Photo Babble
March 1, 2006 – 7:05 pmI received the Nikon SB-800 Speedlight on Tuesday afternoon. I had it shipped to the office since there’s no telling where it will end up if I have it shipped to the apartment. I could hardly wait to get home, shove some batteries in it and walk around the house taking pictures of all the stuff I took pictures of last week. I feel like an LSD addict who has to try everything once while sober, then a second time while under the influence to see what the difference is. I’m taking pictures of the same exact stuff I took pictures of last week, only this time I’m using the Speedlight.
Anyway, the difference is incredible, especially indoors where I can bounce the flash off of the ceiling. It came with a little stand so you can set it on a table or a shelf or even attach it to a tripod, and use the on-camera flash to remotely trigger it. That… is awesome. Spending $19 (US) after tax on an eight-pack of 2500mAh rechargable batteries is not awesome.
Everyone that knows me can tell you that I’m a huge fan and supporter of Google. So it was no surprise that when they released Picasa way back when, I jumped all over it. I never really got into it back then though, as it ended up being a mediocre photo cataloging tool. I already had a pretty solid file management scheme going with my Windows machine at the time so I left Picasa to dry up in the dust of the many hundreds (at least it seemed like it) unused items that cluttered my start menu.
Anyway, I recently caught a breif glimpse of Picasa2 on a client’s PC and decided to give it another shot. I must say that I am extremely impressed with where Google has gone with this thing. Picasa2 is a very powerful piece of software. Install it, remove the default ‘folder search’ entries and tell it where they really are, then let it build its library. The thumbnailing is super quick. I’d become quite accustomed to waiting for Windows XP to thumbnail the hundreds of images at a time that I dump on it. Normally I’d go grab a glass of tea, stand by the sink and drink it, then be back just in time to see the last couple images get thumbnailed. That is now a thing of the past.
Google has added quite a few image editing tools akin to that of Photoshop or Microsoft’s Digital Imaging Suite. You can straighten a crooked photo, crop, remove redeye, adjust contrast, color, highlights, color temp, shadows and saturation. There are several effects like sharpening, sepia, black & white and film grain. The main difference? Photoshop will set you back several hundred dollars, Microsoft’s offering is about one hundred bucks, and Google’s is free.
My point is, if you are a wannabe photographer like me, then you probably don’t need to pay out the ass for imaging software. And by ‘pay out the ass for’ I mean ‘illegaly download from the internet’. Just swing by Google and get Picasa for free. Save your cash for the $300 Speedlight.
