Put the power of the Obama campaign posters towards your own use...

Obamicon.ME and others
giving the power of the poster
to the people!

Like those really cool Obama campaign posters made by Shepard Fairey? Want to make one of your own?


You are in luck!

No Photoshop skills are required to make your very own Obama/Fairey style posters over at Obamicon.me. The site hosted by Paste Magazine allows you to upload any image (or use a web/phone cam) smaller than 4mb, and they will instantly turn it into Obama inspired pop art with the click of your mouse. How cool is that! Obamicon.me allows you to download your creations and post them in a gallery with everyone elses. Of course some photoshop skills will still come in handy as they recomend .png or .gif files with transparent backgrounds for the best effect.

Additionally there are a couple of other options available on the net.

Obamafy is a photo booth plug-in from Dubi Kaufmann and is available for download here: http://www.dubster.com/obamafy/ It is only available for Mac's OS X 10.5 Leopard, so PC users don't even think about it....

VECTORTUTS has a nice tutorial by Zach Wentz
Creating an inspirational political poster.
"This tutorial is inspired by Sheppard Fairey's famous political poster series for the Obama campaign in the US. We'll be showing you how to create this style of design. We'll start with basic image editing techniques in Photoshop to get our guide layers setup, and then we'll jump into Illustrator. You don't need any fancy equipment to do this. I used an older mouse that still has the rubber ball."

Finally University of Washington's in the studio blog gives some alternate advice based on the VECTORTUTS tutorial but with a little more thought about the art rather than just trying to automate the process. In How to emulate the iconic Obama poster, Part II Author DavidW notes "One detail that I noticed about Fairey’s poster was his use of both hard lines and curves. That is, Obama’s features aren’t exclusively represented with rounded shapes, nor exclusively sharp-edged shapes. There’s a mix. I think that mix really speaks both to Fairey’s artistic eye and ability to communicate such emotion with relatively little (just colors and shapes)." To this end he goes on to explain his process to achieving a successful Fairey/Obama style poster.

Flickr has one of the best collections of Obamicon and other Obama/Fairey inspired posters, here are a few...

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Live-View and Movie-Mode with any SLR

how to get live-view and movie-mode with a 5D :), originally uploaded by miami fever.

DIY Canon 5D mkII

From Carlos aka- Miami Fever over on Flickr. Perhaps this is Canon Inc's inspiration for including video into their new 5DmkII. Even if it isn't the idea is genius. Now all of us SLR users can reap the benefit of the live view and movie modes available in nearly all of today's point and shoots.

From Miami Fever's Flickr photostream:

"I would find myself having to put down the 5D when I wanted to shoot a video, and vice-versa.
It's really nice to be able to shoot a video of some subjects whose motion and sounds (such as cars) add interest as you photograph them.
I don't do this for street shooting, since discretion is key, the 5D is big enough as it is, and video wouldn't really be as interesting as a still.
This should work with any camera with a hot-shoe and any point and shoot with movie mode and a standard 1/4" tripod mount."

Carlos gives the details of the hardware used in his custom mount over at flickr where he goes by Miami Fever. Pay him a visit and let him know how much you like his creation! You can also compliment him on his amazing street photography taken on the streets of Miami. Most of his great images are what can be described as available dark, capturing the vibrant night scene in Miami without the use of a flash. It doesn't hurt that his images often include many of the beautiful women seemingly roaming the streets of Miami. You can also check out Carlos's blog: http://www.miami-fever.com/ where he posts additional photos and information about his photo documentary of life in Miami.

Carlos is also adept at converting all manner of lenses for use on his Canon 5D. Check out his flickr "Gear" set to see many of his lens adaptations. Additionally Carlos runs a photography and gear oriented blog: Ask Carlos where he elaborates and answers questions about photo equipment, lens compatibility, and his overall shooting technique.

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A Basic Field Guide for the Outdoor Strobist

Free guide to
getting great outdoor lighting!

