HP has expanded its easy-to-use digital picture frame portfolio to you show off photos, create slide shows and play videos - with no computer needed. The picture frames come in a variety of sizes, including a portable, 3.5-inch pocket frame and an attractive 10-inch cherry wood-finish frame. The frames feature clock and calendar options, support MP3 and other audio formats, and play music through stereo speakers. The new frames are available now, and come in 3.5-inch, 7-inch, 8-inch and 10-inch in a price range from $59 to $219…

Speedlnks: Sept. 8, 2008
Quickie batch of bonus speedlinks for Monday morning, after the jump:________ PDN ran a piece on Tim Kent’s amazing car photography, thus justifying Ken Brown’s subscription for the next ten years. Don’t miss the companion OA-style sidebar, too. If you live in eastern Canada and are a fan of Martin Prihoda, you may wish to check out a big-lights seminar he’ll be doing in Toronto later this month. My bet is most of us get a steady stream of requests to shoot photos of friends and family. This is how you might do it if you were contributing SI shooter (and current cover boy) David Bergman. If that SI thing does not work out, Dave, you would make a heckuva yearbook photographer… If you are willing to give up your email address — and can read German — California Sunbounce is giving away 450 day passes to Photokina. Finally, in case you haven’t seen it yet: Vincent Laforet takes a video stroll through Pocket Wizard heaven at the finish line of the 100m sprint at the Olympics. (Patrick Smith, if you are reading this from a public computer, you might want to put a pillow over your lap before you watch it…)This is a full RSS feed post from Strobist.com. Click the post title to see the full post and view reader comments. This month’s feeds are sponsored by:

Betcha Can’t Watch it Just Once
I always enjoy a good photo shoot video. You know, a little chance to see behind the scenes, the studio banter, some cool finished stills at the end. Nice way to spend a few minutes.Several months ago, Chase Jarvis did a promo still/video shoot for the Kung Fu HD network. For various reasons, he has not been able to publish it until now. But I got an early sneak peak, and I thought it was killer. So I watched it again. And again. And again.How many times? I have no friggin’ idea. I only know that I was watching the full, 1080p version via his server. So every time I hit the “play” button, it cost him about 35 megs worth of bandwidth. Suffice to say, I owe Chase a beer next time I see him. An imported beer.Fortunately, it’s on YouTube now, so I can watch it without the guilt. It’s cool as a moose, and I know at least 94 percent of you are gonna like it too. Oh, and yeah — that song is in heavy rotation on my iPod now.Enjoy. And head over to Chez Chase to read more and see the stills if you liked it.-30-This is a full RSS feed post from Strobist.com. Click the post title to see the full post and view reader comments. This month’s feeds are sponsored by:

ATP announces the new GPS Photo Finder mini
ATP introduces the new GPS Photo Finder mini. The GPS Photo Finder mini can record the locations at which pictures were taken and easily geotag photos with GPS coordinates without a computer and software. All you have to do is simply activate the Photo Finder mini while taking pictures, then insert the camera’s memory card into the slot on the docking station, attach the Photo Finder mini as well and then the geotagging process will be carried out automatically. The Photo Finder mini is available now at select regions for $149.99…

