Linda has been showing some terrific photos of Paris recently as she strolls around and looks at all kinds of things. The Art Deco grate cover in the shape of a butterfly is oh-so-Parisian and quite lovely. I often recommend checking her out but now is particularly good because it's a clear reminder that beauty for both eye and soul can and do and will persist.

Labels: blogs (others'), photos, places

Thanks to Norm for linking to these extraordinary 39 photos.  They are too marvelous to resist linking to them here as well.  No wonder it was the most watched Olympics.

Labels: blogs (others'), photos, sports

If any rare readers would like to share, I'd be curious to know what applications you use for photo storing and photo sharing. I've been using Picasa, Flickr and Picasa Web Albums but I'm not entirely happy with any of them. I tried SmugMug but it was code-heavy and required much to much back and forth to do simple things. I tried MyPhotoAlbum but it doesn't include much customization. Phanfare has a nifty interface but it's expensive and limited.

Picasa for storing is easy to use but bases everything on a timeline. I just don't want to organize everything on when a photo was taken. Plus, there's absolutely no way to change the timeline structure.

Flickr for sharing is easy to use and has collections as well as 'sets' which is very nice. Its batch operations are cool, too. But it requires visitors to register, which many don't like, and it's clunky in a way that's hard to verbalize but annoying as heck.

Ofoto or whatever Kodak is called these days, and Snapfish, are easy to use but again require registration and have so many ads and 'great offers!' that they make me nuts. No collections, either.

Picasa Web Albums is very easy to use but only allows one layer - no collections such as Vacations > Alaska, New Zealand. . . . They don't require registration (good) but the pictures must be one (too large) size (bad). And did I mention they don't have collections?

On a different note, fxfoto is an awesome - and free! - photo editing application for those who don't want to go the hundreds of dollar Photoshop route. Check it out! (Thanks, Cnet!)

Any suggestions will be welcome and most appreciated.

Labels: about me, family, photos

That's a pun - the title of this post. I got a wonderful new camera for Christmas from my son. He seems to have taken on the role of being my technical guardian angel, which is a lovely role, I must say (TiVo, printer, computer, camera . . .). So I bought a great big 2gb card for the camera yesterday and went to town this afternoon, shooting pictures of the slightly-more-than-one-hundred jewelry items that I've made in the last months. The pictures looked pretty good and I even cropped a few in camera (one of the Coolpix S51's nifty features). Then I came up to download them to my computer. Funny blippy noise ensued followed by "disk in drive h: needs to be formatted." I tried to copy the photos to the internal memory on the camera, but to no avail. Mind you - neither the camera nor the paperwork with the disk said ANYthing about needing to format the disk before using it - and the new 1gb that I used yesterday didn't require any formatting. Very frustrating. This is me pouting.

Labels: about me, photos

I always enjoy Music and Cats for its charm and its photos, but Friday's post ranks especially high. The intense stare of the gorgeous black cat is nothing short of marvelous.

Labels: blogs (others'), cats, photos

Stunning photo of Jupiter and a moon, today at Fresh Bilge.

Labels: blogs (others'), photos

After much discussion and many e-mails with friends, it's clear that it's not at all clear. There are SO many good cameras out there but almost none that do precisely what I want. For starters, I want a 3" LCD display, a viewfinder for when the screen is hard to see because of bright light or position, image stabilization, a great metal lens, manual as well as auto focus, manually adjustable as well as auto white balance, an automatic fluorescent light compensation setting, digital and optical zoom that's easy to operate while shooting, a continuous-shot feature, controls and menus that are easy to understand and easy to operate, quick start-up and between-shots time, gorgeous picture quality, and raw uncompressed format. Oh, and I don't want a DSLR because I want to be able to carry it with me every day. Several of these combinations seem to be deal breakers. Plus, most of the camera sites are exceedingly unhelpful. On one of them that purports to help you by letting you select items that matter to you, I specifically chose Nikon, Canon, Sony and Panasonic as the brands I wanted to see . . . and it proceeded to show me Samsung and Fuji and a whole bunch more, as well. On another, one of the famous and well-regarded ones, I said 3" LCD and manual focus . . . and got none at all even though there are at least three with both.

I tried out the Panasonic TZ3 which is a dynamite camera with many of the features I want. But it lacks fluorescent compensation, manual anything, and raw. The Panasonic FZ8 seemed like the eureka moment until I saw that it has a 2.5" display. There are two new Sonys (T100 and w200) that have some of the features and got good reviews but they lack important things. Then, just when I was despairingly trying to decide which compromises I'd (have to) make, a colleague said that Canon has just announced the G9, successor to the G7 (why bother with 8 if you can skip directly to 9?). It does seem to have it all, and in a compact size and shape. I'm waiting for just one review confirming that its images are good, and I'd also like to get a teeny tiny price break below full market price, but it looks as if this may be the one. Even if it's not a Nikon.

And by the way, what's with all the letters? Z? X? W? P? etc. What the heck do they mean and why doesn't anyone explain them, even their own manufacturers?

Labels: about me, photos

Anyone have anything to recommend for photo management? I don't mean Flickr types of things because I use that for displays. I'm talking about how to organize on one's computer. I've used Picasa, but I find it a bit clunky and boring. It takes a fair amount of attention and work, although it's easy. There are things like SmugMug (too arcane) and Snapfish (too commercial) but I'd like one that was *just right* as Goldilocks might say. What about Sony's? Is the Vista "gallery" good? Any others?

Labels: family, photos

Still haven't plunged in. Still limping along with the small Musetek I got at QVC or HSN several eons ago. It takes good outdoor photos but doesn't do as well indoors and anyway I want snazzier pictures. I tried those sites that promise to show you which cameras you should consider but they simply ignore some things such as size of LCD (ideally 3") and manual controls (I want a lot available tho' not required) and shutter speed (quick, of course), etc., etc. (which is why I'm not going to link any of them). They seem to have agendas about particular cameras (pro Canon, anti Nikon) and certain criteria they weigh more heavily than others (even though they don't tell you so). For example, I said no less than a 2.5" LCD yet three sites showed me cameras with 1.8". I said uncompressed tiff or raw mattered yet they showed me cameras with none. Wouldn't you think a computer could gather information based on one's wish-list? I would. Yes I could just close my eyes and point at the Nikon or Sony that comes closest (I've been disappointed with Fuji's and Canon's coloring and sharpness, and am wary of most other brands) but that seems lame. Anyone got any great ideas of how to go about doing this rationally?

Labels: photos, shopping