94 Additions to the 365 Project for 2012

Whoops. Two things happened today.

First up; Today I did my “every once in a while” check for SmugMug Windows Phone 7 apps and low and behold discovered one was released around about the time of the birth of my second son – that might explain why I’d not noticed it. This is GREAT news as it means I can publish dailies directly from my phone vs. these insane bulk updates. However I’m mildly surprised that after all my tweets to @SmugMug on the matter that they didn’t have a note to ping me (and others?) who had been braying for it.

That leads me to the second thing… a bulk update of photos. Now the advantage of the bulk update is I was able to swap out some camera phone photos with photos taken with my DSLR… I guess I can always have temporary or stand in photos from my phone for dailies and if there are photos I take with my DSLR that I love, process and publish then I can swap out a day here or there.

After three months of not publishing I am quietly happy to realize I didn’t skip and days. Both photos link to the 365 Project for 2012 gallery.

Welcoming the Canon 50mm 1.2L

Just shy of an “up-to-date” update I did a significant upload of dailies today. I continue to struggle with an elegant SmugMug upload solution for Windows Phone 7. I found “MySmug” but it strips meta data which is unacceptable. I need date sorting! Despite Windows Phone photo app woes I still love it more than the iPhone, the interface is just the unsung hero of user experience and I am prepared to sit it out. I’m also a Microsoft employee, I do maintain that’s not why I love the phone.

Recently I was lucky enough to get a Canon EF 50mm 1.2L and I love it.

Let me restate that just to be clear;

I LOVE it

It is an epic, legendary, monumental piece of glass. It’s not for the faint of heart. all sub f2.0 aspherical lenses exhibit focus shift, unless they have a floating rear element (make a pricey lens even pricier). The theory goes that the nature of the 1.2 is intentional. Due to all that buttery bokeh. Canon have been making lenses for a long time and this design was very much on purpose. Shift isn’t a problem wide open… which, let’s be honest, is the reason you buy this lens in the first place. But wide open you are up against another challenge, the thinnest focal plane you have ever worked with. I feel like 25K Shots over six years with the Canon EF 50mm 1.4 just about prepared me. All of these properties add up to the lenses epic nature, its just that it’s allot to handle if you are not used to it. Oh, and it’s heavy. The results however…

Without further adieu, here is a photo ala 50 1.2…

Dailies update

Post snow and a 365 Project update – just threw up several new photos from the past week or so – I’ve continued to slack on the ‘publish daily’ plan due to the lack of any suitable Windows Phone aps for SmugMug. I should note with all my app complaining that I love the Windows Phone*.

DSLR vs. Phone

Last year’s 99% DSLR project certainly had enormous benefits such as getting to know the tool, really well. I also feel my art benefited – the results from a DSLR generally being much more pleasing and thus I feel the feedback loop fed my eye in very pervasive ways. And of course shooting RAW and developing 365 photos developed that muscle.

That being said I’ve been enjoying the challenge in January of taking dailies with my phone, and I’ve been very pleased with some of the results even without any treatments, edits etc. such as the below. I do plan on using my DSLR soon, honest! The phone has been a whole new challenge. Often forcing me to get in close, being more conscious of light and composition.

The geeky bit

Done on the laptop. My Windows Phone app issue withholding… My phone syncs over Wi-Fi to my PC (not laptop) at night, sends all the photos over. So I was able to lounge with my laptop connected via Windows Live Mesh to my home office PC and do the uploads. I could Mesh the photo directory and then I’d have them on my laptop… I’m just not sure I want to sync all those photos onto my work laptop, maybe I’ll consider that. Either way then a simple drag and drop on the Mesh session to upload the photos to SmugMug and then did the sorting/naming on my work laptop.

*Windows Phone

I’m not just saying that because I’ ma ‘softie (which I am). I genuinely prefer how it surfaces information at my finger tips, even from within aps. Check in on Foursquare from your home screen without needing to load the app, then click check in, pin actual locations right to the home screen if you wish… pin different cities weathers, websites to the home screen. You get the idea… you can pin virtually whatever you want even from the bowels of apps to your home screen.

Trouble uploading dailies to SmugMug from Windows Phone 7

My favorite Windows Phone 7 app for SmugMug is (was) Smug Seven. It’s no longer loading. That means no more easy uploading. Grrr…

Solution?

Whilst not ideal my solution is as follows; ‘share’ the photo to SkyDrive. Then when at a PC. Any old one will do, work one for example. As the photo is from my phone it’s not needing the horse power of my digital dark room (and all the risk sitting down in front of Light Room entails… 3hrs of editing and a late night later). So I can daily easily throw them up onto SmugMug from any PC.

But how to make it ‘easy to throw’?

SkyDrive is great but you don’t want to be downloading from there only to re-upload. So… I found how to map the folder. And hence facilitate the ‘throwing’.

Mapping a drive

So you can throw (drag + drop)  files into the SmugMug uploader

I found this site and this site and also this one which all promised to help with mapping the the folder. But I had some problems…

…I guess due to the recent SkyDrive improvements/changes the prior link tip doesn’t seem to work. The tip I found here (copied below with some edits based on my experience) seemed a simple way to grab the “ID” you need to make the network drive mapping work.

• Open Word 2010 with a blank document.
• Navigate to the File tab.
• It’s the one that has the Save options and such.
• On the left, you should find tabs that say: Info, Recent, New, Print, Save & Share, and Help.
• Click Save & Share.
• Click Save to Web
• Select the ‘live id’ or the ‘SkyDrive’ option – it’s logged in for me now so I forget the exact words but you should be able to figure it out at this point
• Log in
• Double-click the folder that you want to mount, a save file dialog should appear shortly.
• Copy path from the bar at the top. it should look like “https://(random letters).docs.live.net/(Random letters)/(The folder you chose)”
• I suggest “cutting off” after the code so you mount the whole folder.
• Then follow the instructions at either of the three sites about (basically you go to explorer, network, right click, map drive, past the URL in, choose a letter… done!