Last Two Recipes from Lola
Last Five Tech Articles
How to Update Category and Tag Descriptions in Wordpress
Wordpress does not Import Categories and Tags
SiteWide Tags Categories Showing as Numbers
How to Stop Duplicate Twitter Notifications in SiteWide Tags
ProcMail Installation and Configuration Guide
27Feb/1016
Nostalgique
At times when my husband is away on a business trip or any trip whatsoever, I get so nostalgic, I start flipping the "pages" of Lightroom to glace over our old images. Oh, I do own those old style coffee table albums, too. If the technology keeps up the way it has been, I will soon forget which shelf is generously occupied by my albums. Instead of thinking or speaking out loud, which I do a lot, I decided to write my thoughts out loud. I am not sure if there is such a thing. If there is not, I hope people list "writing out loud" under my name in Wikipedia.
So, my husband is away for couple of more days. I am stuck home with my little dudes with no wallet or my phone! All my husband's fault! Which means all I get to do is cook, watch TV, attend to my boy's needs and get nostalgic of how my husband would play with the boys every night to give me a time off. Right about when I finished the last sentence, my younger son Osman, who is still not sleeping at 11:34PM is calling for his dad! Awwwwwwww, we miss you daddy-o, come back!
26Feb/109
Traveling to Washington D.C.
Just wanted to let you guys know that I'm heading out to Washington D.C. tomorrow and I will be out until Tuesday of next week. My schedule is packed and I am planning to meet some friends and relatives this weekend, in addition to trying to photograph some scenery there. By the way, if you have any good locations in mind, please let me know, since I have no idea where to start :) I have been to D.C. multiple times in the past, but it was before I got into photography. I'm primarily looking for good landscape and architectural points of interest, but if you know some good birding locations in winter, I would love to check out the best one as well.
As for blogging, I don't think I will have time to write from there, but I might do some quick posts in the evenings.
25Feb/103
Nikon D3000 vs D5000
Since I get a lot of requests from our readers to provide a comparison the two entry-level DSLRs - Nikon D3000 and Nikon D5000, I decided to post a quick "Nikon D3000 vs D5000" article to highlight the key differences and provide my recommendations.
 Nikon D3000 |
 Nikon D5000 |
24Feb/106
Nikon 35mm f/1.8 DX Lens
I recently borrowed a Nikon D90 with a Nikon 35mm f/1.8G DX lens from a good friend to perform some tests of this combo at home. The weather has been bad for photography lately and I really have not had a chance to take the camera and the lens out to do some real shooting. A couple of days ago, Lola decided to try it out for her food photography while she was preparing my favorite baked pear salad and cooking a new chicken soup with eggs.
While I was shamelessly playing the Prince of Persia game on Wii (I do not even want to mention how many hours I wasted playing it), as soon as she took the first picture, she said "wow!". Then she took a couple of more pictures and said "I love this lens! It is great for food photography". I stopped playing for a second to take a look at what she was raving about on the camera LCD.
As soon as I looked at the magnified picture on the LCD, I said "wow" myself. The picture was tack sharp, image quality and contrast were outstanding. Here is the shot of the baked pear recipe that Lola just posted in her recipe blog:
I highly recommend opening the above image in full size and looking at the details of the shot.
We fell in love with this combo right away...what a great lens, what a great camera!
23Feb/105
Nikon Lens Rebates Starting February 28th, 2010
If you have been wanting to buy a DSLR with a good lens, then wait until this Sunday. Nikon is announcing great rebates on some of the best Nikon lenses, including the new Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II and the outstanding Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G lens that I use primarily for my landscape photography. The recently reviewed Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR lens is also going to qualify for an instant rebate, as outlined below:
- Buy Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II with any DSLR and get a $400 instant rebate
- Buy Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G with any DSLR and get a $300 instant rebate
- Buy Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR lens with any DSLR and get a $200 instant rebate
- Buy Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G VR II with any DSLR and get a $250 instant rebate
- Buy Nikon 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G VR with any DSLR and get a $200 instant rebate
These are some great incentives by Nikon and the first three are definitely great performers and Nikon's best lenses. It would have been even better if the incentives were for the lenses only, but those deals do not normally happen until around Christmas time, or when Nikon needs to clear out the shelves.
