Canon EF 28 mm f/2.8 IS USM

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Fresh Bridal Experience on February 26, 2012 Offers Atlanta Brides and Grooms a “Fresh” Approach to Planning their Big Day

Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) February 22, 2012

Created and designed by wedding planner and past blushing bride, Kathy Grate, Owner of Divine Occasions, Fresh Bridal Experience is not your typical big bridal show. Its a great boutique planning event for couples to have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with a hand-picked team of Atlantas finest wedding professionals in a perfect location for both a wedding and reception.

As a former bride, I understand and know it can be overwhelming to plan a wedding. I have personally had the experience of attending big bridal planning events in the past only to be left with more feelings of being overwhelmed! said event creator, Kathy Grate. Thats why I am happy to present an intimate yet entertaining experience for couples.

On February 26th, Fresh Bridal Experience will offer wedding design vignettes to help brides and grooms gather ideas to personalize their wedding celebration! In addition, couples will enjoy specialty cocktails, tasty BIG day bites and appetizers, beauty services, photography, videography, an interactive photo booth and a bridal fashion presentation by featured couture designer, Atlanta based company, Knot Couture.

Great giveaways are in-store and one lucky couple will win a 4 day/3 night all-inclusive honeymoon to the Coconut Bay Resort & Spa in St. Lucia. Divine Occasions Fresh Bridal Experience sponsors to assist in making the best boutique bridal event Atlanta has seen: Coconut Bay Resort & Spa St. Lucia, Knot Couture, Ambient + Studio, Cindy Brown Photography, LT Travel Connection, Honeysuckle Gelato, The Perfect Bartender, Sweet Infinity Cakes, Jay Miller Fitness, Drunk Uncle Productions, Three Pennies Photography, Drea James Design, RFA Catering, Four Inch Fold Vintage Rentals and Studio One Entertainment.

Tickets for Fresh Bridal Experience are available for $ 5 with promo-code: fresh2012 in advance on the website: http://www.freshbridalexperience.com. Doors are open 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 26, 2012. Brides and grooms are encouraged to follow Fresh Bridal Experience on twitter @freshbridalatl and for continuous updates and tips, find us on Facebook at Fresh Bridal Experience.

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Fujifilm X10 Review

Described as an ‘enthusiast camera’, this one took me quite by surprise. With a new camera for review I normally take it out of its box, tap a few buttons, power up, then delve deeper.

So where was the ‘on’ button? Ain’t none.

You get the thing to come alive by manually rolling the lens barrel anti-clockwise from OFF to any of the lens settings within its 28-112mm range (as a 35 SLR equivalent). Simple huh!

As a natural successor to the well-received X100, the retro-styled, non-interchangeable lens X10 has a high degree of elegance, completely black with milled aluminium controls picked out in white; it’s easy to hold, thanks to the speed grip at right and is easy to pocket with power off (and lens closed of course!). The upper control deck and base is made from die-cast magnesium alloy. The covering is textured faux leather with a speed grip bump at right. The camera feels good in the hand.

Fujifilm X10 Features

The bare bones approach continues when you look around the rest of the camera: top deck is the mode dial, shutter button and exposure compensation plus a teeny wheeny Fn button which takes you directly to choice of image size and quality, AF mode, ISO setting etc; at rear is the usual four way jog wheel, the menu button plus AE, AF and white balance buttons; then, tucked away in the lower right hand corner is a dedicated RAW button, if you should need to instantly capture in that file format.

The lens is a 4x Fujinon f2-2.8 zoom, viewed through a top-mounted optical viewfinder (hurrah!) and a bright 7.1cm LCD screen.

Maximum image size is 4000×3000 pixels, leading to a 34x25cm print. Movies can be shot in Motion JPEG and 1920×1080 pixels.

And then you get down to the nitty gritty and why you should take the X10 very seriously.

On the mode dial are two settings: EXR and Adv.(Advanced)

In EXR mode the camera not only automatically selects the scene mode according to the subject before the lens it also detects whether it’s a ‘people’ shot, looking for movement and tricky backlighting. This mode is a step above most other auto systems.

