The Digital Photography Show #19: Win a Free Photo Site on Phanfare
The Digital Photography Show #19: Win a Free Photo- Site on Phanfare (MP3 – 19MB – 55mins.)
September 14, 2006: Welcome to the nasty nineteenth episode of The Digital Photography Show! And why is it “nasty?” Just because it’s the first “n” word I could think of, and I’m all about the alliteration.
Today, Michael and I talk with Andrew Erlichson, CEO of Phanfare, a new photo sharing and video sharing web service. We are very psyched about Phanfare, with which we’ve been playing for two or three weeks now.
Phanfare usually costs $54.95 for a year’s subscription, but you can get one for the low, low price of FREE if you answer today’s trivia question. Listen to the show to find out how you can enter the drawing.
You must send your answer to TheDigitalPhotographyShow@gmail.com by September 28th to enter the drawing.
And while you’re waiting to see if you’ve won, download the free trial and see what you think. I like Phanfare especially if you’re interested in sharing video – it makes the process less painful than any service I’ve ever used.
Michael and I highly recommend you play with Phanfare and find out for yourself if it works for you.
Also, Michael and I talk about the Nikon D80, the Zigview remote viewfinder, and our wonderful listener Allen Rockwell contributes an audio review of Scott Kelby’s new book.
Oh, did someone say “Scott Kelby?” As in “our next scheduled guest on The Digital Photography Show?” The best-selling photography writer in the world? Who’s going to be giving away copies of his new book on next week’s show?
Yup, him.
See you then.
Thanks for joining us. And special thanks to our first sponsor – iTrainer. Please leave you comments in the forum or email us at thedigitalphotographyshow@gmail.com.
We’d also appreciate your kind reviews on iTunes, Yahoo Podcasts, and other aggregators. Thanks for making us look – and sound – good.6600 ringtonesringtone 24 mp324 series ringtonesringtone team aringtones 24 the seriesringtone to 700p phoneringtones absolutelyfreesample 80 s ringtone Mapfantasy 7 advent ringtone child final70 porno music ringtones s702 sprint ringtonethat 70s show ringtoneringtones 7100i and7135 kyocera ringtonenextel 730 ringtonesanyo ringtone 7300 Map
September 16th, 2006 at 10:38 am
noble, nifty, neat, nascent, nice, necessary, nummy…but, I digress…Great show, Gentlemen.
September 16th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
iTunes is not downloading the latest podcast. It says “TPN :: The Digital Photography Show” does not seem to be a valid Podcast URL. :(
I’ll download it from here.
September 16th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Mary, you are more clever than I. Although I’m not sure I get “nummy.” Are you sure you doing mean “numbing?”
Allen, thanks for the alert. I’m looking into it. It seems like iTunes has a new problem every week with the show.
September 16th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
Nummy: Adjective, informal
Delicious
Variant of yummy
Numbing, however, is another option…although entirely inappropriate for a show of your caliber.
September 18th, 2006 at 2:21 am
You asked for a personal review of Flickr.com, my favorite photo-sharing website. Here’s some quick thoughts.
I’ve had a paid account ($24.95) for almost a year and I definitely plan to renew.
Flickr is about sharing - photos and comments about photos. People who view your photos can leave comments on your shots, from something as simple as “Great shot” to long paragraphs suggesting different ways to crop, exposure or even asking you where you took the shot. I’ve learned a lot about photography just from having people make helpful comments on my pix. And I know my photographer’s eye has gotten better just from seeing so many great images.
For me, the community aspect is the best part. I post photos that I want to share with my friends in the Real World and I’ve also made plenty of friends on Flickr that I want to see my work. I love the validation you get by having lots of people see, comment and favorite (mark one of your photos as one of their favorites) my photos.
A great way to find other people’s great photos and to share my own is to join various Groups on topics that interest me (e.g. there’s a group for my camera (Panasonic FZ30), New Hampshire, Vermont, hiking, sunsets, etc). You post selected photos of yours to groups and can browse other people’s postings too. I’ve joined maybe 30 groups, though I don’t keep up with all of them. But if I take some shots of, say, golden retrievers, that I’m proud of, I’ll add those to the two groups about goldens, plus maybe a couple to some of the dog groups. Groups can also have discussions on the group page, where someone posts a note and other reply. Those can be very educational, especially for a technical topic. There’s even a group called “Beginners Digital Photography” that has lots of discussions and suggestions. Some groups even hold contests to get you to take photos of various subjects, so you stretch yourself out of your comfort zone.
So obviously I think groups are cool.
Searching for photos is pretty slick too. Of course you can search by a word in the photo’s title, but the best way it using Tags, which are short keywords you can add to your photos. You can tag a bunch of photos at once or individually. When you want to find a particular shot you took, go to your Tags page and there’s the list of the tags you used most. Click a tag to see thumbnail shots of your photos with that tag. Really quick and easy! And you can search other people’s photos the same way. I’m a big fan of golden retrievers, so sometimes I search across all of Flickr for “goldens” and find great shots that never got posted to one of the golden groups. You can also scan through your friend’s images in a calendar format, organized by date the photo was taken or when it was posted to Flickr.
