Scriptplayground Network

I am sure at this point you have read about the recent Vanity Fair photo shoot that had Miley topless (but covered by a sheet)? If not, look on Google or You Tube because its not important at this point.

My main issue with this “news” if you could call it that, is the photographer is the one getting the blame here. Granted she set up the shot and maybe even had the original idea, but I actually blame her dad.. and no, not because of who he is, but more importantly because he was there. In fact I can’t believe the entire shoot, its just wrong.. however, blaming the photographer seems to be a stretch in this case.

I do understand this isn’t a normal topic I would talk about, but it is loosely photography related.. right?

I just returned from my trip to Japan with a few of my family members and friends. This was what I would call my first true vacation in a very long time. I have blogged about other trips: Florida, Vegas and New York but this was one without working following me.

Quick Overview
Full day-to-day overview

Full review of the trip

Rather than post a quick snippet of how awesome the trip was I thought I would write this post in a day-by-day fashion. So here goes:

Day 1 - April 3rd
Packed everything up and stayed in a Boston hotel to minimize the travel for a 6 AM flight to California.

Day 2 - April 4th
Went to the airport at 4 AM, stood in security where I baffled them with all my camera lenses. Got a first hand look at some of the bomb sniffing tools they use and had a good laugh with the agent. Finally boarded the plane for a 6 hour flight to San Francisco. Once we arrived at SFO I got on another plane for a 11 hour flight to Tokyo.

Day 3 - April 5th
After landing in Tokyo (the next day) we quickly went through Passport and Security to hop on a bus and go to the first hotel. Once the hotel was all set, we adventured into downtown Tokyo where there was tons of shops and things to do. I also got to see a pretty large selection of cell phones and camera lenses.

Day 4 - April 6th
The first tour day included a full day of sightseeing at Tokyo Tower, Meiji Shrine, Omote Sando Street, Sumida River Cruise, Asakusa Kannon Temple and Nakamise Shopping Arcade.

This was the first time I was in Japan so the city scape and overall theme amazed me, but the tour allowed you to find things you probably wouldn’t have in the first place.

Day 5 - April 7th
Our second day in Tokyo was a free day, so we decided to head over to Akihabara “Akiba” which is the largest electronics district I have ever seen, so many shops and so little time. After going through Akiba we continued to Ginza which is Tokyo’s premier upscale shopping district, but for us the Sony building was the focus. This place has all sorts of Sony electronics, some of which will be seen in the states, while most probably won’t.

To round out day 2 we went to Tokyo Disney which it turns out the best time to attend Disney is right after a school vacation because the park basically had no one in it. Which of course meant all the rides were open and it was probably the first time I had been in a Disney wondering what to see next.

Day 6 - April 8th
The third day was suppose to be a trip to Mt. Fuji, but unfortunately the weather wouldn’t have any of that. So we saw the museum and some other locations close by, not what I had hoped for, but the guide made it work in the end.

Day 7 - April 9th
On the fourth day we took a bus to the Odawara station to catch the bullet train. This isn’t the “bullet” train like the Acela claims to be, this is the real deal. It goes about 180mph on average and only stops at each station for 1 minute. Once in Kyoto we checked out some more temples and the Heian Shrine.

Day 8 - April 10th
For the first full day in Kyoto we went to the Kinkakuji Temple, Hirano Shrine and Nijo castle. While in the Hirano shrine we had a traditional Japanese lunch (Bento box) and got to speak with 2 women that are Japanese residents.

Day 9 - April 11th
This day was going to be a free day, but we decided to plan a trip to Hiroshima to see the A-bomb dome, museum and story surrounding that day as well as the years to follow. In a sense it was a propaganda film for why Nuclear bombs are not the answer, but overall it was very interesting.

We also got to Miyajima which is home of the Torri gate as well as a very beautiful island. The low point of this leg of the trip was the dropping of my 70-200 telephoto lens, but luckily it seems like only the Sky filter is damaged (i hope).

Day 10 - April 12th
This was the last day in Japan which basically consisted of a trip to the airport and a very long flight (2 actual). I did get to encounter a day that starts on Saturday (in Japan) and ends at 11:30 pm (in Boston) with a 22 hour flight in the middle.

