ioSafe N2 NAS blazes!

Oh my, the N2 is one sa-weet NAS! There are many NAS units on the market, why ioSafe? It is the only water and fireproof unit you’re going to find that comes with a guarantee. If that doesn’t get you attention how about this. The N2 is powered by a Synology DSM motherboard and operating system. It allows for fast (and we’re talking FAST!) access on your local network and remote access from nearly any device connected to the internet – all secured and protected by you. This NAS/RAID can be either 2, 4, 6 or 8TB and it can be upgraded with time by you, just plug and go! And I’m just getting started on features and a matter a fact, there are so many features I don’t have space to list them all. They are extensive so click here to read them all. Now you might be wondering where the photo of my N2 is. Well, it’s under my desk working away as all, ALL of my video archive are being transfered. Running on the iMac (a switch required), the N2 is so fast I can edit video residing on it. This is an amazing unit that does so much more than safely store data. It’s a winner!

Fireside Chat – Wacom 13HD in Use

Yeap, while it was snowin outside, I was in my comfortable chair working on images from the weekend on the new Wacom 13HD. I thought while I was there, I’d record a little more on how I make use of this marvelous and important tool in my digital darkroom.

The Wacom 13HD unboxing

Buy yours here!

It’s Not Magic

At our Precon for Photoshop World last week, we were at Fantasy of Flight where they had pulled out a number of aircraft for us to photograph. One of them was the B-26 Marauder, a rare bird indeed! The B-26 is normally in the back corner of the hangar with all these other tugged in under its wings. I’ve never gotten a clean shot of it, not even one I could clean up in post. I check it out every time I’m there, but I had no photos of it. So when I saw it on the line, I was really excited to spend some time shooting it on a gorgeous Florida day!

I had the D4 with 18-35AFS (fabulously sharp lens!) and went to work. I shot knowing that I was going to remove much of the distracting background in post. That is key! I selected my angle for the shot, raising the camera up and down to maximize the background while minimizing by post removal.

B&W Landscape Class now on Kelby Training!

My latest class on Kelby Training, Master B&W Outdoor Photography is now posted and ready for you!

God Beams, ACR & the Heart

onOne Perfect 7 B&W is Rockin it!

I think the vid says it all

The Retina – My Savior is on Sale!

That’s right, for a short time the iMac Retina, MacBook Airbook, and a bunch of other Mac machines are on sale with instant rebates! Now if 6 months ago you would have told me I would be bragging about a MacBook Retina saving my life and I’m posting from a iMac on my desk, I would have told you you’re nuts. But that is the case and it’s working really, really good for me. What listed below is all that is loaded on the MacBook Retina and the most of it is on the iMac. Mac makes it real easy to load them both with the same goodies. So, if you want the fun and speed, here’s an opportunity to do it on the cheap!

Here’s what I have:
MacBook Pro Retina
Magic Mouse
Buffalo 1TB Thunderbolt x3
ioSafe 1TB USB3
Lexar USB 3 Reader
Master Suite – Photoshop / Bridge CS6 Extended
Photo Mechanic 5
PhotoMatix Pro
Photo Rescue
Nikon Capture NX 2
Nikon Camera Control Pro 2.0
Word
Thunderbird
Chrome
FotoQuote
Keynote (App Store)
ScreenFlow (App Store)
Folder Sync Pro (App Store)
CyberDuck (App Store)
SuperDuper (App Store)
Disk Doctor (App Store)

ioSafe Rock Just as Well!

I love the IoSafe Rugged Portable 1TB Drives as well! You can RUN OVER these things with you vehicle and they still running. They can get wet, frozen, vibrated to pieces and it doesn’t even phase their operation! They run on USB3, wish they updated to Thunderbolt. They are heavier then most external drives but that’s because of their built. Since they are going back and forth from the MacBook to the Win7 machine, I use Folder Sync Pro on the MacBook to backup my images files. These are great drives that for the outdoor photographer, are a must in my book!

