Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

Are You Using Zooomr Yet?

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If you haven’t heard of Zooomr (that’s not a typo – 3 O’s), it’s high time that you did. Flickr’s cool and all, but Zooomr picks up where Flickr leaves you hanging and then shifts gears into overdrive. And it’s still beta!

So what makes Zooomr so hot? Here’s 5 great features that will get you hooked:

1. No upload/bandwidth limit. This is a biggie! I’m so tired of downsizing my photos for flickr so I don’t exceed my upload bandwidth. Also, flickr limits the number of photos you can have in your photoset, unless you have a “pro” account, which brings me to the second great feature.

2. It’s free. That’s right, there’s no limit to your upload or bandwidth usage AND it’s free. There are some bells and whistles that you can get for an extra fee (hey, they’ve gotta make a buck or two somehow).

3. Social media meets photo sharing. I’m not a real pro at social media, but some of you social butterflies out there will really dig (no pun intended) the Zipline feature incorporated into every user’s account. Basically, Zipline allows you to keep in touch with what your contacts are doing, as they’re doing it.

4. SmartSets are cool and easy. “Rather than relying on manual set building, SmartSets allows you to use advance filters to create dynamic sets. You can organize SmartSets by many different criteria. To start with you will determine what kind of SmartSet you want to build. Criteria that can be used includes labels (i.e. tags), views, GeoTags, PeopleTags, Date Taken, Date Uploaded. The most common type of SmartSet is done by tag.” Tags is the way I do it. I was blown away by the simplicity of SmartSets the first time I created one.

5. Upload is smooth and simple – even for large batches. The uploading interface on Zooomr is gravy smooth. The interface is as intuitive as a Mac and you get great and simple visual feedback on your uploads, file by file.

Did I miss anything? Sure I did. The crew over at Zooomr have great things in store for its users. I’ve only touched on the tip of the iceberg. If I’ve piqued your interest, then head on over and check it out now . . . it’s free. After you’ve signed up, feel free to add me as a contact.

I’ll see you in my Zipline. ;)

[tags]zooomr, photo, sharing, pics, flickr, features, review[/tags]

 

Photoshop Express

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This is going to be a big dang deal:

Today the crowd at Photoshop World got a quick preview of Photoshop Express, a new application currently in development at Adobe. First hinted at by Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen some six months ago, Photoshop Express isn’t meant to duplicate/replace Photoshop CS3 or Photoshop Elements. Rather, it’s a new member of the Photoshop family that’s meant to make Adobe imaging technology immediately accessible to large numbers of people.

(via John Nack)

[tags]photoshop, express, news, image, photo, edit, software, program[/tags]

Licensing Photographs, Stock Photography, Photoshop, and the Groovy New Photosynth

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Yet another example of Photoshop retouching working magic on some otherwise average photos.

A practical lesson on license management and copyright of your photos.

Check out 8 Microstock Websites and What the #&!! is Microstock Anyway. While you’re at it, get some insight into iStockphoto.com by Rich Legg.

Photosynth looks like an awesome new tool. Chalk one up for Microsoft acquisitions.

[tags]photoshop, licensing, management, copyright, microstock, stock, photography, photosynth, microsoft[/tags]

Canon40D.net Decides to Rip Off Content

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I always do my best to attribute the authors and sources of content that I link to here. It really chaps my rusty, however, when people take the content of others. Certainly, fair use is permitted in the blogging/news world. In fact, passing around content is generally encouraged – so long as you link back to your source. As photographers, we are particularly aware of copyright issues and proper attribution.

That said, let me take a moment to point out that canon40d.net has taken it upon itself to copy and paste the content of others with NO attribution whatsoever. Photography Bay’s recent post on the Canon 40D rumors now appears at the top of it’s page. As you can see by reading the post here on Photography Bay, canon40d.net has simply copied and pasted that post with no reference to the original post here.

Unfortunately, the site owner has not even provided a method to contact them via email or comments on the site. As a result, I’m left with no choice but to post this information here. I’m still considering whether to contact the host and issue a DMCA takedown notice, so if you’re reading this canon40D.net, you should do the right thing and create your own content and, when quoting others, properly attribute the authorship of the quoted sources. Given that the site has little original content, I’m not holding my breath.

Rather than link to canon40d.net, which improves the site’s search rankings, I’ll simply provide you with an image of the ripped off post (feel free to copy and paste the address to your browser though):

Now, read Photography Bay’s original post here.

FYI, Whois.Net provides the following info, which I have attempted to contact via email to no avail:

Domain Name: CANON40D.NET

Registrant:
Canon Inc.
Canon40D        (nilpixel@gmail.com)
No 42, Ttrue Ave
Texas
Carrollton,75001
US
Tel. +51.7654321
Fax. +51.7654321

Creation Date: 01-Feb-2007
Expiration Date: 01-Feb-2008

Domain servers in listed order:
ns1.micfo.com
ns2.micfo.com

UPDATE 5/15/07:  More of the same from another rip-off blog: http://best-raw-food.info/blogs/leica/4830/

[tags] canon, 40d, news, rumors, canon40d.net, copyright, infringement, theft, blog, blogging, media, content[/tags]

Students – Win Big in Microsoft’s Photo Contest!

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Microsoft is putting some serious juice up for killer student photos:

For student photographers, this is an opportunity to Kick Start Your Career as a future professional photographer. The exciting prize packages include a Grand Prize of US$20,000 cash and a digital workflow prize package. There will also be three First Place winners in the following categories: Nature & Landscape; People & Portraits; and Fine Art who will each win US $2000 cash and a digital workflow prize package as well.


Enter here.

[tags]microsoft, photo, contest, win, prize, money, digital, camera[/tags]

Don’t Buy a Knock-Off SanDisk CF Card: An ebay Experience of Yours Truly

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Have you bought a memory card on ebay lately? Maybe you’ve been here too. Thinking about buying one? Think carefully about that one.

The story that follows is my recent experience of shopping for, purchasing, complaining about, and ultimately returning and receiving a refund for a knock-off SanDisk Ultra II Compact Flash memory card. More than 60 days after my original purchase, Paypal was kind enough to “decide” in my favor (please detect sarcasm here). Through the experience, I have lost trust in ebay, PayPal, Wolf/Ritz Camera, Best Buy, Circuit City and, of course, the seller brainydeal (aka, Brainydeal.com, Ying Liu, Kin Chau, among others), all the while, finding the trust I should have always had in my local mom and pop photo store. Before you buy another memory card (certainly from an ebay seller), read on. [Read more…]