A Quick Suggestion: Backup!

More than once a week I find myself listening to the lower left palm rest of a friend's Macbook or Macbook Pro.  I'm listening for grinding, whirring, or the fatal click, click, silence that signifies the death of yet another 2.5" notebook hard drive.  Then comes the fun part - I get to tell the owner that the reason their computer has stopped working is that their hard drive has crashed, and while it will probably be covered under warranty, all their data- the six-page essay they've been working on for a week, all their digital photos, their (pirated) movies, and illegal music downloads are all gone.  Forever.  

This is certainly not just a Mac problem, and is actually just as common in PC notebooks.  However, all your data can be secured and backed up extraordinarily easily.  Now this is not something to put on your todo list.  This is not something to do next week, or whenever you get around to it. This is something to do today.  You should be making backups of your important data weekly at the least.  There are many utilities that can help you with this, but before we get into those, we need to find a place to store those backups that will be made.

There are two options for this:  Online, or an external hard drive.

Online options are relatively limited and tend to cost a bit more than external hard drive solutions.  However, in return for this extra expense, your backups are available to you anywhere you have an internet connection, and there's no way for this data to be lost if there's a catastrophe such as a fire where everything could be destroyed.  The top three options here are Amazon's S3 service, Box.net and Apple's .Mac service.

Amazon's service is unlimited, but charges you for putting data on the server, removing it, and storing it.  This is infinitely secure, very automated, and has the highest capacity of any online service, but charges you for it accordingly.  Pricing information is about half way down on the description page linked above.

Box.net gets you one gig for free, with 5 or 15 gigabyte services available for a fee.  There is no automation like there is with both the Amazon and .Mac services, but if you're looking to backup only the essentials, the free gig is better than nothing.

Apple's .Mac option gives you many many things in addition to online storage with automated backups, but gives you 10 gigs online with fully integrated functionality for $100/year ($8.33/month)

Moving away from online options, external hard drives are getting very affordable, and with all the available backup solutions, there's really no reason not to pick one of these up to save your data.  Once you have an external hard drive (links to hard drive deals at the bottom), here are a few options for back up utilities:  Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, and SuperDuper

My favorite: Time Machine.  Mac OSX 10.5 comes with this feature built in and setup couldn't be simpler.  You plug in your hard drive, your computer asks you if you want to use this hard drive for backup, you say yes, and you're done.  Your computer backs up hourly in the background and keeps those hourly backups for 24 hours.  You accidentally deleted an email you got this morning?  No problem, Time Machine has a copy.  Time Machine saves the hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month.  Price is free with Leopard, or $129 for the upgrade

My second favorite: Carbon Copy Cloner.  Bombich software released version 3.1 of this fantastic software just a few days ago.  The program creates a carbon copy of your hard drive onto an external one.  If your hard drive crashes entirely, hold down the option key and boot from the external straight into the system just the way you left it.  Easy, simple, and best of all, free!  (Donations accepted)

A third option I've also used is SuperDuper.  This is by far the most customizable, but with that comes additional setup time and effort that I just don't like to spend.  If you have specific files or intervals you'd like to backup by, this is the option for you.  $27.95

Free trials are available for all of the above, but no matter which works best for you, don't wait!  Spend the small investment of time and/or money to save your data!

Cheap External Hard Drives Galore

... and a whole website devoted to affordable hard drives

How To: Use Your DSLR Camera Settings

The article on the basics of DSLR controls explained how your camera works internally.  This article is a followup to explain how to manipulate these settings on your DSLR.

Using The Settings

Now you have an idea of how the settings work, but using them is the only way to really get a handle on how each setting really affects your pictures. I'll explain how to use these settings on both the Nikon D-80 and the Canon E0S Digital Rebel XTi.

As you can see below, these two cameras have very different looking mode dials, but in reality, both serve the same general purposes. The Nikon is on top and the Cannon on bottom.


Each camera has the same basic modes: Auto (green on both), P (Program Mode), S/Tv (shutter priority/Time Value), A/Av (Aperture Priority/Aperture Value), M (Manual) and a slew of situation modes.

I recommend using auto and the situation modes if you're just starting out. These will help you identify what looks best in different situations and once you have a hold on what you like best, you can start to manually set your camera to match those settings in other situations.

Auto

You point your camera and press the button - the camera attempts to figure out everything to end up with a balanced image.

Program

This mode is very helpful for taking a little bit of control, while allowing the camera to still have its say in what it thinks will make for a balanced photo. When you move your camera's dial on this mode, both shutter and aperture will settings will change to allow the correct amount of light into the lens, but the camera will limit you to settings that are appropriate to avoid over or underexposing the image. ISO is set manually in this mode as well.

