Shooting Outside Gallery: 2014

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Wishing You a Happy New Year

No Permission is Granted to Copy Image for any use

Happy New Year 2015

I wanted to thank my readers for following and reading my blog, sharing it with your friends and buying prints this year. It has been a year of growth, as this New Year will also.

For all of you who chose to sign up with a subscription and received the Free December Print, thank you also. For new readers or those who missed this free print at home, selection, here's another chance, just sign up for the next Free Print at Home Print from me at Shooting Outside Blog.

Your new Years Plans and Reviews

Over the past years I have kept track of my goals this time of year, by reviewing my accomplishments as well as my missteps. Like you perhaps I have started with a really brief list, and recorded many instances where I sidestepped most of them along the way. But in recent years I have changed the way I do things.

The Simple new Year Plan

I'll write down a few goals. Leave them untouched for a month. I'll return to them, add details as to any steps I've taken. This only take a matter of minutes. Now I have a progress report. Follow up each month, I like the 1st day of the month.

Try This to Motivate Yourself

For you brave souls, I suppose you could start a blog on your goals, do a monthly review, in writing, publishing your steps for the world to see. I've found by monthly reviewing these, in a word doc, titled New Years 2015 this year, that I feel compelled to remind myself of a commitment I've made.

Declutter

Don't forget to toss or gift anything you've decided to abandon. Lessen the clutter

I wish you all the best of success this year, whether its moving up to a better paying job, starting your own business, finding a life partner, increasing your investments, spending time with your children and family, friends, or improving your education in any area you find fulfilling.

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Thursday, December 18, 2014

Apple Ad touches the Heart

Even though the video is no longer available, reading this shows just how special this idea was

Wednesday December 17, 2014 11:58 am PST by Juli Clover

Over the weekend, Apple released a touching new holiday ad called "The Song," focusing on a woman who found an old record of her grandmother singing a love song to her grandfather, which she then enhanced with her own vocals and musical accompaniments using Apple's tools.

Apple has now released a second video, which offers details on how the spot was created. As explained by the musician who starred the ad, Dana Williams, and vocalist Rhiannon Giddens, a series of recordings were made with a voice-o-graph, a 1940's booth for recording short spurts of audio directly onto a record.

The voice-o-graph used in the spot was supplied by Third Man Records, which is Jack White's indie label. Giddens, voicing the grandmother, sang the "Love Is Here to Stay" audio, and it was then transferred into GarageBand for editing by Williams, who says that she uses the app for recording "basically all of her music." "Anyone who's not tech savvy like myself can just kind of find their way around it," she explains.

"The Song," which highlights both GarageBand and the iPad mini, follows in the footsteps of last year's sentimental holiday ad, "Misunderstood,", which focused on the video recording capabilities of the iPhone.

credit macrumors.com

Now what can you and I think of that can express such a lovely thought. Here's a great place to start, my website

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Tis the Season,Merry Christmas

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

From a band known as Chicago, released in 1998, the classic Christmas song, credit the website invubu for the short snippet.

Friday, December 5, 2014

ISO Noise and Low Light: Cures, Tips and Techniques

What on earth is all that noise in my photo?

Most every digital SLR camera made today has the ability to take great photos if left on Auto setting. But that doesn't mean in every situation you'll get great results. You can see easily what I mean.

A Classic Mistake to Avoid

Take a close look at the photo of clover I took on a cloudy day in Washington State in the Spring. The clouds were rather thick and only low, diffused light was hitting the subject so I took the shot and the result was quite dark. Next in order to achieve a test of F22 using a 24-105mm lens, I pushed the ISO up to 1600. This allowed more light, giving the subject enough to see well enough, But it kept the lens open a full 1/3rd of a second, meaning unless I could hand hold a shot as a statue, and I can't, I was bound to get an OOF (out of focus) capture. And I did.

I could see on the lcd that it was blurry and I could have followed through achieving a clear shot by using a couple of different tactics, such as moving the F-stop to wide open, or using a tripod. What I wanted to do was see how much, if at all, the image could be improved with Photoshop.

Lesson Learned

When opening in Photoshop, there is nothing one can do with the blurriness when its as far off as this one. Normally when you have a clear focus, and you want it even sharper, its a slam-dunk. But just to test out what would happen bumping up the brightness, I opened the Raw file into a Smart Object, then, as is my habit, I added a Layer to adjust the brightenss.

It was showing in Camera Raw a setting of 55. Once I turned it up to the maximum amount of 150, as you'll see below, it did nothing to reduce noise. I would have had to use Noise Ninja or another noise reducer, but it wouldn't have made a lousy picture better. Clearly all I did was brighten a poor image.

