Today Craft and Vision released duChemin’s new ebook. Vision is Better 3 is a compilation of over 50 short essays and articles on creativity, vision, and the softer side of photography. The book is a continuation of his previous Vision is Better books (you can get all three together in the Vision is Best bundle. This is a much bigger book than most from Craft and Vision, weighing in at almost 150 double-spread pages.

The articles cover a wide range of topics, but here’s a sampling of just a bit of what you’ll find:

• Why I Print and how printing is still relevant in a digital age
• Work or Whine: A Rant in which he explores changing photography business models
• Faking It and the notion that every artist feels they are doing just that
• On “Missing the Shot” and how the limitation isn’t generally gear

There are over ten times this amount of articles, most of which originally appeared as blog posts and have been revisited for publication in this book.

I found the work to be quite interesting and a good read for photographers looking for creative inspiration and a swift kick in the butt to get out there and make something compelling.

Purchase/Discount Information

You can buy Vision is Better 3 from Craft & Vision for the usual Craft & Vision price of $5.00.

For a better deal, buy all three of duChemin’s Vision is Better books as a bundle for only $10 (saving 33%)!

As a limited time launch deal, save 20% off your entire Craft & Vision purchase if you buy five or more PDF ebooks with discount code VIBTHREE20 – offer expires 5/26/2013.

The article A Recurring Theme: Vision is Better (Still!) – David duChemin’s New Ebook appeared first on Splat Photo.

In looking at the site it’s easy to see the big sweeping changes, such as the new mosiac photo views that fill the page and the shift from a white background everywhere to using significant amounts of black. I love the new visual look… but there’s more than just a new face.

Unannounced Changes

Beyond the big visual shift, here are several changes or other things that weren’t part of the onstage announcements:

• Pro accounts are going away. By now, all pro members should’ve received an email explaining that most of the benefits of Flickr Pro are now part of the free package. Existing Pro members will retain their current status until their accounts expire, but no new Pro memberships are being sold.
• It’s confusing if a Pro account can be renewed. The announcements indicate that “recurring” Flickr Pro memberships will be able to be renenwed, but as far as I know Flickr always sold memberships one or two years at a time. Can those be manually renewed?
  UPDATE: Thomas Hawk confirms that some (most?) Flickr Pro accounts can’t be renewed.
  ANOTHER UPDATE: Turns out the inability for Pros to renew wasn’t on purpose, it was a bug.
• There’s an ad-free option, but it costs twice as much as the old Flickr Pro accounts
• You can no longer customize your Photostream view. In the past, users could choose whether they wanted single photos, collections, sets, or a mixture as the view for visitors.
• Collections are being demphasized. Sets and Favorites still show on the Photostream’s navigation bar, but Collections are buried in a submenu. Given that I’d previously used Collections to funnel folks to my most important sets, I might need to rethink my organization strategy.

What Hasn’t Changed

I know that folks had a wishlist of what we might see out of a new Flickr, and there are two notable omissions:

• Groups pages haven’t changed at all. We still have the same tiny thumbnails on the group page and the same discussion interface.
• Still No Digital Sales; No Integration w/ Pro Labs for Prints or Products. Sites such as SmugMug and Zenfolio will continue to be better options for those looking to offer digital sales, prints, or products with their photos.

What do you think about the new Flickr? Are the changes likely to draw you in deeper? Push you away? How do you feel about the visual changes vs. the unannounced limitations?

I’m going to dive into my personal reactions and how it will affect my web presence in tomorrow’s Splat Photo email – if you’re not subscribed just leave your email in the orange box below this post.

The article Seven Unannounced Things from Flickr’s Redesign Announcement appeared first on Splat Photo.

Why a Mirrorless Camera?

The obvious question is why a pro photographer who already has multiple DSLRs, a Canon S90, and an iPhone 5 would buy yet another camera. I found that over the past year or so (both anecdotally and looking at the metadata in Lightroom), my photography fell squarely into two buckets:

• professional (paid) work that I performed using my DSLRs
• personal (fun) work that happened about 90% of the time with my iPhone.

While the iPhone is great and I literally always have it with me, sometimes I want sometimes “good enough” isn’t good enough. I might have a challenging lighting situation that could benefit from a bigger sensor. Maybe I simply want more megapixels to be able to crop deeper. Maybe I want the control and features of the “big boy” camera. The size/weight of my DSLR meant that I would rarely take it with me for around-town trips.

My photography was lacking because I didn’t always have a great camera with me. Over the past year I’ve seen folks such as Derrick Story and Doug Kaye talk frequently about how they’re liking smaller mirrorless cameras, and it attracted me as a potential solution for my problem.

Why the Sony NEX–6?

I’m looking at this mirrorless camera as an experiment to augment my existing photography. I looked at a variety of systems, including the well-respected Olympus OMD and PEN series, to the offerings from Canon and Nikon, but I landed on the Sony NEX system. The question then became whether I should get the NEX–6 or NEX–7. I leaned heavily on my friend Doug’s comparison of the two. The physical mode dial, standard hotshoe, and lower price drew me to the NEX–6.

After doing some reading about various lenses, I chose to get a great bundle deal that B&H offers with the Sigma 19mm f/2.8 and Sigma 30mm f/2.8 lenses. At $199 total and with decent reviews, the price was right. I’ll be exploring other lenses in time.

First Impressions

The camera seems to be a well-built, solid piece of equipment. Having used smaller compacts as well as a variety of DSLRs, the primary learning curve for me will be getting used to the electronic viewfinder (which is quite good) and as with any camera, the control layout.

Where Do We Go From Here?