First go look at Bernie Ledsma's amazing outdoor photos (Here: Outdoor Strobist) and you will appreciate the fact that not only is he offering his advice to help the rest of us achieve the same great results with our photos, but that he has really gone out of his way to write up and illustrate a free guide!

Bernie titles himself a "strobist" because his style of outdoor portrature relies on fill flash or strobes to properly expose the main subject while maximizing the use of beautiful natural ambient lighting.

You can find Bernie's guide and gallery of images over on Yahoo's free photo sharing community Flickr.

(See our previous blog post about Flickr, the most active photo community on the internet)

So stop in, pick up his guide, and make sure you say hello and comment on his great photos!

-------------
Originally uploaded by Bernie Led:

“A Basic Field Guide for the Outdoor Strobist” 1st edition NOW AVAILABLE! For those who may be interested, I came up with a field guide on the basics of "Outdoor Strobing", just compiled my notes, learning’s, and work flow.

I initially made the notes for myself but decided to share it each time someone would ask me how I create those images. So I am making this material available to anyone who may benefit from it.

I know the learning curve here is steep with so much technical variations and complex exposure combinations, so I tried to keep it concise, but comprehensive.

A little thing about me, I am not a pro (have a day job in marketing) nor am I claiming to be a master, I just love and enjoy doing this... creating beautiful images and trying to be helpful to others that is.

If you would like to have a copy, Id be glad to email a copy to you, (free of course, not doing this for the money). Not really ground breaking, just my way of sharing and giving back...

All ill ask in return is for you to just let me know if it was able to help you or if you had fun using it. If you have suggestions to improve the work flow to make it easier or even better, let me know. Then we share it to even more people (open source spirit)... I'm calling it "A Basic Field Guide for the Outdoor Strobist" (just 5 pages, PDF format)

Get it here: A Basic Field Guide For The Outdoor Strobist

Bernie Ledesma

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DIY 120 SPAMera®

SPAMera®, originally uploaded by [ CK ].

Now you can have your camera and eat it too!

From Chris Keeney's Flickr page...

SPAMera®

This is my newest camera in my collection. It takes 120 roll film and yields 8-12 exposures. Made in my kitchen on 02.03.06. ~ 220 film compatible

Hormel // SPAM Museum // SPAM Family // SPAM History // The Art of SPAMography

more information about this camera at chriskeeney.com

Uploaded by [ CK ] on 6 Feb 06, 1.59AM PDT.

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Free Guide to lighting figures and products for photography

Good photography is good lighting!

A lot of people think that good lighting is expensive. Wrong. The best light source for photography is free!

This is a great tutorial (Figure on Cheap Lighting) on how to better show off your figures to other figure enthusiasts on the net by taking better photos of your collection to share.



This knowledge is shared on the HappySoda blog written by “super rats”. HappySoda is an anime and anime stuff fan blog. Blog topics include Anime DVDs, figurines, and other related things, such as conventions. Super Rats is an avid miniature figure photographer with a fantastic portfolio of beautiful shots. Super Rats shares many of his photos on flickr as well, - Flickr Sets

Super Rats shares his experience and tips for creating a mini indoor studio using common household items. The results he gets prove that good figure and product photography does not have to be expensive or rely on expensive equipment.

DIY Lighting- Figure on Cheap Lighting
Super Rats Gallery- Flickr Sets
HappySoda Blog- Anime stuff fan blog



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Free Photo Network

Flickr
Store, Share, Communicate, and Network
Free from Yahoo!

Flickr is the most active photo community on the internet. More people visit share there photos and visions and make connections than anywhere else on the net.

Flickr is a free service owned by Yahoo. To set up an account to share your photos on Flickr all you need is a free Yahoo id. Flickr is such a valuable tool for photographers that nobody despite your level of photographic experience should ignore it.