The Next Step

So I used a Filter within Photoshop called Noise, Reduce. What was accomplished was negligible even when prompting the noise reduce filter to the maximum values of Strength 10, Preserve Details 0, Reduce Color Noise 100% and Sharpen Details 0. What I got was a much blurrier image with less noise. Was there a happy medium I could have reached? In most clearly captured images yes absolutely. In this image because I challenged a dslr with improper settings, absolutely not.

The Take Away

Take your time when not on Auto, look at your settings, and adjust according to needed result. Its fine to push up ISO if you are not having to push too far. You'll know when you see the results. A good rule of thumb is move the settings one degree or stop at a time over numerous captures in order to achieve the result you came to capture. If light is low, open the lens, use a tripod, push ISO and shoot Raw.

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Do you know of a website that explains ISO settings clearly?

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Sign up for Free Print

Free Print for December

Daisies and Lavender photo, watercolor treated

By subscribing to my email list, you will get a free print during the month of December 2014.

Don't worry I don't email often and you can cancel easily

It's easy to do. Click above my pic below to signup and I'll send you a downloadable, printable PDF of my original piece, 'Daisies and Lavender'.

Since it is a 5"x7" print, you can either get a 5"x7" frame, or matte it and use an 8"x10" frame. Using these standard sizes makes it easy for you to frame your collection!

Your new print will make a great gift this time of year, and could bring some Spring into someone's life.

Questions?

So what do I get out of this? Good question. Your email address.
What will I do with it? I'd like to update you with my photo art for sale or a new post.
How often? How about once a month? Or less if you wish, just let me know.
Can you cancel easily? I'll unsubscribe you as soon as I've read your email.
How do you get your free print? In my reply you'll get a link to your PDF to print.
What if you have trouble printing? I will send along instructions from Adobe to help you.
When do you need to sign up? Between now and Dec 31 2014

Sign Up Right Here Just Click

Rich Collins

Looking forward to hearing from you

Comment on the following question
What free offers have you seen in the last month from photographers or artists?

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Monday, October 27, 2014

Shooting Your Neighborhood

Get out and Shoot Your Neighborhood

No matter where you live, in the city or way out in the boondocks, shoot it

Sometimes we forget the terrific scenes we live in and that surround us. There is grace, beauty or turmoil and degradation all around us, that is begging for us to shoot it. Get your camera, clean the lens and perhaps the sensor, take a fully charged battery and a monopod or tripod with you and take advantage of a season. In this case Fall. No matter how many times you may have done this, if you give yourself half a chance, you'll come up with a few shots out of a few dozen you'll enjoy, or print, or Print-n-Gift to someone this Christmas.

Shoot colored leaves, shoot some rain, shoot a flying bird or a running dog, or the wind, clouds, a stationary object as cars pass in a blur. Grab an hour, or more, and get outside to shoot something special. Hey it's Halloween and you know you'll see some great carvings. But for that you may need a telescopic lens to pull it right into the center and real closeup.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

How I Sell my Photography Online

Click to view and buy my work

How I Sell my Photography Online

I find that people from all over the world have a better chance of seeing my work, even better than Facebook or Twitter, even better than commenting in online forums, is to announce it right here, on my blog. So here is my unabashed advertisement for myself and my art. You are sure to find art that fits your need. Take 5 and see for yourself. Thank you.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Exploring Subscription Service for Photography Buffs

Answers to Your Photo Questions

(The Small Print: we don't collect any data, period)

Answers to your photography questions are easy to come by online or in a forum. Or are they? It's a matter of typing in your question, or asking in a forum, getting a response and running with it. But is it the correct answer? Or do you find yourself spending so much time reading answers you aren't sure which one is correct? Using Google Trends, search term "Photo questions", from a low in July 2006, through today (Sept 2014), interest has risen from 38 to 86.

RCPhotos Answers Photo Questions

We are exploring offering this service. Your questions would be answered directly back to your email. If you're tired of chasing a dozen different answers at a dozen different websites, and having to register just to type a question, try us. You won't have to register, but it helps us if you subscribe.

What Types of Questions Will We Answer? And is it Free?

Any question you have involving photography. Is it free? Yes when we begin a trial period, but it does cost to allocate time, so when we do start, the free period will last till it overwhelms us. How do we know if you're interested? Leave a comment below or ask us a question. What exactly do you find puzzling, and do you want a personal assistant cost-free? It won't last forever but it might last just long enough.

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Thursday, September 11, 2014

Buying a Home? Moving? Remodeling? Consider my Photo Art

Photo Art for Your New Surroundings

Whether you buying a new home, remodeling your existing home, or moving to another rental, you'll more than likely want to redecorate or add new art. If you are still in the planning phases, you have time to look around for what you'd like. Consider taking a tour of my work. On the other hand if you are looking currently for replacement art, link to my growing galleries below.