Choose Your Wedding Photos

I recently visited a friend of the family and they asked if I took some pictures of them with their daughter at their daughter's wedding. Being a family friend, it was important to them that I enjoy the wedding as an attendee and not the working photographer. They were disappointed that they didn't have any photos of just them with their daughter. Out of all of the photos, it seems the photographer didn't focus on a couple of key photos that they wanted.

When I meet with a bride, I stress the importance of creating a photo list of important images that they are wanting me to take in addition to the regular key images that I always capture at wedding events. The photos that were taken at the wedding were great quality, but the key images that they wanted, they do not have and that is what the remember... the photos that they didn't get, not all of the great photos that they have.

In this economy with struggling budgets, it is important to budget for not only a photographer that takes great photos, but takes the great photos that you are going to want and cherish for years to come.

New Camera Projects Photos

I think this is a cool new feature that may take off and become a new standard feature on cameras. I used to remember putting all of my slides in a slide carousel and projecting my images on a wall. I think we have gotten used to seeing our photos on a computer screen and have lost some of that wow factor.

This is a cool feature that is worth looking at:

http://www.nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/Product/Digital-Camera/26186/COOLPIX-S1000pj.html

~Patrick

Sign of the Times... "Dry" Print Process Mini Labs

Working for mini labs and custom print labs during my college years, I developed a real love for the process of making pictures. I've seen a lot of advancements in printing over the years and amazed at how the field of photography and printing has changed. Everyone seems to have a photo quality ink jet printer at home and a person has been able to get one hour prints from their local Walmart and drug stores for years now. I have seen many of the custom photo labs close up shop, unable to compete with the cheaper print prices that large volume chains are offering. I remember a print costing 35-45 cent a print.. and now, these prints are 25-15 cent a print.

Now.. I was shocked to find that the traditional mini lab is being abandoned for cheaper dry printing processes.. that mimic the ink jet printer that are in homes. I was unaware until I went to my local Walmart and saw that the larger "wet" process machines had been changed to a "dry" printer the size of a small color copier that you would see at Kinko's. So.. I did some research.

http://www.elementsvillage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43833

From the above blog link, my fears were confirmed and I suspect that this will be the norm of photographic printing in the future. I was curious to see what the quality was, and after getting prints made, I was not happy with the look or feel of the paper or my image on that paper. I can visibly see the ink dots used in making the prints and there is a weird ink jet feel and smell to the prints. I hear that the prints have an archival quality of up to 90 years, but do I want to see sub-par prints for even a year after they are taken?

What is a person to do? For one, you can complain to the local printers that you aren't going to be force-fed their cheap prints of your cherished family photos. Another thing to do is take your business to other places that offer real photo printing. You can also use online printing companies that will still print real photos and mail them to you within 2-3 days.

As a professional photographer, I will continue to use a professional photo lab that prints my images on real photo paper. Even with the extra expense, I feel I'm obligated to deliver the best quality images that I can. I recommend to do the same with your own personal photos.

~Patrick

Vacation Time & Other Tips

So you are going on vacation and you've packed everything including your camera. Several things you want to remember when you are going on that all important trip.

Batteries... remember to bring extra batteries. If you have a camera taking AA batteries, make sure you bring extras for your trip. AA's are very easily found, but you will pay a good premium for them if you are on your vacation as everything is usually marked up. If you have a lithium-ion, or other rechargeable type battery, it is a must to bring your charger along with you. Charge your camera at the end of each day so you can have it ready to capture all your fun the next day. Also remember that if you are in a cold location, battery life might drastically decrease. If you find this happening, keep your camera under your coat to keep warm and that will help extend the battery life.

Film/memory cards... bring enough for your trip and then bring more. If you are an anxious photographer and take a lot of photos like myself, you never know when you are going to see something that you will want to take more photos of than usual. I was just on a trip to Alaska and after just three days of shooting, I had filled up almost all of my memory cards. I was VERY lucky to find a Radio Shack in Skagway that was able to download all of my photos to DVD's and I was ready to start shooting again. I had really lucked out as there are sometimes very few places that can do this and if they do, will charge a small fortune to do it. So... memory cards are very cheap, so buy a few extra. Think about how many photos you take and if you are going on a once in a lifetime trip (like Alaska) double the number of photos you think you will take.

If you start to notice that you are running low on the number of photos you have left on your card, try to be more frugal with the picture taking or you can also slightly lower the image size in your camera and you will get more shots on the card. Remember to make sure you change the size back when you get a new card or are able to download your pics. You can also bring a computer to download all of your photos, but sometimes that is not an option, or you might not want to lug a laptop around on your trip.

I want to point out that alot of people never look at the date and time that is set for their camera. It's time to get acquainted with that all important, but often neglected feature. Practice changing the date on your camera and keep up with it often. When you are on a trip where the time changes, change the time to match your locale before you start shooting. This will better help you determine the time you were at a certain place or the time a certain event happened. Just like resetting your image file size, make sure you change your time back when you get home or when your time changes back.

