Nikon D7000 First Impressions

After nearly 6 years with my trusty D50 I plumped for a tasty new D7000 over Christmas. So I’ve gone from a 6MP dslr to a 16MP! Not to mention the fact the new camera has full HD video recording capabilities (1080p 1920x1080px), a huge 3″ LCD screen and numerous other improvements.

But I’m not here to compare the two cameras, they are worlds apart in terms of technology and age. The D50 was great back in the day but I wanted to say a few words on the new Nikon.

Due to the myriad new features today’s cameras have it is taking me a while to get to grips with the D7000. The D50 was relatively simple compared tot his new beast. There are tons of buttons all over the D7000 and after a quick play I found the need to RTFM! Thankfully Nikon have provided a great manual that covers just about everything you need to know about the D7000. In fact, it’s going to take me a while to get through it all. Right now I’m dipping in when I find myself flummoxed by something the camera does, or does not do!

Thanks to the bad weather of the British winter I’ve been unable to do much testing outside but the results are very impressive for indoor use. The noise is very well handled when viewed in Lightroom and Photoshop even when the scene requires some high ISO. The D7000 goes up to 6400 with H1 and H2 equivalent boosting it to ISO 12,800/25,600. That’s pretty sweet. I’ve set mine to limit to 3200 as anything above that is going to require some serious noise reduction and will not print well. I sell my work to interior designers and home owners so it needs to be good quality when printed large on canvas or acrylic.

I like the twin SD card slots, very handy when out and about. Not only can you choose to have the second one written to when the first fills up, but you can have one record RAW whilst the other writes jpg versions. Smart!

Battery life is incredible. I haven’t had to charge it yet and I’ve done hundreds of shots – and video recording of my little boy. As any good photographer will tell you though, yo should always have a charged battery backup so I bought one from Amazon which was a great price for a genuine battery.

I can see the Nikon D7000 is going to be a great piece of kit over the coming years. I would have liked the flip out screen the D5100 has but it’s about the only thing I’d want that it doesn’t have! Superb build and amazing features make the D7000 one of the best cameras around for the price. Mine was £850 for the body, just before Christmas. Looking now I can see they are £950.

5 Stylish Ways To Print Your Photos

When you are getting to the stage of actually selling your photographic work to friends, family and customers you need to make the most of the printing media available to ensure you make that sale. The customer needs to have your picture printed in a way that will suit their interior decor so take a look at these 5 ways to maximise print sales.

1. Poster Prints
This is a popular way to offer your work and probably the most cost effective. If you don’t have a good printer yourself you can simply use an online printer such as www.photobox.co.uk to get the job done. The downsides to poster prints are that the customer has to then get them framed and there may not be enough profit margin in it for you.

2. Canvas Prints
Canvases have become very popular over the last decade and look really great on a suitable wall space. They are printed on canvas material and wrapped around a wooden frame of stretcher bars which are then ready to hang. Because of the frame they stand away from the wall and can look stunning. You will find many canvas printers online or you can even buy canvas kits to do it yourself.

3. Triptych Canvas Prints
Triptych canvases are where the image is split across 3 canvas panels (also known as ‘split frame canvases’). These again are very popular but will cost a lot more to make as essentially you are having 3 canvases printed. The bonus is that for a lot of images they look very dramatic and can provide a real focus point for the room. Don’t expect to be able to match the prices customers can find in shop retailers like Next though. They get their prints mass produced in foreign countries which brings their prices down immensely. Printing triptych canvas art on-demand is costly but some customer are willing to pay for it. The quality will be much higher too.

4. Acrylic Prints
Photos on acrylic are a relatively new way to display your work. There are two methods you will find online. Some companies like to print directly onto acrylic sheets whilst some prefer to print on photo paper and bond this to the back of the acrylic. There are pros and cons for both, and one might work better with certain images. Acrylic is like perspex, and they are usually finished off with nice contemporary fixing posts in each corner. The beauty of acrylic prints is they look so glossy behind the acrylic that it makes the picture stand out wonderfully, creating a punchy, modern piece of wall art.

5. Acrylic Photo Blocks
If you want to offer your clients or friends a funky new alternative to the age-old framed print then photo blocks are just the ticket. These are freestanding chunky acrylic blocks that have the photo bonded to the rear section. The thickness of the blocks helps create a 3D style to the image as the light wraps the image around the sides of the artwork. As with acrylic wall prints, these are punchy, contemporary and bright prints.

If you are looking for a company in the UK who can offer all these print options then try Fotoviva Art Prints and ask them for a bespoke quote. They offer a friendly and professional service for photographers across the country.

So now you have some inspiring print options to show to your customers which will help you sell more of your images. Get some prints made and see for yourself how your photographs look on these different print medias.

Are Free Websites Worth It?

In a word, no!  What you get with free websites is peanuts. Except of course the sublime WordPress which has a vibrant community attached to it that can ensure great exposure for your site.

However, other free service providers will usually be subdomains or use redirect scripts to ensure you receive very little in the way of promotion or search engine ranking.

Every business these days needs a website, especially photographers. It’s such a great way to show off your photography with beautiful gallery slideshows. Just don’t waste time building your business website on free template driven drivel. Spend a bit and do it properly. There’s nothing worse than a photography website that looks amateurish. This makes you look like you don’t really care about your photography business.