Go to Adv. mode and you can enjoy you enjoy the Motion Panorama function that operates in similar fashion to Sony’s approach by capturing the pano sections as you pan across the scene, then stitches them together internally. How about an 11,520×1080 pixel image? In 120, 180 and 360 degree span, left to right, up or down. Simply ‘mazing!

In Adv. there’s also a Pro Focus mode that takes up to three shots with varying focus on the background.

Move to Pro-Light and you see the camera take four shots, which it then combines to make a single photograph. Similar to the HDR function found on other cameras, this will help to reduce image noise and blurr respectively in poor light or when using the zoom at the tele end.

Additionally, there is a Noise Reduction Adjustment function to set the strength of noise reduction at five different levels according to the users’ emphasis on whether to prioritise high resolution or low noise.

Distortion

Both the wide and tele ends of the zoom gave a clean performance in terms of distortion. No barrels, no pincushions! The odd thing was that, in bright conditions, the camera took about a second to drop from an over- to a correctly-exposed LCD display. Very odd!

Startup

A bit sluggish, the X10 could only take its first shot 2-3 seconds after power up; subsequent shots: about a second apart.

Fujifilm X10 ISO Tests

ISO 3200: still useable.

ISO 6400: surprisingly still useable, with an amount of noise.

ISO 12,800: we’re on the edge of a cliff here, with noise visible and the image blocking up.
The images were clean right up to ISO 1600 and even then, there was only a small amount of noise visible.

Take note: ISO 6400 and 12,800 shots are reduced in size to 2816×2112 and 2048×1536 pixels respectively.

However, as you can see from the daylight street shot below, certain subjects can disguise the artefacts, especially those without large areas of a single tone. For the record, this ISO 12,800 shot was taken at f9 and 1/3373 second.

Fujifilm X10 Verdict

Quality: Excellent; some of the best pictures I’ve taken with a compact digicam.

Why you’d buy the X10: it feels like a ‘real’ camera; excellent menu display; the tilt indicator is a help.

Why you wouldn’t: you want a longer zoom range; you want an LCD screen that tilts.
Helluva good camera! Helluva good price!

Fujifilm X10 Specifications

Image Sensor: 12 million effective pixels.
Metering: Multizone, averaging, spot.
Lens: Fujinon f2-2.8/7.1-28.4mm (28-112mm 35 SLR equivalent).
Exposure Modes: Program AE, shutter and aperture priority, manual.
Sensor: 16.9 EXR CMOS.
Shutter Speed: 30 to 1/4000 second.
Continuous Shooting: 7fps at full size.
Memory: SD/SDHC/SDXC cards plus 26MB internal memory.
Image Sizes (pixels): 4000×3000 to 1536×1536. Motion panoramas: up to 11,520×1080 pixels. Movies: 1280x720p, 1280×720, 640×480 at 30fps, 640×480 at 70 fps, 320×240 at 120 fps, 320×112 at 200 fps.
Viewfinder: Optical plus 7.1cm LCD screen (460,000 pixels).
File Formats: JPEG, RAW, JPEG+RAW, Motion JPEG.
Colour Space: sRGB, Adobe RGB.
ISO Sensitivity: Auto, 100 to 12,800.
Interface: USB 2.0, AV, HDMI mini.
Power: Rechargeable lithium ion battery, DC input.
Dimensions: 117×69.6×56.8 WHDmm.
Weight: 350 g (inc battery and card).
Price: Get a price on the Fujifilm X10 at Amazon.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

Fujifilm X10 Review

Digital Photography School

Less than 24 Hours Left to Save 33% on our New Post Processing Guide

One month ago we launched our brand new volume in our ‘Photo Nuts’ library of eBooks with Photo Nuts and Post: a Guide to Post Processing.

The month since launch has been an exciting time for the team at dPS HQ. Not only have their been some very kind reviews written about the eBook – we’re also excited to finally have our vision of 3 Photo Nuts eBooks all together at last!

So now we have:

• Photo Nuts and Bolts – all about knowing how your camera works in order to take control of it
• Photo Nuts and Shots – tools and techniques for getting more creative with your photography
• Photo Nuts and Post – exploring what to do with those images you take once they leave your camera

So now we’ve got you covered – from start to finish of the shooting process.

