Lacie Rugged Hard Disk

If there is one thing that I got from my trip to the Canon Expo in New York, it is that speed is a great thing to have: use a fast CF card, use a firewire card reader, use a firewire external hard disk, etc. So, I finally decided to get the LaCie Rugged Hard Disk with firewire 800, firewire 400 and USB 2.0. Before, I was on the fence on whether I should get this disk or not. The thing that prevented me from getting this was due to the fact that the price for a 500GB model is much higher than a 1TB desktop model, albeit the Rugged one is portable while the 1TB model is only USB. I actually have the LaCie Hard Disk 1TB Neil Poulton USB model where I store my photos while this is backed up by a 1TB Western Digital Hard Disk. I also use the Western Digital for my Time Machine back ups.

I was already thinking about getting an external drive because my aging Macbook Pro was running out of disk space. I tweaked the contents of my internal disk drive by deleting stuff that I felt I will never miss and moving some of my stuff from the internal disk to the external ones. But, after I attended the Expo, I finally took the plunge and got the Rugged Hard Disk. The Expo even pushed me into buying the firewire 800 model.

After getting the hard disk, I partitioned it and allotted 100GB for my iTunes contents. Then I transferred my Photoshop and Adobe Bridge cache folders to the remaining disk space. I got two advantages when I got the hard disk:

1. My internal hard disk got a lot of breathing room when I transferred my iTunes contents - 70GB total.
2. After a photo shoot, I download my photos to the two 1TB drives but I also download the photos to the Rugged hard disk. I do my photo edits there and, when I am completely satisfied with my edits, I transfer my final versions of the photos to the two 1TB drives. This may sound like a lot of steps in the photo edit process, but the time it took me to save a 500mb .psd file, for example, to the firewire drive is much less than the time it will take to save the same file to the USB drive. When I am done editing, I just transfer the files to the USB drives and I can do what I want like read a book, watch the Yankees, or go to sleep - since I am done with the edits, I don't have to wait for the copy process to finish.

If speed is of the essence for you, then I suggest that you also follow what I have learned from the Expo - use firewire 800.

Studio and Location Lighting Secrets... by Rick Sammon and Vered Koshlano

Like mostly everything in life, photography is a never-ending learning process. Just when you thought you have mastered something, then there comes along something new that you have to learn (though I am the last to say that I already have mastered anything...).

So, wanting to learn about portrait photography some more, I got this wonderful book by Rick Sammon and Vered Koshlano. The title of the book is actually longer than the title of this blogpost - Studio and Location Lighting Secrets for Digital Photographers. The book includes a DVD.

Canon Expo 2010 in New York

For the first time, I attended an Expo that doesn't involve books. I got an invite from Canon and, the moment I got the invite, I pre-registered right away. The Expo itself was held on September 2 and 3.

I arrived at the Javits Convention Center really, very eager to attend. It was a really hot late summer day but I didn't mind the heat. All I wanted to do was go to the Expo, attend workshops, and hopefully to get a hold of the Canon lenses that I wish I had now...

After getting my ID and having my bag checked, I was greeted by this sight:

The Lens That I Wish I Have Right Now (Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L) - Part 2

In a previous post, I talked about the lens that I wish to add to my collection: the Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L lens. I've been reading a lot of reviews about this lens from the World Wide Web but mostly from user reviews from the Amazon website. There are a lot of reviews, with some dating as far back as 2004. A lot of camera bodies since then, the lens is still in the Canon catalog and there is still an on-going debate on whether to get the f/2.8 lens or the Canon EF 24-105 f/4L IS.

So, further tests must be done to answer which, given the chance, L lens I would get, specifically, would the increased ISO be a factor on whether I should get the f/2.8 or the f/4 - would my camera be able to give me workable photos despite the increased ISO?

Again, to help me with this experiment, I will be employing my trust-50 Canon EF 50 f/1.8. All shots were taken handheld with the shutter speed enough to prevent camera shake. This was done so that I will be able to test if I can do away with the IS completely. The set back with hand-holding the camera is, unlike in the previous post I alluded to at the start, I won't be able to provide an exact replica of the picture albeit the change in the settings - the shots would be slightly off.