I’ve recently started a project where the teammembers are spread across two different locations and within the locations over multiple floors and rooms. The activities we have to perform can be done mostly by individuals but other members depend on the output of others. So it is essential that the teammembers are aware of the activities of other teammembers and their status.

To discuss all important actions, risks and issues I scheduled a weekly projectmeeting where most teammembers attend in person and some by phone. Because we are spread across the two locations it always takes more time for some of us to attend physically. Another downside of us not sitting near eachother is that we don’t meet at the coffee machine to have informal chats about what we are doing and also formal meetings take a little more effort.

To improve the team collaboration I’ve setup a Yammer network. You can think of Yammer as facebook for businesses. I use a very limited set of functionality of Yammer, just the status updates which can be placed in the Yammer feed of ‘our network with Yammer’. I’ve asked all teammembers to regularly post a status update and check our feed daily. Of course I could have asked all members to send me a status update by email daily which I can then collect and spread within the projectteam. The latter would cost me time and I would delay the information flow. The benefit of using Yammer is that members can reply on the status updates of others.

If it turns out that my teammembers will not use Yammer actively I still have the alternative to organize one or two additional status meetings so people can meet and discuss their ‘things’. Instead of a couple of status messages which takes 15 seconds to write, they will be in a meetingroom for a hour.

I believe Yammer is a usefull addition to my projectmanagement tools to keep the team informed and in contact.

 

A couple of weeks ago I’ve been on a short holiday and that was a great moment to use my iPad and Eye-Fi WiFi SDCard for real. I did not bring my laptop so I had to rely on my iPad for transfering photos. It all worked out quit well and raised some questions too.

The setup was my iPad 2 with Eye-Fi app installed. My Nikon D90 was equipped with the Eye-Fi X2 Pro 8Gb memory card. A direct WiFi connection between iPad and Eye-Fi card was setup. Additionally, at the holiday location a public hotspot was available to use internet on the iPad.
I’ve set the camera to store both a basic JPG + RAW file. The Eye-Fi card was setup to transfer both file type to the iPad.

So I started taking holiday pictures. The first thing I noticed is that the Nikon RAW files (*.NEF) are transferred to the iPad as *.TIF files and within the iPad only a minor thumbnail is shown of this type of files. On the other hand, the JPG files were transfered too and shown correctly.

• Is the TIFF file that is stored on the iPad actually a NEF file (Nikon RAW)?

• Can I configure the file type to be transferred (JPG and/or RAW) while I’m out in the field?

Actually this took a while to figure out and I’m not completely done with it. My current answer is:
Do it before you go out in the field. Connect both iPad and Eye-Fi card to a wireless network (I have not yet tested direct mode!)  and take a picture (to make the Eye-Fi really wakeup).  Then on your iPad in the Eye-Fi APP turn on or off the transfer of Photos (JPG), Video and/or RAW Files. Wait a couple of seconds and turn camera off and on so the Eye-Fi card reads its settings  from somewhere. Take a picture and test if it does what you want.

I still have to test this with Direct Mode. I will update this post with the results.

Conclusion:

Using the Eye-Fi card is great. Results of a shoot are directly visible on the iPad and files are stored (backup) on the iPad. The combination of the Eye-Fi with Apple iCloud is the best!  Back home, turn on the PC wait a while and all files are there. No cables necessary.

Only downside: You can’t see the difference between the JPG and RAW file on the iPad so you always have to guess when you open a file…. Does it open the high res JPG or the tiny RAW thumbnail. The fact that NEF files are renamed to TIF is not a big deal but when you think about it, it’s weird that it is necessary.

The Eye-Fi card can transfer images to online services like Flickr too. I have no need for that so I did not test it. 

 

Last week I took some photos of our daughter and of course there were some nice ones between the bad ones . When I want many photos printed I use an online photo service like foto.com where a photo costs nearly nothing. It only takes some time before the photos are printed and send by mail.

We wanted one photo printed at that moment so I started my big and huge HP Business Inkjet 2600 and printed a photo. As I had experienced before, the colors were not accurate and we were disappointed by the results (again). The HP is great for printing A3 project plans and other drawings but not for photo printing because of lack of decent color management. Next I used my older HP Color Laserjet 2550 to print the photo. Colors matched much better but resolution was average. This added to the fact that I was still using a very old scanner with document feeder on a USB 1 connection (sooo Slooow) and my wish for a faster duplex scanner, the search for a new multifunctional started (and the other printers were placed on ‘Marktplaats’ the Dutch e-bay).

After some searching I found the Canon Pixma MX885 with (Photo)printing, Scanning, Copy and Fax features and best of all, it has a duplex automatic document feeder for the scanner. Otherwise I might have gone for a little cheaper model or maybe an Epson. Last night I installed the MX885 and printed a photo on special Canon photopaper and I was amazed by the quality. The quality was at least the same or maybe even better than the photos I ordered online.

