Archive for August, 2009

Why the SXSW panel picker is important

John / August 31, 2009 / Photography / 1 Comment

There is only a handful of days left to vote for the panels that *could* end up being presented at SXSWi next March. I’ve already outlined the panel I put together in a previous post but wanted to explain a little bit about why it’s important for your votes…even if you’re not planning on attending SXSWi, although I hope you will. I also wanted to highlight a few other people’s panels that I’m interested in attending and are just a small sampling of some of the amazing sessions and people that make SXSW as much fun and amazing as it is.

First of all, for the first time that I can remember, there is a now a Hot Ideas index of the popularly voted sessions. These are the sessions that appear to be the most popular although it’s unofficial. There are some pretty big names in that list all with very interesting topics, or at least internet famous panelists that will help ensure a great turnout to their panel.

Some friends that are putting together some compelling panel programming this year include:

Josh Babetski, an evangelist for Mapquest (whom I met a couple years ago at SXSWi) has pulled together what looks like a stellar lineup of folks to talk about the future of mobile experiences now that many devices we use are all location & socially aware.
Rob Cottingham has proposed to bring Teh Funny to Austin…I had the pleasure of seeing this earlier this year at Northern Voice and can only imagine how Rob will bring the audience to tears (of joy) if he gets a chance. Get a peak at his presentation from NV here
Dave Olson who’s proposing a panel about Hitchhiking to the Boardroom which is the continuation of awesome that Dave brings to many events, including SXSW of which I’ve attended with him for the past couple of years. Dave also has posted an awesome roundup of panels you might be interested in voting for
Adele McAlear, whom I also met in Austin a couple years ago, has proposed a panel whose topic has hit close to home a little too much lately – Posts Mortem: Death and Digital Legacy
Joining Dave on another panel submission is my SXSW jedi master, Kris Krug (whom I actually met in Austin four years ago, not in Vancouver if you can believe it) along with the amazing Bev Davies to talk about Rock’n'Roll Photography.
Like Kris, I also met Robert Scales in Austin during my first trip to SXSW and this year he’s proposed a fascinating panel discussing Social Media and the Olympics which I got a preview of at Northern Voice.
My pals over at Sixty4Media aren’t proposing a panel, but have a great list of Vancouver folks proposing panels – hopefully they will make their way to Austin next year too

As you can see from this list, l know a lot of great people that have amazing panel ideas and submissions…one thing that really makes SXSW so special is that there are literally thousands of other people you and I don’t know attending that have equally amazing ideas about stuff that interests you. You can’t walk around the conference and not meet new people or experience new ideas…some would suggest that just walking around the conference is better than actually attending the panels. I wouldn’t disagree.

Voting closes on September 4th so if you haven’t already, please vote for my panel….I know that kind of sounds like that video professor guy on tv…but time is running out and I promise not to teach you how to use Excel.

Where should I buy my new camera from?

John / August 26, 2009 / Hardware, Photography / 7 Comments

As a follow up post to my which camera should I buy post, I thought it might be a good idea to give some tips as to where to buy that camera, now that you’ve decided what you want to get.

These are some simple tips that I use when I want to buy camera gear. There are lots of factors that can sway where you should buy so hopefully this list will give you a few pointers.