What do I have planned? A few things:

• The camera can run downloadable apps, which I intend to try. One example will be to install an app that adds auto bracketing to the camera’s feature set.
• This coming weekend I’ll be in the Columbia River Gorge to speak at a railroad photography event but I intend to get up early and do some photography around sunrise – I look forward to testing the camera in that environment.
• In July I’ll be doing a personal photo project at a mostly-indoor event and I’m about 99% certain that I’ll do it with my NEX rather than bring my DSLR(s). The project will involve impromptu photos (both candid and posed) of folks that I generaly won’t know, and I’m curious if that’s an easier process with a smaller camera.
• I’m going to rent some other lenses from BorrowLenses.com at some point and try them out.

Stay tuned for an update once I exercise this little guy a bit more. I’m quite curious to see where I can use it both personally and professionally.

One of my first NEX-6 images… delicious!

several of the links in this story are affiliate links; purchasing after using these links results in a small commission for SplatPhoto.com

The article Pro Results in a Smaller Package: I’m Experimenting with a NEX-6 appeared first on Splat Photo.

On Adobe’s Subscription Pricing for Photoshop

A few of my thoughts on the general freaked-out reaction to Adobe’s new subscription pricing for Photoshop…

Storified by Aaron Hockley· Tue, May 07 2013 14:22:19

If You’re a Pro Photographer, $20/month for Photoshop is a No-Brainer

If you’re a professional photographer, $20/month (the regular, non-discounted price for a single application) should be a non-issue. How much are you paying for web hosting or photo sharing? How about professional organization membership? How much have you paid for parking at client jobs this month?

As I noted above, how much did you pay for film processing back in the “good old days”?

Hobbyists Will Never Pay!

No, you’re right, a hobbyist might not pay $20/month for Photoshop. But those same hobbyists aren’t paying the previous pricing for Photoshop (over $700) either. They’re using Lightroom, or Photoshop Elements, or a non-Adobe product. Nothing is changing with pricing for those products.

While it would be great if everything were free, we’re not in that world, and the new pricing for Photoshop seems quite reasonable.

The article My Take on Adobe’s Subscription Pricing for Photoshop appeared first on Splat Photo.

What’s Inside PHOTOGRAPH

The magazine format is similar to the previous issues, with the first 50 pages or so being a showcase of three photographers’ portfolios. This issue includes Hengki Koentioro (black & white, mostly nature), Kevin Clark (food), and Dave Delnea (travel). After viewing several pages of images, there’s a brief Q&A with each photographer that offers a bit of insight into their background and process.

Following the portfolio bits, the bulk of the magazine features numerous articles on a variety of topics. Some are photography-specific such as tilt-shift, presets, collapsible reflectors, or composition, while others are a bit more about a photographer’s mindset and discuss areas such as risk taking

Subscribe or Purchase PHOTOGRAPH Magazine

The best deal is to subscribe to PHOTOGRAPH Magazine for one year (four issues) starting with this new release of Issue 3. You’ll save 25% and pay $24 for the full year.

If you’re only interested in the current issue, you can purchase PHOTOGRAPH Issue 4 for $8.00.

The article PHOTOGRAPH Magazine Issue 3 is Out! appeared first on Splat Photo.

36 Lightroom Presets from David duChemin

The first batch of presets contains 36 offerings from Craft & Vision founder David duChemin. There are a variety of choices, and the presets are accompanied by a PDF manual that explains each preset and offers an example of its affect on a photo.

I thought it might be interesting to revisit one of my own images from a while back… in this case from the Mojave Desert in 2003 on a railroad photography trip. Here we see a freight train working its way upgrade out of Ludlow. In this case, the “Toxic Warmth Heavy” preset provides a bit of warming to the scene.

46 Lightrom Presets from Dave Delnea

The second set of presets comes from Dave Delnea and provides an entirely different take on things with his own selection of effects and corrections. Like the presets from duChemin, these are accompanied by a detailed PDF manual explaining each effect and variation.

Here I’ve applied Delnea’s “Desaturated Green – Look 1” preset to a photo looking over the mountains to the south of Denali in Alaska.

These examples are only a couple of the effects which can boost the interestingness of an image; the Craft and Vision Lightroom presets are a good place to kick off your image development. I find it’s great to apply a preset and then adjust from there – on the Alaska photo above I made a few additional contrast and clarity changes after the preset (as well as a graduated exposure filter for the sky).

Get the Presets

The preset packs can be purchased separately (here’s the ones from duChemin and the ones from Delnea) for $10 each or as a bundle for $18.

Order the bundle of both preset packs from Craft & Vision.

The article 82 Craft and Vision Lightroom Presets: Develop Module Goodness appeared first on Splat Photo.

There are a lot of social networks out there, and if one is going to be a photographer there simply isn’t enough time in the day to establish a working presence on all of them (without hiring other people to manage the accounts). Different social networks tend to attract different crowds for different purposes… depending on one’s photography focus, certain social networks are going to be more relevant.

Here’s my stab at suggesting which social networks are most relevant based on certain niches of photography:

• Weddings: Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram
• Commercial: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook
• Landscape / Nature / Fine Art: Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter
• Senior Portraits: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook
• Families / Children: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram
• Photojournalism: Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn

I’d also argue that a regularly-updated blog is important for all genres of photography.

While there’s no magic formula that will be the perfect social networking mix for anyone, if you’re struggling with where to focus your energy, consider who you’re trying to connect with, where they area, and which social network best supports your marketing.

What’s your take? Enter your email below to get a bunch of tips for these social networks.

The article Which Social Networks for Which Type of Photography? appeared first on Splat Photo.