If you have not done so already, get the firmware files here to upgrade your favourite GPS unit. This upgrade adds several new features and modes, correct several well known problems and generally makes things much more stable.
And while you are at it, download and install Mapsend Lite if you have not done so already. Great software for planning your trips on the computer before you go outdoors.
This was my fourth attempt to reach the Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the famous must-sees in Stockholm, especially if you are interested in architecture.
The previous times things have come up that have prevented me to go, and now I set out without telling anyone else and just went there. Of course I had some bad luck and killed one of my flashes so that one needs to go to the repair shop :( Always something. However the trip resulted in some pictures from a blistering cold January day in the south end of Stockholm at the woodland cemetery.
I have recently upgraded to Adobe Lightroom 2.2 as my primary software for keeping track of and doing quick adjustments to my pictures. Recently I shot a studio session where I used 14 bit RAW files with maximum quality saved with lossless compression by the camera. The files comes out on the north side of 15 MB each which is a lot but I have equipped my computer with 4 GB of RAM and it should not be a problem to handle it.
But it is, particularly when doing the following things:
There are other people who have experienced similar problems I am considering downgrading to 2.1 until they have fixed this problem. I just hope the library files are compatible back to 2.1… don’t want to lose all the adjustments and settings.
There are discussions about this on the Lightroom forum.
Finally it is fixed, not as nicely as I would have liked it but here it is. Under the comment box there is a link you may click to add a new image. Then just enter the URL to the image itself and it should work. Do not enter the URL to the Flickr page the image is displayed on, your URL should end in a ”.jpg” ending. When you see an image you want to post the link to, right-click and then select ”copy link location” or similar, that’s the URL you should enter here.
Hope that makes life easier for commenting on the photo challenges!
Have fun!
This is a wonderful way of browsing photographic sites such as Flickr and others. It transforms your web browser into a sort of cinematic way to discover the photos and scroll through them.
Although I am not certain exactly what it is good for it is at least impressively fast and very nicely done and it plugs in with Flickr greatly. When checking out someones photo stream it is a lovely little tool.
There are many means of transportation in this world and this weeks photo challenge is about describing or picturing a means of transportation that you feel for in some way.
You are allowed to interpret transportation in a very open fashion, i.e. walking is a means of transporting yourself. Transporting people, goods or inanimate objects makes no difference here, so there really should not be any problems finding something creative to picture.
As usual post a link to your photo in the comments section. I know that there is still a problem with using the proper img tag but I will edit the comments to include your picture when I look at them.
Here is what they mean folks:
| Code | Type | Notes |
| HB | Bayonet hood | The most common one today. Usually has a flower-petal design. |
| HE | Extension for already existing hood on long lenses | Not very common |
| HK | Slips on the lens, locks with a knob. | Older lenses seems to have this sometimes for long telephoto lenses |
| HN | Screw mount hood | Never seen this one myself. |
| HR | Rubber hood | Great for prime lenses especially if you need to shoot through a glass pane. Keeps the reflexes out so the glass is hardly not visible. |
| HS | Snaps on | Like a lens cap. Never seen this one myself. |
The orton effect is a very special effect created by photographer Michael Orton where he created what is called the Orton Slide Sandwich. He used photographic slides to overlay a photograph with an out-of-focus shot of the same scene. This created a very special effect that was named after him.
Today when the darkroom is a lightroom created by electrons and photons stored in a computer core memory instead the Orton effect can easily be simulated by using software. This tutorial will show you how to create the Orton effect using a single picture. You can of course still shoot an out-of-focus picture just in the original version of the Orton Slide Sandwich but there is no real need for it since software today can create lens blurr that you can have even more control over.
This tutorial is based on GIMP version 2.6 and I used it in MS Windows XP service pack 3.
That was not too difficult was it? Here below is a step by step how the picture will look after each step in the tutorial above.
I should add that the orton effect created here is a bit exaggerated with more blurring than necessary just to show the principle. In reality you would probably want to apply a little less blur than what I used here. But it is of course all up to you :)
Anders Pettersson
From Wikipedia:
Orton imagery, also called an Orton slide sandwich, is a photography technique which blends two completely different photos of the same scene, resulting in a distinctive mix of high and low detail areas within the same photo.[1] It was originated by photographer Michael Orton.
It is time to get creative with Photoshop, or perhaps just using your cameras double exposure feature if you have it (the D300 does). Working with Photoshop or GIMP has the added benefit that you can take any photo, apply lens blurr and work on it even if you never did an out of focus exposure when you took it…
These are the steps in creating an Orton Effect:
Of course you can stard with any photo you already have and make two lightened copies of it and then blurr one of them and blend them together. This is also acceptable.
Here are examples of the orton effect on Flickr.
Below are links to other sites that explains how to attain this effect both with film and digital cameras:
Good luck!
(Post your contributions in the comments section with links to your photographs)