Jeffco Blog » Photo Notes

New Camera: Canon PowerShot G10: 15MP & 28mm wide

jeffco — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:07:12 +0000

Canon PowerShot G10: 15MP & 28mm wide

New Photo Page Template

jeffco — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:20:04 +0000

When visiting the Jeffco photo pages you may notice a new look. We’ve switched everything over from Photoshop templates to Lightroom templates. If I’m being honest, I think I still like the look of the Photoshop ones a bit better, and the way they handle css and relative linking is superior, but Lightroom has several things going for it as well. First, and biggest, is that it allows me to compose and upload the entire photo sections as extensions of collections built within Lightroom. Which means I can drop at least two major steps from the creation of the web pages. Also, it means no duplication of files like one set for web, another for print, which it was previously (although the web ones are different, they get uploaded directly to the server). Part of that also means metadata and comments and stuff like that get added once, and kept with the files throughout, making metadata more worthwhile and less work in the long run. Another huge advantage though is the ability to modify the photos and quickly upload again to make editing and adding to existing collections much faster and frankly more likely to be done.

Ideally in the future, the site will move to some kind of content management system (as Sandi has always correctly suggested), especially with over 5,000 photos already up, but that takes time and money I don’t want to give right now. Plus I haven’t seen the perfect system that allows me the same control yet. In the meantime, this relatively simple shift allows the files to be prepared in a forward-thinking way that should mesh with a content management system when we’re ready and the system is more accessible. That’s the thing with technology, it’s not just about building for today, but building for what tomorrow will accept and what tomorrow will serve.

Also, a change every once in a while is a good thing; it allows us to update, clean house, revisit and reinvigorate. I hope you like the change, or at very least tolerate it. I think once you get used to it and see the advantages, you won’t even remember the old way…

And as always, feel free to send us feedback if you have an opinion or suggestions on the changes, one way or the other…

New Camera: Canon XSi with 17-85mm Lens

jeffco — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:18:57 +0000

Canon XSi with 17-85mm lens.

NEW Lens: Canon EF 55-200mm f/4.5-5.6 II USM

jeffco — Fri, 26 May 2006 15:21:15 +0000

New Canon lens.

Overview

Super-compact and light, this lens is compatible with all EOS cameras and ideal for digital SLRs – when used on the EOS Digital Rebel, it’s equivalent to an approx. 90-320mm lens. The 13-element design’s new optical coatings are optimized for digital cameras. It focuses down to under 4 feet (1.2m), and its Micro USM-powered AF is faster than ever, due to new electronics within the lens.

Focal Length & Maximum Aperture:	55-200mm 1:4.5-5.6
Lens Construction:	13 elements in 13 groups
Diagonal Angle of View:	43º – 12º
Focus Adjustment:	Front group rotating extension system with USM
Closest Focusing Distance:	1.2m / 3.9 ft.
Zoom System:	Rotating type
Filter Size:	52mm
Max. Diameter x Length, Weight:	2.8″ x 3.8″, 10.9 oz. / 70.4 x 97.3mm, 310g

Information from www.canon.ca

To be fair, it was a pretty big fly to start with...

Flowers growing in patterns.

And my lamp-post. Not a bad shot, but what's truly remarkable is that it was taken through my venetian blinds (open but still down) and a screen on the window!

Photos, Photos and Even More Photos

jeffco — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:05:27 +0000

You’d probably never notice unless I told you, but the website has had another major revision, behind the scenes. Most of the major photo albums (Giveaway, Christmas party photos, some sculpture and other general photos) have been moved onto a new sub-site, photos.jeffco.ca. Why you may ask? Because the web program I use to organize and update files kind of chokes on more than 20,000 files, and both current sites (jeffco.ca and murkysea.moose.ca) were pretty much full, so a new site was needed. So, I took the opportunity to update all my photo templates to now include the use of metadata including photo credits, comments, titles and categories which will be at the bottom of photo pages now. It took some doing, but it should make it better. I know for the sculpture photos of Getting Connected, it almost reads like a ‘how we did it’ on building the sculpture now that there’s detailed comments attached. Anyway, I hope you like them. I’ve also cleaned up a lot of the photos and increased the size to 650 pixels since browsers and screens seem to slowly be getting bigger these days. Of course, some of the old photos don’t look great because they were very small to begin with, but I’ve cleaned them up, sharpened them and made them look as good as they possibly can in most cases.

I also gave the photos section it’s own area, for some reason I thought it was a good idea to tuck them away in the resource section of the website, not sure what I was thinking there. They’re now out on their own with a new link to the photos pages on the top navigation, or you can check them out with this link.

Redoing Photos. Lots of Photos.

jeffco — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 14:02:59 +0000

So the new year necessitates an update of copyright notices, and usually prompts a content review and refinement on the main website. Combine with that the fact that I purchased the latest versions of Photoshop and the whole CS suite and it’s led me to go through many of the old photo albums on the site and give them an update.

I do this not infrequently because it’s the best practice you can get in Photoshop. I must have retouched the same Giveaway photo a dozen times through it’s lifetime. (Never replace your originals folks – if you keep learning, you’ll always be looking for as many unaltered pixels as possible when the new digital toys come out). And maybe my corrections aren’t always better than the last time, but I learned and got better from them all, one way or another. Yesterday had me redoing all the Christmas party photos (and increasing them to the new website standard of 650 pixels. I’ve also tweaked the Web Photo Gallery template I’ve used for a while now to include the filename and a description or comment area. This finally allows me to give credits to other photographers where necessary, which was always lacking, and to give a brief description or insight into what’s going on. Now, given that I’m attempting to redo many, many albums in the next couple of days, insight will be somewhat sparse, and comments may be lame but hopefully as new photos get added or as I go back and revisit, more useful content will be added. And now there’s a place for it, which is always good.

So, I’m not going to link to specific pages, because I’m somewhat randomly going back into the photos section and replacing album pages with new and improved images. Check out the photo page and peak at an album or two if you’re interested. Some are changed, some are not, but more changes are coming every day.

http://www.jeffco.ca/photos/index.php

New Camera: Canon Rebel XT

jeffco — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 00:45:08 +0000

Canon Digital Rebel XT.

I needed a better camera for a course I’ll be teaching and my mother’s birthday is next week so I figured she’d appreciate getting my old one. Hey, it’s not like I needed an excuse, but I had a couple, so I figured why not? I picked up the Canon Digital Rebel XT, 8.0 Megapixel SLR camera. Hefty price tag, but I know I’ll get the use out of it. Since I tend to use more pictures than anyone I know, it seemed like a worthwhile expense for me. Now I just have to figure out how to use it…