Buffalo Thunderbolt

I’ve been asked if I really see a difference using the Buffalo 1TB MiniStation Thunderbolt. I most definitely do! I have been using them with the MacBook Retina for the last four months. They easily extended the small capacity SSD I have in my MacBook with no sacrafice in performance. I load video onto the Thunderbolt and can edit them in realtime with NO delays in performance in Premiere easily! There is only one little erk I have and that’s not with the drives but using in cross platforms. In simple language, just can’t plug a drive formatted on a Mac into a Win machine and they talk. What I have found that works is format on the Mac to ExFat and then the Win machine will can read the drive. Because of this, I use Folder Sync Pro on the MacBook to backup my images files. The small physically size, the speed with Thunderbolt and ability to use with USB3 on the Win machines makes these great drive!

The iMac has Landed!!!

Ya baby, the new iMac is on my desk and hummin right along! The new Apple 21.5″ iMac Desktop Computer is simply an amazing marvel! Its Retina display, speed, ease of set up an bloody small size has made a believer out of me. For the last four months, the mighty MacBook Retina has been my main business machine and done a great job. I still have a Dell Win7 machine running our digital library but desperately needed a desktop for taking care of everything else. My bud Yechiel at B&H saved my tucus by getting first the MacBook Retina and now the iMac in my hands. And in case you’re not aware of the iMac, the entire computer is integrated into the monitor housing. The keyboard and mouse run on Bluetooth seamlessly. This is the basics of the iMac I got:

Product Highlights
2.7GHz Intel Core i5 Quad-Core
8GB of 1600Hz DDR3 RAM
1TB 5400rpm Hard Drive
nVIDIA GeForce GT 640M Graphics (512MB)
21.5″ HD LED-Backlit IPS Display
1920 x 1080 Native Resolution
802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, SDXC Card Reader
720p FaceTime HD Camera, Dual Mics
Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (64-bit)

In the process of now getting it all set up and data migrated over from dead desktop. The one thing that I find inconvenient is all the USB ports are on the back side of the monitor. I simply grabbed a USB ext cable so I have access to one port from where I sit for plugging in a Lexar Jump Drive

. As I use it more and get more software loaded, I’ll post a progress report. In the meantime, it’s back to work finally with both desktops!

Passing Along the Mac Fever

Oh ya…I’m into this Mac stuff and right now for a limited, you can be to for a few less pennies!

Moose & Mac – Month 2

Well, finishing up my 2nd month with the MacBook Pro Retina and to say I really, really, really am enjoying it is an understatement! I’m just getting back in the office after basically a 5 week road trip (I did come home for 38hrs after week 2) with nearly 2TB of new images! I did not change up my basic system since I got the Retina, using 2 ioSafe 1TB USB3 as my digital library and the Buffalo 1TB Thunderbolt as an extension of the internal SSD of the Retina. On the road, it worked great. I did learn a couple of things like, when Bridge is building a cache (I use Bridge to manage all my finished files only), don’t close the lid on the Retina and walk back to your room. Spent the next hour making that all happy again.

On the road, the workflow screamed thank goodness as I was jumpin! Images brought in with Photo Mechanic and filed and backed up on the ioSafe (TSA did not like all the hard drives I was toting!), images to be finished coped to a Temp folder where they were launched in ACR and finished in Photoshop. The speed, the freakin speed of this notebook is bloody amazing and to be honest with you, my older system would have let me down bigtime! I drove Photo Mechanic & Photoshop with the Wacom Intuos 5 which I’ve programmed the Express Keys to speed up things even more. The real life saver to me of all was the battery life of the Retina. Even with the two external drives attached, I had over two hours of operational time with plenty of time leftover. Amazing!

The only new thing in the mix is using Keynote Remote on the iPad to run Keynote on the Retina remotely. Hooking up the Retina to projectors is still a royal pain in the ass. Retina just doesn’t like VGA but is very happy with DVI/HDMI which means I have to stick to new projectors which is a challenge when you’re a guest presenter. The Keynote Remote & Keynote is working great after “customizing” it to do my thing. Now I know the issues, I’ve made a couple of work around to be able to function.