Flickr is vast and encompasses people and photos from all walks of life and experiences. It has professionals as well as those who post via cellphone camera.

For the professional photographer Flickr offers networking exposure to millions of potential customers and the ability to tag each photo with keywords and provide links and information to potential customers. For any professional photographer that is thinking about ignoring Flickr first read 36 reasons that Flickr is a photographers ultimate tool over at photopreneur.com, a website dedicated to identifying digital-age earning opportunity's to photographers.

For the ameature photographer Flickr provides a terrific place to host and share your photos. But it is much more. Flickr encourages its members to participate by allowing you to annotate and comment and ask questions on others photos. It also provides groups that you can join to share photos of a specific theme, or based on a photographers make of camera, or even skill level. Perhaps best of all Flickr is full of helpful fellow photographers that will help you grow and learn as a photographer.

So don't wait, Join Flickr today! And open a whole new world to your photographic experience! It is free after all...

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DIY Camera Lens

Teach an Old Camera
New Tricks!

(Photo: Zeiss Ikon on a Sony Alpha A100)

Make an old camera useful again. Many old film cameras and lenses can easily be adapted for use with todays Digital SLR's. The science for which cameras and lenses make good DSLR adaptations is simple. The lens needs to go from a thicker camera body to a thinner body (with the adapter thickness making up the difference).

If you transfer to a thicker body then the lens will only focus for a couple of feet like a macro lens and everything else beyond will be out of focus. An optical element (lens) can be fitted into an adapter to correct this but they 1.) are very hard to find 2.) are very expensive 3.) you lose some quality and perhaps 1 f-stop of speed.

Kimmo Kulovesi (who took the photo above) writes about his adaptation on Yahoo flickr:

Contessa Nettel Cocarette on the Sony DSLR A100

"A Contessa Nettel Cocarette camera attached to my Sony DSLR A100 by means of sticking an 11mm M42 extension tube to the rear port of the camera. The moving lens assembly allows infinity focus to be achieved, enabling the 105mm f/4.5 Carl Zeiss Tessar lens to be utilized with the DSLR. (Or indeed, almost any SLR capable of accepting M42 lenses either directly or with an adapter..."

"from 1923... it's about as sharp as any lens I have."

-Arkku from Flickr

Lens adaptations or hacks have been around for as long as there have been cameras. Since there has never been a agreed upon standard mount between manufactures there has always been the case of certain special lenses that photographers could not live without and were adapted over when the photographer changed or updated camera systems. Some lenses like the 1920's Kodak Pocket Folder lens have been considered so special for their soft focus portraiture that they have been sought out, and modified to work in modern portrait studios.

Loss of automation is something to consider if you do desire to do an adaptation. Today's DSLR wonder-cams have a lot of integration between the camera and the lens. Without a modern electronic lens attached you will lose some automation that we take for granted today. Some of the biggies include:

Autofocus

You will surely lose Autofocus and the ability of the camera to determine when the shot is in focus using the focusing points. You will have to twist the focus knob yourself and then eyeball the image in the viewfinder to determine if the focus is correct.

Creative Modes

You will be stuck using the camera set to manual "M" mode or (if you are lucky depending on the camera make) possibly Aperture priority, if your camera can still meter light properly without an electronic lens, (Sorry Nikon DSLR users you lose your lightmeter!)

Auto Diaphragm

Modern cameras allow you to meter and focus with the lens iris wide open, then as the shutter is pressed the lens automatically stops down to the preset opening just before the shutter fires. The reason for composing with the lens wide open is to give a brighter viewfinder and to ease in focusing. With an adapted lens you will need to set the lens iris manually before you press the shutter.

To the modern DSLR user the loss of automation alone can be daunting. For those of us that used film cameras it will be like stepping back in time. Either way it is surely more work to adapt and use a non system lens than to just buy one made for your camera. However for many of us Do-It-Yourselfers hours of enjoyment can be had by adapting and using these older lenses and cameras.

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