I just moved my blog from GoDaddy's Quickblog to Wordpress. Wordpress is simply a much easier to use platform that seems to be updated often.

You can still find me at www.robde.com but if you follow by rss, the new feed is at http://www.robde.com/Blog/?feed=rss2

Also if you bookmarked blog.robde.com now the blog location is at www.robde.com/Blog

Thanks, and please continue to ...

I spent some time last week at the New England Camera Club Conference. It is an energy filled event that keeps us photographers busy learning everything from improving our image creation skills to inspirational presentations from great photographers showcasing their work. Presentations by Wendell Phillips, Kathy Tarantola

I just posted a cross over entry about my dad on my marketing blog. You may find it interesting.

You can find it here.

A little before and after today. 

I like to capture moments using HDR (High Dynamic Range) methods of photography. I don't do this for the "HDR look" but to compensate for the poor dynamic range of digital cameras.  But alas, this post is not about HDR, there are plenty of references on this subject and I recommend checking out this article on wikipedia to learn more about HDR.

So here is my story about before and after. Below are two images. The first image was exposed as best that the ...

I am a photographer

I would never have made such a bold statement two years ago, or even a year ago but now I'm accepting the fact that I am a photographer.

I did take photographs for years. It started in High School when I got my first Canon A1. Sure I took some pictures but was never happy with the results and could not afford the habit so I tried other hobbies. I tried gardening, hiking, biking, carpentry and even model trains but I ...

In the 1988 best selling book by Robert Fulghum "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" is a wonderful poem that provides positive thoughts about living life.

(You can get the book on Amazon through this sponsored link.)  

I recently had to wish a friend and colleague good luck as he changed jobs and I will no longer be able to shoot the S--- with him about photography. So I decided to paraphrase this wonderful poem ...

People and the Machines

It has been a little over a week since I completed my trip of a life time aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. I have to say, this trip was a life changing experience for me and I want to share it with my friends and family. But how? 

I think it is natural for people to find it hard to understand something unless they experience it firsthand. After all we learn by experience. That said, I find it interesting that we can be very opinionated on what ...

I write this while having a nice dinner looking out onto the Pacific Ocean contemplating the last 36 hours of my life. I just finished the trip of a life time participating as a delegate for the Social Media Business Council to the Navy's Distinguished Visitor program. I went on this trip with one set of perceptions of the Navy and the military in general. Not bad perception (I'm a Reagan Republican) but one of almost indifference. I always respected the services and thanked the men and women of the military for protecting me, but I really ...

Well it is a few months later and the US Navy kept their promise and have rescheduled this trip. I leave this weekend to spend a few days on the left coast. I'm going to spend some more time photographing San Francisco (seeing my long lost ...

The impact of the iPad on Photography

The iPad is coming April 3th.

Many people have pondered what this new device will achieve on introduction. There are millions of posts all over the internet and in mainstream media on this subject.

I found many postings on the iPad are titled “The impact of the iPad on _____". The blank is filled with all kinds of subjects from comic books to real estate sales to photography. So I felt this space was full, but a colleague in my day job asked my opinion and ...

Turning Lemons into Lemonade 3: The Canon 7D and the 16-35mm 2.8L lens.

Okay gear heads. Here are my thoughts about the Canon 7D lens and the Canon 16-35mm 2.8L lens.

It starts as an unfair comparison since I'm comparing this camera to my Canon 40D. My current camera is an excellent camera and I am very happy with it. The 7D is up a step in class from the 40D given the same sensor size..

To start with, if you are ever going to spend money on a new expensive camera or lens, I suggest you rent one and live with it for a week. This will help you really get a feel if this is something you want to spend lots of money on. I rented my camera from www.lensrentals.com. I've rented from them before and they are great. Customer services are top notch which is what you need from a rental service. I even receive responsive on weekends from Kristin in customer service. Also, lensrentals.com makes it a point to deliver the rental early to make sure you get it on time. You start paying on the date you requested, not on the date you received the camera/lens. So there is always extra time to play. First impressions. The 7D and the 40D appear to have the same body. This is nice since I love this form factor. Buttons are in different places which can be a problem when moving from one camera to the other. The power switch for example is on the top (and correct) location for the 7D. The Menu, Info, Picture Style, Image view and trash buttons are on the side not the bottom like the 40D: yet another improvement. There is this "Q" button which I had no idea what it was for until my friend Phil told me. It provides an interactive display where you can change settings; a really nice feature. There is also a "Raw/Jpeg" button which allows you to change file types on the fly.