ask your friends first
Seems simple enough but camera gear, like computer gear is constantly changing and your friends may want to upgrade so you could score a deal on their used, but still awesome gear.
buy your gear in the country you live in
Sure, Amazon or Costco in the US has a better deal on that DSLR than what you can get in Canada, but keep in mind many camera companies don’t have worldwide warranties. If you need service, you may need to send the camera back to the country it was sold in for service. You’ll have to weigh the cost/benefit of saving some money on the upfront purchase versus dealing with cross border issues if you have a problem – for me, my DSLR camera bodies are bought at home but I’m open to deals anywhere for lenses or smaller accessories
If you decide to cross a border to get a deal, know your options
Did you know that Oregon has no sales tax? So if you bought say a fisheye lens back when the Canadian dollar was at par, you’d save a ton of money in the deal in taxes and exchange.
Staying within Canada, consider buying online from places in another province
I like Henry’s since they only charge sales tax in Ontario. Plus they sell Apple products and quite often have free shipping promotions. Alberta also doesn’t have provincial sales tax.
Don’t be afraid to pricematch
Many big stores these days have some kind of pricematching scheme with their competitors – find a deal at one place and if you’re lucky, another place will have a “We’ll beat competitor’s price by X% deal” where you can potentially get 5-15% more off the sale price if you play your cards right
What about big chain versus small camera store?
That’s a little tougher to answer. Generally you’ll get way better service at the smaller camera store but their prices are usually higher. Big chain stores tend not to have the variety of gear that the smaller stores do and again, like electronic and computer items, generally don’t have the knowledgeable sales staff. Supporting the little guy is always preferred but sometimes the mighty dollar wins the day. Many smaller places also offer some bonuses that the big guys don’t like free classes (instore) on how to use your new purchase for example.
Price protection
Like pricematching, be sure to find out if the store you decide to buy from has some for of price protection. It’s not uncommon for the big chain stores to have sales that rotate during a month. So you buy the camera one week and then two weeks later it’s on sale for $100s off – as long as you have the receipt, you should be able to get that cash back. Be diligent, even after you’ve made your purchase to check the flyers…at least until the window of opportunity closes
What about eBay and Craigslist?
If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I buy a lot of gear from eBay – usually it’s offshore, sometimes its knockoff but it’s always cheap(er). It really depends on what you’re looking for. Personally, I don’t like buying camera gear second hand due to it’s delicate nature – you don’t know how many times that lens has been dropped. But for other things like cables, filters, etc, go crazy. If nothing else, eBay is usually a great resource to get more information about something you’re interested in as many of the sellers have incredibly detailed listings that answers questions the manufacturers websites don’t always.
Buy with a credit card
No matter where you buy it from, use a credit card, preferably you have one that extends the warranty (usually doubling the manufacturers warranty) and one that protects your purchase right out of the gate from theft or damage. If you buy online, this also protects you from scams although you probably won’t have a choice but to pay via credit card online (avoid PayPal if possible as you won’t have the same level of protection as you get with a credit card). Check the fine print or call your card provider to know what your card entitles you to. My experience with extended warranties via credit card has been excellent although it was for a computer repair, not camera gear.

Hopefully these tips help you have an awesome buying experience getting your new gear!

UPDATE: John Goldsmith (aka Waxy Poetic) reminded me on Twitter about PhotoPrice.ca which shows you the current prices on just about every piece of camera gear you’d want to buy…including US prices from a number of locations. Check there first!

Powell Street Photowalk

John / August 26, 2009 / Photography / 2 Comments

This past weekend, there was a photowalk along Powell Street. It was the first of hopefully many that a group on Facebook is organizing. My pal Scott is one of the admins. We hope to have these every couple of weeks so if you’re interested, make sure you join the group to keep in the loop for upcoming walks. The next one is this Friday night so you’ll want to bring a tripod for some long exposures.

We wondered around Powell Street (starting at the bottom of Victoria) and meandered around the alley’s and sidestreets for about 3 hours.

Here’s a few of my favs from the walk:

You can see all the photos on Flickr that I’ve tagged from this photowalk.

iPhone camera is number one on Flickr

John / August 18, 2009 / Media, Photography / 1 Comment

Today, Wired.com posted an article about the iPhone surpassing all other cameras to take the top spot on my favorite photo sharing website, Flickr. This isn’t surprising to me…I have over a thousand photos taken with the iPhone on there alone.

Even cooler than that though was the fact they used one of my photos, with attribution, of the iPhone in the article:

and on the homepage of Wired.com:

The geek in me is happy today…even if the photographer in me wishes they used a better photo ;)

Zombies invade Vancouver

John / August 15, 2009 / Photography / 2 Comments

I guess it was inevitable…first I spent some time in the morgue, now Zombies have taken over downtown Vancouver. Here’s some of my photos from the annual Zombie Walk that appears to be very popular the world over.

Kimli asked me to shoot some photos of the zombies participating in the Thrill the World Vancouver dance event coming up October 24. Nothing sets the scene for a zombie walk better than a little Thriller blasting from a boombox in a sea of undead.

View my whole Zombie set on Flickr.

Update: I had a pile of unused shots from the Thriller dance so I stitched them together and made a little video:

Just another day in the morgue

John / August 9, 2009 / Photography / 8 Comments

What do you get when two photographers look for a way to play around with all their camera gear? They plan a photoshoot of course! One knows someone with a great location to shoot in, the other knows some great models.

So after a couple of weeks of planning & coordinating schedules, we spent a few hours this past weekend in the morgue of the Vancouver Police Museum and these are some of my shots that I thought turned out pretty good:

You can view the full, unretouched (aside from some cropping and B&W conversions) photoset on Flickr.

