Unified Color Technologies has release there new HDR program HDR Expose. This is a nice program for photorealist images, the interface takes a little time to get used too, and until July 31^st they have a special price of $99. Watch the online video to get an idea of where to start to tone maps your HDR photo.

Nik Software will be releasing there very first HDR program very soon and it looks like it can give you that photo illustrative look that you get from Photomatix Pro. Knowing how well Nik integrates their plug-ins with Photoshop and Lightroom I am looking forward to this new program.

It has been rumored that HDRsoft, makers of Photomatix Pro will be up-dating their software in the near future. It has been the workhorse for working with HDR for the past few years and I hope in this up-date they work on reducing noise, especially in the sky when you push Photomatix to that illustrative.

So hold on to your hats as all the new HDR programs come out. Here is a new HDR photograph from Dinosaur World near Tampa Florida.

Here is what Cannon said in its press release:

“We take great pleasure in congratulating the cast and crew of HOUSE on completing the first network television episode to be completely shot on a DSLR camera,” stated Yuichi Ishizuka, executive vice president and general manager, Consumer Imaging Group, Canon U.S.A., “This milestone marks a paradigm shift in the way professional cinematographers and filmmakers capture HD video.”

It’s a new digital world out there, and I believe video is going to be part of it.

Something’s not working right!!! This is the second time, you can bet something’s not working right. When I get this unit back it does not get a third chance, I will be selling it on eBay. I’ve since bought another 4 TB drive by another manufacturer and I will be buying a second 4 TB hard drive from this manufacturer as soon as I sell the other hard drive. Thank goodness I back up all my images onto DVDs, one for my studio and the other to be sent off-site. It took me 2 ½ days to load up all the images back on one hard drive so I could use them, and luckily I did not lose a single image.

I have now come up with a system that should keep all my images safe, from the time I download them from the camera, to working on my desktop, placing them in my Working Library hard drive and backing them up on Archival hard drive and DVDs.

1. When I download my images from my camera I use a card reader and use my computer operating system to transfer the images onto my Desktop computer. I don’t use third party programs to transfer my images most of the time, as I trust the operating system to do a better job with less of a chance of a files becoming corrupted than by using third-party programs. Although, I have been using Lightroom lately to transfer images and put them into the image management system.
2. Once they are transferred to my working computer I make a copy on a backup hard drive that is used just for this purpose. Once I’m done editing the images and ready to put them on my Working Library hard drive I will delete them from this hard drive. This is just to make sure that I have images in two places while I am working on them at all times.
3. When all the images have been edited and worked on in and the job handed off to the client, I then back up all raw and Photoshop files on my Working Library hard drive. This drive gives me access to all my images at a time I need to get to them and is linked to my light room database.
4. Once they’re on the Working Library hard drive I will create DVDs of all the images. I made two sets of DVDs, one that stays here in the studio and one that is shipped off-site and away from hurricanes.
5. The last step will be to copy over all files to a Archival hard drive that is labeled and placed in a safe place and unplugged from electricity. I live in Florida where we have a lot of lightning and storms like you’ve not seen, and I want to make sure my Archival hard drive is disconnected from electricity to keep it safe. Just to let you know, you should take your hard drive out every two weeks and run it to keep it working correctly. I know of a few photographers that have not run their archival hard drives and when they need to use them they find out that it’s not working, or is frozen up.

This may sound a little redundant and time-consuming, but I think it’s probably the best system that I have heard of, and like I said earlier, I have not lost an image during two hard drive failures.

