Improve Photography: 22 Things

There's a post over on Improve Photography of: 22 Things You Can Do Today to Change Your Photography Forever.  I read through this, liked some of the steps, and decided I'm going to start doing some of these things, and wanted to blog about it.

I don't think these will happen in order, so I'll start with number 11 ( Action #11: Create a Facebook fan page for your photography (15 minutes) ).   I have created a Facebook fan page for SchubyShots.  That link probably won't work yet.  I have the page setup as non-published so far until I can get a logo up, a description, and a few pictures for a first album.

Well, the setup was 15 minutes.  I think the customization will take a little tweaking, playing, then publishing.

New Gear

I found a slick deal, listed on a website for a Canon Rebel T4i from B&H Photography.  Since this is this years camera, and I've been shooting with a Rebel XT (2003/4 model), I thought it was time for an upgrade.  They had a deal where if you added the 55-250 they knocked $150 off the price of the lens.

So this camera takes 18 megapixel shots, as compared to the 8 on the XT.  The file size (shooting RAW) has gone from 6-8 megs to 24-33 megs, so that should be fun management.  Since it's all Canon, my previous lenses will still work, but now the batteries are different and it's gone from Compact Flash to SD/SDHC memory cards, so that's all different.

Took it out for it's first test run at the zoo today, and I have to say I really, really, really like this upgrade.  HD Video, touch screen, high ISO for lower light shots.  I'm glad I got the new toy.  Now, what to do with that old XT...

Improve Photography Podcast

Well, out of curiosity I looked through iTunes to see if there were any photography podcasts.  I found  a few, and ended up subscribing to a couple.  One that I really enjoy is Improve Photography ( iTunes linky ).  It's still pretty new, there are only 8 episodes, and it releases about weekly.  There's also a website ( linky ).

I've enjoyed the podcast, and while I can't think right now there have been some good nuggets of information.  It's very well developed and they have good equipment (doesn't sound like they're recording in their garage while vacuuming), and I'm actually going to relisten to all the episodes.

The website has some good blogs/articles on it as well, and I may be quoting some going forward.  All in all it's a very enjoyable site and podcast, and I hope they can keep it up.

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 13

Not quite sure.  Garbage compactor droid?

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 12

Another minifig day.  This is one of the fighters from Hoth that was using the previous days laser cannon thing.

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 11

Not quite sure what this is, but it looks like one of the laser cannons on Hoth when they fought off the AT-AT incursion.

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 10

An AT-AT

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 9

Another minifig.  An AT-AT driver

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 8

Droid star fighter (I think)

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 7

Naboo starfighter.

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 6

One of the little droid warriors that came out of the previous days transport.

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 5

Not quite sure.  I think this is one of the carrier transport things from episode 1 that opened up with a bunch of droid soldiers in it.

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 4

This appears to be a star destroyer.

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 3

This was a little weapon rack.  It has a gungan spear and shield as well as a little catapult thing.

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 2

Day 2 is a minifig of a gungan warrior.

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 1

Today's set was the blue water craft thing from Ep 1.