The big test for me though was getting back to the office and the digital library. With all my preroad trip testing, would all the work I did on the Mac on the road be Ok with the Windows 7 digital library. The biggest thing is the ioSafe drives talking to both systems happily. I’m so happy to say, it all worked flawlessly. After 26hrs, all files moved to the network NAS and backed up. Phew! But here’s the kicker. While on the road, a backhoe working on a neighbors home cut through ALL the electrical/internet cables causing an immediate blackout of the office. While everything is on UPS, my desktop, a Dell that is 13yrs old that is my basic office management, writing, email machine took a hit. So now the question is, what do I replace it with. Yeap, I’m looking into a Mac for the desktop. I realize I could use my Retina and in the meantime, I am and it’s doing a great job, but I need the extra machine. I’m a multi tasking fanatic! The bottomline for me, other than the working with a projector issue, the Retina simply rocks!

MacBook Pro Retina
Wacom Intuos5 Medium Pen & Touch Tablet
Magic Mouse
Buffalo 1TB Thunderbolt
ioSafe 1TB USB3
Lexar USB 3 Reader
Master Suite – Photoshop / Bridge CS6 Extended
Photo Mechanic 5
PhotoMatix Pro
Photo Rescue
Keynote (App Store)
Word
ScreenFlow (App Store)
Folder Sync Pro (App Store)
CyberDuck (App Store)
Thunderbird
Chrome
SuperDuper (App Store)
Disk Doctor (App Store)

Coffee Talk

In case you did not hear, OnOne Software has announced Perfect Photo Suite 7. And what they’re doing for it is really cool! It’s called Coffee Talk and every morning, they are online and on the air showing, teaching and inspiring with what’s new in PS7. It’s free and it’s great, check it ou!

Moose & Mac Week 3

Yeap, I’ve had the MacBook Pro for nearly a month now. It just went through two entice weeks of use with Photoshop World and the Reno Air Races. Bottom line and the most important think, it delivers the speed I was looking for! Is the Mac perfect? No, I have locked it up 3 times now. Does it deliver the speed the money promises? It does, and a lot more! At Photoshop World, it did all the presentations, took care of all my mobile business perfectly. Much of this was done with the battery which has a killer life.

At the Reno Air Races, it had to deal with 80-100GB of images everyday. My old work flow was to plug in all the cards, click to upload them all and go to dinner. With the MacBook Pro Retina, that was all blown out of the water! I would plug in the cards into the hub, click Ingest and within minutes the cards were uploaded! I’m serious, I would turn to do another task and I would hear the “dunk” sound from the MacBook telling me it was done. Then when it came to reviewing and filing images, the task again was done in a heartbeat and thank goodness since I was slammed with more shooting than I have ever had before! I was still only getting 4-5hrs of sleep a day but if I didn’t have the MacBook, I would have had much sleep at all or not had the work done.

The MacBook is still a computer and like any computer has its own, special ways and can be locked up but like any computer, you can fix and move forward. But I have no regrets moving over to the Mac for my notebook. Just the speed in Photoshop finishing an image made the price a deal! Keep in mind, I have NOT switched the office which still runs Dels with Win7, I’ve only changed my notebook. As to what I’m using, here’s a list.

MacBook Pro Retina
Magic Mouse
Buffalo 1TB Thunderbird
ioSafe 1TB USB3
Lexar USB 3 Reader
Master Suite – Photoshop / Bridge CS6 Extended
Photo Mechanic 5
PhotoMatix Pro
Photo Rescue
Keynote (App Store)
Word
ScreenFlowFolder (App Store)
Folder Sync Pro (App Store)
CyberDuck (App Store)
Thunderbird
Chrome
SuperDuper (App Store)
Disk Doctor (App Store)

Fall Class HDR Presets

I can’t thank you folks enough for your response to my new Kelby Training Fall Color Class being posted on Fall Color Class! Rob at the answer desk tells me he is receiving requests for my Basic and Canopy Preset. Well…here they are …

Photomatix HDR Win (PC – zip)
Photomatic HDR Mac (Mac – zip)

While it’s easy for me to supply you with the presets, you might find installation a challenge. I can only, sorta help you there. On Win you will install them User>Roaming>HDRsoft>Preset and then click Load Preset in Photomatix. On the Mac, you will have to run the chflags nohidden ~/Library/ in Terminal and than in Finder look under Library>Photomatix to see where to install it (not bad for a guy new to the Mac). Hope this helps and once again…thanks for the support folks!

Wacom 24HD – Great Monitor!!!

Wacom monitors make me money and the new 24HD is simply the best!

Wacom Explores Pressure Sensitive Mouse

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