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- Earth Day 2019
- Low Light Photography
- Sometimes Green, Sometimes Not
- Iceland – a city view
- Tag Along Pal
- Earth Day 2018
- My First Days with the Sony Alpha 7 III
- Fuji Instax Cameras
- The Litra Torch
- Sony Alpha 7 III
- WPPI 2018
- Weddings, Portraits and More
- Affordable 3D Printer by New Matter
- Drone Time – the Mavic Pro
- Those Boxes of Old Photos
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Low Light Photography
30th March 2019
It’s Dark Down There
For those interested, these photos were taken with a Sony A7 III camera using a 24-240mm lens. In most cases, the ISO setting was 16000 or 32000 and taken handheld with a shutter speed of 1/15 or 1/30 and aperture as wide as f/3.5. I think the photos are of pretty decent quality considering the cave environment.
Sometimes Green, Sometimes Not
15th February 2019
Brightening My Winter
Of course the Everglades has much more to see and explore than its amazing foliage. I’m also a lover of birds but I’ll save those photos for another article.
Iceland – a city view
15th October 2018
Reykjavik – the capital
I hope you’ve enjoyed the colorful and picturesque city landscapes, architecture and very walkable areas of Reykjavik.
Tag Along Pal
09th October 2018
Just Migo and Myself
Verek now has a scrapbook to remember the travels of Migo.
Fuji Instax Cameras
29th March 2018
Instant Cameras on the Comeback Trail
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When I was growing up, Polaroid instant print cameras were very popular. After I bought my first SLR, my next purchase was the $19.95 Polaroid Swinger. The size of a small loaf of bread, the Swinger produced small black and white prints (about 2″ x 3″) in a mere 60 seconds. Instead of spending hours in the darkroom to see the results of my picturetaking, the Swinger provided me the instant gratification that today’s digital devices now deliver. Before I knew it, I had several Polaroids in my stable of cameras including the OneStep as you see on the right. This model popularized the square 3′ x 3″ format prints in both black and white and color. For many reasons by the start of the year 2000, the Polaroid Corporation was on a downhill slide and its bankruptcy claimed their instant cameras and film as a casualty. |
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At about this same time, Fuji was developing their Instax line. Fuji has since introduced a series of cameras that are tailored to multiple markets. Various models of the Instax are available in many different sizes and dozens of bright colors as you can see below. They include models for children, teenagers and millenials. I had a chance to see many of these models and displays at this year’s annual Wedding & Portrait Professional International Convention and Expo where I learned about Fuji’s continuing commitment to instant photography.
![]() Instax film is available in several different sizes and with colorful borders. The board on the right shows a set of instant prints that might be displayed for an engagement – in real time. |
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Instax Square SQ10
The Fuji rep showed me one of their new models. It’s called the Instax SQ10 and Fuji dubs this an instant print camera with digital features. As its name suggests, the prints are about 2-1/2″ x 2-1/2″ square. The SQ10 has a digital sensor so it can capture images to a microSD card. You can edit and or enhance the images using the builtin LCD monitor. The SQ10 has 10 builtin filters and adjustments for brightness and vignette. Lastly you can immediately print one or more copies. The SQ10 has a fairly fast f/2.4 aperture with autofocus, a builtin flash, a self-timer and automatic ISO setting from 100 to 1600. The film is packaged for 10 exposures. The suggested price is about $230 and film about $12 per pack. For more information please visit Instax Square SQ10. | ![]() | |
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Instax Share SP-3
The rep also demonstrated the Share SP-3. This is a small, portable printer that uses the same square film as the SQ10. It’s aimed at users who want prints of their smartphone photos. To use it you first install the SP-3 app onto your smartphone. The app then establishes an integrated Wi-Fi connection from the SP-3 to the smartphone. The app offers several ways to customize the prints. There are adjustments for brightness and contrast, color and special effect filters, conversion to black and white and multiple ways to combine two, three, four or nine images on a single print. Additionally the time, date and location can be added to the print. The SP-3 also lets you print images from a Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and Google Photo account so you can share prints with others. The suggested price of the SP-3 is about $180. It uses the same film as the SQ10 costing about $12 per pack. For more information, please visit Instax Share SP-3. |
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Written by: Arnie Lee
The Litra Torch
28th March 2018
Tiny LED Lighting
The Torch is an accessory that you can literally carry around in your pocket to provide a convenient light source. Suggested price is $80 and includes the diffuser, belt clip, GoPro mount, USB charging cable.
