Camera Reviews

Many of you have seen the Camera Reviews page, and I take time to figure out the best recommendations for “Good,” “Better,” and “Best.” There are always new cameras coming out and new specs to consider. It’s an ever-complex problem!

There are a few new cameras that I’m analyzing, but I don’t really have enough info on them. These are the Sony RX1 (Adorama Link) and the Nikon D600 (Adorama Link). Believe it or not, Nikon offered to send me a free D600 to play with, but I told them I was too busy! I’m not really a hardcore camera review guy, and I already bought the D800. This is just a busy time for me… otherwise I might have taken them up on their offer!

Daily Photo – The Golden Disc Descends Behind the Island

I could watch one of these every night I think!

It is hypnotic, isn’t it, watching this massive fireball slowly dip into the sea? I notice that the sun seems even bigger when there is another object of significance in the distance. You can’t always plan for that, but it sure is nice when it happens.

I took these photos from the balcony at Amaterus.

Filed under the categories: Caribbean, Nikon D800, Travel, Virgin Gorda

Paris Shot How To

I’ll be in Paris in just a few weeks for the workshop at the chateau (see the Photography Workshop Schedule)! Here is a video that I made during my last trip to Paris that you might enjoy if you have not already seen it…

Tanya Rochat’s Digital Castles

Tanya Rochat’s new eBook, Digital Castles, is insanely cool. Even if you think “I can’t do that!” I invite you to get into the book anyway. No doubt you will discover many new tricks in post-processing that you can re-use in your own craft.From the description: A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques to combine a matte-painted image with live-action footage. At its best, depending on the skill levels of the artists and technicians, the effect is “seamless” and creates environments that would otherwise be impossible to film.

Daily Photo – The Movie Set of New York City

I shot this from the Google offices in Manhattan a few weeks ago. Luke and I ended up staying up late at the offices, and we wanted to wait until the sunset rolled through… and when sunset finally came, we discovered that we could not even go outside! All the windows and doors had been nailed shut by security, so there was no chance of getting out. Instead, I had to commandeer a conference room and turn out all the lights so I could get a clean shot out the window.

Over on the left side, you can just see the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Filed under the categories: New York, New York City, Photography Tips, Travel

Viewbug Photo Contest with cool prizes

There’s a Viewbug Photo Contest in which you might have an interest! Just click that link to find out more

Daily Photo – The Icy Blue Lake

Is that water cold? Yes, yes it is.

I know the surface is cold – the kind of cold that makes every human survival instinct go haywire. But I wonder what it is like down at one mile in depth. It must be so strange and eerie down there. If anyone has ever seen any footage or images of what it looks like in those frigid depths, be sure to share!

Filed under the categories: Glenorchy, New Zealand, Queenstown, Travel

Getting the Light Right

This is my favorite time of day to shoot. I love it when there is a little bit of light that is both natural and artificial. I always use Photomatix (see my HDR Tutorial if this is all new to you) to process my photos, but I find it is especially receptive to these sorts of lighting conditions.

Daily Photo – The Resting Egg

National Centre for the Performing Arts in China is one of the easiest AND most challenging things to photograph. This is an interesting duality, I think. Obviously, it’s a beautiful structure, and it’s easy to access and circumnavigate, but that is not the “easy” that I mean. I suppose it’s easy because it’s hard to take a bad picture of the the structure. The challenging bit is doing something very interesting. And that comes with the use of light and composition. I have hundreds of photos of this thing — and the challenging part to me is picking “the most interesting” — it’s a fun task that never gets old!

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

10 Essential Photoshop Skills Everyone Should Know

10 Essential Photoshop Skills Everyone Should Know is now available in the iTunes store! This is one of our best-selling eBooks, and I think you’ll enjoy it. I know many of the readers here are big into the Apple eco-system, so this new addition to iTunes should give you some digital feng-shui!

It is also available over on Flatbooks.com if you’d like to get that version as well.

Daily Photo – Away from Iceland for the Summer

This is the first summer in quite some time that I have not been to Iceland. Many of the regular readers here know how I like to go there every summer during the solstice for a serious photography adventure. It’s very nice to spend countless days and nights there by myself… just listening to strange music and finding wonderful little places to take photos.

I didn’t go this summer because of the big move to New Zealand. That ended up taking a massive amount of time to get everything settled down here. But, as for next summer, I’m thinking about Iceland or Norway.. we’ll see!

Filed under the categories: Iceland, Travel

Why in Dubbo?

I am sure you were wondering why I was in Dubbo. But, I can replace that wonder with a more intense wonder: why did Neal Stephenson take this photo of me during a Breaking and Entering operation to get into the abandoned drive-in theater? I will answer this very good question at a later time.

Daily Photo – The Dubbo Drive In

The night before was stormy and wet and all around rather unDubbo. I had read stories from Mark Twain about people needing to use a shovel on their carpet to get dirt out of their homes in Dubbo. But I didn’t see any of that. On the morning we flew back to Sydney, I saw this abandoned drive-in-theater. The venue was all locked up, and there was a big sign that warned of a guard dog. I discounted the sign because it looked older than the average age of a guard dog.

So then I figured out the best way to wedge my body between the gates while staying below the barbed wire. After being my willing accomplice and handing me the tripod, Neal snapped that photo above.

Filed under the categories: Australia, Dubbo, Travel

Trey’s Variety Hour #55: Travel Photography and More

Great photo show planned for today! You can subscribe to this show for free at:
http://www.youtube.com/stuckincustoms
The show airs each Monday at 7 PM PT / 10 PM ET. (Check your local time)

In this episode I am joined by Karen Hutton, Emily Adamson, Mike Hollman, Justin Troupe, Erin McLean, and J. Griffin Stewart. We talk about our travel adventures, show some of our work, and give some great travel tips!

