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We're just relaunching in January 2012 with a new angle. DSLR Blog will be about images and their stories (we also write about other topics on Photography too). We welcome submissions from any type of photographer - from baby portraits to gut-wrentching humanitarian photography to pure art. Read our submission guidelines.
Category Archives: News and Commentary
Canon T1i Review
Hey folks, just a quick note. Jack Neubart has just published his new, user-friendly Canon T1i Review on Photocrati. Here’s a bit of what he has to say:
“Small and compact, a good choice-if you don’t mind some compromises.
I’m not really sure that Canon knows exactly what to do with this camera. It seems simple enough, judging by weight and size, but is otherwise a complex tool with lots of oomph built in. If you’re looking to move up to a digital SLR without making a heavy investment or simply want an inexpensive and lightweight DSLR that you can tool around with on your next vacation, the Rebel T1i would be a good choice.
However, don’t buy this camera if you expect to use it extensively to shoot video-HD or otherwise, as you may be disappointed. Buy it as a still digital, and use the video capture as an adjunct feature to capture special moments when a camcorder isn’t handy….”
Photography WordPress Themes
UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2011: Photocrati has completely changed their offering since this was written. They completely recoded their themes with more solid code, introduced 15 new designs that come prepackaged with the theme, introduced their own built-in gallery management, and became the first theme to introduce built-in ecommerce functionality. There’s not really anything like it out there, at least if you are looking for something based on WordPress. VISIT PHOTOCRATI
Photocrati WordPress Theme
As you know I’ve been slowly (very slowly, sometimes) working on a series of reviews of website templates for photographers. This has given me a bit of insight into the advantages and disadvantages of various kinds of solutions.
Along with the team over at Photocrati, as well as a couple teams of web designers, I contributed that insight to help design a new series of WordPress themes for photographers. I think these are now one of the best low-cost solutions on the market (I’m biased, of course). I’m not going to write a full review of the themes, since it’s hard to objectively review a product you’ve helped design. But I do want to talk about what some of the advantages are, and, yes, some of the disadvantages. I’m going to structure this like my other reviews.
Let me start by saying that we’ve converted this site and I’ve converted my own phojournalism site to the new Photocrati WordPress themes. Check them out here:
WORDPRESS PHOTOGRAPHY THEMES | DEMOS
OVERALL APPEARANCE
In my view, these templates are beautiful. They have just the look I like, which is a simple, elegant look that emphasizes the images. The rest of the site just kind of fades into the background. They use primarily whites, grays, and blacks for the background, which for me is less distracting from the images than greens/reds/oranges or other bright colors.
Let’s start with a few screenshots of the themes. Here they are:
They have the look of many flash sites, even though they are not flash. The home page is designed with one large image space that contains a flash-style slide show. The gallery pages contain rows and columns of thumbnails, which I prefer to “filmstrip” style thumbnails that require you to scroll up/down or side/side to see all the thumbnails in a gallery. Continue reading
Thank You Post
Every once in a while, it’s nice to say thanks to those who’ve supported or helped you in some way. In that spirit, I’d like to say thanks to the following folks. First, to a couple of fellow photographers:
John Mitchell, who provides great tailored photo workshops in Australia.
Gregg Lowrimore, who does some great landscape and wildlife work in Colorado.
And to some businesses that support photographers and have supported DSLRBlog or Photocrati in various ways:
FrameFit.com, which has over 32 years of experience carrying picture frames, plexiglass, mat & foamboards, plus many other picture framing items.
Delmiaco Design Studio, which provides photoshop templates & digital backdrops that are professional, customizable, press ready.
Photogenic, one of America’s leading professional photographic lighting companies since 1904, specializing in electronic flash systems for professional and amateur image makers.
Photodex ProShow, software for making breathtaking photo & video slideshows for both DVD and web.
Profiles by Rick, whose custom ICC profiles provide a great, low-cost solution for photographers who want accurate color from their printers.
i2K Quickage Panorama Software for creating great panoramas, even with no tripod, on both Mac and Windows systems.
Diversified Lab – Pro Photo Lab, which has served professional photographers since 1977 with online proofs, printing, photofinishing, albums and more.
Denevi Digital Imaging Service, which provides High quality professional scanning and DVD transfer services, including Blu-ray for great prices.
New Writers and Digital SLR Camera Reviews on Photocrati
Dear readers, sorry for the temporary absence. It’s been over ten days since the last post. I’ve been busy working on my other site, Photocrati. If you haven’t been there yet, check it out: Photocrati Photography Blog and Digital SLR Camera Reviews. We’ve recently added a gear review section and brought on Peter Burian (co-author of the National Geographic Photography Field Guide and author of numerous Magic Lantern guides to digital SLRs) as a reviewer. We’re also about to add Jack Neubart, author of the Photographer’s Exposure Handbook and at least three other books on photographic lighting, as a reviewer. They join a team of 7 other pro photographers working in diverse fields. We’ve added a Twitter account – you can follow us at www.twitter.com/photocrati – which something I’ll be doing soon on DSLR Blog as well. And we’ll be launching a forum and major photo contest sometime in the next two months.
Anyways, now that the flurry of changes is done on Photocrati, I can get back to sharing some business tips here. Up shortly: a review of Printroom.com online storefronts.
Thanks for the patience, Erick
Do you need a model release?
I’m going to try to bring simplicity to a complex question. Here’s a comprehensive legal answer in two sentences.
The General Rule: If a photo of a person, or of copyrighted or trademarked property, is used to advertise something, then the publisher of the photo needs a release.
The Privacy Exception: If you are hired to take photos of someone (say a wedding or studio shot), those photos cannot be published, even editorially, without a release.
If you really understand those sentences, then you know almost all you need to know about the legal requirements of model releases. Most of this article elaborates on these sentences above to make sure each part of it is clear. Continue reading
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Sony A850 Review
I’ve been very busy on Photocrati over the last few months, which largely explains my infrequent posts here on good old DSLRBlog. Just seven months old, Photocrati is now doing about 150,000 page views per month, which is great to see.
I just wanted to let readers here know that Peter Burian (co-author of the National Geographic Photography Field Guide and author of many of the Magic Lantern DSLR guides) has just published a review of the Sony A850. That’s one newsworthy camera. It’s the most affordable full-frame digital SLR on the marketing now, yet offers the highest available resolution on the market at 24.6 megapixels. Compare that to the D3X, which offers the same resolution but costs about $5000 more.
In any case, Peter’s review is one of the first full field test of the A850 out there. There are a few others, and you can see some at TestFreak’s Sony A850 page. It’s clear that Sony has made some dramatic advancements in it’s offerings for digital SLR enthusiasts over the last year or two. It makes me wonder if and when it would ever be possible for manufacturers like Sony, Olympus, or Pentax to challenge the behemoths, Nikon and Canon, in the digital SLR market.