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Christmas Medley 8×8 Photo Book

Tell your holiday story with our Christmas Medley photo book. Place your photos into 20 background designs filled with images and lyrics of Christmas carols. Our holiday templates help you organize your photos and tell your story.

• Easy to create, with drag-and-drop picture placement and text control
• Personalize the hardcovers with your own title and photos, and add details to the spine-title, author, year and more
• May be resized to 12×12
• Photos preserved on high-quality paper

I signed up for the 2 week free trial. This is the best way to get most of your questions answered. No credit card required. You get complete access to all Zenfolio Premium features for 14 days including uploading full size photos (up to 1GB total with the trial). When you upgrade to a regular account, you will keep your site URL, all the uploaded photos, and account settings.

Some of the features that really convinced me to sign up for Zenfolio’s Premium service are:
Easy to use shopping cart designed for photographers
Zenfolio offers the most powerful and flexible Shopping Cart of its kind built from the ground up for photographers. The Cart features such innovations as ordering products from multiple labs, adding services such as mounting and framing, and precision cropping.

Your complete e-commerce solution
You can create Coupons, including percentage and amount based discounts. And you can review and download detailed sales reports compatible with any spreadsheet program.

Turn your passion into a business
You can create your own price lists and earn profit on selling your photos. There is a 12% service fee applied to profit only on orders fulfilled by our partner labs, this fee includes credit card transaction charges and customer service.

Offer for sale your own custom products
You can setup and offer for sale your own custom products. If you do your own printing, or use a local lab, this is the most flexible option. There is a 6% service fee charged on all custom orders and you will need to collect payment directly from your clients.

Customize pages by replacing Zenfolio name and URL
For additional customization, you can replace Zenfolio logo and links with your own name to make it look more personalized. Combine that with your own domain name, and this powerful option makes the site look completely yours.

*full overview of services

You can check out my Zenfolio page here.
And if you sign up, you can use my referral code: 4M5-136-HDE to save some money.

Topics covered:
Introductions to Useful Modes and Settings on Your Digital Camera
Other Basic Camera Techniques
Camera Care and Maintenance
Composition Tips

Of course these Settings, Techniques and Rules for beginner camera owners just scratch the surface of all there is to learn about the art of photography. So, join DPS to get more free daily tips to help you keep improving and learning.

Then, it was printed in the International Herald Tribune, the Global Edition of the New York Times. I’d love to get my hands on a copy…

And because of this, I have been offered a freelance photographer contract for the New York Times.

Thank you, Cindy and Tara Parker Pope!

1) If you shoot macro or landscapes, a clean sensor is a must because dust will start to show even at f/8. As you stop further down to get more DOF, dust bunnies will become extremely obvious in your skies and light backgrounds.

2) What happens if the bulk of your shooting is wide open? Right, dust will not be noticeable, but then what happens if you decide one day to get into macro or landscape shooting? You now have a sensor that’s never been cleaned and I can tell you without a doubt that getting that sensor spic and span will take a lot of ‘scrubbing”. Quite a few people have had to swab their sensors about 30 times to get it reasonably clean. It’s a lot easier to keep a regular cleaning regimen just in case you want to expand your photography someday.

3) A huge accumulation of dust (as in the case above) will cause a decrease in contrast, leading to dull images without any “pop”.

4) TIME & COST – Although Canon et al. cannot officially endorse any sensor cleaning tool, Chuck Westfall of Canon USA posted this in an Openphotographyforum in April, 2007: “Your camera’s low-pass filter can be cleaned by Canon Factory Service or an Authorized Service Facility for a nominal fee. But we would encourage you to explore the possibility of learning how to clean the filter safely on your own. If you’re successful, it will save you tons of time and money, and it will give you a lot of peace of mind. There are several effective cleaning methods, and each of them has its own group of supporters. I do not specifically recommend any single method over another, because all of them can be effective when executed properly. Thus, choosing a method becomes largely a matter of personal taste.” NOTE: Chuck then suggested a few websites to explore, one of which was this one.

5) You will read how effective or ineffective the current crop of dust-shakers perform, but there is another factor that works mightily against them – chamber lubricant. All Canon D-SLR’s are notorious for the over-the-top amount of lubricant that gets distributed on the sensor in the normal course of shooting. But it seems that more and more of the newer cams are copying Canon in this regard. We have heard and read many reports of this with the Nikon D3 and others. So even though the shakers can repel a lot of loose dust on the sensor, it’s a constant battle when the lubricant starts building up again and actually glues the dust-bunnies in place.”

[via Copper Hill Images]

AFTER

There is still that “hair,” although in a “better” spot, and a few minor specks. But for my first attempt I’m pretty happy.

I used Copper hill Images Sensor Cleaning tools & method.

Meant to fit the end of your SLR’s zoom lens, this guy has a secret cut-out on the side and a precision mirror assembly inside. In short, you can shoot left, right, up, or down (it swivels 360 degrees), all while appearing to shoot straight ahead.

The result? The picture-perfect candid shots you’ve always dreamed of.

You: 1 Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: 0″

[via photojojo.com]

Insert shameless self promotion here:


 

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