Lightroom 3's Ice Climbing Ad

It's only because I like Lightroom a lot and use it virtually all the time that I agreed to post this advert on The Travel Photographer's Blog. As my readers know, I don't place any ads on this blog, but I occasionally write on products that I like and use...and Lightroom makes that cut.

Tyler Stableford is an adventure photographer, and was given the challenge of shooting an ice climbing expedition and perfecting his images with the help of Lightroom 3 beta 2.

Canon's Digital Photo Professional

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Although I have a couple of international trips in the interim, my mind is increasingly getting focused on my forthcoming Bali: Island of Odalan Photo-Expedition™ in August, and to refresh my memory, I've been revisiting my RAW images files of my 2007 photo-expedition, and even processing some of them.

As is usual when I revisit images files after a while, I uncovered some images that I missed during my initial edits on my return from the 2007 trip, and some that are worth a second look. I viewed these with my Canon's Digital Photo Professional software (version 3.7.3) which, while admittedly somewhat clunky, still does a reasonable job as a viewer and RAW converter.

I also used DPP's built-in image processor, and edited the images you see in this post entirely with it. I didn't use CS or LR at all. I'm not suggesting that DPP replaces any of those, but I was surprised that it did such a reasonable job in adjusting the exposure, de-saturating the colors and sharpening the images of the Legong dancers.

POV: No To Walking Billboards?

Here's a lighthearted tongue-in-cheek post.

In the midst of packing my stuff for about 3 weeks on the road in Rajasthan and Gujarat, and at the risk of being tarred and feathered by the various manufacturers of photographic soft accessories such as Think Tank, Domke, Lowepro etc, I thought my readers would be interested in my alternative choice to the high priced pouches that are marketed and sold by these companies.

With the exception of my Domke camera bag (which I love dearly because of its ruggedness and quality), I prefer not to carry products that have prominent logos/names for a variety of reasons; some reasons are legitimate and others just silly and whimsical.

As an example of the logo-less products, I bought no-name pouches for less than $6 each from an Army Surplus Store in the West Village. They are made of rugged canvas, have belt loops, with metal fasteners, and are perfect to carry my sound recorder, mic & a small gorillapod, or a small lens and other stuff, while in the field. Sure, they're not as sleek or modular as those sold by any the above-mentioned manufacturers, but they're cheaper, and are certainly as resilient. At these surplus stores, one can find bags and pouches (easily adapted for cameras), apparel and a myriad of other stuff a quarter to one-half the price of logo brands.

With this in mind, why should I be a walking billboard for manufacturers who charged me top dollar for the product(s) anyway? Heck, I can even have these canvas pouches printed/embroidered with a The Travel Photographer logo. With my own exclusive line of photo pouches, I'd go in business and be a millionaire in no time!

The logo shown in the picture is photoshopped...so don't get too excited (yet).

But first, I'd better learn how to photograph products better. The picture above is so bad that I can't get myself to put my copyright notice under it!