Another great aspect is that you can make Contacts, which are other Flickr users whose photos you want to see easily. There are three levels of contact: Contact, Friend and Family. What’s the point? Well while sharing with the world is great, sometimes you have shots just for a select group. Flickr lets you make some of your photos private, then you can grant viewing rights to Friends and/or Family. So you can limit photos from the family get-together just to the Flickr users you’ve made a Family Contact, and those drunken, incriminating pix from the frat beer bash can be limited to contacts you’ve made a Friend (but Grammy can’t see them unless you allow Family contacts to see them too).
Flickr has done a terrific job with lots of other things. I think they’ve made it really easy to use (but then I’m a geek so what do I know?).
Uploading your photos is much easier if you use their Upload tool (for Windows, Macintosh and Linux). After you install this program on your computer, you simply drag and drop the photos onto this program’s icon. Then you can select the photo’s privacy (public, friends or family) and even create a photo set/album to upload these new photos to. BTW, the Pro (paid) account is limited to uploading 2 Gb per month, which is pretty generous and means you can archive your favorite photos at full-size there if you choose. The free account limit is 20Mb, which should hold 50-80 photos at snapshot size. I upgraded to the Pro account simply for the storage, as I didn’t mind the ads at all, being pretty subtle.
The Flickr uploader even supports drag-n-drop directly from Adobe PhotoShop Elements 4 (my fave photo editor). It uploads the full-size original photos this way, which takes a few minutes with my slow broadband, but it’s a couple steps shorter than the other way to export photos from PSE4 and add them to the Flickr uploader.
You can also upload via email or from your camera phone if you choose, though I think it’d be quicker to use a browser than email. For geeks out there, the Flock browser shell (on top of Firefox) includes a Flickr uploader built in!
Speaking of geeks (I’m one), Flickr’s coolest new tool is the Image Mapper, which lets you identify where you took your photos by navigating on a Yahoo! map and dropping your photos on the right spot. I find this really easy to add my photos. But the coolest part is to browse the map to around where I live, or other places I’ve taken photos and be able to see pix that *other people* have taken there! “Hey I’ve been there but I didn’t see that shot!” Or “I was there just a week before you!”
If you have a blog, you can even post photos there directly from Flickr using their integrated tool.
To wrap up, Flickr is about sharing your photography with *people*, most of whom you’ll never meet. But that’s okay, because you can still make some good connections, learn more about photography (and about yourself) and have a lot of fun on Flickr.com
September 18th, 2006 at 8:41 am
Without rewriting everything that Stew said, I’ll just say that I agree 100% with everything he says.
The geotagging feature is the coolest thing ever. Check this out http://www.flickr.com/photos/allenrockwell/map
As far as upload tools you can also use a 3rd part application called “1001″. Check it out at http://kula.jp/software/1001/
September 18th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
I’m looking for a good solution to put up a proffesional portfolio - if phanfare could do this i’d sign up in a flash. But it does not look like it can do this! shame
September 19th, 2006 at 1:05 am
Flickr is trying to solve a different problem than Phanfare is solving. Flickr is very appropriate as a way to share moments from your public life, but for your private life, you may not be as interested in being part of a larger community. Our albums are more similar to what you traditionally did with with paper albums. It is your story, put up for the enjoyment of your family and friends. Further, we allow you put photos and videos under our managment that are not published on the web at all (shoeboxing).
Phanfare also has signficantly better workflow then Flickr, backs up all your fullsize originals, handles video well, and comes with phone and 1 hr email support. We are working on a Flickr integration to allow our customers to publish select albums to their Flickr account, for their more public side. We think Flickr and Phanfare can happily co-exist.
Andrew Erlichson
CEO
Phanfare, Inc.
September 19th, 2006 at 2:46 am
Adam,
Having never created a professional portfolio nor a portfolio of any kind for that matter, I am curious, what are the requirements/features for an online portfolio? Are there sites specifically designed for hosting professional portfolios?
Michael
September 19th, 2006 at 9:04 am
I just listened and yes Scott I was so excited I yelled out like a kid that just won a candy store. I really wanted to win this. I liken it to when I was in high school and they raffled off a the new James Taylor album. I just knew I had to win it and I did.
Thank you so much. I was at the DXO site and I realize I will have to pick a camera to use it on. If I pick the D70 will that be the only one I can use it on or will I be able to use it on my next Nikon too? I have the Nikon D70 and I have been vacilating between getting the D80 or the D200. I notice it doesn’t give the D80 as a choice yet so that gives me a much needed excuse to get the D200. How do you like that for rationalization. Heheh…..Yes life is good. So I eat dog food for a few weeks. Ya gotta love those crunchies, and I hear they’re good for the teeth.