Shutter Priority/Time Value

This mode allows you to adjust the shutter speed manually and allow the camera to choose an aperture that allows enough light in for the shutter speed and ISO you have set. A high shutter speed could be used to take a picture of a race car traveling 100mph, and make it appear to be completely stationary in the middle of the track, or maybe more practically to take a picture of your dog running around in the back yard without the slightest hint of blur.

Aperture Priority/Aperture Value

In the same way that Shutter Priority allows you to choose a shutter speed and the camera picks an appropriate aperture, this mode allows you to choose an aperture and ISO of your choice and uses the best shutter speed based on the settings you've chosen. An example of how this could be used would be if you're wanting to take a family portrait and want to make sure everyone is in focus, you would set your aperture at a high f-stop.

Manual

Pretty literal - you set everything. The ISO, the shutter, the aperture, and a plethora of other things can be set in this mode.

Well, that covers most of the basics for getting started with taking better and more creative digital photos, but that's just the point!  These are the basics and so much more can be learned by looking at others' photography for inspiration and finding your own style to shoot - so get out and start taking pictures!

Shoot Better Photos: Basics of DSLR Controls

When a photographer starts talking about shooting photos, words and acronyms like Shutter Speed, Aperture, ISO, MegaPixel, White Balance, or AF Area can be talked about.  The problem is that a lot of people have no idea what these terms mean.  Books have been filled explaining these ideas, so I'll try and keep this entry as filled with information as possible, without overwhelming everybody with too much all at once. This article will go over the basics of what these terms mean and how they can be used, and I will follow up on these controls work on your DSLR in another article. 

On a side note, if you have a point and shoot camera (anything pocket sized), these controls are generally not available on cameras that size.  

Let's start at the beginning - shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.  These three settings control how much light gets into the camera and how that light is received by the camera's sensor.  In order to take a balanced picture, the amount of light that reaches the camera's sensor has to be just right.

When a picture is taken, the lens opens up for a specific amount of time at a specific width. This allows just the right amount of light to get into the camera's sensor.  This light reaching the sensor is what produces an image.

If too much light gets in, you get an "overexposed" picture with lots of white and washed out details.  

However the opposite is also true.  If too little light gets in, the image is "underexposed" with black areas and not much definition.

Luckily, your camera is smart enough to balance these settings to get your picture correctly exposed almost every time.  As you can see here, the camera slightly overexposed this picture on automatic mode.  The wall above the speaker is washed out with no definition - this is what can be avoided using manual settings.

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is a measure of how long the lens stays open.  A faster shutter speed, 1/100 of a second or higher, will allow you to "freeze frame" whatever is in front of you, but lets less light into the camera.  In an indoor setting, this will usually cause the image to be underexposed without the aid of flash.  A longer shutter speed will allow more light into the camera, but can cause motion blur.  A tripod can be infinitely helpful to stabilize the camera and prevent blurring.  A good rule of thumb for handheld shots is about 1/30 of a second to keep from blurring.

Aperture

Aperture is sort of like the pupil of your eye in that it opens wider as light decreases to let in more available light.  If you have a quick shutter speed, a wider opening in the aperture will allow more light to enter the lens.  The diameter of an aperture is measured in f-stops. A lower f-stop number widens the aperture and allows more light onto the camera sensor.  Higher f-stop numbers make the camera's aperture smaller so less light hits the sensor.  Aperture can also have an effect on the depth of field in the image.  Higher f-stops (smaller diameter, less light getting to the sensor) allow more of an image to be in focus, and if you have enough light, this is usually a good idea to make sure your subject is in the best focus.  Lower f-stops allow for a very cool isolation of your subject by blurring out the details of anything in front or behind it.

These two concepts are very interrelated in that the faster the shutter speed, the larger the opening of the lens and vice versa.

ISO

So now that we can control the amount of light that gets into the camera which is very helpful if we have an ideal amount of light wherever we're shooting.  However, we live in the real world and shoot pictures in many places where the lighting is far from perfect.  For these situations, we can use ISO to control the camera sensor's sensitivity to light.  ISO 100 is the norm for outdoor shooting and will offer superb color and image rendering.  Higher ISO's will allow brighter pictures with less light, but this comes at the expense of image quality.

