A happy couple walking in the park on grass

A young woman jogging on a path in a park

A street portrait of a business man walking on a sidewalk

An African American sitting on grass with a natural laugh

I have just received a coupon code worth 5% off a purchase at Shutterstock.

I have most of my recent images uploaded now, so it is a great chance to score a deal.  You can use the box below to search the entire shutterstock site, or you can check out my gallery here.

The coupon code if you buy a subscription is: BD7-20100120 and should be good until February 20, 2010.

These images would be great for illustrating a healthy active lifestyle.  Here are a few of my favorites

When: Oct 9, 2009.  Time of Day TBA (but sometime between 10:00-18:00, we will find a time that works for everyone).  The shoot will last 2-4 hours.

Where: Frognerparken, Oslo, Norway

Types of models needed: I am looking for 2-4 models.  Ages can range anywhere from 20-80, although groups of similar aged people will be shot together.

If you are interested in modeling for this shoot, send a couple photos or a link to your website and some information about yourself to casting@simplefoto.com. If you have any questions, let me know.

Uses: The images will be used for Royalty Free Stock Photography.   More general information on being a model check out the modeling information page.

What the model needs to bring: We won’t have wardrobe for the models so please dress accordingly.  The biggest requirement is that it your clothing doesn’t have any large logos.  Also watch for trademark designs such as the adidas stripes on their pants / shoes/ sweatshirts.  It is perhaps easiset to wear nothing made by adidas.  Clothing sutiable for jogging / exercise should be worn.  This can include a wide variety of styles.

Compensation: Paid

When: Oct 20, 2009.  10:00-13:00.  The shoot should last closer to 2 hours.

Where: Downtown New York, Manhattan

Types of models needed: I am looking for 2-4 models who look casual friendly and hip .  Ages can range anywhere from 20-40 both male and female and any ethnicity are needed.

If you are interested in modeling for this shoot, send a couple photos or a link to your website and some information about yourself to casting@simplefoto.com. If you have any questions, let me know.

Uses: The images will be used for Royalty Free Stock Photography.   More general information on being a model check out the modeling information page.

What the model needs to bring: We won’t provide wardrobe for the models so please dress accordingly.  For this shoot you will need to be dressed as a typical New Yorker on a Saturday.  Clothing should be relaxed by stylish.   It is also important that your clothing doesn’t have any large logos.

Compensation: $100

When: Oct 20, 2009.  Time of Day TBA (but sometime between 10:00-18:00, we will find a time that works for everyone).  The shoot will last 2-4 hours.

Where: Downtown New York, Manhattan

Types of model needed: I am looking for a male between the ages 50-90 who looks like Santa.  A white beard would be great.

If you are interested in modeling for this shoot, send a couple photos or a link to your website and some information about yourself to casting@simplefoto.com. If you have any questions, let me know.

Uses: The images will be used for Royalty Free Stock Photography.   More general information on being a model check out the modeling information page.

What the model needs to bring: We don’t generally provide wardrobe for the models so if you have a Santa suit, or can get a hold of one you will be compensated for your extra effort.   If not, we can try and help arrange wardrobe.

When: Oct 20, 2009.  14:00-17:00.  The shoot will last closer to 2-2.5 hours.

Where: Downtown New York, Manhattan

Types of models needed: I am looking for 2-4 models who fit the profile of a business person.  Ages can range anywhere from 30-70 both male and female are needed.

If you are interested in modeling for this shoot, send a couple photos or a link to your website and some information about yourself to casting@simplefoto.com. If you have any questions, let me know.

Uses: The images will be used for Royalty Free Stock Photography.   More general information on being a model check out the modeling information page.

What the model needs to bring: We won’t provide wardrobe for the models so please dress accordingly.  For this shoot you will need to be dressed as a business person which means dress pants (or skirt for the women), business shirt, possibly a tie and/or suit coat, and dress / business shoes.   It is also important that your clothing doesn’t have any large logos.