This post might sound like an advertisment for Canon but that is not my goal. What I want to state here is that even if you have some hardware that was great some years ago like the HP Business Inkjet 2600 was in 2004/2005 and it still works like a charm and is for heavy use, it might be wise to just look around to see what is offered today in 2011 and decide if you want to invest some money in a new device.
I think it is true: ‘You don’t know what you are missing if you haven’t seen it before’.

Another one is to think again before you are buying for 200 euro’s on cartridges and printheads instead of buying a new device. This Canon costed me less !!

 

Last week I stumbled upon the following video from F-Stoppers about transfering images from your camera to the iPad directly using an Eye-Fi SD card with Wifi.

I’ve noticed the Eye-Fi cards before, but I did not care about wireless transfering the images to my computer. It takes little effort to switch the SDcard from the camera to my computers cardreader and import the photos.
The video above showed a (for me) much more useful feature which is to see the photo taken within 3 seconds on my iPad. This is way better than looking on the camera LCD.

There is an option to directly connect your iPad to the Eye-Fi card which will only work when you are not within reach of a knownWifi network. The Eye-Fi site is not really clear about what happens when you ARE in reach of a known and configured Wifi network (i.e. your own home wireless network). It both works like you expect. Take a photo, wait a couple of seconds and it is shown on the iPad. The direct connection is a little faster then the indirect connection (i.e. when your iPad and Eye-Fi card are connected to a know Wifi network). The benefit of the indirect connection is that you iPad usually already has connection with the network and you have internet access available too.

I don’t use the other functionality of the Eye-Fi card because I have no need for it (yet). I usually first post process my images before posting it to sites like Flickr, so no need to upload them directly from my camera.

 

I found the photo portfolio site 500px.com a while ago but did not pay much attention to it. Until a couple of days ago when the site was brought to my attention again.

I’m using Flickr for some time now and that works fine. I store ALL of my photos on Flickr and even photos from my family that I received. In that case, it is not always necessary to be to hard on the quality of the photos. I also store the not so good ones, as a backup in case something happens with my regular backup.

Therefore I decided to use 500px.com for only my best photos together with my regular portofolio site http://www.vdsar-photo.com/. 500px.com offers some features like a blog and wall that Flickr does not offer. I have not found groups on 500px yet ;-(.

 

I was wondering what kind of benefits I could get from my iPad in combination with my Photography hobby. This is one of the things where I believe the iPad brings me some benefits:

I got an iPad 64GB and a 3rd party camera connection kit (I name it CCK from now on). On Ebay you can get those for less than 10 euro’s (the camera connection kit of course). The CCK allows you to import your JPG and/or RAW files from you SD-Card or using USB cable directly from you camera. For this workflow it is best to set the camera to save a RAW+JPG. Both are imported into the iPad where the JPG is shown in the photo viewer. The JPG is also used to upload the photo to Flickr by i.e. Flickr Studio app. The RAW (and JPG) can be uploaded to Dropbox by using the Dropbox app.

When you shoot in RAW only you will find that during importing the RAW files, a thumbnail JPG is created for you Photo album on the iPad. When using 3rd party apps to send you photo’s to i.e. Flickr, you see that only that tiny thumnail is uploaded. Instead of a high res 12 Megapixel JPG you will find a very small size thumbnail. When shooting in RAW+JPG or JPG only you can send the highres image.

The mindmap below shows the parts connected.

The apps that I have installed are:

- Photosmith – To tag your images and sync with Lightroom !
- Filterstorm - Edit your images
- Snapseed – Quick Tuning
- Colorsplash - Selective color
- Photogene - Edit RAW files
- Flickr Studio – Do all you need with Flickr
- Dropbox - Online Storage

One remark. On the iPad 1 there might be a limit to save your JPG’s at 7.5 megapixel. With the iPad 2 this is 22 megapixel.

A Dropbox account is free and if you use this link, we both get an additional 250 Mb of free storage space. This will give you 2250 Mb instead of 2000 Mb to start with !

Update: Check this post about Camerasync app too!

 

This morning I read a magazine in which an article was written about home burglary. One of the remarks made by people who had experienced a home burglary was that it was terrible to happen because they lost so many private belongings. So far I completely agree! Then the remark was made: “my notebook was stolen which contained all photos and documents of my child”. That last remark made me write this article about backup. People assure their houses and belonings, paying several euro’s a month, to get some money from the insurance company in case of home burglary. Why didn’t they invest a little time and money in a decent backup?

You should invest some time and/or money to protect your data from getting lost.

Nowadays there is no valid excuse to not have a decent backup. I wrote an article about online backup using a NAS (network attached storage) a while ago and there are several other solutions available for all kinds of dataprotection.

There are several technologies available for creating a backup. I devide them in 3 categories:

• Non electronic (DVD-R, BluRay, CD Rom, Tape)
• Electronic storage (i.e.: Harddisk, USB Stick)
• Online storage

I believe everybody should have a backup on ‘non-electronic’ storage like a DVD-R or BlueRay disk. Create two backups, one to store at your home and one to store offsite at your work, a friends house or banksafe. Always keep i.e. the last 3 backups. This in case the last backup becomes unreadable. The reason I say you should have a non-electronic backup is because the risk of i.e. lightning strikes or voltage peaks ruining your equipment. When lightning strikes and hits your home power grid, it might blow up your computer and all attached electronic components like USB sticks, external harddrives, and so on. It will also destroy your DVD Drive, but you can still read your backup disks (DVD/BlueRay) at any other computer or buy a new DVD Drive for 15 euro’s.

