Portfoliage

Guess the lens of this picture. Nikon Mount.

I haven’t had a lot of monolight test pictures for you all because the other Sunday morning we had a disaster with one of the monolights.  I was snapping a shot of something…I do not even remember what it was — and all of a sudden — POOF!  All the magic blue smoke that makes the monolight run escaped into the room.  Once the blue smoke escapes, you might as well as forget about your piece of electronics ever working again.  I got lots of beeps out the light and the modeling light still worked, but that was the end of any kind of flash output.

Luckily, I called up the place I bought the lights from and 5 business days later, a new light is on its way.  We did a return with no problems.

I’ve got the scoop on the d400.  Anonymous sources tell me Nikon’s new D400 will be:

15 megapixels DX

5 frames per second

Up to 12,800 ISO

The 51 point autofocus — like the d3 and d700

Have 1080p video capabilities

I do not know how accurate the source is.  The d400 is supposed to be announced here in the next week or so.  Oh, and by the way, it is a DX camera, not a FX camera.

I will not be buying it.  Everything is going FX eventually and I can not justify buying a new digital camera every 9-12 months.  I was talking to a photographer at Mall of America the other day and he is still using a pair of d200’s for all his professional work.  His advice?  If you have a DSL camera, invest in lenses.  The lenses will retain value better as well as be compatiable with whatever camera you decide to buy in the future — as long as it is the same brand.

I would take that a step further — Only buy FX lenses.  That way they will work well on any 35mm format camera you might buy from within the same family.

D700 test shots with the monolight.  See the pic descriptions for specs

The best Christmas gift of 2008 that I received was a year long Netflix subscription. Now, I know that sounds a little materialistic. Should not your best gift be “Peace on Earth” or a “Healthy family?” Sure, but those are so generic and pithy that it sounds pretty silly. Netflix, therefore, is the ideal gift given to me.

Why is Netflix my ideal gift? I have a few reasons. First, I spend a lot of time watching TV and movies on my laptop computer because I often have a hard time falling asleep. I can just basically turn off my mind while I watch TV on the PC and drift off to sleep. The 1 year Netflix Christmas gift gives me an almost unlimited amount of content for a fairly low price. It is much cheaper than buying all those DVD’s and then watching them or renting them one at a time. It is even cheaper than the library because I often have a hard time returning the movies on time and the library fees add up very quickly.

Netflix allows you to keep the movie for as long as you want, but you can not get another movie until you return the first one. Therefore, there are no return fees. Secondly, on the subscription plan given to me, I am able to get one movie or TV series at a time – which means I can potentially get 10 movies a month (one day to arrive and watch, another day to return, and the third day to arrive again).

More importantly, the plan which I received allows unlimited streaming. A few years ago, on one the lower end plans, Netflix limited the number of hours that could be streamed per month . But now that has changed and Netflix claims there are 12,000 items available for streaming. Some videos are very old and uninteresting to me, but there are also some recent ones and some very recent television shows.

With my broadband connection I get very high quality streaming. Getting the steaming to work with Firefox took some work even though their web page says Firefox version 2 was supported. Stick with Internet Explorer to watch the videos and you will not have any problems.

And for the kids, Netflix integrated into the Xbox 360 system so there is the opportunity for my kids to watch streaming video as well. I have already set them up to watch “Black Beauty” and the classic version of “Dr. Doolittle.”

If you want to get the Netflix gift subscription for someone you know, check out www.netflix.com. It is $107.88 for the subscription I received for Christmas and you can easily order online. A free trial is available here. http://www.netflix.com/SpreadTheWord?lnkctr=FAQ

What was your best gift?

I’ve been writing articles for various content publishers around the net.  I’m make a list.  Anyone who know of any content publishing housing on the Internet, please post.  I’m looking to increase my writing sales.

Check out this gallery option.

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Which do you like better?  The old version or the new version?

I’ve got a photography job this weekend.  Whee.  Good fun.

I’m getting ready to enter an art park contest sponsored by an art park nearby. All entries are due soon but I’m waiting until near the end to post them because they are all available publicly on the sponsoring website.

Shutterstock is getting upwards of 85,000 new pic’s a day. That’s a staggering number. My sales keep going up little by little so it is hard to say whether or not it makes a difference. Today two sold that had not sold in a long long time.