I’m really not trying to start a camera review/tech blog but I may as well share more results for those wanting to check out new gear.

I day tripped to a Scottish-Irish festival at Green Lane Park in Pennsylvania to shoot stills of sword fighting for a series on women’s sports. I also decided to perform a  quick test with the D300s (and its video capabilities in a more  journalistic way).  During the first test, the camera was on a tripod and the circumstances were somewhat controlled. This test was a lot like how I usually work — on the fly.

The image quality was good (as expected), the built-in mic lacked punch (also expected) but was passable. Some form of Steadicam is a must when using this camera. Next up will be the arrival of a Beachtek XLR mic adapter (so good audio is possible) and to balance the Glidecam for use with the D300s.

1:30 am when I returned home. A full moon and a shimmery sky above, perfect opportunity to test The Revolution. Digital SLRs that shoot video, HD nonetheless. Canon already made its mark, fortunately Nikon was not too far behind — though I was stuck waiting for the leap frog of tech from competing companies that happens every year or so.

I don’t really like geeking out and talking tech in a blog. There are plenty of others who do a great job at it. But this is a post worthy of pocket protectors.  Knowing that the amazing clouds overhead would not last long, I quickly set up a tripod with  the D300s and a 300mm lens then shot the moon. I wasn’t quite set up for an audio rig yet for the D300s, so I broke out my H4 along with a genius invention — a Rolls 9V battery powered portable pre-amp,  an Audio-Technica stereo mic and I was set. A half hour or so of shooting and recording then some time lapse editing, transcoding and uploading and presto, a 50 second clip worth posting.

Ok, it’s no surprise not that I bought a camera or that it’s my first Canon.  I don’t participate in the Canon vs. Nikon or Mac vs. PC wars…but being a longtime Nikon user I wanted to experience the other side and since I was looking to replace a point shoot camera, the Canon G10 seemed a good choice.

What was was really fun for me was the testing out the video capabilities of the G10 (too bad it doesn’t shoot HD). I took it for a test run during the weekly summer parties that are now at The Piazza in Northern Liberties.  Would I think of using this for any pro work? Surely not, but it’s fun to keep around.

Is there really a magic hour for writing? At least for me there is and it’s late, like 4 a.m. late.  There is something that happens when I should be long asleep and it’s always good for my attempts at writing.  I was inspired earlier tonight when talking to a friend’s cousin. It was the first time I met him and he knew little of my photography in Iceland. I hinted at some of the special things that happened to me there. I felt I bold and needed to go a little further, so I re-worked the project statement on the dedicated Iceland website. Rather than keep it strictly business-like, I thought getting a bit more personal would be appropriate. I think it works.

I stumbled onto a blog by Lawrence Atienza when browsing for information about David Tejada, a photographer who recently gave a talk and workshop for ASMP Philly. I found his site to be ambitious and exactly what the web needs these days. A fresh approach to community building. Sites like Flickr and Facebook are fine. But they are novelties compared to the hands on approach of interviewing and information gathering that Lawrence uses to build his site.

A favorite of mine is a site created by Canadian photographer Rob Galbraith. It’s still a great site for information though it lost its sense of community when the forums disappeared. Other sites I used to frequent that address computer hardware and technology, Anandtech and Arstechnica, are still valuable but they have evolved and become too polished compared to the days when they were cozy operations.

The blog, Memoirs for the Weekend Photographer, by Atienza, aims to be an information resource for photographers who have not gone pro. He added version number 2.0 to his site title. I’m not sure if this is his second incarnation of the site, but it fits in perfect with the new round of community building taking place.

Through my contact with him he asked if I would contribute to the site in the form of a professional photographer interview that he conducts. I was glad to give my thoughts on some good questions. You can read on to the interview I gave along with one from David Tejada and several photographers.