Sony NEX-C3 First Impressions

October 5, 2011

[UPDATE @ 10/31/11: camera is going back. See this post for an explanation...]

For quite some time, I’ve been looking for a small (pocketable) camera to complement the battery of professional cameras I have for work. It struck me this weekend how silly it is that I have to go to my studio, choose the gear I want out of the old vault I use as an equipment cabinet, and find the perfect bag to carry it all in, just so I can take a few snapshots at any random family gathering.

There are a lot of choices out there, and I was somewhat stymied when it came to making a choice. I pay close attention to the high end of [...] Continue Reading…

Posted in Advice, Personal

Eleven Digital Camera Myths

September 20, 2011

by Steve Maller :: September 20, 2011
Because of what I do for a living, a lot of people (family, friends, total strangers) ask me for camera buying advice. The choices out there are truly overwhelming, and just when you think you might have a handle on it, an avalanche of new products, buzzwords and technologies buries you all over again. So I’d like to share a few thoughts on this subject in the hopes of providing some guidance.
This is the first in what might be a series of articles. For now it’s #1 in a series of one.

You get what you pay for
This is no more true in cameras than it is in anything. You have to be a [...] Continue Reading…

Posted in Advice, Geek stuff, Personal

Aperture PDF book files to JPEG update

July 21, 2011

I used to use a program called Drop Extract Images to take apart Aperture’s PDF book export file into its JPEG contents for uploading to WHCC for their books. But that program is now extinct under Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. But it turns out that the underlying Unix program works fine if you know how to use Terminal.

Here’s my post from a few years ago describing the situation.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1431048?threadID=1431048

And the Terminal fix is to call pdfimages -j, then drag the PDF file into terminal, then make a folder and drag the folder into terminal, and add a trailing “/”.

Posted in Personal

Canon XF100 field report and DVD Studio Pro problem

May 22, 2011

I recently purchased a new Canon XF100 video camera to replace my Canon XL2. I primarily film events, presentations, interviews, bar mitzvah and wedding ceremonies, and the like. I was attracted to the XF100 for several reasons:

direct-to-compact flash recording with media rollover for continuous recording
50mbps 4:2:2 editable codec (no rendering in Final Cut Pro timelines)
XLR inputs with phantom power

So the other night I took it on its maiden voyage. I filmed a local theater group’s play for my very first “real” assignment with the XF100. It took a few minutes to figure out the audio inputs, as I was shooting with a line input from the sound board in input A and my Sennheiser shotgun in [...] Continue Reading…

Posted in Personal

Team Photos, With Style

November 27, 2010

I don’t make a habit (or a business!) of doing school and/or team photos for several reasons. The most significant is that there are a lot of companies out there who do this (some of them even do it well!), and I have no interest in competing with them. It’s a colossal organizational challenge, and those of you who know me…well, let’s just say I’m an artist.;-)

But all that matters naught when my own child is participating. Then I pull out all the stops and do what I do, in a way I’d like to think is pretty unique. I love experimenting with lighting people, and this year, my son Sam’s high school basketball program asked me to [...] Continue Reading…

Posted in Event Photography, Geek stuff, Headshots

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