Summary for the busy

As I know people are too busy to read this whole post, I figured I would summarize the trip. I got to see many great shrines, temples, castles and shops while meeting great people and taking lots of photos.

For the full review, read above

In all it was an awesome time and hopefully this week I will be able to post the photos, if work doesn’t get in the way.

Update: Colin Smith of PhotoshopCafe has just posted a detailed overview of Lightroom 2.

Just in time for PhotoshopWorld in Orlando, Adobe has released a public beta for Adobe Lightroom 2. This new version really has a lot of great features to offer, which include advanced filtering, better photoshop integration and faster importing/storing.

The coolest and most advanced feature would have to be localized adjustments. I have only started to touch on this feature since I downloaded it, but let me just say it is both amazing and super useful.

I will be giving Lightroom 2 (LR2) a run in the real world this week while I am on a pretty amazing photography trip, which I will be sure to blog about in depth when I return. Also, if you happen to be at PhotoshopWorld this week head on over to PhotoshopCafe’s booth where you can pick up some Lightroom, Photoshop and Flash video training.

Note: I will not be blogging for about 2 weeks starting Friday, but will return with new stuff.

After recently upgrading to Aperture version 2.0 I was informed that the Canon 30D was one of the various cameras not supported by Apple at this time. At first I got mad, cursed at the computer and then started of possible alternatives. I could run out and buy a new camera but I figured I may want to look at much less drastic options.

Bibble 4
The first 3rd party alternative I tried was Bibble 4. This application was rated very high in the photography industry and overall works well. However, I did notice the interface was clunky and the price tag was about 3/4 the cost of Aperture.. not really something I wanted to spend.

That being said, Bibble does have tethering options, but not in the sense I was after. Bibble is setup to monitor a folder, and import those images, but you have to mess with the camera controls directly on the camera.

DSLR Remote Pro
This was the second application I looked into, but was unable to give it a test-drive due to the Windows-only support. I am sure it is a good application, but I am not able to comment personally. Maybe in the future I will install it, but back to the issue at hand.

EOS Capture
Canon ships a CD of cool applications with a new camera, but just like everyone else, I lost the disk. I figured, no problem, I will just head over to canon.com and download the software. Well, that would be the ideal solution, but Canon only offers updates on their site. Rather than spend more money to get a CD I called up a friend and temporarily borrowed his CD, long enough to install the capture application.

With it all installed I hooked up my camera to the MacBook Pro and was certainly naive to think it would all just work. After some searching I found Canon had posted a new firmware for the 30D so I downloaded and installed that.

Once again I attached the camera to the computer and finally I was able to control the cameras settings and shutter remotely from my computer.

This was at least a good start to solving my ultimate problem, which was of course the ability to “tether” my 30D for Aperture 2. Once the capture software was working properly I assigned a specific directory in my Pictures/ folder where all captured photos would be stored.

Getting the photos into Aperture
The trick here is forgetting that Aperture can even tether on its own because it doesn’t work for my camera. That being said, I created a new project in Aperture and assumed I could add a watcher on my directory I created within the capture software. Well once again, Aperture amazes me with its lack of support for the simplest things.

Automating the import process
With the help of an Automator script I was able to assign a watcher to the directory that I picked in the capture application. This script monitors that folder and sends new files to be imported into Aperture which ultimately end up in my project.

Working as one
As you can see, following these simple steps I have achieved the tether-like ability in Aperture 2. Now I would prefer an official solution from Apple, but for now this works quite well.

You can find some still life samples on flickr which were shot using this setup.

Of course you can adapt this guide to any other DSLR camera as long as it has a capture utility that works.

I have found many neat applications while browsing the internet, but I think one of the more useful ones would have to be yelp. This site is built up of reviews and ratings on everything from where to eat all the way to where to shop. I only recently joined the site, but quickly found myself addicted because I was writing about some really fun times in the past, and I think as a bonus I have the most remote review, being a restaurant in the deep woods of Maine.

Before I end this post I wanted to let you know about a family member of mine which has recently published some of her photography, which can be found on her flickr page. Most recently Teisha had the opportunity to do an on-the-spot photo shoot with Brian Ernst, who is a One Man Band that is currently traveling the country playing some really awesome music. So, if you have a chance please take a moment to check out her photos and leave a comment or two, I think you will like what you see.