Blue Fish Design Studio

Start-up

One of my online friends, Mike Boyink, recently began tweeting and blogging about an event that he was helping to organize called Start-up weekend West Michigan. It piqued my interest as in this economy (trademarke that phrase please) everyone thinks that you need to be battening down the hatches and hiding for cover. Call me the forever optimist but when times are rough I think you should be looking for new opportunities. Scratch that. I think we should always be looking for new opportunities.

So I am writing this blog post for two reasons. One reason is to see if there is any interest in our local community (Mobile and Baldwin counties) for something similar to this? The costs are low from what I can tell. More on that later. The second reason is I like the idea of bringing some fresh air to our area and hope for a new economy by bringing people of differing backgrounds together for something big.

The process is a fairly simple one. There is an organization called startupweekend.org that facilitates the weekend. They also provide the know how after having completed many of these weekends. The first step is registering with them. Next step is raising the funds. It isn’t terribly expensive to do but there are food costs and the cost of having a facilitator attend. Next step is setting the time and place. And finally there is the weekend that lasts from Friday at 6pm-ish till Sunday at 6pm-ish. If you have ANY interest in this at all I would encourage you to visit their website and read their First Timer Page. I did and it has me pretty excited to do this thing.

I think one of the main questions people have is “do I have to be a computer geek to do this?” and the answer is NO! This weekend is for everyone. Yes it is helpful to have a geek or two on hand but people from Marketing, Geeks, Entrepreneurs, Lawyers, Artists, Doctors, Mothers, Fathers, Single People, Young, Old, Idea Makers, Idea Implementers, Investors, etc etc are welcome. Everyone has something to contribute. Really I think Mike did an absolutely bang up job of summing up the experience in his Wrap Up blog post. Read it… Now… It will make you want to get involved.

So.. Interested? If so .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)... You won’t be held to anything. You don’t have to give me thousands of dollars… I just want to see if anyone else is as inspired by this as I am…

A Beginner’s guide to lighting with Speedlights

Budget Budget Budget. It is usually the first thing to go when someone begins the hobby of Photography. First there is the camera and lenses. And inevitably next comes the lighting needed for dramatic portraits like this one…

So how does one dip their toe into this pool without robbing a bank or needing a lottery winning ticket? Well for me going strobist was the answer. Strobist is a website started by David Hobby and originally it was geared towards taking speedlights and using them off camera to create interesting photos. David recently started loosening up the requirements on the site to include all Strobe lights which includes all flash type lights (vs continuous lights). Without this website I would never have gotten as far with lighting as I have now so study it. Read the articles. And do some of the exercises.

So how do you get started? Well for me I started by purchasing the 580EXII which is currently the top of the line Canon speedlight. I did this because I knew I needed at least one speedlight that I could use on camera for shooting events. After I got the 580 I decided that I would look at flashes that were manual capable on ebay. I managed to pick up 3 Nikon SB-28s for about $90 a piece. Speedlights that are capable of being set manually are important so that you can set the flash for the appropriate exposure without it trying to readjust during the shoot.

Along with the SB-28s I got some radio triggers. Most professional photographers were using PocketWizards at the time. I couldn’t afford them so I went with the Elinchrom units. They are every bit as good but were about 60% of the cost. If I had to do it today I would consider the newer PocketWizards because they allow some level of control from the camera. This is handy when you have a light 9ft up and have to adjust the exposure. But I still have the Elinchroms and think they are really good triggers.

The nice thing about this type of set up is it is highly portable. It is nothing to pack it up in a small duffel and take it on location. Plus because the lights are small you can stick them in small locations where larger studio lights won’t fit. I did countless photoshoots on location with these small lights.

One of the other things you will need to consider is the accessories. The first thing I got was the Impact brand stand kits. They come with the brackets to attach the speedlights to the stands, the umbrellas and the stands. Quite a nice started kit for the price. You will also need the cables to attach the speedlights and the radio triggers. I honestly can’t remember where I got mine. I would imagine B&H would have them though. And recently Honl has released modifiers dedicated to speedlights. The biggest thing you will need?... batteries. Get some rechargables. You might think them expensive but with as many batteries as you will go through you will be glad you invested in some good rechargables.

So there you go. If you are looking to get started in off camera lighting this is the direction that I would point you. Next I’ll tackle suggestions for studio lighting.

The skinny on camera equipment

I oftentimes get emails or questions regarding photography equipment. And while I would encourage everyone to stop worrying about equipment because it has been proven time and time again that it is not the equipment that makes the photo but rather the eye of the one holding it. For instance, Chase Jarvis released an iPhone app called The Best Camera and the photos that some are taking with their iPhones are amazing! So don’t let equipment hold you back.

But…

I also understand that having the right equipment can make getting the image a whole lot easier (I would never shoot a wedding with my iPhone). So that is the reason I am writing this post.

