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Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…

Oh ok, Mr. Martin brought it to my attention that tomorrow morning is going to be cold and rainy. Well, we’ve done that theme for a Photowalk already (heck, it’s April Showers over at the Monthly Photo Contest on the Robert’s Flickr) and I bought a pack of those happy Optech camera rain covers, so it’s not like I’m unprepared. However, we’re both thinking that Thursday’s forecast looks a lot better and only about 20F warmer.

So we’re rescheduling to Thursday morning. It’ll be nice, I think, to show up in shirtsleeves and even then I’m looking forward to showing up in shorts and sandals in a few more weeks.



I can’t shoot enough of you, Indy…

So we’re going back out into the wild environs of downtown Indianapolis for another hour Wednesday morning, April 15th. The forecast suggests a blistering 44F. Break out the sweatbands.

Thanks again for those who showed up to our last, the April 8th walk. Thanks too, to you guys who donated to the model fund. We appreciate it. So did Emily.

Given the uncertainty of the light we’re foregoing a model the coming week. There will ample opportunity in the future, I believe.

Your irrepressible webmaster, Derek, has gotten us grouped up on the Roberts Flickr. So come out, take some pictures, fix your white balance, crop your shadow or my elbow out, clone out a flagpole and clone in a line of windows, then upload some shots, and join the group.

After that, I promise you will be 100% closer to having more friends, feeling better, and having better smelling breath. How can I make such promises? I can’t. I was just hoping you’d come and hang out and take pictures anyway.

I should be showing up around ten of eight am, and we’ll be getting restless and wandery by about ten after.



PhotoWalkAbout on Flickr! Participles abound!

Alright, folks we’ve got a new group organized on Flickr for PhotoWalk/WalkAbout photos. You can get photos added to the group by joining it using your existing Flickr account and then adding from your photostream. Flickr accounts are free, like the PhotoWalks, so join up!

Don’t miss the next walk -Wednesday April 8th at 8am, because we’d all love to see your brilliant (and less brilliant) shots -not to mention brilliant (and less brilliant) faces.



Photowalk: Part Deux

Hey! There were folks out this morning! To meet Derek and me! Awesome! I can’t believe I’m still using exclamation points!

To those of you who showed up, thank you so much. As much as I enjoy Derek’s company in the streaming sunlight of early morning, it kicked my day up a notch to meet some other shooters in the area and to know people read the blog.

The farmer’s almanac says next week is going to start wet, warm up and dry out. The Weather channel is calling Wednesday the 8th as the next dry day. I’m eyeballing Tuesday (Apr 7) or Wednesday (Apr 8) for the next walk.

Lacking the software on my work terminal (and a long enough lunch) to process my photos from the morning (I shoot RAW to avoid worrying about white balance and the niceties of over/underexposure), I don’t have any to add right now but I will hopefully get some up later in the week.

Derek’s vacationing today, but nevertheless made an appearance for the Photowalk. This week I’ll try to work with him on coordinating a section of our Flickr account for participants in the weekly Photowalks to submit their catch.

Of those who attended, people brought a couple of Nikon bodies, a Canon Rebel XSi with the attached BG-E5, and I think a Tamron lens or two.

Neat!

Keep an eye on the Indy Photo Calendar for updates, and feel free to email me any photo-related events to add to the calendar. nhenry (at) robertsimaging.com.



Our Second Photo Contest

Photo Contest: Autumn

Just a reminder to everyone: tomorrow night is the last night for submissions to our second photo contest, and your chance to win a FREE 16 x 20″ print of your shot. We’ve had a lot of good submissions so far, ranging from everything to point-and-shoot Panasonic digital cameras through larger Nikon digital SLR cameras. So, no matter what you shoot, get out there tonight, or look through your hard drive, and find us a shot that you think captures the theme of “Autumn.”

More details can be found here. I’ll accept any submissions I find waiting in my email box when I get back in Monday morning at 9AM EST.



Mirror Lenses, Apparently Not Dead

Sigma 200-500mm f2.8It’s been a series of odd coincidences around here lately. First off, Nick was taking an order for one of the more exotic of Canon lenses, the 800mm f5.6, so we were talking about exotic lenses in general and the big giants, like the Sigma 200-500 f/2.8 (a piddling 34.6 lbs for over 2 feet of lens. It needs its own battery. No, really) and my favorite big honking lens of all time, the Canon 5200mm f14 (pictures and a copy of the brochure page here, here, and here). Supposedly it had a working range of 18-32 miles and came with spotting scopes. Nice. This sucker reports to have been a very pocketable 220 lbs and 75.6″ long. Now, a lens taller than most adult men might sound massive, but if you stop to do some quick math and figure out that a 5200mm lens should be around 17 feet long, you might not find 75.6″ so bad.