24 Hours to Go to Save 33% and Win a Great Prize

When we launched our new Photo Nuts and Post we introduced it with the opportunity to grab it at a 33% discount ($ 19.99 USD instead of $ 29.99). This discount ends in just under 24 hours at midnight on 21 February (US Eastern time).

In addition to the discount we’re also running a great little competition where one lucky buyer of the eBook will win their choice of one of the following:

• a Canon 60D DSLR with 18-135mm lens – worth $ 1180 USD
• a 21.5 inch Apple iMac (2.5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 with 500GB Hard Drive) – worth $ 1199 USD
• Adobe Photoshop CS5 and a 16GB Wifi iPad 2 – worth $ 1200 USD

This winner will be drawn at random from buyers of the eBook after midnight on 21st also.

So if you’re looking to improve your post processing knowledge and skills – now is the time to pick up your copy – Grab your Copy Here Today.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

Less than 24 Hours Left to Save 33% on our New Post Processing Guide

Digital Photography School

Point101 Launch Giclee Website for Budding Photographers and Illustrators

London (PRWEB UK) 16 February 2012

Gicl

Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8 L II USM

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New Year, New You Already In Jeopardy, As Brits Quit The Gym Before The Month Is Out

(PRWEB UK) 26 January 2012

More than two thirds of people started the New Year with the greatest of intentions and joined a gym; a New Year, a New You. Whilst it seemed like a great idea to start with, despite all best intentions new research, from British Military Fitness, has shown that by the end of January, over a third of those who joined will have quietly called up and cancelled their sparkly new gym membership before they have even worked up a sweat. Stats show that its men letting the side down with 59% quitting their fitness regime in January versus 15% of women.

Research from British Military Fitness, the UKs biggest provider of outdoor fitness classes has shown that many people fall at the first hurdle when it comes to exercise. And its not surprising – an astounding three quarters of people feel they need motivating in order to exercise and that they dont have enough get up and go on their own. Shockingly a massive four in five of Brits who do make it as far as the treadmill will first consider giving up after a measly 20 minutes of exercise.

With fans including TV presenter Amanda Byram (Total Wipeout, Big Breakfast), British Military Fitness are considered by many to be the perfect remedy to those that feel alone and lack motivation when exercising. Amanda says; “I’m one of the thousands of people around the UK that finds it hard to keep motivated when it comes to exercise. Group training means that even when you’re feeling tired there is always a friendly face to keep you going!”

Jim Preece of British Military Fitness notes that the statistics around Brits lacking motivation when signing up to gyms dont really surprise him. The nature of a group workout combats the issue of lacking motivation as fellow members are on hand to give encouragement; plus our highly trained instructors ensure that once you are in the park, theyll do the rest and help you achieve your goals.

Quick facts

More than two thirds of Brits (68%) made a New Year resolution to get fit
Over a third (37%)of those that signed up for a gym membership will quit by the end of January
Three quarters of people feel they need motivating in order to exercise
Four in five of us want to give up after just 20 minutes of exercise

For more information, photography or to arrange a trial please contact Joel Zietcer at

Shine Communications on 020 7100 7100 or email joel(dot)zietcer(at)shinecom(dot)com

Note to the editor

How to Create Contact Sheets in Lightroom

Historically a contact sheet was a page of images each printed at the same size as the film negative – they were used as a reference for the images on the film roll. They were called contact sheets because the film was placed in close contact with the paper when printing them.

These days the term contact sheet loosely means an arrangement of multiple, small, same size images on a single page usually with some identifying information such as the image filename placed under the image. The purpose is to provide reference to a larger number of images. You may print them to keep or give to a client as a catalog of the images from a shoot, for example.

You can create a contact sheet inside Lightroom and here’s how to do it:

Select a Template

Start by selecting the folder or the collection that contains the images that you want to add to the contact sheet.

Launch the Print module and, from the Template Browser, select one of the contact sheet options. There are a few grid layouts including two with square image cells – a 4 x 8, and a 5 x 8. There are two with landscape orientation cells – one 5 x 9, and one 5 x 11.

I chose the 5 x 8 one.

Set up the Print Job

If you plan to ‘print’ the contact sheet to a jpg file, from the Print Job panel on the right of the screen, choose Print to JPG File. As contact sheets are just that – a contact sheet and not full scale images – select to use Draft Mode Printing to speed up their creation.

