It’s time to play! Or, more precisely, run some test prints. And that’s where you have a chance to pick up a free print.

I am giving away 15 of the test prints I will run with this new (to me and my printer) paper. Free to those in the USA. Fill out the form below and in the comments section let me know if you have a preferred image. If not, I will pick one to test with and that will be your print. I can’t guarantee you will get a particular photo (other than the general Preferred Subject Matter selection), but I will try.

The print will be mailed in a standard 5×7″ envelope with first class postage next week.

If you are one of the first 15 respondants, I will require a mailing address, but please don’t send it now. Filling out the form is just to reserve your spot in line and orders will be first come, first served. One per person. I’m not going to type lengthy rules: you try to game the system, I will ignore you.

©2012 The Carey Adventures. All Rights Reserved.

Hello Peter,

I want to branch out and try my hand at some landscape photography.  I might be taking a trip out west this summer to do some shooting in Nevada and then San Fransisco and I was looking to get a comfortable backpacking pack that will hold my camera.  I’ve done quite a bit of east coast hiking and climbing before, I’ve actually done Mt. Washington twice, but I’ve never brought my DSLR kit up a mountain.  The backpack I have now (LowePro Pro Runner 200) is much more of a day pack and is not nearly qualified enough for a day long trek.  Any suggestions on alternatives?

Thanks for the email. I’ve been partial to the f-stop brand since stumbling upon them a year ago. Until then I used LowePro (and I still like certain packs of theirs, especially their rollerbags) like the one you linked to.  For what you mention, I would suggest the f-stop Loka http://fstopgear.com/loka . It’s more spendy than a LowePro of comparable size, but the expandability is very useful. Depending on the amount of photo gear you want to take, you can get a smaller or larger ICU (Internal Camera Unit) and the rest of the space is available to hiking gear and the 10 essentials. The packs are meant to be backpacks first, then camera bags, so the fit and comfort on the trail is paramount. Also, the internal organization is useful, with spots for cards and filters on the opening flap.

As for comfort with a DSLR, I use the larger brother of this pack, the Satori EXP and while it is not the same pack, the suspension system is essentially the same. Weight is kept mainly on the hips as a good backpack should and the stability is what you would find in a dedicated Dana Design or Osprey pack made just for hiking. Not only that, having the door of the bag be on the back side helps keep the pack clean (at least the part that sits on your body) so I find I use it more as I can just drop it in the dirt and not worry about where I set it. It might sound little, but it was after using the EXP that I converted over to this style of pack as I am not often near a nice clean surface when I want to access my camera.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to follow up if you have other questions.
pwc

©2012 The Carey Adventures. All Rights Reserved.

One of the beauties of the site is the ability to create your own pack of greeting cards. You can order a standard pack of 10 cards for $25 (plus $5.50 shipping, USA only) or you can mix and match any image on the site in in quantity you like. Want four copies of four images? No problem! Looking for 43 different images? You can do that too! As long as you meet the minimum order of 10 greeting cards, you can mix and match images until your heart is content.

All orders are custom printed and inspected by me, not mass produced by some third party. The cards are printed on high quality matte paper and include a description on the back for reference sake. Plain white envelopes are also included. Some also include a story associated with the image to help bring it to life. Prints us fine art watercolor style paper with archival inks to last a lifetime.

All orders are shipped to arrive 7-10 days from order.

Don’t see an image on The Carey Adventures.com that you would like to see on a card or print? Email me and I will be happy to print it for you. Currently not all of my images are in the store and I will be adding more monthly. If you have a favorite, let me know and I will make it happen.

If you would like to see a sample of the greeting cards, use my contact form to send me your mailing address and I will get one out to you in the next couple of days.

©2012 The Carey Adventures. All Rights Reserved.

Title: Dubai Sunset Panorama Exploration

Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Description: The haze often obscures the sun before it sets into the Persian Gulf just beyond Dubai. The sentinels of the city, including the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, stand guard amid the heat and dust.

Photographs Creative Commons Copyright Peter West Carey

Are you interested in joining a photo tour in Nepal, India, Bhutan or Alaska in 2013? Email me for more information or click here.

Note: You likely won’t see the image above if you are reading this via email or some RSS viewers. Click here to be taken to a full view.

