Converted and added my old blog

Last summer we were informed by Microsoft that LiveSpaces was going to be closing. I’d had my blog there for some time – so it was a bit of a concern for me.

I started looking around to see what would be a good alternative. A few friends used Blogger and so this is where I ended up. However, then I found out Microsoft was automatically moving our blogs to WordPress!

Well, I’ve maintained a link here to my old blog – but I figured most wouldn’t see the link or even if they did – they wouldn’t go look. It is sort of sad that I’ve lost connections with many that used to stop by the old blog.

However, today I found out about a service that can convert WordPress blogs to Blogger for import. I figured it would probably bring the text, but not the photos. BUT, I was surprised and the photos and comments and all came with! How terrific. Of course, there is some quality issues with the old photos, but I am not going to complain too much.

If you find yourself in a similar spot, here is the tool I used: http://wordpress2blogger.appspot.com/

Posts prior to July 2010 are from the old blog if anyone wants to dig that deep! I hope you do as there are some photos I really would like people to see!

Until next time!

Shooting tethered in Lightroom

I’ve seen videos online of people shooting with their camera tethered to their computer.  It has often been one of those things I thought I’d try someday, but I really had no pressing desire to do so.  I rarely shoot in a studio environment and when I do, I hate to be tied down with cables attached to my camera.

However, the other day I was stuck in my office waiting on an important call that I couldn’t miss and my camera and computer were just sitting here.  The thought popped into my head to give it a shot.

I connected my camera to the laptop with the USB cable and fired up Lightroom.  Once there, it was really a no-brainer to set this up.  I work on a PC, so I opened the File menu and selected “Tethered Capture”.  This opens the following window where I can name the session, set the location where the files to be saved and set my Metadata presets.

After clicking the OK button, a new toolbar opens in lightroom:

I could quickly see the camera attached and the settings currently set on it – ISO, shutter speed, aperture and white balance.

What really interested me was the ability to set the develop settings in Lightroom.  These settings are applied as the file gets transferred to the computer and is then displayed in Lightroom.  Being I was taking self portraits of myself (yikes!), I opted immediately for a black and white preset that I like.

Then, all I did was click the big grey button on the far right of the toolbar to trigger the shutter release.  I had my camera set to autofocus and it did that first and then triggered the shutter.

In just a moment, the photo appeared on my screen.  I’ll spare you the agony of looking at most of these captures – not easy taking a self portrait that I liked!  However, here is one of the end results that my family and friends say best looks like me.

I really may think more on this – in particular when I am doing some product photography or working with models in a studio environment.  It was worth playing with.

Hope to talk again soon!