photo.th/blog

In order to do some space saving in the apartment I decided to ditch the large expanse of glass that used to be my workstation for something with a little less of a footprint. The desktop is actually made from two 46″ Ikea countertops with a 3-drawer Malm dresser for a center support and 2 adjustable legs on each end…also from Ikea. This setup provides not only a footprint that doesn’t stick 3.5 feet off the wall like my old desk, but also lengthens the desk so that my wife could also ditch her old one (which was just as large as my glass-topped-gargantuan). The central set of drawers also hides cables really well without much hassle (just shove ‘em back there!) and of course gives you tons of storage. We’ve also used an Ikea shelf with 4 legs to get a little more space on the desktop.

Not much else has changed from the first workstation post, so if you were interested in the details, here are the links:
- Ergotron LX monitor arm
- Notepal laptop stand
- LaCie 2TB Raid 0 HD

Digital Photography School had a post a few days ago reviewing the Black Rapid R-Strap 4. I had tossed the idea of making my own since I first read about the R-Strap in a DIY piece on Lifehacker, but couldn’t figure out how to make it for free without damaging/sacrificing perfectly functional duffel bags/backpacks.

When the DPS post went up the idea of a DIY project came up again, but the impetus for actually following through on writing up the DIY came after one comment pointed out the Mzungu Quick Draw Camera Strap.

So, to make something like the R-Strap just grab the following from REI:
~1″ Climbing grade webbing
~1″ Cam buckles for easy size adjustment
~1″ Triglide for securing loose webbing ends
~1″ Swivel Hooks – durable plastic equivalent

All of this for under $10 if you only get 12″ of the webbing (only $0.34/ft). All of the hard plastic tools come in packs with 2-4 hooks/buckles/glides, and it happens to work out that if you get 12′ of webbing you can manage to make 2 straps. Add some extra padding from an old bag you’ve probably got lying around and you even get some extra support. To get the right lengths of webbing just cut where you need to and use a lighter to heat/melt the newly cut ends so they don’t begin to fray.

Grab an old key chain ring and a mini locking (preferred-something like this) or non-locking (like what I’m using) and remove the plastic swivel hook and you’re set to make the Mzungu strap. I personally prefer this strap – it frees up my tripod quick-release plate and doesn’t rely on anything screwing into my camera (that I still have a hard time believing won’t come loose). It also allows the camera to more comfortably sit with the left of the camera body/lens resting against your hip, meaning no lens sticking out to the side to get damaged and no LCD screen getting scratched while rubbing against the rivets in your pants.

When it comes down to it these two products may be great for some non-traditional neck-strap-wearing photographers out there, but I can’t see how they justify the price tags they carry ($55 and $23) when they can be easily made with a little common sense. I’m way behind the DIY curve here as well, just adding mine to a long list of DIY versions of these straps easily found online.

Over a http://www.phonaroid.com I’ve been messing around with an ‘on-the-go’ photoblog that utilizes the Camerabag and WordPress Apps. and allows me to take, process and post photos wherever I go. When I began I decided to use the Camerabag app. because it was rather versatile and produced some visually appealing works out of my otherwise slightly drab iPhone shots. All was going smoothly until the other day when I ran across a little app. called Polarize that basically did the same processing with the photos – for free. Naturally thoughts of how I could have saved money done things differently came to mind and I wondered if I should regret my initial decision. I tested the two out this weekend and here’s what I’ve concluded:

1. Price: Winner – it depends. Polarize, because it’s FREE! However, Camerabag is definitely worth the $2.99. $3 – steep for an iPhone app. – maybe, but worth the price. It not only converts your photos to an insta-image (read: fauxlaroid) inspired shot, but it also has converts to the following: (from their website)

Helga – A square-format toy camera with washed-out highlights and old-school vignetting.
1974 – This is your father’s camera. Faded, tinted, and hip.
Lolo – Shoot from the hip and take life as it comes with vibrant, colorful shots.
Cinema – Dramatic, moody, wide-screen stills from the movie of your life.
1962 – Dynamic black and whites from the photojournalists of a bygone era.
Mono – Smooth gradation from black to white.
Infrared – Simulation of the popular landscape photography technique.
Fisheye – Popular fish eye lens effect – try it in combination with other filters.

2. Ease of use: Winner – Polarize. The app is so light, so easy to use that it is really just a combination of choices: take a photo, use an existing photo or a link to go check out the community of users on the web. However, this also is a drawback of the app. There were no settings to take control of the program – notably, no way to determine the output size of your fauxlaroid photo.

3. Features: Winner – Camerabag. Not only does it have many output styles for your photos, but it also allows you to take more control. If you choose to shoot a photo within the app. and apply a style to it you can edit whether or not it saves the original photo – both cutting down on processing time and the number of photos you have to slide past in your photo album. The app. also allows you to choose the photo output size, what style it applies by default, whether it crops your photos, auto-saves, uses borders…you get the idea.