Thanks to Dave Veffer for helping out with the whole production!

Official website:http://www.StuckInCustoms.com

You can subscribe for free to my YouTube channel at:

http://www.youtube.com/stuckincustoms

See the questions that were asked

Please submit any questions you have while you watch the show and we’ll try to answer as many as we can.

Subscribe to the Podcast and View Past Episodes

• Subscribe for free to My YouTube channel.

Thank you for watching!

Thank you for watching the show, I hope you enjoyed it! While you’re here be sure to have a look around!

• Tutorials – Discover the Art of Photography, Free HDR Tutorial, HDR Video Tutorial and Textures Tutorial
• Reviews – Detailed camera reviews, photo software reviews (and coupon codes) plus what’s in my photo bag!
• eBooks – Flatbooks.com has many topics include photography techniques, photo composition, photo editing, HDR photography and lifestyle.
• Applications – We have several beautiful and fun apps you might enjoy: 100 Cameras in 1, Photo Voyages and Stuck On Earth.
• Newsletter – Subscribe to the our newsletter. It’s free and pretty and we promise not to spam you!

Filed under the categories: Podcast

Extended Interview from Australian TV

Here’s the longer cut of the interview… actually, I think this is uncut!

Daily Photo – Chinese Lanterns

Whenever I walk around taking photos, I usually have two cameras with me. My second camera usually has a 50mm prime, or something along these lines. I capture thousands and thousands of little photos, but I hardly ever post them. I don’t know why… maybe it is sort of the one-photo-per-day thing here on the blog. I guess I could post more, but I don’t want it to get too busy… or… well, I don’t know. I don’t have a great reason. But, anyway, here is one of those little photos that I take with my walkin-around-camera from a small shop in Beijing.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

One Billion Means

My friend Pedram Keyani convinced me to share this… FB contacted me for a little interview before they announced they had one-billion users. I guess they plucked out this quote and used as part of their announcement. Here is my Facebook Page in case you are not already a friend or subscriber! (sorry I maxed out around 5K friends a while ago… they seem to start to throttle at 4,500 or so).

Daily Photo – Park and East 42nd in New York City

The evening after the big NYC photowalk, I decided to go off on my own and do a bit of shooting. Well, I wasn’t totally on my own. Luke (from here at SIC) was there with me. He was taking mobile-phone photos of me while I was shooting away… a lot of them made their way to the aforementioned Facebook, so I’m sure you can root around in there and see some!

Filed under the categories: New York, New York City, Travel

Upcoming Photography Workshops

I really don’t do these very often, but it was getting confusing so we made a page that showed what, when, and where! It’s over on the Photography Workshops page, and I have pasted it below for you. Maybe we should have a punch-card like Subway where you get a free cookie if you come to 10 events! Hehe… we do have one gentleman that has appeared at a few of them and we may see him again!

Photography Workshops

Burning Man 2012

Here are a bunch of photos I took at Burning Man a few weeks ago. I put little captions below each one so you can read more about the situation there.

Filed under the categories: Burning Man, Nevada, Nikon D3S, Travel

SmugMug Coupon for Signing Up

Many of you know that I use SmugMug (see my SmugMug Review) for managing my online portfolio and selling prints. They have new packages available there, and the code “STUCKINCUSTOMS” will save you $60 on the Business Pro package (that is what I have).

After you sign up, there are many different ways to customize the layout. This below is my current layout on there, although we are working on a new one… I don’t know when it will be ready for release, but soon I hope!

Daily Photo – Downtown Sydney

I didn’t get to spend as much time in Sydney as I would have liked, but I do look forward to a return trip!

It turns out that one of the better angles of Sydney requires a long drive across a bridge and then a series of confusing roads to find this little spot. I’ve forgotten the name (maybe one of you smart Aussies can help me)!

While I was here, it was super-windy. Maybe that is normal in this spot. I’m not sure. It was so windy that my camera/tripod blew over! But the D800 took it like a man… no problems… not even a scratch!

Filed under the categories: Australia, Nikon D800, Sydney, Travel

Paris Workshop News

We heard that many people are having trouble affording the Paris event, and we’re not in the business of making people upset. So, I worked with the team to figure something out. We dropped the price dramatically with a “New Plan” of losing money on the event itself. Great plan, eh? Hehe. Actually what we are going to do is have a video crew come along to make a video of the workshop to sell at later date. This way, the people that come to Paris will spend two full days with us shooting and post-processing and one-on-one help. Then later everyone else can enjoy the highlights of the event on video. Good plan that hopefully strikes a happy medium? Yes I think so!

Christchurch Event

We’re also soft-launching a page about a fun post-processing workshop event in Christchurch, New Zealand in December. I’ve been meaning to do something special here for my new neighbors, and this will be a really cool event. All levels are welcome!

Daily Photo – The Sydney Opera House

I’ve waited a very long time to see this famous building in Sydney! I’ve been meaning to come to Australia for a very long time, but this whole plan was delayed because of my move to New Zealand. Since I knew that I would be moving to NZ, I figured Australia would be a much more convenient trip. And now that I am here, it is! In fact, it’s just a 3 hour direct flight from Queenstown. But, since it took me longer than expected to get to NZ, then it took me much longer than expected to get to Australia! But now, I can make up for lost time, and spend more time across the Tasman…

Filed under the categories: Australia, Nikon D800, Sydney, Travel