New Photoset: Winter Classic 2009

Weather conditions for some hockey history today here in Chicago couldn't have been more perfect. And as a bonus, the slightly overcast afternoon in the Windy City offered some fairly nice lighting conditions for shooting a very memorable outdoor hockey game.

While I witnessed history from the comfort of my living room, and in 42" flat screen and full HD glory, my brother and his buddy were at the game with about 40,000 others. He was kind enough to bring along my Canon SD890 for the afternoon and took some really great shots that I wanted to share. Even though the main focus of this site is aimed at showcasing my work as a photographer, I felt the quality of these photos was a strong testament to how versatile the Canon SD890 really is.

Perhaps the biggest thing that sticks out with this set of photos is the image quality using the 5x optical zoom of the SD890. While his seats were pretty decent, the optical zoom got him closer to the action without introducing noise and other distortions that digital zooms are known for. Even in the hands of someone that just picked up this particular camera for a few hours, this Canon did a very respectable job of capturing some great memories.

You can see more of these photos in the Flickr photoset Winter Classic 2009. And if you like these, check out my hockey page in Viewfinder section for more.

These photos are courtesy of Bobby Nelson.

Flickr Idea: Making an Online Photo Calendar

I said it before, I love being a photographer and a web developer. Here's another reason why.

Making an Online Photo Calendar



What started as an idea in mid-November turned into a relatively easy to make Google Gadget to showcase some of my favorite Maui photos. And all it took was:

• a little preparation,
  
• some convention,
  
• and 2 Flickr API methods

Sparing all the minor details, here's the jist of what I did.

The Preparation
After making a small web prototype of the gadget, just to get the sizing and the HTML/CSS down, I determined that the photos I wanted to use for this would be square. Looking at the different sizes that Flickr offers you, the only "square" option by default is 75 x 75 pixels. Obviously, that wasn't going to cut it.

So, that just meant I had to do a little cropping for each photo I wanted to use. If I crop the photo to be even on both sides, I now have the choice of 100 x 100, 240 x 240, or 500 x 500. Initially I thought 500 x 500 pixels would be great, but alas, making this fit onto an iGoogle page along side other gadgets meant I had to choose the 240 x 240 pixel size.

Just to keep track of these photos, I threw them in their own photoset on Flickr, which you can view here.

The Convention
I didn't want to write a heck of a lot of code for this, which meant designing and populating a database full of photo IDs and dates was out of the question. Getting a little creative, I decided to use a naming convention for tagging these photos. Then, using the API methods mentioned later on, I could pull the photo for the current date based on the tag.

The convention I used was to prefix the tag with an arbitrary value (in my case, the letter "c") followed by the month and day to display the photo on. An example would be this photo, which has the tag "c1117" and would be displayed on November 17 (11 for the month, 17 for the day). Another convention I chose is to store the text for the calendar as the description of the photo. While this results in a second API call, which I'll explain next, it was very convenient for having just one place to "edit" my calendar.

Lastly, since the Flickr Community Guidelines state that using a photo hosted on Flickr must link back to the Flickr photo page, I decided to take the opportunity to share more details about the photo by adding a comment on the photo as well. That way, if someone using the gadget likes the photo and clicks on it, they can see more info about that photo and, in some cases, view a link back to my Maui site. And of course, they could also leave a comment themselves (if they're a member of Flickr, that is).

The 2 Flickr API Calls
Based on the conventions mentioned above, I really only needed the following information about the photo:

• The actual photo for a given day, based on the tag,
• the URL for the photo in the small format (240 x 240 pixels),
• and the description of the photo to display in the gadget.

It turns out the first two items can be returned using the Flickr API method, flickr.photos.search, and specifying the value of the optional Tags parameter as the date formatted in the convention above (i.e. c1117). That returned the 4 pieces of information I needed to build the URL for the photo, which of course are the farm-id, server-id, photo-id, and the secret.

The only thing that was missing was the description, which was just as easy to get with a second API call. This time it was to flickr.photos.getInfo, and merely required the photo-id returned from the first call.

With the data from those two method responses, I was all set to assemble the HTML and tell people what day it was.

The Rest of the Code
I already said I wasn't going to dive into the minor details, but I did want to mention one other thing about this gadget. While I could have done this gadget completely with JavaScript by calling the Flickr API using the REST requests in JSON format, I chose to implement this logic using the XML format and a PHP script on the server side. The reason I did that was so I could save the responses from the two API calls on the server, so that way I could just use those files instead of calling the Flickr API every single time.

As for the Google Gadget code, that's an entirely different area altogether and not worth covering here. While I chose to do this as Google Gadget, this can really be done with almost anything.

The Conclusion
Hopefully this was an interesting little article that gave you some ideas on things you can do with the Flickr API that you might not have thought of. For those out there that aren't full fledged web developers like myself, that initial list of API methods might seem a little intimidating at first. But as you can see here, it's fairly simple to tackle once you know how you want to approach it.

Now Reading: The Digital Photography Book, Vol. 1

Photo Credit: Amazon)

I mentioned a few days ago that I received a copy of Digital Photography Masterclass as a gift this Christmas. I also noted that in the process of reading more about that book on Amazon, I came across Scott Kelby's, The Digital Photography Book. Well, seeing that it was listed as the #1 book in all digital photography categories on Amazon, and #52 of all books sold there, I thought I'd check it out for myself.

During a trip to the bookstore this weekend, I decided to take a grab a copy off the shelf and read through the first 20 pages. Those first few chapters were a very fast read, and I was very pleased with the organization of the book. So I left with my own copy.

This book, and the second volume released this year, is written from a completely different point of view than most other photography books. Right from the beginning, Kelby sets the stage for the book and makes you his virtual shooting buddy. The style that "The Digital Photography Book" is written in consists of a series of related photography tips that Scott offers you as if you and he are out on a photo shoot together. The tips are quick and too the point. No extensive technical background on each camera setting or photography term, saving that for larger books that are already very prevalent. 

For 240 pages, it is still a very small book. While not quite pocket-sized, it is easy to carry with you and reference back to when needed. I mentioned above that it's a very fast read, so I'll likely finish this first volume by the end of January and look add volume 2 to the list of books I'm taking to Maui in seven weeks. Besides from reading through the first volume in the coming weeks, I'm going to try and find a few projects closer to home to get in some practice before we go on vacation. I'll post more details on those as I come up with them.

Now Reading: Digital Photography Masterclass

Photo Credit: Amazon)

Freshly unwrapped as an Xmas present yesterday, I now have new photography book in my library. Digital Photography Masterclass, by Tom Ang, is over 350 pages of photography lessons, tutorials, and self-paced assignments that looks to be another great resource for me as I continue to push myself further to take better photographs. After thumbing through it a little bit after dinner last night, I liked the way the different chapters and subjects were layed out, and there were a lot (albeit somewhat small) examples of different variations and combinations with the concepts covered in each chapter.

There were only a handful of customer reviews at Amazon, but the majority of responses seemed positive. For the real test, though, I need to carve out some time to sit down, read through it, and get some practice in. My next trip to Maui is coming up fast, and while this looks like a great book, it's a little too heavy to pack and bring with me. That doesn't leave a lot of time, and while I'm not going to learn everything the book has to offer in just 6 weeks time, I'd like to have at least a few subjects well rehearsed by then.

Another Option

I also received a pair of gifts cards to Barnes and Noble and Borders, and while reading up on Digital Photography Masterclass on Amazon, I also stumbled across Scott Kelby's The Digital Photography Book, Volume 2. That one seems like a big seller and very popular on Amazon. I became a fan of Kelby's books when I picked up his 7-Point System for Photoshop book. I'll have to stop by the bookstore and browse through it, and then I'll have to decide how I want to get prepared for my next trip to Maui.

If you have read either one of these books, let me know what you think. Also, if you have other recommendations, those are welcome as well.

Thanks.

Now Sharing on Hawaii Photography

I found a great site for Hawaii photography fans and photographers alike, named, what else... Hawaii Photography.

After browsing their site and seeing some of the most stunning Hawaii photos around, I decided to fill out the registration form and was accepted. I uploaded a handful of photos today and will probably add a few more each day during this week off. You can view the photos I've posted there on my profile page.

The site has a good mix of professional and amatuer photographers, many of whom live in Hawaii (which I hope to do some day, too). There is also a nice variety of portraits, landscape, and nature photographs, and a few forums and groups for each of the different islands. Not bad for a site that currently has less than 60 members.

So if you're looking for my very best from Maui, be sure to check them out. I know I'm way down on the experience scale compared to my new co-members at Hawaii Photography. I hope I can continue to hold my own, make a few new friends, and get some great tips before my next Maui trip in February.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II Reviews

(Photo Credit: Amazon)

From the "If I only had the money" category, I thought I'd share a link to reviews on the latest and greatest DSLR from Canon, the EOS 5D Mark II.

As mentioned on this Engadget post, this dream camera has reviewers and photographers alike raving about all the great things this camera has to offer. From a 21.1MP full frame sensor to the ability to shoot full 1080p HD video, anybody would be very fortunate to carry this one in their bag.

A quick check on Amazon shows that even at a price of $3,499.99 (sold by Amazon) it is hard to keep in stock, although it is available for a premium from other merchants there.  The only bad customer reviews at Amazon for this camera are for the price.  While other merchants seem to be way overcharging for this item, Amazon itself doesn't seem to be that far off.  I took a look at Adorama, another place I shop for camera gear online, and they were selling the body + lens kit for the same price as Amazon. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have any in stock, either.

So I guess, I should add this to the "If I only had the money, and could find it in stock" category. In any case, head over to the article at Engadget and browse through all the great reviews that this camera is getting.

New Photoset: Gussie's 95th

As I mentioned last month, one of my projects in December was the 95th birthday party for my great-grandmother (God bless her). In that post, I mentioned a lot of the unknowns around trying to shoot a lot of photos and doing portraits instead of my usual landscapes, etc. Well, most of that all turned out not the way I had anticipated.

All was still well, though. It was a nice party and everyone had a good time. I've posted my first set of photos (one of two cameras), and you can find them on Flickr under the Gussie's 95th photoset. I've also included a few of my favorites below. There were a lot of people taking photos, and these are utlimately being used for our family's website, The Ciolinos. A few of my distant relatives, many of who I just met on Saturday, will be emailing me their favorites as well, so those will be added to the same photoset. Attribution will be credited to photos that I didn't take, once they're posted.

One of the unanticipated things on my part was that there was about 8 different people with cameras all trying to take photos at the same time. A few of us commented that it was kind of silly the way some of these group photos came out because different people were looking at different cameras. With 80+ people crammed into a tight golf course restaurant, there wasn't going to be any chance of making order out of that chaos.

Still, it was good practice. Shooting portraits and group photos is not exactly my primary focus. I'm not certain that it ever will be, but experience is experience, and the more photos I shoot in many different situations, the better. I will no doubt learn from all of them.