4. Output size: Winner – Camerabag. Like mentioned earlier, Camerabag allows the user to choose the file output size – 400, 600, 800, 1200 – depending on need/speed. The only downside of this is that the app. is a memory hog and sometimes needs a restart to free up some memory and allow you to proceed. However, compared to the only export size of 450×520 from Polarize, I’d side with the choice any day.

5. Style: Winner – Camerabag. (subjective, I know) I don’t profess to know much of anything about Polaroid photography (except that shaking the photo actually doesn’t speed the developing process up) but I know what looks good to me, and for the vast majority of shots, Camerabag’s processing takes the cake. My biggest qualm with the Polarize app’s processing is the harsh border that it creates at the edges of the photo – check it out in the first pic.

Overall – Camerabag nudges out Polarize. Don’t discount the light and free Polarize app. though – It’s developer seems pretty interested in taking the app further (actually sounds like there’s a version waiting for release on the iPhone software v3.0 update) and sounds very approachable in the Flickr forum. Polarize wins some sweetness points by also adding ‘handwriting’ style text to the white spaces on the bottom, and it looks like the developer is working on incorporating more handwriting fonts from current app. users. So if you want versatility in stylizing your iPhone photos – Camerabag will keep you coming back for more. However, if you’re simply a fan of the fauxlaroid look – grab Polarize for free!

Check out my Phonaroid site here.

Though I haven’t owned a desktop computer in at least 5 years, I still prefer plugging in to a desk and plopping down in front of a larger monitor to get things done – especially photo-work. I’m not typically a clutter-free person, but in the attempt to become one I employ a few things seen in the photos: bookshelves/storage units, monitor stand/arm, laptop stand/basestation, very adjustable light sources and cord management.

The desk, lamps and storage unit are all from IKEA. The 22″ Samsung monitor is held up and positioned either horizontally, vertically or any which way by an Ergotron LX monitor arm. The laptop stand is by Notepal and has a couple mods to house a 4-port USB hub and the RF transmitter for the Logitech VX Revolution mouse. The mousepad is by MacPadd and allows for smooth tracking and easy cleaning (windex – along with most of the rest of my desk). The laptop connects to: a DVI-out/HDMI switch for easy computer/PS3 monitor output switching; iPhone dock built into the wooden organizer on the left; sound out for either the desktop or living room speakers; and stand/4-port hub/mouse. Cord organization is simply through a bunch of zip ties, velcro, 3M fasteners, paper binders and simple wooden CD box to house a power strip.

Do you have any tips/tricks for streamlining, organizing or keeping your desk clean? Let me know! Throw them down in the comments.

The beginning of a ‘how-to’ series focusing on the creation of my photos up to this point, this post will focus on the desktop where everything in the post-processing world happens. Generally working from a function-over-form mindset, my desktop is sparing on many aspects of design that could be worked into the mix. Also, because I generally have rotating backgrounds based on recent/decent photos I’ve taken, I need whatever is on the desktop to be viewable under a lot of different circumstances.

So here’s a quick summary of what I use, what it does and (if you run OS X) where to get it for yourself.

• Geektool: Fantastic – especially if you know a little about script-writing or can search the web and use copy/paste.  This is used to display the calendar, day/date/month, uptime, HD usage, time and weather.
• Dock Doctor: Tool that allows you to change the appearance of your dock.
• Adium: Running the decay 2.0 theme (it’s small).
• Bowtie: Keyboard shortcut iTunes control, artwork display, rating, custom themes, etc.
• Quicksilver: Much better than spotlight and very versatile (for those who like keyboard shortcuts).
• Multiclutch (not shown): A useful tool for those with multitouch trackpads – adding more/application-specific gestures in order to control almost anything you could with keystrokes (for those who don’t like keyboard shortcuts).

For those of you out there with no experience with RSS feeds/readers – here’s a quick RSS 101 for you. Some introductory definitions about what you’ll need:

• Favorite website(s) – any website you frequent (news/photoblogs/gadget sites/etc.).
• RSS – stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ – basically a quick way to stay up to date with all of your favorite websites, all in one place.
• RSS reader/aggregator – the gathering place (desktop app/widget/webpage) for all of the new posts or items from your favorite websites.
• Syndicate/Subscribe – to add a website to your reader/aggregator to receive the new posts.

With these points in mind you can transform a toolbar full of bookmarks into one simple webpage (or desktop/widget) that shows the new posts that you haven’t read yet. Since everyone and their mother (even my grandmother) has a Gmail account one of the simplest ways to get started is to simply go to http://reader.google.com and log in. Using this website (http://photo.tenharmsel.com/blog/) as an example – simply click on the “RSS Blog” link at the top and you will be automatically redirected to a page where you can choose to add the subscription to Google Reader. Simple as that – you’re good to go. As you read through posts they will be shown as having been viewed and as your favorite sites put up new posts they will magically automatically appear as unread items on your Google Reader page. So should you use RSS to get your news/photo-fix/etc. you will be saving precious time otherwise wasted clicking through to many different sites (that is, unless you just start subscribing to countless numbers of websites and spend endless hours reading about how to do some spring office cleaning and looking at photos of abandoned places). Enjoy!

**UPDATE**

Check out more information about Google Reader complete with YouTube help videos on the subject.