If you want to see more Panoramas like this one, click here.

©2012 The Carey Adventures. All Rights Reserved.

If you prefer the PDF verison, it is here: India Packing List

India Photo Tour Packing List

Clothes

• Fleece Pants
• Fleece Coat or warm sweater
• Jeans or quick-dry pants, consider zip off pants
• Long shorts
• Short sleeved shirts
• Long sleeved shirts
• Water Proof Rain Jacket and Pants (both optional, a poncho can also suffice)
• Comfortable socks
• Sock liners if you tend to need them when walking
• Underwear
• Sleepwear
• Sunglasses (good quality)
• Wide brimmed hat for sun during the day
• Boots or trail shoes
• Sandals
• Bandana

Personal Items

• Waterbottle
• Sun Block (small bottle, can be purchased in country)
• Headlamp /small flashlight
• Day pack
• Water proof cover for day pack
• Duffel bag for all other items
• Books/reading material
• Writing Journal (optional)
• Small notebook
• Passport
• Copy of Passport
• 2 extra Passport Photos
• Guidebooks/maps (optional)
• Credit/Debit cards
• Cash (cashiers checks can be cashed, but it can be a pain. There are ample ATMs available in Delhi)
• Cell phone (optional and needs to be capable of accepting a different SIM card)
• Cell Phone Charger
• Travel documents
• Alarm clock
• Watch (optional)
• Photos from home to share with locals (include family, location, attractions, etc…)
• Extra batteries (I suggest rechargeable as India has no little ability to recycle spent batteries)
• Snacks you might be partial to
• iDevice and charger if you need music or distraction.
• Water purification – I prefer the Steripen device, but good old iodine works. While not required, I personally prefer to not buy bottled water as much as possible as India has little in the way of recycling.
• Small Binoculars

Toiletries

• Plastic bags for all liquid toiletries (in case of rough handling induced rupture)
• Deodorant
• Shampoo/Conditioner
• Hairbrush/Comb
• Toothpaste
• Toothbrush
• Dental Floss
• Hand lotion
• Towel (I suggest a quick dry version)
• Razor
• Lotion
• Chapstick/lipbalm
• Extra eyeglasses/contacts
• Contact solution
• Facial soap
• Tweezers & nail clippers
• Feminine products
• Emergency toilet paper

First aid kit including:

• Tiger balm or pain reliever
• Accupressure bracelets or ginger candy for motion sickness
• Prescription medicines
• Anti-diarrheal
• Insect Repellent
• Malaria prophylaxes (consult with your doctor as to whether you want to take this)
• Tea Tree Oil (for cuts)
• Antibiotic cream
• Ace bandage
• Handi-wipes or anti-bacterial gel
• Safety pins
• Eye drops or flush
• Lip balm
• Band-aids
• Pain killer of choice
• Antibiotics
• Cold relief tablets, antihistamine, cough drops
• Earplugs
• Dramamine (for motion sickness)

Standard Camera Gear

(Fill in your own list here to ensure all your vital gear makes it to Bhutan)

Camera Gear

(options to consider beyond your normal gear)

• Power plug adapter for battery charger – Make sure your chargers are ‘international’
• Portable power strip to charge multiple devices with one outlet
• Polarizing filter
• Neutral density filter
• Graduated Neutral Density filter (2 or 3 stop, soft transition)
• Extra lens cap in appropriate sizes
• External harddrive for backup of photos (or laptop)
• Card reader
• Sensor cleaning material if you are comfortable doing this yourself
• Extra batteries – We will have electricity in most locations, but it’s best to have backup
• Gray card
• GPS – Optional, but handy for tagging photo locations
• Small packable umbrella (optional)

©2012 The Carey Adventures. All Rights Reserved.

I might take a macro class for “tide pools” in the next month or so.  Do you have recommendation for middle of the road macro lens? – Chad

Background: Chad shoots with a Canon 1.6x crop sensor camera, so my suggestions are based on his setup.

For macro lens selection, it matters on your price range. I always tend to go for the best lens I can, knowing they don’t get updated as quickly as cameras.  The cheapest version is the standard 100mm Macro http://amzn.to/HgU3aM .  The next up, and the one I would suggest either renting from some place like Borrowlenses.com (located there in the Bay Area and they can drop ship the lens to a local shop near the Bay Bridge or to your house) is the 100mm L lens http://amzn.to/HheCEi . This is a professional level lens and high quality. You do get more when you pay more, for lenses.