Lighting 102 - 7.2: Time in a Bottle
Before we get to the assignment for this last unit in Lighting 102, I have one more technique for you to consider when using time as a variable for your flash photos. It’s very useful, because it acts as a gear multiplier for those of you who may not have as many strobes as you’d like.Given that a flash can record it’s subject in an instant — even if the exposure is spread out over a long time — there are several ways to stretch a flash into looking several light sources when shooting a static object.You’ll remember Jonathan Boeke’s cool shot from July in which he ran around during a time exposure popping his green-gelled flash from behind several trees to create this photo. It’s a great idea, and you can easily see how it can make one flash look like a whole bag full of lights.But you’ll need a very dark environment and a long shutter to have time to make all of your locations for popping the flash. And if you screw up one pop, your whole photo is shot.Another way to approach this is to use your camera’s multi-exposure setting, if it has one. Some do, some don’t. If your camera is so equipped, this gives you great flexibility and time to spare when you are lining up your various light locations.If you do not have three PW’s (one to manually trigger, one on the camera in relay mode and one on the flash) you’ll want to wrangle a button-pushing friend to help. The camera, obviously, should be on a tripod.If you’ll remember, we set up a tag cloud for others who wanted to try this technique. You can see their resulting photos here.For my take on Jonathan’s night woods shot, I chose the multiple exposure route because it allowed me to control the ambient light. There was still plenty of twilight when this photo was taken, but since I shot each multi-exposure pop at a 250th of a sec, I could totally control my ambient. I could even have chosen to lay down a, say, three-stop-underexposed ambient frame to flesh out the rest of the photo if I wanted. But I liked it better on black.I tried the straight multiple exposure method about ten times (all pretty time consuming, too) and never got one I liked. So I decided to cheat. I use that term loosely, as there are no real “rules” for this kind of shot. As far as I am concerned, any tool you have is fair game. So I decided to do this multi-exposure on separate frames and combine them in Photoshop. I shot each frame separately, and added each new photo a layer at a time, and combined them using the lighten mode. This simply compares the two layers, pixel by pixel, and the lightest pixel in a given location wins. Which means it pretty much works like a multi-exposure — except you can tweak each layer / flash pop before you add it to the final photo. You can shift the color, exposure, etc. It’s a fantastic trick for shooting large scenes with one speedlight. I used my single loaner SB-900 for this one. (It turned back into a pumpkin last week and had to go back to Nikon.)Thanks much to Photoshop Honcho Ben Willmore for the heads-up on the lighten technique.The best way I can explain the advantage of being able to build this exposure around the totally controlled ambient is to say that I shot the photo at left almost an hour after the multi-pop photo. I think that kind of control is pretty cool, when you consider you are getting it with just one speedlight.The soft look in this photo came from the fact that I used a plastic Holga lens (more on that here) on my D3. Kind of ironic, really - a $50 Holga lens on a D3. But I love the look, when combined with hard strobe.And that’s exactly what I did here — camera on tripod, ambient underexposed a stop or two and a 30-second exposure. Just tripped the shutter and walked up to the side of the tree (out of the frame, tho) and popped the flash manually.My choice of shutter for the multi-exposure shot above turned day into night, and the long shutter for this one turned night into day. Understanding flash / ambient control lets you do some cool stuff.Speaking of Doing Cool StuffNow, it’s your turn. You have just about everything I have to give on time manipulation of your flash photography. So for this, our last L102 assignment, your job is to shoot a still life. Your photo should contain a combination of flash and some form of time-based manipulation.That’s pretty wide open, I know. I wanted it to be that way because I thought we would make this one a little more interesting.At the close of this assignment I will choose one shot, and the winner gets a set of Lighting Seminar DVDs, shipped anywhere in the world. Hopefully that will add a little layer of fun to the last assignment.The DetailsThe deadline for this assignment is midnight, local, September 20th. Please make sure your photos are in Flickr and tagged before then. If you are a newb to Flickr, go ahead and sign up now (it is fast and free) and drop some photos in so you can get through the week-or-so waiting period before they let your tagged photos show up.Here are your tags:StrobistLighting102 (Note: no spaces)AssignmentTimeInABottle (Note: no spaces)and for your best shot, include the tag:FinalYou can see all of the take here. You can see the final edits here. Discussion is here.Judging will be by a committee of one (yours truly). I will choose based on technique, creativity, how badly I wish I would have taken it myself, my general disposition at the time, what I may have had for breakfast in the morning, etc.PLEASE NOTE: Please do not enter pre-existing photos into the running for the DVDs. I would like to award them to the best photo shot specifically for this assignment. We are doing this one on the honor system, but make sure your EXIF can back you up…Best of luck to all, and I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with!This is a full RSS feed post from Strobist.com. Click the post title to see the full post and view reader comments. This month’s feeds are sponsored by:

New Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO 45-200mm lens
Together with the announcement of the Panasonic Digital Interchangeable Lens Camera DMC-G1 on September 12th, Panasonic also announced a new interchangeable Telephoto Zoom Lens of the Micro Four Thirds System Standard, namely the LUMIX G VARIO 45-200mm/F4.0-5.6/MEGA O.I.S. It is a new telephoto zoom interchangeable lens designed specifically for the cameras compatible with Micro Four Thirds System standard…