22Feb/1018
Nikon 70-300mm VR Review
This is an in-depth review of the Nikon AF-S 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR lens that was released back in August 2006 together with the Nikon D80. The lens was kindly provided by B&H - the largest photo reseller in the world that I use more than any other to buy my photography gear.
The Nikon 70-300mm VR lens is targeted towards sports, nature and wildlife photographers that need a lightweight, versatile telephoto lens with great optics and vibration reduction technology, at an affordable price. The lens works on both Nikon FX (full-frame) and DX (cropped) sensors and has an equivalent field of view of approximately 105-450mm on DX sensors, which makes the lens particularly good for reaching distant subjects. The Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ID-ED VR lens features two "ED" (extra low dispersion) glass elements that are used in all Nikon professional lenses, providing higher contrast, lower chromatic aberration and higher resolution, due to less air bubbles and glass deformities within the glass elements. In addition, the lens sports the latest vibration reduction "VR II" technology, giving up to 4 full stops of advantage over non-VR lenses at low shutter speeds. Vibration Reduction, especially the latest VR II generation, makes this lens particularly useful for hand-held shooting while hiking and traveling. Autofocus is practically silent, thanks to the Silent Wave Motor (AF-S) within the lens.
Nikon 70 300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR (image courtesy of Nikon USA)
21Feb/105
StudioWed Denver Grand Opening Soiree
Along with many wedding professionals of Colorado, I was invited to witness the grand opening of the new and fabulous StudioWed Denver. I simply couldn't pass this wonderful opportunity to participate in this event and get to know wedding professionals of Denver during this event. The studio is hip, stylish and very cozy. I am sure every bride who enters the premises of StudioWed will find comfort and assurance that their special day is in the safe hands of true professionals. Debbie and her team did an outstanding job creating such a warm atmosphere. Kudos to you guys!
Below are some of the images I took last night. I love this table setting and the floral design!
20Feb/104
Must-Have DSLR Accessories
Every photographer has a toolbox of camera accessories that are heavily used for photography. While some photographers have a large array of accessories for every type of situation and need, others only buy what they feel is necessity for their photography work. In this article, I will provide some detailed information about what accessories should be in every photographer's bag - I call it a "must-have" list.
1) A good camera bag
As soon as you buy a camera, you buy a camera bag, because you want to protect your investment and easily transport it between locations. But choosing the right camera bag is not always easy - there are so many different bags out there, that it gets frustratingly difficult to make the right decision. Often times, people end up buying a small camera bag, only to replace it in a couple of months with a different one, realizing that they need more room for their camera and lenses. This happens all the time and it also happened to me! I got my first Nikon D80 DSLR, thinking that I wouldn't spend a penny more on an already expensive camera. I bought a compact camera bag that fits the camera and a couple of lenses and thought that I was good to go. Eventually, I ended up buying another lens and extra accessories and my bag was too small to accommodate everything. So I had to go and buy another camera bag with more room. Instead of wasting your money like this, you should buy a good camera bag from the get-go. I personally prefer a backpack, but some people like the convenience of using sling-bags and shoulder bags. It is a personal preference and you should definitely try before you buy...a local camera store is a great place to start. My personal favorites are LowePro and Kata bags, specifically LowePro Pro Runner 300 AW and LowePro Kata 3 in 1 Sling Backpack.
Kata 3 in 1 Sling Backpack
19Feb/106
Is Your Browser Color-Managed?
I recently posted an article on how to calibrate a monitor, but completely forgot to mention about using color-managed applications. Whenever you deal with different color profiles on your pictures, you should always use color-managed applications. Otherwise, some of the pictures could appear abnormal and the colors could be way off.
One of the most basic applications that we would expect to have integrated color-management is our Internet browser that we use everyday. Surprisingly, many of the most popular browsers such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Opera simply ignore color profiles embedded into pictures. Therefore, for ultimate photo-viewing experience, you should always try to use a color-managed browser. The best and the most popular color-managed browser is Mozilla Firefox. It is my favorite browser and I use it primarily to surf the web.
18Feb/1016
We are now on Alltop!
We are proud to have been accepted and featured on one of the most respected online catalogs - Alltop.com. Alltop is truly a unique resource, where they only feature the top "picks" out of millions of websites on the Internet. Check out their "About" page for more information on how Alltop.com works.
You can find us there now in their Photography section. We are currently down at the bottom, but hope to get higher up as we grow! :)
This is great news for us, because it really shows that we have achieved a good status and respect among the photography community.