It was a mirror lens, using mirrors in addition to glass elements to ‘fold’ light inside the lens, by first sending it to the back of the lens, then back up to a small mirror in the middle of the front element, and then finally sending it back to the sensor.

Then, the day after that, Jody was surprised to hear new announcements for mirror lenses (which have no aperture controls, you get one fixed aperture and need ND filters past that).

500mm f8 ReflexThen, today, I was reviewing the current Sony instant rebates, and saw the 500mm f8 Reflex sitting down in our Sony lenses. Apparently, if you buy Sony Alpha cameras you’ll find yourself in the unique position of having an available autofocus mirror lens, giving a fieldof view equivalent to a lens three times longer than it actually is.

Will it rival that $11,000 Canon for quality? No, but hey, for under $700 bucks and for it’s tiny size (well, compared to optically formulated 500′s), it’s going to be hard to beat. Don’t forget on any Alpha other than the A900 you’ll have a 1.5x crop making it a 750mm lens which is only about 5″ long.



New Photo Contest

November's Theme: Fall

It’s the end of the month, and as such we’re closing the doors on our first ever photo contest at midnight. Our first theme, Motorcycles, was a huge success and you can see all the submissions here.

It’s practically November now, and to make us feel better about the onsetting chill here in the Midwest, our new theme is Autumn. So, grab your camera–be it an EOS Rebel, a Nikon Coolpix camera, or a Sony Alpha 900– and go shoot us autumn through your eyes. The winner gets their shot printed poster-sized on our premium photo paper, perfect for framing and showing off.

For more info on our photo contests, see this page.

To check out Roberts Flickr, go to http://www.flickr.com/robertsimaging



Eye-Fi with My Little Eye

OK, so, the other day I had to design us a news blast about a boatload of Sandisk cards that just dropped in price, and today I put a WebBuster up featuring a close-out deal on a Kingston compact flash card, so apparently it’s memory card week here in the web department. And, so long as it is, I might as well talk about another of those weird little niche proucts I love so much.

In this case: the Eye-Fi Explore.

Now, as some of you are probably aware, Eye-Fi is a line of SD memory cards with built-in wi-fi capabilities. I’ll be honest, this never really excited me (I’m way too lazy to deal with that level of wireless mojo in my life). But, the Explore, well, that’s somewhat different.

Eye-Fi Explore
The Explore is currently the top dog in their little line-up, and I kinda like it because it’s not just a one-trick pony like the other Eye-Fis. No siree, this card is a bona-fide two trick pony. But, never fear, the second trick is good. See, the Explore adds geo-tagging to the mix. Ah, see, now it becomes interesting. Who cares if you need the wi-fi, or that it’s only a standard speed card (which seems downright humdrum compared to some Class 6 Sandisk SD memory cards), it’s a 130 buck GPS tagging module for any SD-using camera (which is, near as I can tell, every camera except Olympus and Sony). Just pop it in, shoot away, and then I think there’s some software that lets your computer chew through the data and tag the files with the exact geological location in which you shot them. That doesn’t sound like a bad deal if you’re going to be doing a lot of nature photography, or if you’re just really into seeing everywhere you’ve been.

So, there you have it, another neat little gimmick product to fill a void you didn’t even know you had until I pointed it out. Well, more than likely didn’t have. For those of you who were already asking “However will I be able to know exactly where I was when I uploaded that shot to my Flickr,” well, I suppose now you know.



Monthly Photo Contests

Since our Indy Airshow Flickr was such a great success, Roberts is now pleased to be running a Monthly Photo Contest over on our main site. For any of you who check this blog instead, here’s the skippy:

Each month we’ll announce a new theme for submissions. You, dear readers, then submit photos for this. We will consider two photos from each person in a contest, and the winning photo will be printed poster size and sent to the photographer. Plus, entrants get the publicity of being seen on our Flickr. Aaand Roberts respects your rights to market, sell, distribute, and otherwise keep the copyright on your photos. It’s a no-lose situation, really.

In honor of Indianapolis hosting the MotoGP for the first time ever, the first theme is motorcycles. So, grab those compact flash cards (or SD memory cards, whichever), grab your camera and go rock the motorcycle scene.

And then send us your best.

Got ideas for future themes? You bet we’d love to hear them. Leave me some in the comments, and I’ll jot’em down.




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