If you're new to all this, hopefully I haven't caused your brain to explode quite yet!  Just keep in mind that the best way to learn about your camera and how setting work is to just go out and shoot photos.  Start to play with some of the settings and see if you can make any cool effects, and if all else fails, your camera has a manual that will help explain these settings in more detail.

Good luck, and happy shooting!

Shoot Better Photos: Basics of Composition

There are a million ways to take a picture, and thousands of different cameras to take it with.  However, regardless of whether you're shooting with an instant polaroid (which they're about to stop making film for by the way) or the newest Nikon D3 DSLR, there are a few basic things to keep in mind that will make for better pictures almost every time.  These certainly are not "rules" that must be followed in order to take professional looking pictures, but can help make good pictures into great pictures.

The main idea is a bit difficult to master, because most people who are best at it were born with it.  Photographers refer to it as having "an eye" for a good looking picture.  That is to say that one person can take a picture of something, and another person with the exact same conditions can take a far superior picture just by thinking outside the norms of photography.  The key to an awesome photograph is to make an interesting one.  If every picture was taken at eye level with the subject in the center, after the first few pics most people would get bored and stop looking.  However, if you can incorporate variety and interesting subjects into your shooting, you'll end up with better pictures.

There are three basic things to help incorporate variety into your photos, and to help develop "an eye" for what a good picture might be.

Framing

The first is to frame your pictures while you're taking them.  If you have picture or painting on the wall and you put a frame on it, it looks more classy - the same thing applies to a picture.

In the picture to the right, instead of zooming in and getting a close up of the subject, I used surrounding bushes to make for a more interesting picture.  This makes the picture more interesting to look at without distracting too much from the main subject.

Thirds

The second concept is called the rule of thirds.  The best thing about this is that it can be implemented into photos you have already taken by cropping.  The idea here is to mentally split your photo into thirds, both horizontally and vertically, and have the subject of your pic at one of the intersections of these thirds.  The reason for this is that the human face is constructed in thirds, with the eyes at the top intersection of the left and right third.  

When you talk with someone, your gaze is generally focused on one eye or the other, which attracts your eyes to the same locations in photos.  This causes a centered subject to be more like the nose of the picture - possibly interesting but not what we naturally look at the most.

This photo uses the rule of thirds in two different areas.  The first is the entire left wall of the museum follows very closely to the split of the left third from the rest of the image.  This makes the viewer's eye follow the wall and with the color differences from bottom to top, the image is given a unique effect.  The second area where the rule of thirds is applied is the text "art museum" which falls into the lower right third of the picture, attracting eyes there as well.

Perspective

The final tip is to have an interesting perspective. If your camera has a macro mode, try it out. If you're shooting at eye level, angle your shot to make something in your picture more interesting. 

 
 If you're in a position to get closer than normal, do it.  If you can get a low angle, go for it!  These types of ideas help to add an immense amount of variety to your photos and can create patterns like in the picture or the right, or something unique such as the lens flare in the image below it.  This is where the most interesting photos can come from, and this is where your "eye" can emerge giving your photography its own style.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional photographer or even pretending to be one - these tips have helped me take better pictures and hopefully can help you do the same.

Advice Whore

As someone who is more tech-savy than not, I seem to be the go-to-guy for most of my friends and family to be whored out for tech advice. Granted - I think about tech stuff most of my day anyways, so I don't really mind, but it's surprising how many of these questions and problems could be avoided by doing two basic things.

First: Get a Mac.
Now I know there's that whole conversation about Mac compatibility with Windows and, more importantly to most people, familiarity with PC's that PC users bring up as reasons not to switch to mac. To this I respond, Macs can run Windows.

Now that a PC has no advantages over a Mac, I should probably try and persuade you with the features Mac OSX has that XP and Vista don't, but more importantly than what the Mac OS has, is what it doesn't have. On a Mac, you never have to worry about viruses, malware, or spyware - oh and you never have to defrag the hard drive either.  The bottom line is that, as it stands right now, Macs require less general maintenance than PCs do.

Second: Backup, backup, backup!
I've been accused of making people cry because I'm the one who has to tell them their hard drive has crashed. To explain how all the pictures, videos, and music that a person has collected over the years has just been blinked out of existence sucks, but this situation is easily avoidable.

You know that Mac I just told you to use? If you plug an external hard drive into it, the computer will ask if you'd like to use the hard drive as a backup. You click yes, and you are forever safe from losing all your data.

Macs are getting more and more affordable. Here is Apple's discount and refurb page.
Cheap External Hard Drives Galore

... and a whole website devoted to affordable hard drives
If you have tech questions (especially Mac ones) feel free to sound off in the comments.