Next you can use an external harddisk to create a second backup. Creating a backup and restoring goes much faster from an external harddisk. You might choose a backup policy where you create a DVD/BlueRay backup weekly or monthly (depending on your needs) and create a daily or weekly copy on an external harddisk. I always advice to disconnect the harddisk from the computer and powergrid after creating the backup. This reduces the risk of damage due to software problems, hardware problems and at some degree of lightning strikes. Be as creative as you like. Use multiple drives, store them at home, at your office or at a friends place. Harddrives offer a large amount of storage but as I said before, they are not the safest storage. (I.e.: You have the warranty that the drive will fail between now and someday. Someday might be within 2 weeks already.)

Online storage is fairly new for consumers and very reasonable priced. In my previous article I have online storage combined with my NAS but there are good solutions for users who don’t have a NAS. The benefit of online storage is that you have your data stored in a datacenter offsite. So nobody can physically steal your data. Secondly you can access your data from every computer with an internet connection.
There are many providers for online storage, use google! I will describe one provider because I installed it for a customer lately and I believe this is a great example for many people.

Visit www.acronis.com and search for the online backup solution (i.e.: UK page here)

Acronis offers 250 GB of online storage for less than €50,- a year. Probably less then you pay for your insurance policy .
There is a 2 Gb trial version available. Acronis Online backup software is included after registering your trial or subscribing. You can select the folders on your computer of which you want to create a backup and the software will do the rest. The initial backup will take some hours or even days to create, depending on the amount of data and your internet connection speed. After that it will only backup the modified data so a backup will be made much quicker. You can connect up to 5 computers to the acronis account so your desktop and laptop should be safe. You can schedule the creation of the backup so you won’t forget it!
Restoring can be done using the online backup software or downloading the files using your internet browser.

As said, there are many providers offering online backup. Prices differ significantly so check it out carefully. Check storage size, number of computers and functionality.

From now on.. nobody has an excuse to not have a backup !!

 

Sometimes you need a nice colorfull background for your photography assignments. Especially with product or waterdrop photography, you might be in search for some background.

Create a new blank image in the size of your paper in photoshop and go to filters, render and render yourself some clouds (assign a fore- and background color) or in CS5 you can also find a fiber rendering option.  Print the image using your color inkjet or color laserprinter. I think you can best not use glossy paper and just cheap regular paper because glossy will give a glare when using flash.

This is a start, find out all kinds of filters yourself!

 

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, I’ve bought a secondhand Nikon F80 SLR with a AF 35-70mm lens.
I own some other lenses which are made for DX size sensors like being used in i.e. Nikon D3100, D5000, D7000, etc. Those lenses project a smaller image size than the FX size lenses. The lenses do fit and work on the F80 camera including the AF-S autofocus and Vibration Reduction (VR).  I’ve made some pictures using the DX lenses on the 35mm Film SLR to see if they can be used in at least a part of the focuslength area.

Here are my findings:

• Nikon AF-S 55-200mm VR @ 200mm: Has more vignetting in the corners compared to 55mm. It can be used if your object is in the center of the image
• Nikon AF-S 55-200mmVR  @ 55mm: has some vignetting in the corners of the picture. It is not completely useless.
• Nikon AF-S 18-55mm VR @ 55mm: has about the same vignetting as the 55-200 @ 55mm.
• Nikon AF-S 18-55mm VR @ 18mm: Has to much vignetting. Like looking through a hole. Not usefull for regular photo’s
• Nikon AF-S 35mm: Shot this on black and white film. Some vignetting in the corners. Little less than the 55mm.

Don’t look at the quality of the images. Those are scanned with a dirty scanner, but the vignetting is clear !

Image 1: 55-200 VR @ 200mm

Image 2: 55-200 VR @ 55mm

Image 3: 18-55 VR @ 55mm

Image 4: 18-55 VR @ 18mm

Image 5: 35mm f1.8

 

During my lunchbreak I went to the ‘Hema’ to submit my first analog
roll of film for processing. Now I know how people from the analog age
feel when they have to submit their digital photos using a memory card
or USB stick for the first time.

I stood there looking at a digital device and wondering where the paper
envelopes are to put my roll of film into. Once I found the envelope I
had to find myself a pen and write my address details and check which
format I want for the photos to be printed on. Then I had to search for
a place to drop the envelop to send the stuff to photo lab.

During that moment I could imagine how a person must have felt who was
used to rolls of films and had never used digital stuff before. Here you
are then…. With your digital memory card for the first time. Where
should he put the memory card and oh no…he dropped it into the envelope
instead of the memorycard reader of the device…

We are never to old to learn Now let’s wait until the roll of film
is developed and printed.