Photography | Presidium Blog

Lightroom web templates

Posted by admin | Filed under Lightroom, Photography

Just found this great site for some alternatives to the default Lightroom web templates, see here.

Read more | Comments (0) | October 30th, 2008

Lightroom to Flickr export

Posted by admin | Filed under Photography

If, like me, you use both Lightroom and Flickr you will want to get this free plugin for Lightroom to make it quick and easy to get your photos onto Flickr, see here.

Read more | Comments (0) | October 30th, 2008

Portable Strobist Backpack

Posted by admin | Filed under Photography

Watch this, I know it seems completely ridiculous but I might just try this out:

Read more | Comments (0) | October 29th, 2008

Do you use Lightroom and Photomatix?

Posted by admin | Filed under Photography

I do and I love them both, Lightroom is great for organizing and processing photos and Photomatix is great for HDRs, now Photomatix has an export from Lightroom function to speed the whole process up, see here for more details.

Read more | Comments (0) | October 29th, 2008

Tulips - from the air

Posted by admin | Filed under Photography

A few great shots of the Dutch tulip fields can be found on the Daily Mail site, see here.

Read more | Comments (0) | October 29th, 2008

Removing people from photographs in photoshop

Posted by admin | Filed under Photography

Just found this great video showing how to quickly and easily remove people from a set of photographs which is ideal for those locations where you want to photograph a building but people keep walking in front of it. Check it out here.

Read more | Comments (0) | October 28th, 2008

Earth from above

Posted by admin | Filed under Photography

I have always been fascinated by photos that are beyond my capabilities both technically and physically and recently came across this great page on Boston.com for the photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand who takes some of the most amazing aerial photographs, do go and check it out here.

Read more | Comments (0) | October 28th, 2008

Feisol 3441s & QB 30 - Mini Review

Posted by admin | Filed under Photography

Before I get into the detail of the review I need to put a disclaimer on this: I am a newcomer to photography and have only ever owned one other tripod (Manfrotto 785B MODO Maxi) which is at the budget end of the market and not really designed for SLRs.

I ordered the 3441s with the QB 30 head directly from the UK distributor (www.feisoluk.com) on Tuesday night and received it on Thursday, very pleased with the quick service and I was given two update emails along the way to say it was being processed and then again when it had been posted. One small way this could have been better would have been to supply the tracking number in the email but I am just nit picking.

Once you get inside the small box you get this:

Feisol 3441s in bag

A smart little bag which holds the tripod, head and a few accesories. The bag is snug, so if you chose a different ball head you may have to chooses to transport it outside of the bag. Once you pull the tripod out of the bag you get to feel the weight (or lack of it) and the size (very compact). See here (I know it isn’t in focus):

Feisol 3441s

Positives
- light, I mean really light
- twist lock mechanism, it may be personal preference but I like this instead of the clip locks once you work out the order of opening and closing (start at the top, undo a quarter turn pull out then re do quarter turn before moving onto the next lowest one)
- very stable for its size and can be used with the included weight hook to make it more stable

Negatives
- marks are already showing on the leg and platform contact points which makes me doubt how long the paint will last
- very stiff to pull it out of the folded down storage mode and therefore slow to put up
- the ballhead has a nasty problem with longer lenses that when you get your camera focused, apply the lock mechanism of the ball head and then let go of the lens, the weight of the lens pulls the ball head down slightly

Overall I am pretty happy with it.

Read more | Comments (0) | October 14th, 2008

ND1000 - 10 stop ND Filter

Posted by admin | Filed under Photography

Another little purchase in my ever quest to spend all of my hard earned cash is my new 10 stop ND filter, a B + W version (about £55 from Warehouse Express). The idea is that it offers 10 stops of light reduction. It is a really tricky beast to use as obviously you need to do all of your composition and focusing before popping the filter on or you won’t be able to see a thing, you also need a really steady tripod and preferably use a trigger for your camera to minimise any movement. Here is an example: