Amazon snaps up Digital Photography Review

CNET is reporting that Digital Photography Review has been bought by Amazon. This will make the owner a very rich fellow! Anyway, DPReview.com is a great site gathering information on different cameras for which you might be in the market. Just about every time I have had the need to purchase a camera, I have headed there to check them out. You pretty much can't go wrong with Nikon or Canon, my usual choice, but if you still want to read up on them, this is the place to go.

Amazon snaps up Digital Photography Review | CNET News.com

11 Tips for Better Candid Photography

I like to take candid pictures... much more than posed pictures. I get some guff about that from the fam, but, hey it's been my style since I was a kid and I first discovered an interest in photography. I will take posed pictures, but I don't like them...

I took some decent action shots this past weekend at the soccer tournament, but I was commenting to my daughter that it's difficult when you're trying to actually WATCH the game... To me, action shots are a form of candid shots.
























Anyway, here are some great tips, by way of Lifehacker.

11 Tips for Better Candid Photography

On-line Photo Editing

Here's a quick list of on-line photo editing sites. Adobe has just announced that they will have their on-line version of Photoshop ready in six months. In the meantime give these sites a tryout and see if one works for you.

1. First up is a Fauxto. This site features an interface that is very much like Photoshop, and is thus suitably complex. I had trouble getting a photo to load up. But it is a fairly comprehensive tool, much like Photoshop. It even features "layers", which none of the other sites have and is a staple of Photoshop.
2. Next up is Picnik, which is my personal favorite. This site was fun and easy to use. I was able to load a photo and do all kinds of fixes and enhancements, like "soften" and "boost". It looks like they are adding features regularly, so look for the site to improve as it evolves.
3. Another site is PXN8. This site was easy to use and everything works well, I just didn't like it as much as Picnik. To be honest, though, I did like some of the fun effects they feature, such as "oil" which makes your picture look like an oil painting and "charcoal" which makes your picture look like a charcoal drawing.
4. These I have not tried yet, but I thought I would at least list them for you: Picture2life, and Preloadr

As we say on the Quake 3 servers, GL and HF! (For you n00bs, that's Good Luck and Have Fun!)

Windy Saturday...

Woah... last Saturday we had the windstorm from hell here in North Texas. The winds were so strong that the sky was red from all the sand that was picked up in West Texas. There were power outages, trees uprooted and many roofs were damaged. We had the privilege of driving to my daughter's soccer match, in Plano, TX. just to have them cancel the game as we got there. True, it was much worse at 3:00 p.m., game time was 4:00 p.m., but by 5:00 p.m. the skies were clear. It was still windy, but not as bad. It was surreal.

Really reminded me of my youth... pt0ooie, excuse me as I spit sand out of my mouth... I remember having to ride my bike to basketball (yes, we played Little Dribbler's basketball... seriously) practice one Saturday morning. By the time we were done with practice, the wind had kicked up and the sand was everywhere. Now, remember we had just finished practice, so I was sorta sweaty... The bike ride home was almost directly south, except for a couple of turns, so by the time I got home, my whole RIGHT SIDE was caked in sand... Another time, my friend Larry had to go to Lubbock for some reason, and by the return trip, one of these sandstorms had kicked up and literally SANDBLASTED his car. Seriously, the whole right side of his car was flecked with small indentations in the finish that had been blasted away by the sand. He had to have the car re-painted.

I don't have any pictures from this past weekend... not sure why, as that was really dumb now that I think about it, but here's a picture my sister sent me from a storm rolling in near Brownfield, TX.













And here's one I DID take in Lubbock, TX last summer as a sandstorm preceded a thunderstorm as it rolled in from the west. This was the weekend of the Great Class of '81 Pre-Reunion... well that's what I call it, as we ended up having another reunion during the Homecoming football game later last fall. I missed that one...

DailyTech - Canon Announces Five New Consumer Cameras

A couple of Canon announcements with your morning coffee, or whatever it is you might be imbibing at this time... First up are five new consumer level cameras ->

DailyTech - Canon Announces Five New Consumer Cameras

And the biggest news is a new professional-level camera, the 1D Mark III, here ->

Canon Launches Fastest D-SLR in the World




Anyone want to contribute to the "Roy Wants One Fund"?

Digital Photography School: How to Use Converging Lines to Enhance Your Photography

Interesting article with some tips on utilizing converging lines. I must admit, I like to take pictures but I'm no photographer. I should invest in some courses...

How to Use Converging Lines to Enhance Your Photography

Group Shot - SHS Class of '81

IMG_0289
Originally uploaded by royboy81.

Recently attended our 25th high school reunion... amazingly we are planning another get-together in Sept. Should be fun, as this one was quite a blast.

View the whole set here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/royboy81/sets/72157594201595990/

Another cool shot on the road to Banff

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Originally uploaded by royboy81.

These pics were taken in early Dec. 2005.

On the road from Calgary to Banff

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Originally uploaded by royboy81.

We had a late afternoon flight home, so we took a quick trip to Banff.