Time-Lapse Introduction

I ran into Imre Z. Balint quite some time ago. He runs a blog and produces some of the best videos on Photography that ever run into. His blog is called  Binary Graphite and he often introduces videoson related subjects via Youtube. He has no set to work on but his delivery is very well thought out, logical, thorough. This would make for an excellent PBS program!

The associated blog entry on this subject is here. You should head to his blog and search across Youtube for more help! Here is his Episode Guide.

FaceBook - a Place to Learn

I spent part of an hour today up on the Olympus page, "Get Olympus". Each Thursday they have a technician on the page to interact with Olympus owner and to answer questions. I got the ins and outs of how Olympus approaches their remote flashes and how the system works right from the "horse's mouth".

If Olympus is doing this you bet ya Nikon, Canon, Sony and the others are doing the same. Go explore your camera's community on FaceBook, this could be a great resource for you.

If you are having any specific problems with your camera this would be a great resource as well. They can guide you to the right place for help.

New Podcasts

Looking at the list of Podcasts to the right under "Latest Podcasts" I see that they are all fresh entries. This should keep you busy if you've got the time.

On the Quieter Family Side of Things

Amongst all of this corporate news and solar blasts comes this small but important message from one of our club members... Marcie asked me to post this....... She and Robert are in the middle of adoption proceedings... if you can call it that. 

"Just wanted to share the wonderful news with you . . . we found out today that we got our travel approval . . . down side is that the Chinese gov't is shut down all this week so they adoption agency can't do anything further until the 30th.  But she is going to try to get our appointment with the Consulate in China set for Feb 21st . . . which is the last thing we do before we leave China . . . if she can get it set for that date then we will fly out on Feburary 8th . . . just a mere 2 weeks from now . . . if that works and we have the schedule figured out right from there . . . we would actually be meeting Hope on Feburary 14th . . . which would be the perfect day . . . as of course it is Valentine's Day but it is also my mother's birthday.
 
IF it all works out and we leave on the 8th . . . we will also be traveling with another family so that would be wonderful.
 
So if you all could be praying that would be fantastic."

Olympus/Sony Partnership?

Updated on Monday, January 23, 2012 at 6:33PM by Tom S.

The Japanese business journal Diamond Weekly is reporting on it's website that Olympus and Sony are about to pen a partnership agreement. This is a bit of a bombshell.... but may make a lot of sense if we think about it.

On one hand Olympus is needing a much better sensor and I'm sure no one would object to a line of Olympus lens for their Sony cameras. Assuming that this deal is about photography.

On the other hand this would give Sony a door into the medical field that I don't think they are into yet.... to any degree.

I'm sure this is also in part about bad debts that Olympus created for itself some 15 years ago and has hidden all of these years. That aside, this could be a big deal on many fronts. Certainly in the area of photography and who really knows in the medical field. Sony currently owns about 0.03% of Olympus. According to the article Olympus is planning a news conference this week to announce this deal.

One other thing to think about about is the fact that Sony proivdes sensor for other large camera makers such as Nikon. And I assume they still do for at least some of the top end Nikon's cameras. This will further consolidate Sony's role in the world of the photography.

According to reports neither Olympus or Sony have acknowledge that anything is going on. I guess we'll find out this week.

There are many reports about this on the web. I even took the report above, in Japanese, and used Google's translator to pick through the report. Pretty rough! 

Click to read more ...

Today's Challenge - Interior Fill Flash

This challenge will be an exercise in using your flash. It would be best to have an external flash but your built in camera flash should work too.

Find a room in your house that has at least one bright window in it. What we want to do is make a photograph in which both the interior of the room AND the view outside the window are reasonably exposed. 

If you take a photograph of the room without any setup the window scene outside the windows will be "blown out", meaning the exposure of the scene outside will be very much over exposed, it will look like a big white spot, while the interior exposure might look fine. 

The first thing we will do is determine the exposure needed to get the scene outside exposed corrctly. To do this place your camera in Aperture Priority... A on your dial or Av if you are using a Canon. Pick an Aperture that will give you a  good "depth of field" (DOF).... say F4 or 5.6.

Place the camera's mettering system in "Spot Mode" and aim it at the center of the windows.... something other then solid snow. Depress the shutter half way and note the shutterspeed. Select a Aperture that will get your shutter speed below your camera's maxiumum Flash Sync Speed.... look that up, it is usually 1/250th  or 1/125th of a second. Remember the associated F-Stop and the shutterspeed.

Now switch the camera to Manual Mode and dial in both the Aperture and Shutterspeed. Turn on your flash and aim it at the ceiling making sure it in Auto or TTL. Take your room shot aimming at something other then the window. The flash should fill in what light it needs to expose the room and the scene outside should still be visable.

Give it a try and see what happens. If you have questions go to the forum lets discuss your results. 

Please excuse the room, a hurricane named Molly has been in it the past two days.