Wow, this summer is flying by pretty fast.  Things have been crazy with work and school but I’m down to my last two semesters!  Hopefully I’ll get some downtime over the next two weeks and become an active member of society again.  The picture above is of Maggie and Mya on our way to San Antonio, TX.  Maggie is almost 2 years old (5 more days) and Mya is growing up fast!

With the iPad you need to use MPMoviePlayerViewController instead of MPMoviePlayerController.  However, our Multimodal Rummy application uses a landscape layout for most of the views, in particular the view that provides the link to the tutorial video.  Since the MPMoviePlayer traditionally displays the content in portrait layout I had to create a simple MPMoviePlayerViewController subclass that contained the shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation method and returns YES for UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeLeft and UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight.

Then simply call [self presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated:self.moviePlayer]; to start the movie and then call [self dismissMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated]; in your custom MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification listener to remove the video.

Here is a rough version of scene 1:

I didn’t get a chance to watch all the videos last night, I still need to watch the last four, but I’m slightly disappointed with what I’ve seen so far. Don’t get me wrong, Scott does a great job explaining each shot and how/why he sets up things in a certain way. The disappointment I have with the dvd is that most of the shots he reproduces require at least 1 to 2 thousand dollars worth of strobes/spider lights. I would guess that the target audience of the Digital Photography series are amateurs or maybe a few pro-amateurs, most of whom probably don’t own strobes/spider lights. I wish Scott had included examples of how to reproduce these shots using hot shoe flashes (off the camera of course). Now I’m not saying the entire dvd is filled with strobe/spider light examples, Scott does have a few videos that primarily use natural light as well as one “on location” video that are great and can be reproduced by most amateurs.

If you want to work with strobes and you’ve never worked with a model or in a studio I think the video does a great job at making you feel as if you were shooting with Scott for a day, and for the price that’s an awesome learning experience. Once I’ve finished all the video’s I’m defiantly going to try and reproduce some of the shots (using hot shot flashes) so I’ll post what I did to try and get similar results to Scott’s photos.

I put together a collection of my favorite images from my first year of photography over on my Flickr site. It’s crazy to think I’ve only been doing this for a little over a year, but it has become one of my favorite things to do; I just need more time to do it. Brandon and I went to a Joe McNally lighting seminar in Houston; it was awsome! I’ve read Joe’s blog all year and his books are a must read for any photographer, so to see him in person was by far the highlight of my year. The only problem is I left the seminar regretting the fact that I own Canon equipment; Joe does everything with Nikon equipment and it doesn’t take him long to show you why Nikon is kicking Canon’s butt in flash photography.

Since it’s now 2010 I know I should make a new year resolution, but I think setting out some goals would be a better idea.

Goal 1: Take More Photos

As a beginning photographer you can never take enough photos. I’m a bit of an equipment junky, I see a shot and immediately want to purchase equipment so I can take that type of photo. In 2010 I want to start pushing the limits of what I can do with all the equipment I currently own (and it’s more than enough to make some damn good shots). I want to buy the Canon 5D mark III next year because my 40D is dead from taking too many photos not because it’s the hot new camera; like how I snuck a purchase into the goal, lol

Goal 2: Be Healthy and Happy

With juggling work and school my health tends to take a low priority and my quality of life tends to be nil. I want to focus more on making sure I’m around in 10 years so I can actually use my degree.

Goal 3: Put the Toys Away

I’ve lived the bachelor life for quite awhile, and looking back I’ve have had no shortage of toys, trips, and fun. I want to try and go a year without buying everything I want and try to limit it to what I need. I know several of you are laughing you ass off right now, but you’re the people I expect to help me stick to this

Well, that’s enough writing for me. See you in another six months….

Goal 4: Update This Website

…… 3 out of 4 ain’t bad

If this rumor is true it would answer a question myself and many others have had about the future of the Canon ST-E2. The ST-E2 is an okay device, 4 years ago, but most strobists want to control multiple flash groups and do more than just ratios between flash group A and B. The Nikon SU-800 has been able to do this for quite some time. What I don’t understand is why Canon doesn’t step out and start becoming innovative with their flash technology. I know a lot of people shy away from flashes, mainly because they don’t know how to use them, but if you make the technology easier to use I think adoption will spread like wildfire.

So why do I feel so strong about this issue? Most flash users know the number one rule is GET THE FLASH OFF THE CAMERA!! But for those who are new to flash photography I think this is the main reason people try it, don’t like the image, and then never try it again. If the flash could be triggered remotely (and for free since the trigger is built into the camera) I think you would have more entry level photographers adopting the use of flash (or should I say the correct use of flash). Now I know the cost of the EOS 7D won’t be cheap, but we can expect the flash master function to trickle down to the EOS X0D line and even the EOS Rebel line probably with in a year or two.

So what if the rumor is wrong? Then Canon has missed a great opportunity to start actually competing with Nikon who has dominated the DSLR and Flash combination for quite some time. But that’s a story for another rant.

I’ve heard several complaints that the front page for codygreen.com takes a long time to load. While the web site is image heavy the pages are optimized as much as they can be. The problem was largely due to the service provider, Lunar Pages, which took forever to pull content off their servers. I was working on a process to try and use JQuery to load the first image and then pull the remaining images on the front page down once the page had loaded when Lunar Pages started having hosting problems for almost two days. I finally had enough and I’ve moved everything to GoDaddy.com. I’ve used GoDaddy for several consulting projects so I figured I would give them a shot with my personal web site. So far I’m very happy with the speed of the servers and the site loads 2/3′s faster than before. I had to upgrade my account to get everything working but I’m not too worried about that; now I can host my Python webapps here.

Well as the new semester begins I hope to start blogging again and my plan is to do more reviews and technical articles about things I use or problems I run into at work. So if you don’t see a new post every few days feel free to post a comment and tell me to get my shit in gear

So I’ve narrowed my selection down to the following five photos. Please take a look and comment on which photo you like best. I have till the 25th to submit my best photo.

Williams (J.K.) Administration Building

Williams (J.K.) Administration Building

Albritton Bell Tower

12th Man Statue

Sul Ross Statue

Below is a slide show of my photos. No not all 700, just 46 .