What you can do with any free website you have is direct it to your real site. I have done this in a few places. My ISP offers free webspace. I have directed it to my canvas print site and again to my acrylic printing site (note the use of anchor text which helps the search engines link the sites together and understand what they are about).

So use your available resources wisely. They won’t have a great impact but every little bit helps in the grand scheme of things.

Moodaholic Photography

I’ve just come across a photographer from Denmark who has a really great collection of images in his portfolio. Having spent a while looking through his collection at Moodaholic I found his style refreshing and inspiring. In his own words:

“The purpose of my photoblog is to maintain a fair playground with my own rules. The rules do shift over time. Lately the rules are to try making the most in camera on location, though all possible adjustment through RAW is allowed – just like the old dark room.”

He’s won a few photography awards including the Best European Photoblog at the Photoblog Awards 2006, the Best Western European Photoblog at the 2007 Photobloggies and a Weekly Pic-k award over on VFXY Photos.

Digging out the old photo gems

This is a photo I took a few years back on an early morning walk down to the river – I call it Riverline. To me this is one of those hidden gems you find as a photographer that you come across in your vast image library that may have been forgotten.

I really like this photograph – the colours and subdued and the fogginess of the scene adds to the atmosphere of the picture. The composition is good and the simpleness of the scene strikes me. I once did  a canvas print of this for a customer and it looked really nice. What do you think of it? Perhaps a bit more saturation would help? Do you have any images you have forgotten that are worth digging out?

Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in all the new images you take as a photographer, especially if you don’t have a good system to keep them all organised.

More Venice Photography

Venice in Blue

Continuing along the Venice and Italy theme of recent posts, here is my latest photographic work which shows a heavily textured scene, typical of Venice in every respect.

This photographic work is called ‘Venice in Blue‘ and was taken on my recent travels to the heart of the Italian city in April. Featuring the classic gondolas in their moorings and the wonderful Venetian architecture in the background, this photograph sums up the majesty and atmosphere of Venice.

I have the original RAW file still but these days I get more enjoyment from creating images that have an artistic processing, especially with scenes like this one. Venice is an artistic city so it is a fine way to compliment it with some nice textures, colours and filter work in Photoshop. It helps capture the essence and atmosphere that you feel when wandering around Venice. I hope you are enjoying the photography.

Chasing The Sun

One thing that bugs me as a photographer is the time wasted looking for that perfect shot, or any decent shot for that matter. Last night was one perfect example. A few days ago I had driven past a field of hay bales that had beautiful Bredon Hill in the background. It would have made a great picture but I didn’t have my camera with me and the lighting wasn’t good enough.

So last night the colours in the sky were beginning to look sweet as the evening began to close in so I grabbed my camera bag and jumped in the car. The field in question was only 15 minutes drive away but as I was approaching, the sun began to drift behind possibly the only cloud in the evening sky. It’s like the sunset sucks all the remaining clouds towards it and sends the landscape into shadow. Drat.

On top of that when I reached the field I found the farmer had already taken the hay bales away, leaving nothing but a field of stubble. In shadow. Great.

Sometimes you can find a scene which is perfect for photography but other times like this, frustration is the order of the day as you chase the sun and try to catch the landscape in the beautiful golden light that makes a shot that little bit extra special. You win some you lose some. All I know is that I’ll never give up because photography is a passion that just cannot be quelled.

Organise Your Photo Searches

I’ve just come across a great site that allows you to essentially bookmark and organise photos you come across on the net. It’s called Vi.Sualize and it’s growing a nice community of art lovers who share their favourite pictures.

It’s very simple to setup, just drag an icon to your bookmark toolbar in your browser, then when you come across an image you like, click the bookmark and it allows you to name it, tag it and add it to your collection. This then also shows up in the latest section so hopefully other art lovers will see it.

You can become friends with other vi.sualize members and watch their latest findings which is a good way to find new art that you like. The images can be from a website, photo blog or anywhere on the internet. The membership is free (you would expect this) and it’s well worth a try.

Old Venice

I like Italy. No, actually I love Italy. The romance, architecture and way of life is just beautiful. Venice is one of the most stunning cities in the world, thanks to the beautiful buildings and of course it’s water ways.

I took this photograph in April this year and have only just got round to processing the RAW. That’s the trouble when you go away and come back with several hundred RAW images that need processing individually by hand, or mouse to be more exact!

As Venice has so much rich history I thought this image deserved an antique look to it so I found some creative textures which I then applied in Photoshop. A combination of 2 texture files, several filters and layer adjustments brought the desired effect, and it was shown on the DCMag website homepage for a short while so I must have done something right!

I think this represents the old Italy quite well. Venice is definitely a photographers paradise and I can’t wait to go back again. Then again, I still have some RAWs to process from last year in Florence where I got married so I need to pace myself better!

Ciao

Dreaming of Daisies

Dreaming of Daisies

This is one of my favourite art pieces I have created recently and was ‘constructed’ using two different photos of daisies, one a close-up and the other a group of daisies.

The image has many different textures added to it to create an artistic rendition of a field of daisies. The textures and effects were made in Photoshop with various filters and texture files overlaid as separate layers. These had masks applied and other filters and layer blends added which has given the piece the deep tones and rustic feel.

After getting a Photobox print to check it looked good enough I got it printed on a large canvas and it looks absolutely stunning on the wall! You can purchase this piece of art yourself as a canvas print here or even as an acrylic mount.