This type of shoot is the most fun since there is no pressure, just having fun shooting and playing with lots of camera gear…and weapons. I can’t wait to do more of this.

Thanks to Chuck & Barbara for being so great to work with and to Chris for lettings us run around inside the Police Museum once again.

Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard available for preorder

John / August 4, 2009 / Uncategorized / 1 Comment

Apple’s latest version of their OS X operating system, named Snow Leopard is now available for preorder at Amazon.com. It’s due to be released at the end of September.

It’s not on any Canadian sites yet for preorder but I’ll update this post when it is.
OSX Snow Leopard
It’s a pretty slick update to Leopard (10.5) and clocks in at just $29 for one user or $49 for a Family Pack which covers 5 computers.

Apple has a full list of refinements that details what you’ll get for that $29.

Vancouver Pride Parade 2009

John / August 3, 2009 / Photography / 2 Comments

I can only imagine what an unassuming tourist visiting Vancouver would have thought when they turned the corner onto Robson street this past Sunday morning and stumbled upon the staging area for the 2009 Vancouver Pride Parade:

There were more DSLR cameras in use along the parade route than I’ve ever seen in one place or event. I figured (as I usually do) that few others would be using a fisheye so that’s what I used for all my shots which actually gave some of them a great perspective on the sheer size and scope of the parade and the thousands of people that lined the streets to watch:

Some of the ladies from the Burlesque shoot I did earlier this year had a float too:

I decided to not stick to the sidelines and spent a lot of time running around in the street between floats and performers shooting…everyone in the parade would happily pose anytime I raised up my camera in front of them.

You can view my full photo set from the parade on Flickr.

Ditch your landline telephone

John / August 2, 2009 / Mobile / 8 Comments

Assuming you haven’t already.

A few years ago, my wife and I tried out a number of the VOIP players (in Canada) to save money on our landline. We tried Vonage and it was horrible…although I suspect it was possibly either a crappy Linksys router I had at the time or traffic shaping by my ISP that was causing the poor audio quality.
We eventually decided to ditch the landline altogether and simply increase our cellular plans to the point of being more practical as a landline replacement. The money we were spending on a landline (VOIP or otherwise) was greater than making a few adjustments to our cellular plans. We currently have a family plan where we can call each other unlimited locally and have a few hundred long distance minutes between each other a month for anywhere in Canada (I can call her in Vancovuer from Toronto and it’s treated like a free local call).

We don’t do a lot of long distance but needed to find a better, cheaper way to make long distance calls on our cell phones. Our provider didn’t really have any compelling options for long distance that were affordable so we looked elsewhere.

We actually use two different services which I’ll explain in a minute why.

The first service is Yak.ca. They have decent rates for North America and bill you monthly. Make sure you don’t get a paper invoice to save the admin fee. The thing we like about Yak is that they have a callback service. We have unlimited incoming calls on our phones and this means we place a call to the Yak service number, hang up and then 2 seconds later, the service calls us back and then we dial our number. This works great during the day or anytime outside of the evenings & weekend hours. They also have local access numbers you can use as well.

The other service we occasionally use is XpressCall which is a prepaid service. We use this service typically on weekends or during free evenings as their rates are slightly better than Yak. They regularly have top up deals where you put $10 on your account and they give you a bonus. This service is a dialaround one where you dial one number, then dial your destination number – it also tells you how many minutes you have left based on the number you dialed and how much you’ve prepaid which is a nice feature. I have a number of pre-programmed contacts that use this service so I don’t have to remember the digits for my parents for example.

Both services work great with our iPhones and Yak also has a calling card you can use with any phone (if you’re at work or a friend’s).

BikeCam fail

John / August 1, 2009 / Photography, Video / 3 Comments

You probably knew this was coming.

I bought an $8 camera mount and trusted a $400 camera on it while riding on a bumpy gravel trail.

Turns out that the P6000 doesn’t have any stabilization while shooting video so I should have switched back to the much lighter Zi6 camera before pressing on with my ride.

Here’s the video footage it was capturing when the failure happened:

I don’t blame the $8 mount – I pushed it too far by riding for an extended period on a gravel trail that was very bumpy and had elevated the camera with a mini-ball head mount making it even less stable.

Fortunately the camera appears to be fine, if not a little dirty.

Lesson learned. I’m probably going to buy the same $8 mount (which the ebay seller sells a little bit cheaper on his website here) and be a little more careful with what I put on it.