One more option, if you won’t be using a tripod that often, is the 60mm Macro http://amzn.to/HjjgT2 (it’s actually cheaper than the 100mm). This has the advantage of showing less camera shake (remember, there is this rule when figuring out if you will cause camera shake http://thecareyadventures.com/blog/2011/a-rule-of-thumb-to-help-stop-photo-blur-31-days-to-better-photography/).

I would highly suggest renting a lens for the workshop and seeing if it works for you. Someone like Jim will be able to help you get the most out of it and if you don’t like it after that, then another option is in mind.

In that vein, go with the 100mm L  for $25 for the 3 day weekend. Maybe even throw in the 60mm rented as well and you can compare them side by side. That will run you another $20 for the weekend. $45 for a weekend of shooting with them both (plus tax and shipping, unless you pick it up in downtown San Francisco) will tell you which one works best for you and if the extra cost is worth it.

Have your own travel, photography or parenting question? Ask here.

If you are in the Bay area and looking to learn more about Macro photography, I highly suggest looking into Jim Goldstein’s workshop in May http://www.jmg-galleries.com/blog/workshops/#tidepools_photo_tour

©2012 The Carey Adventures. All Rights Reserved.

Feel free to cut it up, add to it and change it as you see fit. It will not fit every situation, but it’s a start. I compiled it from many other resources on the web and it’s what works for me. I also suggest the bride and groom to add in any other important shots in the space at the end or on the back of the paper.

I hope it helps!

Download WeddingShotList.pdf

©2012 The Carey Adventures. All Rights Reserved.

Getting Started

Welcome! This tutorial will explain the steps I take when using my iPhone to create time-lapse movies shot from commercial airliners, as seen above. I will be explaining how I use iTimeLapse Pro, my app of choice in this post which is a companion to another post I wrote on Digital Photography School that explains the process of setting up the shoot to ensure best results from the app. I suggest you check out that post in addition to this one to gather the whole picture (pun intended, always).

iTimeLapse Pro is a very useful app as it will shoot and create the video for you. No need to download the images and compile them in a computer. That does create some limitations in regard to exposure smoothing between images, but for what it is, this app is a great tool. Here then are my suggestions for using the app to gain the most of airborne time-lapse shoots.

Turn Off Auto Lock

Auto Lock is your enemy here. Turn it off. It can be found by going to your iPhone’s Settings menu, then General then Auto-Lock. When your phone locks, image capture stops.

Name Your Video Before You Start

Speaking from experience, naming videos before you start is the way to go. In the excitement of creating these short movies, I have often become confused about which video is which. They all start to look the same when the sample image is of the horizon and ground.

Bigger Is Not Always Better

The app has a number of settings for the camera resolution. I choose the Good settings of 1920×1440. This allows for longer videos without making them too huge. For instance, at this setting I shot the SEA-LAX video with 690 frames on this setting (which, the app tells me, is about 2.6MB/image). The final size on disk of that video’s still images is 1.1GB, while the final video is only 39MB (at 720p HD). If I had shot this at the Best setting, it would have taken up 2GB on disk and this can be problematic at times.

Use The Start Delay

The start delay will be your friend and stop you from becoming too frantic while setting up your shoot.

Turn The Flash Off, Mostly

There is a flash feature on this app and for shooting video out plane windows, it is all but useless. Turn it off so it doesn’t accidentally (in auto mode) decide to come on. This feature will becomign available when you start capturing your images. Leaving a long Start Delay will help you turn this feature off without messing up your shots.

Judge Your Timing

Timing for time-lapse is greatly influenced by speed and distance. If objects are further away, you will need a longer interval between shots to show movement (or risk a super long video that no one will watch). If objects are very close, shorter timing is needed. For a typical flight, I prefer every 4 seconds when at altitude. This allows for a smooth enough movement and a decent video length.