Canon’s 17mm and 24mm Tilt-shift lens
I had a chance to play around with the 17mm tilt-shift lens at the Florida Professional Photographers convention in August and fell in love with it. With both the 17mm and 24mm you are allowed to shift and tilt on the same plane, where with the old 24mm you could shift or tilt one plane of angle. This is a great improvement and they have reduced chromatic aberration substantially. Price 17mm $2499/24mm-$2199

Think Tank’s Airport International V 2.0
This is the camera case I am dreaming of getting. Some of the thing I like about this case is you can lock up the bag and then with an built in cable lock it up in your room. I fits international carry on restrictions and is well made to handle the kind of use I put my bag though. The case can hold two pro-size DSLR’s and the all the lens and flashes you would need on a trip. Price $329

Wacom intuos4 Tablet
I use the intuos3 already and I drooling to upgrade to the intuos4. The new pressure sensitive pens fix an issue I hated with the previous pens and how they would move just a little when you lifted the pen up from the tablet. Price $360

Really Right Stuff
Some friends of mine have this ball head and quick-release plates and I saw how fast you could place the camera on the tripod and I also liked how when you placed your camera for a vertical shot the camera is right over the center of the tripod and on off on the side, which is not as steady. Price varies on system

LaCie Rugged Hard Disk
When I shoot architecture I need to backup lots of photos on an external hard drive I like LaCie Rugged Hard Drive. It comes in many sizes and speeds, but the one the is on my wish list is the 500GB (7200rpm) with the FireWire 800 you have an transfer rate of up to 57MB/s and is shock-proof up to over 6 feet. Price $199

This is it for now, but here will probably one more installment before the Christmas is over. Have a great Thanksgiving.

I HAD TO REFORMAT THE DRIVE!

That would mean I would lose over 60,000 images, let’s say it was not a good day. The good news is I have a backup plan, DVD’s; I have backed up all my images to CD’s and DVD’s. But the thought of putting all those DVD’s back on my hard drive one at a time made my head feel as if it was Mt. Saint Helens before it blew it’s top off. I was in a pit of despair the like’s I have never known. Just as I was going to start to drink heavily, I noticed two of my smaller old hard drives, a glimmer of hope brightened my darkness and I plugged them into my computer. I held my breath nervously as they started up, and there it was on my screen, almost all my Photoshop files, all my HDR files and some of my Raw files.

I am now spending the next day and a half loading discs instead of the next week. I have reevaluated how I am going to backup my photos, as I like to be able to grab and work on an image right away, I still plan to have them on a hard drive connected to the computer. I’m going to go out and buy the biggest hard drive I can and setup a system that will copy the other drive at lease once a week and then be disconnected from the computer and power. I will still keep backing up all my photos to DVD’s, as I keep one set at my office and another set up north away from hurricanes.

After going through this ordeal I am glad I had the backup DVD’s, but it is still a pain and takes a lot of time I could be working on some productive photos from my trip to Zion National Park. If you take one thing away from my situation, that is to come up with a system of backing up that works for you, and use it regularly. I may have lost some time, but at least I still have all my photographs.

At the expo hall I found my next piece of equipment I just have to have, the Canon 17mm tilt-shift lens. I played around with it on a 5d Mark II and at different angles and was impressed with how little lens distortion there was in a super wide-angle lens. I have had the need for that wide of an angel twice the last month or so.

Next I wanted to try an HDR shoot with a lot of color and contrast to see how the camera held up. I have wanted to photography this old apartment building in down town St. Petersburg called the “glory”. It has that old Florida art deco look and is as bright aqua as you can get. I shoot it around noon so I would have good contrast, I have found that HDR can work in light that is usually considered bad light in the middle of the day, and allow you photograph when a lot of people are taking a break from shooting.

I set the camera to auto-bracket two stops plus and mines for this shot, this is the one thing I wish Canon would change and allow you at least a three stop bracket as they do in there 1D and 1Ds cameras. I hand held the camera and when I process the three images I will let Photoshop Auto-Align the photos and save the merged images as a Radices file to work on in PhotoMatax Pro. The 5D Mark II did a great job and it was easy to set the different functions on the camera, my 1DS Mark II has a very small LCD display, but the over twice the size and seemed bright in the Florida midday sun.

So far I am loving this camera and thinking of selling my 1Ds Mark II to buy another 5D as a back up camera so that I have all the same batteries and chargers instead of to different systems. I do think I am going to buy the battery grip to give the camera more of the feel of my old camera.