For more information please visit Litra.
Written by: Arnie Lee
Those Boxes of Old Photos
10th June 2017
Scanning Made Easy with the Epson FF-640
If you’re old enough to drink (alcohol that is), then you may remember the shoebox in the closet stuffed with family photos. They sit there collecting dust until someone brings up a past event that has you digging through hundreds of prints looking for the time that Uncle John took you fishing and you caught your first keeper.
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Our family has been taking and collecting photographs since the 1920s. As the unofficial designated keeper of the archives, I’ve been slowly scanning these photos with the goal of organizing, documenting and distributing them to the many relatives and friends among our (very large) extended family.
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About the year 2000 I acquired my first flat bed scanner similar to this one. Although a flat bed produces good quality digital images, it is slow and laborious to operate. Each photo is carefully placed on the glass top, the cover is closed and then the computer is instructed to start the scan. Owing to my lack of patience, I can scan only a couple of dozen prints using the flat bed at one sitting. Afterwards, I have to take a break. At this pace, it will be a long time to complete my archiving obligation. NOTE: The flat bed scanner to the right is a newer advanced model that can produce very high resolution digitized images from your photos. It can also produce digitized images from film negatives (do you remember film?) and transparencies (slides). For the many shoeboxes full of old photos that I have to organize, I’ve decided that speed is more important than high resolution. At this year’s WPPI Conference and Expo, I found a solution that is now helping me make progress dealing with the thousands of prints that have been collecting dust in the closet – the Epson FF-640 FastFoto scanner. |
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The FF-640 scanner connects to your computer with a USB-cable. The computer here is a MacBook but the scanner is compatible with Windows PCs as well. Photos are stacked into the feeder face down. The guides on the feeder are adjustable and accommodate up to twenty or so photos of the same width. The Epson software lets you specify the level of resolution – either the lower 300 dpi or the higher 600 dpi. While you can save hard disk space by using the 300dpi setting, I’ve always scanned at the 600 dpi setting since I’m not concerned about conserving hard disk space. You can also select a folder for storing the scanned images. |
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![]() You can start scanning your stack of photos by clicking on the FastFoto software start button. Alternatively you can press the blue button on the FF-640. This is another nice feature since you can take as much time to load subsequent groups of photos into the scanner without having to reset the software. |
![]() When you’ve completed scanning one or more stacks of photos, the FastFoto software displays the digital images on screen. The software lets you enhance the brightness and contrast, remove red eye and restore faded colors of the original photo if you’d like to save editing time afterwards. |
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The FF-640 sells for about $650 – a considerable investment. However, I’m thoroughly happy with this scanner. It has saved me countless hours of time on my quest to archive the thousands (tens of thousands) of family photographs.
For more information, please visit Epson.
Summer Faces
31st May 2016
Just Faces
Here’s a small album of pictures that show you that Summer is here.
Feel The Fresh Air
05th October 2015
To be frank, it’s been a busy summer.
You can see by the dearth of recent articles that I’ve kind of neglected my editorial duties here.
The days are shortening and the air is getting brisk. Still I’ve been enjoying the outdoors and took a few snapshots to share that explain why I enjoy the Fall.
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I hope you’ll be able to take a few minutes to take a deep breath of the fresh air of the Fall and enjoy the outdoors.
Written by: Arnie Lee
Mylio – Organization +
24th March 2015
Organizing your Collections
The proliferation of high quality mobile devices has given professional and non-professional photographers alike more alternatives for capturing, storing, managing and displaying their images. But at the same time using multiple devices has made it more difficult for them to keep their collections orderly.
At the Mylio booth at the Wedding & Portrait Photographers International Expo I stopped to have a demonstration of their software and service that addresses many of the issues that crop up when using multiple devices.
Mylio bills its product as a rich photo management system to organize, edit, synchronize and safeguard a large collection of images.
For more information about this service, please visit Mylio.
Written by Arnie Lee
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