I went to B&H to check out what they have and I see that they have the D200 packaged with a 2 GB memory card. My question is for you Michael. It looks like it’s worth it to buy the package for just a bit under $100 more and get the body with the memory card. What do you think? I also wanted to know if the memory cards that I have for my D70 are compatible with the D200 and or the D80?
Thanks so much guys…..Denise
September 19th, 2006 at 9:12 am
As far as Flickr and Phanfare it sounds like comparing apples to oranges. I love my Flickr account for the international group of friends I have made along with all the things listed so eloquently above.
I think Phanfare offers something wonderfully new and important. After listening to the interview I was impressed with the possibilities it offers. The use of clips is formost in my mind and passing the grandma test. Like Scott’s, my mom is on line but not so savy. Phanfare seems to have that covered.
Denise
September 19th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Hey Stew, thanks for that fantastic summary of Flickr.
And thanks to Andrew for sharing your thoughts on the “competion.” Although, as you imply, you’re not really “competing” with eachother so much as meeting different needs.
Denise, I’m so happy for you! You’ve been a great poster and listener, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the program very much. Maybe we’ll have to have you on for a review!
As far as if you can upgrade your DXO software when you get a new camera, that’s a good queston. As I understand the site, all modules for supported cameras are grouped with each version of the software. As they say “- the body in question may already be included with the product you have, in which case it’s available to you free;” According to the site, support for both the D70 and the D200 are included in the Standard edition. http://www.dxo.com/intl/photo/dxo_optics_pro/cameras_lenses
September 19th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
Denise,
I have been a long time DxO user. I don’t use it all the time, but I do use it regularly. I particularly love the optics piece. I’ll be upgrading to the new version when it finally comes out for the Mac.
The way the upgrade process works is that you specify your camera model and lenses on their site. They then send you a link with your software package with just those modules. When I add a new lens they support, I simply login to their site, they know what I have and I simply add to that. Again, they email another link to download your custom package.
When I recently bought the D200, I simply added that camera and the lenses and again I got a new package to download and install. It may seem like a cumbersome process, but I prefer it to having to download and store all the modules for all the cameras and lenses.
With regards to that B+H offer. I don’t usually get the combo deals, but if you need a memory card and the deal gives you a good price on the card, then get it. Otherwise, shop around for the card. You can always find deals on memory cards.
I am using the same two cards I had from my D-70 with my D-200. They are over a year and a half old, 2gb Lexar 80x. They are doing fine, but I will need to get more cards at some point so I can shoot an event with both bodies.
Enjoy DxO.
Michael
September 20th, 2006 at 5:25 am
Michael…Well I did the deed and bought the Nikon D200 with the 2GB flash card. After looking around it was worth the price. I got a little shakey when I pressed the key at B&H to finalize the order. How silly is that….More on the saga of my new toys in the future. Thanks for the info. Now I will have a total of 4GB to take home to Massachusetts next month. More would be better but at least I have this much.
Denise
September 20th, 2006 at 8:14 am
Congratulations Denise!
I don’t think you would have gone wrong with the D80 or D200, but I think for what you shoot, the surfers and such, you will no doubt take good advantage of the higher frame rate. Much to my surprise, 5fps has made a big difference in how I shoot and increased keepers. I look forward to seeing your new shots.
BTW, I know that exact feeling right before pressing that button as well as the post pressed button doubts and guilts. They all melt away as soon as you receive the box. enjoy.
Michael
September 20th, 2006 at 11:48 am
Another excellent show! Well, Scott, it sounds like Michael is staying awake without an elbow in the ribs! Your friendship comes through and that makes this podcast special indeed! Keep up the good work!
September 22nd, 2006 at 1:53 am
Hi Everybody…
Congratulations on the Nikon D200, Denise. I viewed your pictures on IStockPhoto and they’re beautiful. You’re a very skilled photographer. I’m looking forward to even bigger and better things out of you, girl.
I’ve had DXO since Luc Marin discussed it on your show. I’ve noticed that the better my picture is out of the camera, the less processing time DXO spends on my picture. Now, this might seem self-evident…BUT…since I’ve never been objective about my own work (I tend to be hard on myself), this has be valuable feedback for me. My goal is to have the program tell me that my photo needs no further processing. I know that it corrects for the individual camera/lens shortcomings, but as processing time decreases, my satisfaction increases. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.
September 22nd, 2006 at 4:28 am
Thanks Mary for your kind words. I have decided to go home and visit my mom in Massachusetts on 10/16 so I will be there for peak New England color with my new camera….oh the possibilities. I was just at iStock and found that I sold another shot of Big Sur, California. That particular shot has sold 14 times. That’s a total of 21 sales altogether on iStock. It’s exciting to think that someone wants to buy my photos. I have a long way to go and I see it as something I’m going to put 150% into for the winter. Sort of a second job. Thanks again…Denise
PS…I got hte e-mail that my new camera has been shipped as of yesterday!