Getting too Close

If you are close enough to a moose to smell it you are too close. I was way too close when taking this photo. Way too close. After this I went out and got a 500mm lens.

Aperture

When Aperture was released I picked up a copy and instantly loved it. I had been wanting something like it for years. After installing Aperture I didn't use Photoshop nearly as much. Everything goes through Aperture first. Now that Aperture is $80 bucks, every purchaser of a new camera should pick up a copy. Head on over to the Mac App Store and pick up your own copy, I highly recommend it.

Backups and Archiving

In the last few days left of 2010 we reviewed the business expenses and what we needed and decided to enhance our back up strategy. The picture above is a photo of four 2TB g-drives we purchased to accomplish part of this. It is always good to review one's backup and archiving strategy and continue to improve upon it.

There are two rules to live by when it comes to backup:

1. The best backup is the one that you do.
2. You don't have a backup strategy if you don't test that it works.

The backup strategy must be simple and easy. RAID is great but it is not a backup.

Our backup solution is pretty simple. We run MacPros with every slot loaded with drives. The main drive is backed up every two weeks to a complete duplicate using Carbon Copy Cloner (we used to use Super Duper but ran into a few problems with it) and automatically with Time Machine. Two more drives store the data and are in a RAID 1, with a Time Machine backup and two of these g-drives are for complete offsite duplication.

Archiving happens in two ways. We make copies of all outgoing disks and two complete copies to external hard drives. One is offsite and one is onsite.

We also use an online service for redundant offsite storage and for delivery.

Extreme Unicycle Photography

I have dabbled in sports photography a few times over the years and have found it can be a lot of fun, if the sport is extreme enough. My latest bit of dabbling has certainly been extreme. Unicycling, extreme unicycling that is. This is my friend Corbin Dunn, World Marathon Unicycle Champion. He rode 26 miles on his unicycle to win that title. He does some amazing things on a unicycle.



The photograph in this post is a composite of four photographs taken at high speed. The trick to making a photograph like this is to use a camera that does high speed and use a tripod. The tripod is key because it reduces the amount of photoshop work later. All photos were processed in Aperture 3.0 and finished up in Photoshop CS 4.

Aperture 3 Review

I've been using Aperture 3 since it came out. Apple sent me a copy to work with and give them feedback. I will have a review up in the next few weeks along with some tips on using it and getting started.

If you want to buy it or upgrade then Amazon has the best price in town so click the link below.

Simple Camera

This photo is currently featured on the Nature Photographer Magazine website. It was taken in Yellowstone on a very beautiful morning with a very simple camera: an old digital 3 mega pixel Canon Elph.

Aperture 3

Apple Releases Aperture 3

New Features Include Faces, Places & Brushes

CUPERTINO, Calif., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today introduced Aperture™ 3, the next major release of its powerful photo editing and management software, with over 200 new features including Faces, Places and Brushes. Building on the innovative Faces and Places features introduced in iPhoto® '09, Aperture 3 makes it even easier and faster to organize large photo libraries. Aperture 3 introduces new tools to refine your photos including Brushes for painting image adjustments onto parts of your photo, and Adjustment Presets for applying professional photo effects with just one click. Stunning new slideshows let you share your work by weaving together photos, audio, text and HD video.

"Millions of people love using iPhoto to organize, edit and share their digital photos," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Aperture 3 is designed for both professionals who edit and manage massive libraries of photos and iPhoto users who want to take their photos further with easy-to-use tools such as Brushes and Adjustment Presets."

"Aperture 3 gets it right," said National Geographic photographer, Jim Richardson. "The image editing tools are exactly what I have been asking for, they're so easy to use and give me a level of control that I never even thought possible."
"I chose Aperture because it was the most powerful archiving application around, but it's now an unbelievable imaging tool as well," said Bill Frakes, Sports Illustrated staff photographer. "I am beyond impressed with the massive changes made in Aperture 3."

Aperture 3 allows you to organize large photo libraries with even more flexibility using Projects and the new Faces and Places. Faces uses face detection and recognition to find and organize your photos by the people in them. You can view faces across your entire photo library or view just the faces that appear in selected projects. In a new view that speeds up the organization process, Aperture 3 displays faces that have been detected but haven't yet been named. Places lets you explore your photos based on where they were taken, and like in iPhoto, Places automatically reverse geocodes GPS data into user-friendly locations. In Aperture 3, you can assign locations by dragging-and-dropping photos onto a map or by using location information from GPS enabled cameras, tracking devices or your iPhone® photos.

The new Brushes feature allows you to add professional touches to your photos by simply painting effects onto the image. Aperture 3 includes 15 Quick Brushes that perform the most popular tasks like Dodge, Burn, Polarize and Blur, without the complexity of layers or masks. Brushes can automatically detect edges in your images to let you apply or remove effects exactly where you want them. Aperture 3 includes dozens of Adjustment Presets that apply a specific style or look to the entire image with just a click. You can create your own custom presets or explore the techniques of other photographers by importing theirs.

Aperture 3 makes it easy to share your work with stunning slideshows that weave together photos, audio, text and HD video. You can select one of six Apple designed themes or choose your own transitions, background, borders and titles, and even add your own soundtrack. You can export your slideshows directly to iTunes® to take with you on your iPhone or iPod touch®. You can also share photographs as beautiful prints, create custom-designed hardcover books and publish to online photo sharing sites like Facebook and Flickr, right from Aperture 3.

Pricing & Availability

Aperture 3 is available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) and existing Aperture users can upgrade for a suggested retail price of $99 (US). A downloadable 30-day trial version is available at www.apple.com/aperture/trial. Aperture 3 runs as a 64-bit application on Mac OS® X Snow Leopard® on Macs with Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Full system requirements, online tutorials and more information on Aperture 3 can be found at www.apple.com/aperture.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

© 2010 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, Aperture, iPhoto, iPhone, iTunes, iPod touch, Apple Store and Snow Leopard are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.