South Carolina Photography Guild

POTD #1

The first official POTD comes from SCPG member Manoj Menon. Manoj is a member of the Charleston Chapter, and his experience and keen eye are always appreciated on club outings.

I’ve been reading up on an emerging technology used in portable storage, called U3 storage. This is apparently a fairly new technology as even my friend Jared does not know much about it. If he hasn’t heard of it, then you know it’s either obscure or very new. Since flash drives are hardly obscure, my guess is it’s fairly new. It is also quite exciting as this technology allows applications to run from your flash drive!

The potential for photographers means you could see development of image editing software that you can take with you, without having to port around a clunky laptop anymore that offers slow performance. Shutterfly Studio has taken the lead for image editing software by offering a beta for use on U3 drives. Other software offerings include OpenOffice, Dmailer, Pass2Go and Skype. For more information on the potential of these drives, check out www.u3.com . Check back later and a scanned version of the magazine article covering the subject may be available under the Articles link. Besides, they have a really cool logo:

In keeping with the style of the blog to report and share news and information, I noticed on one of my feeds that Canon’s Spring 2006 rebates are only good for another 3 weeks (roughly).  They end July 15th.

Some of the better deals include $300 off the EOS 5D, which drops the price under the $2700 mark, and a $100 rebate on the Rebel XT (the one I own!), dropping the price under $600 after rebate.  This is actually a great deal and offers unique opportunities for anyone who is thinking of entering the DSLR market, as this really is quite a bit of bang for your buck!
Full details on the Canon gear that has rebates and discounts is available on their site here:  Canon Deals

To help familiarize the readers with the Logo and distinctive design of the South Carolina Photography guild, here is an image of our Logo. With Chapters in Charleston and Sumter, the chapter links (and their logos) can be viewed here: SCPG Chapters

And now…the SCPG Logo (along with the Mission Statement:

The latest news of the day, and worthy of posting, is that Adobe (www.adobe.com) has purchased Pixmantec (www.pixmantec.com) which is in no doubt an effort to pull the throes of people who use the Pixmantec RawShooter into their fold. Pixmantec published a press release on their web site, which states, in part that:

“With high quality digital cameras now within reach of every photographer, customers are gravitating to RAW file formats that allow them to get more control over final results,” said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe®. “By combining Pixmantec’s raw processing technology and expertise with our own, we’re continuing to deliver on the promise that even your existing RAW files can be processed with increasing quality as our software technology evolves.”

While this is clearly an effort to woo the aspiring prosumer market, for whom the costly Photoshop Creative Suite 2 (retails at $649) and purchasable from Adobe directly from ther website here, is out of reach, one can hardly blame them for finally taking more than a passing interest in the “lower echelons” of the photography market.
I just hope this does not prevent them from losing focus on the always dauntng task of improving load time on their premiere product!

Welcome to the latest blog spot for the Low Country! This blog is a forum of sorts where thoughts, ideas, and developments in photography can be shared and commented on by the community at large. More detailed discussions take place in our forums, so head over there today to register - it’s free! There are sites and forums for many chapters of the South Carolina Photography Guild (a fancy name for a club or group). The main site can be found at www.scphotogs.com, with the Charleston chapter here at www.scphotogs.com/forums. We also have an online gallery, which can be viewed at www.scphotogs.com/gallery. Our sister chapter in Sumter, which has many of the same features, can be found at www.sumtershutterbugs.com Enjoy the blog and we hope to see you online!