Canon 5d MkII

The Canon 5d MKII was announced a couple days ago and has generated quite a buzz. 21 megapixels and a new and improved sensor have got a lot photographers excited by this new release. It looks like a fantastic camera and no doubt I probably will get one, but this never ending upgrade game in the digital world is getting to be a severe pain.

Especially for those who have invested thousands in their equipment and continue to move forward on the never ending merry-go-round of upgrades.

John Loomis touches nicely on this on his blog Drinking with a Dead Man. Link here.

As with John, I will save my thoughts on the video camera capabilities.

Lightroom Enfuse

Hey if there is anyone out there using or experimenting with Lightroom 2.0, check out this cool plugin I ran across last week. Lightroom Enfuse is still in a somewhat experimental state, but so far I have had no problems. It works like a regular plugin in Lightroom and gives you full advantage of taking images directly from Lightroom into it’s HDR editing program. As of this post I am impressed. Let me know what you think.

Oh by the way, to unlock the trial version, you make a donation at your discretion. Pretty cool.

Check it out here

Photoshelter Closes Stock Marketplace

 

Well if this isn’t another doomsday sign of the times for photography stock agencies I don’t know what is…Photoshelter announced minutes ago that they will be closing their Stock Photography Marketplace, which frankly was a bit of a surprise.

If you haven’t been following Photoshelter they originally started out offering archival services and online portfolios for photographers. Last year they began their march into the stock marketplace with some innovative and unique marketing strategies such as their Photoshelter Widget (which was really cool) and expanded their advertising into just about every corner of the photography world.

They looked like they were on their way to becoming a leader in this redefined age of stock photography and were straddling up next to the table with some of the bigger agencies. I for one was excited about their fresh design and easy to work with site.

But this may be just another sign of the times and the difficulties that stock agencies face in the digital age. The micro agencies seem to be reigning supreme and have forced agencies such as Getty, Corbis and a host of others to change their business models. However it will remain to be seen if these these new innovations and changes will enable the bigger agencies to survive the storm. 

In our current web environment, things are cheap, cheaper and free.  A lot of us are aware of this and ad agencies, designers, etc. are not excluded. 

It may be a pain to wade through a ton of bad photographs at a micro agency, but if you find a usable image for a few bucks vs. a few hundred your ad budget gets a whole lot more interesting. 

It will be interesting to see what happens in the future, but with this latest announcment from Photoshelter, it may be just another sign of the times. Either jump on the wagon or go by the wayside seems to be the theme…

Here’s a link to the official statement.

Hay…From Montana

Self Portrait/©Jason Savage

Just finished up a weekend of shooting and found myself Sunday night roaming around a hay field near Three Forks, Montana. At some point you would think that after photographing landscape photography around this state you would reach your breaking point for acquiring one more shot of a field of hay bales. But alas, I guess I am a sucker for big bales of hay.

Hay Bale/©Jason Savage

Fall is coming so I will be spending some more time on the road and working on a few projects. I also hope to get back to the blog more frequently as my time lately has been occupied by a four month old. He seems determined from letting me sneak a quick post in, so in the meantime bear with me…

Photography Now

Don’t know where I’ve been… but this site is great! I really like how the portfolios are laid out and not to mention the collection of photographers. Awesome. Check out Photography Now

Anne Laird Photo Acessories

I just received some tripod leg covers yesterday for my new tripod (that’s a story in itself) and was very pleased with these Tri-Pad covers from Anne Laird Photo Accessories. I like to promote  and support our local business’s when I can and Anne being one of them is located just down the road from us in Red Lodge.  Well she is a few hours away, but in Montana that still can be referred to as “just down the road”.

She also makes custom rain covers for your gear and macro ground cloths. Nice stuff. Check her out here

David Griffin, National Geographic

David Griffin director of photography for National Geographic, gives a talk on TED, sharing some of magazine’s most influential photographs from a handful of photographers and discusses how they impact and effect the lives of others. Great video.

more about “David Griffin, National Geographic“, posted with vodpod

Digital Copyrights

Ran across a cool article on Digital Photo Pro addressing many of the new issues photographers face with keeping track of their images in cyberspace and how to adapt to the new business model the web has created.

The article was written by Louis Lesko and gives some new ideas on how to approach unapproved use of your photos on the web without going the legal route.

It’s nice to see these new ideas popping up that allow photographers and other like minded individuals to adapt to a new way of doing business. While some are embracing these new concepts and ideas, others are kicking and screaming all the way to the end.

Check it out at:    http://www.digitalphotopro.com/studio/naked-in-the-courtroom.html

Out to Seattle

I’ve been out this last week in Seattle and haven’t had much time to get to the blog and hope to get some new stuff going when I get back this weekend.

Still hobbling around on one leg after breaking my foot last month and only a few days left until that damn thing comes off!(whine). I don’t do well being slowed down, but’s it’s been OK as it’s got me to slow down and smell the roses instead of running around like I usually do, occupied with a half dozen things I’m busy with.

Seattle hasn’t changed much since my last visit, but the traffic-God almighty! Talk about crazy. I think it’s maybe close to worst in the nation. Not surprising though. Seattle is a beautiful city with great art and music scene and a certain seatown feel. Although it still rains like a bastard.

Well time to hit the road…

Charles Cramer

photo by Charles Cramer

I thought I would post a quick link to, IMHO, one of the greatest contemporary landscape photographers around. I first ran across Charles’s work a few years back and was completely blown away. He is part of the Ansel Adams Gallery list of photographers (if that says anything). And like Ansel, his compositional elements are powerful and speak loudly.

He is also a master of color and having read some of his past interviews regarding his workflow, he seems to be in a league of a very few who have a high level of attention and precision that is required for fine art print making.

Here is a link to his site http://charlescramer.com

And a recent interview from Phase One in PDF format

I would also suggest taking a look at the Ansel Adams Gallery roster of photographers. There are some amazing individuals, certainly a source of inspiration to aspiring landscape and fine art photographers.