Turn The Volume Off

By default iTimeLapse Pro makes a shutter sound with each shot. In a plane, this is not that big of a deal as the ambient noise will likely cover it up. Still, I notice the noise once in a while, even with my bad hearing, and wonder where it’s coming from. It’s best to not have to listen to it (and this is helpful advice for other shooting situations as well). Don’t do this if you are still listening to music on your iPhone.

Record Ample Shots

Most video plays back at 24 frames a second or 30 frames a second. I have found, with shooting at a frame every four seconds, I can get decent video down to 16 frames a second on a plane. This means, if I want to capture 10 seconds of film (just about a minimum for most viewers) I need to capture 160 frames. That will take about 11 minutes when all is said and done. Do this calculation first so you are not tempted to stop early just to see what you got.

Now all you need to do is hit Start Time Lapse, align the camera and shoot away! TIP: Use the window shade to hold the camera in place, or grab a GorillaMobile to help keep the camera in the best location.

When you are finished recording, press Exit to be brought back to the main menu.

Edit Out The Bad Frames

Maybe setting up the iPhone didn’t go as smoothly as you hoped and you captured a few extra frames. Or perhaps the last 20 frames weren’t needed. Click on the Details tab and then click Edit Frames. On this screen you can remove any frame, anywhere, the doesn’t work for you.

Rendering Options

On the Render screen you have a number of options. The first is frames per second. As I mentioned, I suggest 16 frame a second for plane flights otherwise the video can be quite fast. Play with this and see what works best for you. There is also the option to create a video to a particular length.

Change the file name to something intelligent so you can find it later.

Video resolution is up to you. I suggest choosing 1080p video and pick the 1440×1080 option, unless you shot your video with the idea of cropping out the top and bottom. If you make your video 16:9 ratio, it will not compress the proportions, it will simply crop off the top and bottom.

A Music Soundtrack can be added as well on this screen so you can pick a song from your library.

Video Quality? 100%, unless space on your phone is an issue.

After clicking Render Now, your phone will create the video for you to watch. For the example here with 690 frames, it took 7 minutes. You can leave it to run in the background but you can’t create another time-lapse while it runs. So it might be a good idea to capture your videos while the time is right then render them when the capturing moments have passed.

Share!

When your video is finished, it’s time to share with the world. There are three online options here; YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo. As expected, each will require a one time authentication with the service in order to share, but after that, you’re set.

There are options to save the movie to your Camera Roll so it can be used with other apps. You can also email the video if it is small. USB is an option to copy the file to your computer when connected via USB and with iTunes running. Instructions for all of these methods popup when selected. Lastly, Local Wifi Sharing is available if your cable is not available.

Conclusion

Oh! One more note. You can listen to music while the images are being captured. Just make sure to start it before the action begins.

iTimeLapse is a fun app with even more features than mentioned here. It is a useful tool that does just want I need it to do when creating fun time-lapse videos from a plane.

Suggested Equipment:

• iPhone 4s
• iTimeFrame Pro app
• Laptop for extended battery life
• GorillaMobile for iPhone
• Patience
• A good window seat

©2012 The Carey Adventures. All Rights Reserved.

Title: Brisbane, Australia Panorama Exploration

Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Description: Built on the banks of the Brisbane River in Queensland, Brisbane is a modern city. And they have a lot of bridges. And bars. But the Irish Murphys bar downtown does NOT in fact carry Murphy’s Irish Stout. This was did not bode well with me.

Photographs Creative Commons Copyright Peter West Carey

Are you interested in joining a photo tour in Nepal, India, Bhutan or Alaska in 2012? Email me for more information or click here.

Note: You likely won’t see the image above if you are reading this via email or some RSS viewers. Click here to be taken to a full view.

If you want to see more Panoramas like this one, click here.

©2012 The Carey Adventures. All Rights Reserved.

Title: Waterfall, Springbrook National Park – Panorama Exploration

Location: Springbrook National Park, Queensland, Australia

Description: Morning light barely misses a waterfall along the cliffs in Springbrook National Park.

Photographs Creative Commons Copyright Peter West Carey

Are you interested in joining a photo tour in Nepal, India, Bhutan or Alaska in 2012? Email me for more information or click here.

Note: You likely won’t see the image above if you are reading this via email or some RSS viewers. Click here to be taken to a full view.

If you want to see more Panoramas like this one, click here.

©2012 The Carey Adventures. All Rights Reserved.