Compensation: $100

When: Oct 21, 2009.  14:00-17:00.  The shoot will last closer to 2-2.5 hours.

Where: Brooklyn Bridge / Central park areas or other similar location with a decent backdrop.

Types of models needed: I am looking for 2 models who are or are willing to act as a couple.  Ages can range anywhere from 20-80, although groups of similar aged people will be shot together.

If you are interested in modeling for this shoot, send a couple photos or a link to your website and some information about yourself to casting@simplefoto.com. If you have any questions, let me know.

Uses: The images will be used for Royalty Free Stock Photography.   More general information on being a model check out the modeling information page.

What the model needs to bring: We won’t have wardrobe for the models so please dress accordingly.  The biggest requirement is that it your clothing doesn’t have any large logos.  Also watch for trademark designs such as the adidas stripes on their pants / shoes/ sweatshirts.  It is perhaps easiset to wear nothing made by adidas.

Compensation: $100

When: Oct 21, 2009.  10:00-13:00  The shoot shouldn’t last the full 3 hours.  2-2.5hrs is more likely.

Where: Brooklyn Bridge / Central park areas or other similar location where we can have a running trail with a decent backdrop.

Types of models needed: I am looking for 2-4 models.  Ages can range anywhere from 20-80, although groups of similar aged people will be shot together.

If you are interested in modeling for this shoot, send a couple photos or a link to your website and some information about yourself to casting@simplefoto.com. If you have any questions, let me know.

Uses: The images will be used for Royalty Free Stock Photography.   More general information on being a model check out the modeling information page.

What the model needs to bring: We won’t have wardrobe for the models so please dress accordingly.  The biggest requirement is that it your clothing doesn’t have any large logos.  Also watch for trademark designs such as the adidas stripes on their pants / shoes/ sweatshirts.  It is perhaps easiset to wear nothing made by adidas.  Clothing sutiable for jogging / exercise should be worn.  This can include a wide variety of styles.

Compensation: $100

Popular Microstockgroup threads for June 2009

• Jonathon Ross shares his experience using the Red One for stock
• Are you happy ad a Microstock Photographer – An interesting poll and discussion
• Subscriptions – Beauty or Beast?
• Veer continues to create a buzz
• What is the best beginners DSLR?

Industry News on Microstockgroup

• Garth Johnson, a former exec. of iStockPhoto joins the Fotolia team as Executive Vice President, North America
• Resulting in one of the longest threads on Microstockgroup, iStock has grabbed the reins of Photos.com and JIUnlimited and will be removing StockXpert images from those portals and replacing them with iStock images.
• And so typically, controversy creates discussion and positive change creates none – Bigstock added a bulk edit feature to their site, speeding up their upload workflow considerably.
• Microstockgroup received a number of upgrades.  Equipment Reviews, Canstock portfolio link, Microstock Twitters, and Verified logos for site reps.
• Crestock roles out a new fancy site layout.  Will good looks improve sales?

Other Notable Links

If you don’t already have The Boston Globe’s The Big Picture blog in your RSS feed, you are seriously missing out.  Very relevant news combined with great photography.

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Recently I purchased a Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens. I wanted to shoot wildlife so getting extra reach was important. Some of the animals I was hoping to capture were either skiddish or dangerous so I didn’t want to get too close. To further increase my reach, or safe distance, I also purchased a 1.4x extender and a 2.0x extender. To add to this equation, I had a Canon 70-200 f/2.8 from before.

I had read and heard that the extenders are garbage and a waste of money, but I really wanted the extra reach 2X would give me so I gave in and purchased the extenders. I felt that they HAD to be better than just ‘upresing’ a photo. I knew that the 2x extender was going to be a slight softer than the 1.4x, but really wanted an 800mm option. I ended up buying both extenders so I could have the 800mm (softer) option or 560mm sharper option and ruled out upresing all together. I also thought that stacking the extenders would be useful in a pinch. Now that I have the gear I am able to do a test that I have been wanting to do for a while and see exactly what type of results I am able to get from this equipment. Even though I purchased the extenders for shooting over 400mm, the comparison is still valid between the lenses. So, if I was wanting to take an image at 400mm with this equipment I have 4 options.

