GigaPan Epic – evolution of the panorama

gigapan epic

by now most folks have seen David Bergman’s Inauguration image taken with the Gigapan Epic.

well guess what?  you can have one too.  make your own super cool panos using the GigaPan Epic. 

how does it work?  the GigaPan Epic creates panoramas with almost any point and shoot pocket camera.  the Epic is a small robot – you set the upper left and lower right corners of your pano.  then the Epic works out how many photos your camera will need to take and takes them for you with its robotic arm.  it then organizes these photos taken into the correct rows and columns needed for the pano.

mah moo cards are here! yay!

hooray!  my MOO cards are here! 

moo cards

comes in a neato little box 

neato box

you get dividers in the box to separate your cards from your friends

a poll – which version looks better?

 

 

a pier for me - color

 

 

a pier for me - b & w

 

 

in need of opinions since i cant decide, so i decided to ask you cool kids for some opinions…

JPG Magazine Submission – Faith

decided to try joining JPG Magazine’s regular subject competitions….

please go vote for me! thanks!

photographing lightning

photographing lightning has been on my “to do” list for a long time. i’ve briefly read about it and the technique used to do it.

standing out in the middle of a t-storm with a big heap of metal isn’t ideal, but who said photography isn’t risky?

obviously we’re lookin for a storm with lots of lightning flashes. a storm that you can still see that just passed over is best. that’s how i got this one.

of course this wasn’t ideal settings for me.  i’m in the parking lot at my old house and saw the sky going crazy with lightning.  being in a hurry, i got cars and lamp posts and a bunch of other garbage in my photo.  i grabbed a paint bucket and propped up my camera real quick.  so yea - this isn’t beautiful or anything, but it’s still a cool capture.

how to do it? 

framing your work. why?

i typically store most of my photography on my pc – i know, bad, bad, bad… 

:: slaps hand :: 

(i do have them backed up on external hard drive though)

but for the ones that i do print off, i keep them in a photo album.  i don’t usually go through much effort in ‘framing’ my stuff.  so why do it?

well lets just start with 2 very obvious reason why:

• framing protects your photos from airborne pollutants
• framing prevents people examining your images using the braille system; no touching = no smudges

now the more formal answer to why:

Support for ease of viewing* – At its simplest, framing acts as a support system for optimum viewing of a picture. It keeps the image flat and permits it to be easily placed upright on a wall or other support at a suitable viewing height.

photo jewelry projects and ideas

i got to thinkin about the old photo in a locket for mothers day.  so i decided to research what options are out there in todays modern society.  i found 3 sites that incorporates photos in with jewelry.

we’ll start with photojewelrymaking.com:

they offer some pretty nifty stuff like making your own keychains, necklaces, bracelets, cuff links, charms, etc..

they have circle photo bracelets, or maybe some other mothers day jewelry ideas here  –>

  

 

flickr-tube, video on flickr. yeckk.

uh huh.  flickr now introduces an option to post video among the great and not so great photographs of the world.

faq’s here.

i’m not too sure how i feel about it.  i’m a pro member and love flickr.  its a clean and simple interface that allows me to do a multitude of things easily.

do i want to see it become littered with useless and stupid videos?

before i could make a decision, i had to look into it a little more.

• only PRO USERS get to post video – so if you were looking to post video for free, forget it.
• videos cannot exceed 90 seconds of play – for now anyways.  no extended videos of the uncle larry’s 70th bday party, sorry.

i wondered, why would flickr do this?  after seeing the following video footage, i understood why  –>

 

watching the clip of ‘playing in the grass at sundown in wyoming’  inspires and shows great creativity.  i see what the flickr folks were trying to do.  if all the videos uploaded carried this attempt at creativity, i would see no problems with it. 

Photoshop Express – the next free option to editing your pics

adobe has announced its latest beta toy for the web.

web based and free? uh huh.

keep in mind – this isn’t built for the Photoshop guru.. this is meant to be a suggestion to those who want to slightly improve their photos on the cheap. this is geared towards the myspace and facebook crowds.  no palettes, no menus, nothing you would expect on the Photoshop interface. this isn’t a skimpy version of Photoshop either – this is what appears to be a rather intuitive web tool that i think will really take off.  check out Scott Kelby’s quick review of photoshop express.

Photoshop Express has such great Flash-based online galleries, and you can post your images there for free (you get 2 Gig of online storage free), and put a web gallery of your work online today, with no Web experience whatsoever…

scott kelby

learn more about the interface with Matt Kloskowski’s in depth review.

be sure to take a test drive with Photoshop Express.

the utrecht art supplies order (pt 2.) – the redemption

so as i mentioned last week, my frame order from Utrecht arrived in bits and pieces.  i sent an email requesting a full refund for the busted frames.

later that day i recieved an email back from Utrecht:

Hello Norma, 

I wrote my supervisor the credit from for the damaged frames. The credit back will go back to the credit card you used for this order. It will show up in your next bank statement. Thanks

Customer Service Representative

Utrecht Art Supplies
6 Corporate Drive
Cranbury, NJ 08512-3616
Sales/Customer Service 1-800-223-9132 or 1-609-409-8001
8 a.m. – 7 p.m. Weekdays
9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday EST

there was no name noted in the email other than what you see.  i did notice a name in the header, so that was able to give me a name to correlate with the “Customer Service Representative”.