Above all else, these few tips will help you be able to keep taking the photos you want to take and capture all of the memories on your trip. Happy Snapping.

What is Geotagging?

Have you heard the term Geotagging? Maybe not... but what about GPS?
A couple of years ago, there used to be a select few that had a GPS receiver or knew what one was. Now.. newer cars come standard with them, handheld and portable GPS receivers are commonplace... there are even fun hobbies that use them. And.. if you've bought a new phone in the last year or two, many have GPS capabilities that know your location and help you to find your way.

Now... what about Geotagging and what's so great about it. Geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification data to various media such as photographs and videos that you take. Have you ever opened up the shoebox of photos and not remember the date of the photo or where it was taken. Well... with Geotagging every time you take a photo, the camera's GPS will record where it was taken. This new feature is very useful with newer software programs that once you download the photos to your computer, the software reads the metadata from each photo and knows when and where the photo was taken. You then have the option of displaying all of your photos on a Google map that shows where they have been taken.

Right now.. only select point & shoot camera's, cell phones and some professional cameras have this feature, but within the next year or two, you will see this being a common feature in every camera. You will enjoy pulling up a map and seeing all of the places you've taken photos. It's great for vacations, people who frequently travel and especially better identifying those photos you've forgotten about.

Getting those images off your camera

I get alot of people asking me what is the best way to get their images off the camera and onto their computer. Taking a photo with a digital camera is the easy part. You have then can either transfer the images to the computer via a cable that comes with your camera or take out the memory card and insert it into a memory card reader that then plugs into your computer.

You can purchase a memory card reader at Best Buy, Walmart or any other office or electronics store for around $25.00 give or take. I personally like to use a memory card reader instead of plugging my camera into the computer via a cord as it can drain the camera's battery down by transferring all of your photos. When you plug in your card reader, most computers will automatically open the card reader folder to display your images. I then select all of the images copy and then paste them into a new folder in My Pictures folder. After that, I create a duplicate folder that I then delete unwanted photos and also color correct and edit them. Once I return the memory card back into the camera, I can then delete all of the images by reformatting the memory card and I'm ready to start taking pictures again.

Don't Loose Your Memories!

I often get people telling me how they accidentally erased their photos off their digital cameras or memory cards. People don't realize that some of those images can be recovered through image recovery software that is often free or available for a small fee. This software can search the erased card and recover some of the photos that have been recently deleted. The biggest this is not to use the card again until you run the software program to recover your images. You will be surprised at how many images can be recovered.. some images that you even been deleted months before.

I always took comfort in knowing that I've never accidental deleted photos and was almost cocky at saying that I always protect my images from any catastrophes. Well.. a catastrophe happened three weeks ago when I went to access my external SimpleTech external hard drive that contains not only all of my work files over the past year or two, but also over 80,000 images that I've taken. This contained not only wedding, portrait and corporate photography, but also a lot of cherished photos of family and friends over the last couple of years too.

For those reading this... I do have a backup of all of my wedding and portrait photography. Any photo that I've made a print of, those images have been burned to a CD or DVD so they are safe. Photos that I have taken of family and friends, trips that I've been on, events, etc... those I have lost. How much are some of these photos to me? Well.. unfortunately, there is a price. Just like the digital files on a memory card, the hard drive still contains all of my beloved images, but the cost of recovery isn't cheap.

I called several data recovery companies, none of them local, and the estimate is $500 - $2,400. Yes.. To get those pictures of my nephews at Christmas or Easter back could cost me $2,400. Those might not be worth that expense, but I would pay $500-$1,000 to get these images back. Also.. even though alot of my images are safe, they are on CD's and DVD's, many are not labeled or directly at my fingertips like they were on my hard drive.

So.. what I am doing and what I am recommending EVERYONE to do is have a backup of your backup. This means whenever you have a big photo event whether it be a family gathering or a once in a lifetime event or vacation, save those images to a CD and store them in a save place. I would also recommend giving a CD of those images to a family friend or relative that is also in the photos as not only a gift, but as another person who will have your images for safe keeping.

I also recommend at the end of a year, save those images again to a DVD. DVD's are able to save more images that traditional CD's and then you not only have a CD of the event, but a DVD of your yearly photos. For myself, a person that takes a lot of photos throughout the year, I like the convenience of having my photos easily viewable at any given time, I will continue to store my photos on a portable hard drive. I will also have another hard drive solely as a backup drive in case the other drive fails. Isn't this expensive and hard to do? NO.... I just purchased a small 320 GB drive for $100 and another 1 TB (terabyte) drive for $170 as a backup. And.. with the software that comes with the drive, you can easily schedule a time when the device automatically backs up all of the files. So.. there are no reasons or excuses not to back up your images. You may never need a terabyte drive, but getting just one $100 external drive is a small price to pay for not having to go through a loss of data or the expense of data recovery.