Nikon announces 50 mm f/1.4G AF-S Nikkor lens
Nikon announces the 50 mm f/1.4G AF-S Nikkor single-focal-length lens. This latest addition to the NIKKOR lineup features a large maximum aperture of f/1.4, enabling it to be used for easy handheld shooting in dark settings, such as a dimly lit room. It also allows you to easily create beautiful large blur effects. The Silent Wave Motor (SWM) of this lens ensures quick, quiet autofocus. Autofocus shooting is made possible with SLR models that do not have a built-in motor, such as the D40 series and D60…

Leica D-LUX-4 first digital compact system camera
Leica announces the D-LUX 4 digital camera system. This new camera, similar to the Panasonic LX3, offers a high-aperture lens that allows you to work with an open shutter. Its high speed makes the D-LUX 4 ideal for available light exposures. At a standard resolution of 10.1 megapixels, the D-Lux 4 can take photos in all three formats (4:3/3:2/16:9) to suit the particular recording or playback situation. On the spacious 3″ LCD monitor with a resolution of 460,000 pixels, pictures can be viewed and assessed…

Ghetto Studio: Compact Garage Background Support
I love it when a great idea just drops in out of the blue. This one is from Ray Dobbins, a bicycle collector who likes to take photos of his prized objects in his garage. He is totally frugal on the light, using a pair of cheapo worklights as main sources. Brownie points for that, obviously. But it’s the two small metal brackets he made that will certainly find their way to my garage.When I get a garage, that is. More pics, and a a couple of ways for Ray to kick his light up a notch, inside.More for LessRay is wonderfully low-end on his whole setup, having just upgraded to a 4MP Kodak EasyShare camera. He is bouncing the two worklights off of the ceiling, and putting the bikes on seamless white, including a sweep to fill on the bottom. Further he fills with white flats on the sides to smooth out the light even more.The genius in his setup is this small bracket, which he uses to attach white seamless paper to his garage shelving. What a great idea. Since he is shooting bikes, he does not even need to run the shelving up to the ceiling to get full height — which is exactly what I would do.He holds the paper roll in with to (retractable) bolts. What could be simpler? I am almost certainly gonna have a neater garage (one day) because of this idea. Ray, my wife thanks you.And since one good turn deserves another, let’s take a few minutes to help Ray pimp out his lighting and image management — while staying on his super-tight budget. (Not that Ray is a tightwad, either. He just likes to spend money on bikes, rather than lights…)First, you are really going in the right direction with the white flats. Big, creamy highlights on the sides and floor make your bike’s form come to life. Let’s continue down that path a little more.I would suggest using small pieces of black cardboard between the worklights and the bike in your current setup. This will kill any hard, direct light. So all of your light will be creamy bounce light. The net affect will be to kill small, hot-spot reflections in the tubing. As a bonus, it’ll also kill hard shadows behind the bike.Second, I see that at least one of your lights is a double worklight. Sweet. You can do all of your ceiling bounce with just one double light. Place it in the center of the garage and aim the two lights toward the respective sides of the ceiling. You just scrounged yourself a second light source to use for free.This next idea is gonna sound a little fancy-pants, but it’ll make those bike tubes come to life in a killer way: Get an old sheet. Queen sized would be ideal. Stretch it on a cord, so it hangs, clothesline style, across the garage just behind your tripod/camera position. Stick your second work light a ways back, behind the sheet and aiming at it. You just made yourself a huge, on-axis ring light / soft box. Combined with the bounce light on the ceiling and flats, this light will sculpt your bike’s form very nicely, with no glaring hot spots, either. Make sure to fill the sheet with light — back the light up.This will make your white background much easier to tame and keep smooth, too.And, assuming you’d rather spend $600 on some obscure Campy seat post than a new copy of Photoshop, you can now do pretty decent image post processing online for free with Photoshop Express and/or Picasa.Thanks to Ray for the background bracket idea, and to Jean for the heads-up about the lnk. And if anyone else has any good garage-studio ideas to share, hit us in the comments with words and/or URLs.:: Ray’s Bike Photo Setup ::This is a full RSS feed post from Strobist.com. Click the post title to see the full post and view reader comments. This month’s feeds are sponsored by:

Canon releases WFT-E3/E3A firmware version 2
Canon releases firmware update version 2.0.0 for the WFT-E3/E3A wireless transmitter. This firmware update is only needed for use of the transmitter on the EOS 50D digital SLR camera. If you are using the EOS 40D, you do not need to update the firmware as the new functions only apply to the model 50D. These new functions are: Supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup Can transfer images in folders Can change HTTP port numbers …

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