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Category Archives: Photography
Geotag your DSLR images using your iPhone GPS and a Mac
Geotag images using an iPhone
One of the nice things about modern camera phones and even some regular cameras uses GPS to tag photos and embed the coordinates in the pictures EXIF data. But wouldn’t it be great if you could do that with your fancy DSLR camera photos as well? Programs like iPhoto, Aperture and the upcoming Adobe Lightroom 4 can show you your pictures on a map. Many online photo sites like Flickr also uses the GPS data in the pictures to display them on a map. Continue readingGreat video for learning strobist Canon EOS flash photography
People who use Canon cameras know the EF flashes can be a bit overwhelming trying to understand ETTL II, and how to compensate for background and foreground exposure. Setting up multiple flashes isn’t always easy either. Here’s a great video, explaining all the ins and outs of Canon EF flash photography.
Favorite Canon lenses
Upgrading from the Canon EOS 20D to the full frame camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II has really changed which lenses I like the most. When using the 20D, I used to have the Canon EF 17-40mm f4L lens on as my standard lens. But the full frame really makes it to wide for my taste, and the 17-40mm is a bit too soft at the edges. Now I usually have the Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM lens as my standard lens and use the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L a lot more than before. The high resolution of the 5D shows every fault with the lens. The 70-200mm shines as the best zoom lens I ever had and is perfect for portrait photography.
My next lens will be a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens which I think will be the perfect all-round lens. I just wish there was a way to try out a couple of lenses to find a sharp one, because my experience with Canon lenses is that there can be quality differences between them. With some luck I’ll find a dealer that let me test before buying.
GPS tagging on the cheap
I just love gadgets. That’s why it’s nice to find that I bought a Garmin eTrex a long time ago. Haven’t used it in years, but then when Apple released the latest version of iLife 09 with the map function in iPhoto I realized that it is very cool to have all the images geo tagged. So I found a program called GPSPhotoLinker, a program that downloads GPS data and pictures and by the date/time on the pictures manages to add longitude and latitude information in the picture info. When you import pictures with this information iPhoto can use that to show it on maps and make it searchable. And when you upload pictures to Flickr, it also uses the location information place your picture on a map. Very cool.
The software is free to download here. If you have an old GPS receiver like me, you need a serial cable (I made my own because of the very high prices for ready made cables), just check eBay. You also need a USB to serial converter, like the “Keyspan High Speed USB Serial Adapter.
To start tagging, just power on your GPS receiver when you start (I just put it in my shirt pocket) and then photo away). Set the clock in your camera (check the GPS clock, it’s VERY exact ) because this is information that is used to sync position information.
Download all your pictures in a folder, connect the GPS, start GPSPhotoLinker and download data from the GPS, and then select the folder with pictures you took. Press “batch” and your done! 
iPhoto 09 map showing my short walk today
Map with my pictures in flickr
Who would have thought?
Over a year ago this guy contacted me to get permission to use this picture for an album cover. I sent him a high res copy and told him that he could use the picture but that he had to send me a copy of the album when it was finished. My guess was I would never hear from him again. But to my surprise I got an email from him yesterday asking for my address and if I wanted the album signed by the artist! Things like this makes me believe in the human being again. I just assumed he would forget to send the album, which is what I probably would do.
FotoMagico
There’s been a lot of discussions about the MacHeist bundle. And I must agree with some of the critique on how to share the loot between the MacHeist gang and the Independent developers. But one thing is for sure, If I had not bought the bundle, I would never have discovered an amazing piece of software called FotoMagico. The kind of quality it gives you when making a photo presentation is mind blowing. And the interface is so easy to use, it’s almost spooky. Recommended.
Aperture huh?
So I have tried Apples new photo managing software called Aperture. I uploaded some pictures into it to have something to work with. I also downloaded pictures
that I had taken during the day. The next time I started Aperture, I got a message that the project I had downloaded needed to be repaired. But when it was finished, there where two folders with the same name. One is empty and the other one had all the pictures. So I delete the empty project. And now I couldn’t open the pictures in the first folder. Thankfully I found the missing pictures in the trash, I guess the deleted folder really wasn’t empty after all. So this program has the same basic design flaw that iPhoto has. One central database with all the pictures in it. One thing you really have to be able to do is to trust your photo managing software, and so far I’m not impressed. The rest of the program is very nice. If you have a fast machine. Unfortunately the RAW conversion is really bad. And you can’t make Aperture open the raw file in Photoshop CS2 that has a superior importer. That’s plane stupid. I can understand Apple for wanting to use CoreImage for all the processing, but you really need sharpening filters like NIK Sharpener 2, but without a plug-in architecture that’s something that won’t happen.
I realize that this is a 1.0 version of a program and is certainly going to get better. But the idea of using a database for storing pictures seems fundamental for Apples design, and so far I got burned by both iPhoto (twice) and now Aperture. So I guess I’ll go back to Adobe Bridge for manage my photos.