First, a little bit about my shooting and set-up. I am mostly a portrait, concert and real estate photographer. And I am a Canon Shooter. I currently have a Canon 5D mkII with the Battery Grip. I also have a bunch of L series lenses that I love. I have the 16-35 f2.8 which is great for making small houses look big on the inside. I have the 24-70 f2.8 which is my general purpose lens for portraiture and product shots. I have the 70-200 f2.8 which is great for concert photography and the 85 f1.2 which is a great lens for headshots.

These lenses are not for everyone. But if you want to be a professional photographer then you cannot go wrong with this set-up. I will also share that just like you I lust after lenses too. Like right now I would really love the 17mm Tilt-Shift lens which is great for real estate images but the $2500 price tag is a bit scary to me. And I really would love to have the 24mm f1.4 which is just a nice to have. But if you have the budget and are looking for top quality equipment that will hold it’s value and perform when you need it to then you would do well to mimic my 5D mkII and 24-70 f2.8 set-up ($4500).

But realistically most of you will be looking to spend a little less money than the $$$ I mention above. Fortunately there are options…

One step down from this set up would be to get the Canon 50D body which is an excellent camera and an off brand lens. Off brand in this situation just means non-canon. Sigma and Tamron make excellent lenses. As a matter of fact I had the 30D(no longer offered) and the 28-75 f2.8 Tamron lens for a number of years and loved it. It is a great lens and at $459 is 1/3 the cost of the Canon L series equivalent. It would be a great lens for portraits or just carrying around to take pictures of the kids. If you want a really interesting lens though I really like the Canon 10-22 f3.5-4.5 which is really wide and makes for fun shots. So if I was wanting to spend a little less money I would probably shoot with a 50D and a 10-22. This would be around $1600 or so.

If you are wanting to spend a little less than that I have another suggestion. I would suggest the same 10-22 or 28-75 lenses but I would pair it with the Canon Rebel T1i for around $1100-1350 depending on which lens you choose.

To wrap up I think you might be noticing that I don’t like the lenses that come with the cameras as a kit. Generally these lenses are paper weights. There are a few good ones and if you have no other choice but to buy a kit then go ahead and do it but just understand that the lens is the more important piece in the equation. The lens will make the difference between getting the shot or not. When in doubt get the better lens and lesser camera body.

I also do not usually buy my camera equipment from local big box stores unless I have checked the prices from B & H Photo in NY. In a pinch I might consider purchasing from Amazon (Adorama is their supplier). Beware when ordering online. there are many stories of people being taken advantage of when ordering from off name sites. The two I mentioned here are trusted by professional photographers the world over and have proven themselves to have lower prices. So order from them with confidence.

I do hope this is helpful. If you have any further questions please dont hesitate to comment here. And let me know what you think!

Bay Community Church has a new website

We seem to be getting a lot of business from churches lately. Our latest is one that I am really proud of since I am a member of Bay Community Church. Over the last few years they have had someone on staff that has handled the website for them. But his recent move to a position with more responsibility and the Creative Pastor’s (Trey Taylor) desire to push the boundaries led them to choose Blue Fish Design Studio to build their new site. This site is massive. It uses a lot of JQuery and has a backend of ExpressionEngine. It is beautiful and I couldn’t be more proud to announce their new website and our latest launch…

So without further ado… http://baycommunity.com

Competition in the Mobile Area

We have been conducting some market research on what agencies in the Mobile Alabama area offer website design as part of their services and wanted to share what we have found. There are a lot more than what I would have thought. They are of varying degrees of quality from nicely done custom websites to websites that are obviously templates that the person modified slightly to websites that look OK but are a mess under the covers to sites that are just a mess all over the place. Anyway I will reserve further comment, but I will say it was an interesting exercise to see who the competition is.

3 of the larger Advertising Agencies in the Mobile Area work in the interactive arena:
MDi Media Group
Pixallure
Red Square Agency

And then there are a list of smaller firms that list website design as a service they provide:
Graphic Penguin
Dogwood Productions, Inc.
Bienville Technology, LLC
E-Worc Web Design and Sales Training
Magnolia Media, LLC
North Mobile Internet Services, Inc.
TechCapitol
WebJed
WebOperations.net
Advanced Worldweb Design
Eggplant Systems and Design
TurkReno
Internet Business Solutions
Idiom Web Designs
Collette Design Group
SNB Express Web Design
Imageco
Deep Fried Web Design
Alaroo Media

Just remember that when choosing a web design firm price is the low on the list of things that you should be concerned about as choosing un-wisely can be a very expensive and frustrating experience. Make sure to give us a call and let us talk to you about the ins and outs of web design so that you can make an educated assessment. After all words like Semantic HTML, Strict Doctype and Content Management Systems are not words you probably throw around every day but they will make a difference in how well your site works for you. We are experts in our field and would love to talk to you about how we can take your business online with Gusto!

EETemplates.com is part of the Pro Network

Recently we added EETemplates.com to the listing of Developers on the ExpressionEngine Pro Network. There is no cost for this. The entry fee is building more than 3 websites in EE and demonstrating a good knowledge of skills using the Content Management System. Needless to say with more than 20 websites currently ExpressionEngine we feel like we live and breath EE code. Anyway… You can see the listing here