We’ve Grown & Moved — Now We’re “Blame It On The Light” —

Hello!!

It’s actually been awhile since I’ve posted on this blog — Life, Business, The Economic Mess, etc. have all kept me busy, so this blog has been kinda forgotten — Sorry…

I’ve also moved a lot of my “news, thoughts and photos” to Facebook, getting caught up in that whole thing too, but it’s almost starting to pay off now. Now, you can get more up to date news if you “Like” our Facebook pages — Alternative Focus & Tony Locke Photography to keep track of our events and fun tips and tricks.

Also during all that time, we’ve made several changes to our company and it’s offerings, along with adding a new, more active website, which also houses my blog now too. I will be consolidating my other blogs (Tony’s Photoshop Tips & Tricks and Eruisko Travel Photography) there too — So, if you’re one of my blog followers, move on over to BlameItOnTheLight.com (no caps needed), sign up for our newsletter, and enjoy all of the new things going on.

We’ve also started two other side companies, loosely related to our photography work, as we’re still working with artists, but have broadened our reach.

Armchair ePublishing is our eBook and book layout company, working with indie authors to get their page layout and book cover designed, allowing them to sell and self-publish their books. That eats up a lot of my time. And also helps pay more of the bills.

Alternative Inbound Marketing  started off as building websites and marketing for artists, but has grown to include many companies of all types, that would like great marketing, social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and a company website, all from one source. This eats up a lot of Karla’s time, and help pays the bills too.

If you, or anyone you know can use any of these new services, please let us know. We’re now working internationally.

So, that’s the latest news. Hope you all come on over and join us at our new place.

Thanks,

Tony D. Locke, MM

How To Choose The Proper Lens For Your DLSR

It’s been a busy last couple months around here.

During my workshops, especially right after Santa’s made his rounds, I’m asked quite often, “which lens should I buy to go with the kit lens my DLSR came with…” Well, it depends. What type of photography do you like to do? What types of images do you like to produce? As each lens will produce a different “look” to your images.

Here’s a great video that compares how each lens, or lens range, and how each produces different photographic effects to your images.

We’re starting to gear-up for our next series of workshops. Make sure you go to my Facebook page; https://www.facebook.com/tonylockephotography and Like it, inorder to learn more about what we’re going to offer this year.

So, here’s that video on How to Choose a Lens:

http://video.ultimatephotoguide.com/video/000922_how-to-choose-a-lens-for-a-dslr/

Memory Card Good Housekeeping — Be Nice To Your Cards

You’re home after a great day of shooting, time to download those images and start looking over what you’ve captured today.

If you use a card reader, your images will download faster and you won’t be draining your cameras battery, unless of course, your camera actually charges via USB too. But many must be plugged into dedicated chargers or have the battery inserted into a charger. So, you might was well do this while your downloading your images with a card reader. With many of the newer computers now shipping with USB 3.0, the download speed’s via a USB 3.0 card reader’s going to be even faster

Whichever way you’re downloading, it’s a good idea to Format your card as soon as you know all your images are safely on your computer and backed up. Just doing an “Erase All” doesn’t actually erase the images from your card. Your camera’s just telling the card to make those slots available for a new image. Over time, as new images replace those “erased” images, you may start having problems with “cookie crumbs” settling at the bottom of the card. This is one of the main causes of corrupted cards.

Now, it’s OK to erase individual images while your shooting. You know, those obviously bad ones, out of focus, terrible exposures, etc.. But avoid doing the Erase All too many times. Try to make it a habit to Format your card instead.

Formatting the card (look up how to do it in that manual you’ve stashed in that kitchen “junk drawer”) is just good housekeeping. Doing this not only completely cleans up your memory card, cookie crumbs and all, it also installs a new directory, or table of contents, for your specific camera. Because of this, it’s also always a good idea to Format  new memory cards too, before using them.

Now, for that other debate amongst photographers — Large cards or multiple smaller cards?

There are two thoughts to this. Memory cards have become more reliable and camera resolutions are producing larger files, so larger and larger memory cards are needed. Luckily prices have been coming down too.

The thought of having larger cards is that you don’t have to change them as often while shooting, nor carry as many in your camera bag. The downside is, having “all your eggs (images) in one basket.” I’m on the side of, using multiple smaller cards. For one they’re much cheaper, so you can my more of them, and two, they still can fail — Murphy’s Rule states, something to the effect of “if one card in your case fails, it will be the one that has your most important images on it.”

I’ve had this happen. I was in Seattle, shooting at the, then new outdoor Art Museum on the waterfront at Pier 71. Having a great time, all was looking good, capturing lots of images across my collection of cards. Get home, start downloading my day of fun, just to find, one of my cards is unreadable! Completely corrupt, nothing by gibberish!

Luckily all my other cards were just fine, with all the others images intact — Had I been only shooting with one or two large cards, I would have lost at least half, or maybe even all of my images.

You choose.

Either way, don’t forget to Format your cards.

Thanks again for coming by,

Tony