There is also an M-Fn button next to the image capture button which controls the auto focus capability. (You have to be impressed that Canon allowed a button to be called M-Fn. Now say it a aloud "Canon has the M, F-IN Button to control the Autofocus". If you don't get the joke, you grew up in a better place than I. The problem is that this button is MFn to use. If you want to change Auto Focus modes you have to press the AF button first then press the MFn button to change modes. Canon does have a really nice menu setup however which allows you to change the function of almost every button, but I could not figure out how to change this requirement to press these buttons in this order.

Auto Focus

Joking aside, the autofocus is great: very responsive. It is very flexible as you get used to the controls. Although I wasn't taking pictures of F18's I can see how this camera would do a great job on an aircraft carrier capturing landing and takeoff. (Sigh!...)

On screen menus

One annoyance with the 40D is that in the dark, it can be difficult to change settings because you cannot see the changes. On the 7D the 3 inch LCD provides a really nice display as the setting change. Now if only Canon had a touch sensitive display where control could be like something say an iPhone...

Biggest Plus

The biggest advantage of using this camera is the view finder. Looking through the viewfinder is like looking through a window; bright and clear. On my 40D, I find myself squinting to look through the camera. According to the spec, the 40D viewfinder provides 95% coverage with a .95x magnification. The 7D is 100% coverage with 1x magnification. For me this difference was very noticeable and a potential buying reason. It wasn't until I looked at the spec that I realized the difference. (PS the 5D M2 is 98% coverage at .71 magnification).

Big Files

As one would expect, given the 8 additional mega pixels 18 vs. 10 mega pixels between the 7D and the 40D, the file sizes are larger. Larger size means a longer time to do anything with each file; from downloading to the computer to renderings in Lightroom to loading into Photoshop. I guess this is the price you pay but do you get better quality images? It is true that you do gain the ability to crop into an image and still get something as good quality as a 40D.

Photographic Quality

I'm not sure if I get anything better by way of quality of images between the 7D and the 40D. Now to be fair, I haven't done a true A-B comparison. I don't think I'll have the time to shoot a variety of subjects with both cameras given the same set up. But for this evaluation this kind of test wasn't my goal;. there are other smarter bloggers out there doing this kind of work. For me this test is more about seeing what is is like to live with this kind of equipment in my tool box. After all, in the end, photography isn't about the tool / machine but the eye and ability to use the machine. In that matter, I'm just an amateur getting there but not a master by any sense of the imagination. The photos I most recently shot with the 7D are good but none of them struck me as an outstanding image. And this was not the fault of the camera but the operator.

Next Steps.

So where do I go from here? In a few days I'll put the camera back in the box and ship it back to lensrentals.com. I'm not sure if a 7D is in my future. Having two bodies is great since you can move from one to the other and I did plenty of that over the weekend. What I really want is a 7D with the sensor of the 5D Mark 2. If I was going to spend money on another body, I keep thinking I need to go to a full size sensor. But I would want the full frame sensor with the processing speed and autofocus capability of the 7D. Something I need to wait for Canon to invent.

And what about the 16-35mm 2.8L wide angle zoom? This is a really nice piece of glass and something I truly see on the horizon.

Turning Lemons into Lemonade 2

Saturday I decided to take the rental Canon 7D and 16-35 2.8L lens for another ride to photograph the sunset. Again positioning the car east, this time I ended up at Horseneck Beach. I went out to what I think is called Gooseberry Neck / Island. It is the southern most point of the Horseneck Beach state reservation. There you can see some very scary looking look out towers. (I didn't go in.) Since I arrived 45 min before sunset, I need to find a good position to capture the ...

Turning Lemons into Lemonade 1

If you saw my previous posts, my planned trip this weekend was postponed. The day after I was notified of my postponement, my rented Canon 7D and 16-25mm 2.8L lens arrived. So what to do, what to do...

Well I decided to take a "mental health" day. Packed up my gear and headed east. In New England, that isn't too far of a trip before you hit water. Having never been to PTown, and the end of the world (or at least the Cape) headed there. The skys were beautiful ...

Next week, I will be traveling to San Diego to spend 24 hours on the USS John C. Stennis as a “Distinguished Visitor”. The Navy and my company are both members of the Social Media Business Council and the Navy has been gracious to invite members of this council (fortune 500 companies) to observe our hard working men and women in the military serve our company. I am honored to be allowed aboard the USS Stennis, a 5000 + Person Nimitz class nuclear aircraft carrier. A ...

It is rare when my day job and photographic passion collide.  Today was one of those days.  Today I had a chance to attend an event run by the camera manufacturer Leica.  They launched 3 premium cameras into the market today.  The X1, M9 and S2.  (S2 was an announcement of production.)

I had a chance to meet ...<< MORE >>