The page dimensions will be preset for 8.5 x 11in. You can set your own Custom File Dimensions but increasing the size of the page simply changes the page size not the size of the cells – you have to adjust them separately.

Adding Images

If you have only one image selected in the Filmstrip then the contact sheet will only display one image.

You’ll need to select all the images on the filmstrip to add them to the contact sheet. To do this, either click on the first image and Shift + Click on the last or select All Filmstrip Photos from the Use: list on the toolbar. If the Toolbar is not visible, press T to display it. You can also select Flagged photos, if desired.

The Toolbar shows you how many pages you will use and you can click the arrow keys on the toolbar to navigate the pages.

Add Image Captions

To add information below the images, from the Page panel on the right, select the Photo Info checkbox and choose the field to display. You can use one of the preset options such as Caption, Date, or Filename or click Edit to create your own field.

In the Text Template Editor, you can access to fields such as the filename, a sequential numbering or date as well as EXIF and IPTC data. You can also type your own custom text to create detailed photo info to add to the contact sheet. Here I typed some text, added a sequential number and the filename.

Customize the Contact Sheet

The template contact sheets are a starting point but you do not need to strictly adhere to their design if you don’t want to and they can be easily customized.

For example, from the layout panel if you click the Keep Square checkbox you will find that in some layouts your images may change orientation so the page will be a mix of portrait and landscape images.

You can adjust the maximum cell size and width using the Cell Size Height and Width sliders in the Layout panel. As you adjust the cell size, notice that the Cell Spacing values will change.

You can decrease the number of rows and/or columns using the Page Grid options. By decreasing the number of rows or columns, you can increase the cell size.

Adjusting Margins

If you increase the Bottom or Top margin you can give yourself room to, for example, place an Identity Plate on the page.

Here I’ve reduced the number of rows and increased the bottom margin and added an Identity Plate from the Page panel options. In the Page panel, select the Identity Plate checkbox and then select the Identity Plate to use.

The Identity Plate will appear, by default, in the middle of the page so drag it into position on the page. Adjust its scale by dragging on the Scale slider.

You can adjust its Opacity if desired and, if it is a text identity plate (rather than a graphic), you can also select Override Color to make it any color you like.

Print the Result

When you’re done, you’re ready to output the result. If you selected to print to a JPG file click Print to File and type a name for the file and select a location for them. The pages will be printed to a JPG file and if there are more than one they will be sequentially numbered.

Print to PDF

If you want to print to a PDF on a Windows machine you will need to have a PDF printer driver installed such as Adobe PDF or one you have downloaded from the web.

Select Page Setup, select the pdf printer driver and configure the page size so it matches the template size – such as letter paper portrait orientation. Then set the Print to: option in the Print Job panel to printer and click Print to print to a pdf.

Save the Template

If you have customized a template and want to be able to use it again in future, save the design as a new template.

Click the plus symbol opposite the Template Browser panel header and type a name for your template. You can store it in User Templates or create a new folder for it. Click to create it.

In future you can save yourself the time setting up the template by starting with your customized version.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

How to Create Contact Sheets in Lightroom

Digital Photography School

Nikon D800 36MP full frame camera

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DAWN: Weekly Photography Challenge

Earlier today we posted 24 Beautiful Dawn Images – with the hope of giving you a little inspiration to set those alarm clocks a little earlier this week and to get out at – or before – sunrise to take some dawn images of your own.

So let’s make ‘Dawn’ the theme for this weeks photography challenge.

One morning this week – try to get out a little early and see what you can come up with!

Once you’ve selected the ‘Dawn’ image that you’d like to share – upload it to your favourite photo sharing site or blog and either share a link to it or – embed them in the comments using the our new tool to do so.

If you tag your photos on Flickr, Instagram, Twitter or other sites with Tagging tag them as #DPSDAWN to help others find them. Linking back to this page might also help others know what you’re doing so that they can share in the fun.

Also – don’t forget to check out some of the great shots posted in last weeks challenge – Abandoned challenge where there were some great shots submitted.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

DAWN: Weekly Photography Challenge

Digital Photography School

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