called Jungle Disk I am able to create secure backups of all my files onto  Amazon’s S3 service. I am now able to leverage the millions of dollars Amazon has invested in building one of the most successful e-commerce sites, for a small fraction of the cost of a hard drive. It would be impossible for me to build a system that gave me unlimited amounts of disc space while at the same time exceeding 99.9% uptime. All of this is available for less than the cost of a hard drive.If you are looking for a secure, affordable and reliable backup solution I  completely recommend JungleDisk and Amazon.

During my trip last week with Mike Colon he gave us a tour of his camera bag. See picture at right courtesy of Marie Moyers. For over 6 years I have been a loyal LowePro user however last week I placed an order for a Tamrac StrongBox LP2 rolling bag and a Photo Messenger 9 bag. These two bags were exactly what I have always wanted. My only concern was the LP2 was not officially airport carry on approved. I was willing to look this over given it was only an inch or so larger. My guess is you can still get it on a plane, have you seen the size of bags some people take on a plane?

Prior to placing my order with B&H I visited the Tamrac website to make sure I had the proper model.

The image to the left is the picture on the Tamrac website for the LP2.

Looks like Mike’s?

I thought so. I immediately went to the B&H website and placed my order.

A week later my order arrived. Upon opening the box it seemed a bit smaller than what I remember. The feet and the wheels also looked different. After visiting the Tamrac site it looked like the SpeedRoller 2. I called B&H and they immediately issued an RMA and shipped me a new one over night delivery via UPS.

The new one arrived today and again it was wrong again, the tags say it is an LP2. I called B&H and they recommended I call Tamrac. After speaking to Tamrac I learned they redesigned the LP2 and consider it the same thing. It is not! It is slightly smaller, the support “feet” in the front are different and the wheels are different, I believe all of these changes are for the better.

Unfortunately they also redesigned the dividers and it now holds significantly less equipment. The picture above has two bodies and under them is a compartment where you could place additional bodies. This is gone. Take a look at the shot to the right. this is the bag with a fraction of my gear in it. If I recall correctly Mike has two D2XS and one D200 plus all his lenses, minus the 200 2.0 of course!

In a perfect world they would keep the new exterior design but maintain the inner dividers of the “old” LP2. Oh, and update your website so that others do not experience this same problem.

Needless to say I am not happy and I am left wondering if I should just return it all and stick with my LowerPro. For this weekend its back to looking like a dork with a backpack.

I am going to think it through the weekend.

American Photo magazine and Apple are teaming up to find the next great photographer. It looks like Apple has even created a special Aperture plugin to help send your pictures to American Photo. Visit the American Photo website for more information. 

Oh boy this is going to be a g$$d one. The newest addition to the Nikon lineup has been announced. The Nikon D3 full frame sensor at 12.1 megapixel. This thing can do 6400 ISO! It has 51 auto focus sensors, do we need that many? And this puppy has UDMA support built-in. Full story is available at dpreview.com.

Its been a long week and with the time difference I feel like I have slept 10 hours all week. I will post some of the images form the week over the next couple of days. In the meantime, I have posted some shots on my main site. Now I need to be a good husband and spend some time with my wife, its her birthday. Happy birthday my love!

Today I head out to Newport Beach California for an intense week of shooting with wedding photographer Mike Colon. This is going to be a week to remember. This guy is not only a brilliant photographer but he is a Mac and Nikon user!