• 100-400mm lens zoomed into 400mm
• 70-200mm lens zoomed into 200mm with the 1.4x extender (280mm) then resized
• 70-200mm lens zoomed into 200mm with 2.0x extender (400mm)
• 70-200mm lens zoomed into 200mm and resized

I don’t claim that my test was scientific or exact but I think it gives me a good idea of how the equipment performs and what I want to drag along on my next trip. Here is what I did… I took a picture of this wicker basket with the 4 lens combinations. I cropped and upresed the images that needed it – bringing them back up to the same resolution as the uncropped images. Resizing was done using Bicubic Smoother in Photoshop CS4 in a single step. The images were taken with a Canon 5D mark II at f/8 on a tripod using a cable release and mirror lockup.

Here are 100% crops taken from the center of the four images.

It is pretty obvious that anything but the 100-400mm lens is fairly poor quality at the 400mm range, with the other three combinations being pretty closely matched. I think the resized 1.4x extender shot is slightly sharper than the resized 200mm shot but it is very close. The 2x extended seems to suffer from some bad purple fringing Next up, 100% crops from the top left corner.

One again our friend purple fringe shows it’s face in the top left of the 2x extender image. The 100-400mm is clearly the sharpest of the bunch. Again, we have a close call between the 70-200 with and without the 1.4x extender.

Update After reading a few test that others had done, and seeing positive results for the 2.0x extender I decided to do another test. This time I used the 100-400mm lens as the standard and put the 1.4x and 2.0x extender on for variations. I was interested in finding which combination gave the best result for a 800mm equivalent. Upsizing the 400mm shot, upsizing the 400mm+1.4x extender shot, or shooting straight at 800mm with the 400mm + 2.0x extender. Here are the results.

400mm f/11 Upsized 100% crop

400mm + 1.4x converter upszied 100% crop

By the looks of this group of images, the 400mm + 2.0x extender is the best result. It is considerably sharper than the others and has managed to retain more details. The house in the shot is probably 1000 meters away, so it is a bit more of a ‘real life’ test than the first set up where the wicker box was only a couple meters away from the camera. I will also admit that I may of had problems focusing in the first set of test images. Although I took a number of shots with each set up, I only focused once. In the second trial, I re-focused for each shot and chose the best. The group of images that had the largest variance was the 400mm + 2.0x extender for the simple fact that it is hard to focus with this long of a lens. Autofocus is disabled with either extender so your focusing technique has to be spot on to get sharp images. When using the 70-200 f/2.8 lens you can autofocus with both extenders.

Conclusion: Well I have learned a few interesting things here. I am glad I bought the 100-400mm lens. It appears quite sharp considering it’s wide focal length range it shoots and is much better than any of the other compared methods at reaching 400mm. I am also glad I bought the extenders. The DO produce a sharper image than without the extender (after upsizing) and although they are tough to focus they are worthwhile if you have the time and set up to do so. If I was out on a shoot trying to hand hold the camera, I would forget the extenders and just shoot with the 400m lens and upsize if I had to. The autofocus would be worth a lot when it came to getting the shot. If I was out with a bag of gear, which included a good tripod, I would also bring along the extenders. They do their job well – they just complicate the procedure a bit.

….. Anyone want to buy an extender? I have 2 for sale On second thought, I think I’ll keep them.

——-

As a side note, for those who wonder if mirror lock up is ‘really necessary’. I would give a resounding yes. That and a cable release. When shooting at 800mm, even from a very sturdy tripod, if you look through the viewfinder when you click the shutter, you can see the lens wobble considerably. I was suprised at how much it moved. So make use of mirror lock up, or better yet, live view shooting.