Archive for July, 2009

The Best Ultra-wide on The Planet For Canon or Nikon

July 29th, 2009

It’s been pretty clear to me for a long while that the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 G ED ultra-wide lens is something real special. I got a chance to shoot with one at the Seattle PFRE workshop in April of 2008 for a short while and the review site I link to on the lenses page [...]

More Free Skies For Sky Replacement Surgery

July 28th, 2009

Last week, Rusty Freeman passed along a link to this site that has some nice replacement skies. I’ve added it to the Resource page. While on the subject of replacing skies it’s worth while bringing up the subject of how to do the replacement. As with anything in Photoshop there are many ways to select [...]

DVD With a Continuous Video For an Open House

July 26th, 2009

As a follow-up to the recent post on making DVD for Realtors, John Grow sent me this example of a continuous video that he created for an open house. John says: It was run as a continuous video on a big screen in the home during the open house.  We made 5 identical shows on [...]

Helios Sun Calculator by Chemical Wedding

July 25th, 2009

Back in January I did a post on a sweet little iPhone application to help you find out where the sun or moon is at any given time in any geographic location. Well here’s another iPhone app that takes sun calculation to a completely new level. Unfortunately the price is a whole new level too. [...]

Another PFRE Success Story

July 22nd, 2009

This success story is just too good not to pass along to readers! Rusty Freeman (Rusty@Studio ZZZ in the PFRE flickr group) is a studio photographer that works in the LA area and recently got into real estate photography. Rusty is a regular blog reader and purchased both of my e-books and has been following [...]

Canon T1i or Nikon D5000 For Real Estate?

July 21st, 2009

I was talking to Lee Jinks yesterday about his struggles deciding whether to purchase a Canon T1i or a Nikon D5000. I can appreciate his difficulty. These cameras are very close in specs. If you don’t have a backpack full of glass collected over years and you have to make your decision based on the [...]

News Items For Real Estate Photographers

July 20th, 2009

Washington State expanding sales tax to digital products on 7/26/2009: Mike Martin sent me a link to some new sales tax rules announced by the Washington State Department of Revenue. To me this looks like Washington real estate photographers will now have to charge sales tax even if they don’t supply their client with a [...]

Creating Slide Shows on DVDs for Sellers and Buyers

July 19th, 2009

For many years I created little mini CDs with the tour of homes we listed on them for the buyers and sellers. Most sellers loved to get a copy of the virtual tour we used to sell their home as a keepsake of their home and occasionally buyers would ask for a copy as well. [...]

Dpreview.com Reviews the Canon TS-E 24mm F3.5 LII

July 17th, 2009

Andy Westlake over at Dpreview.com reviewed the new Canon TS-E 24mm F3.5 LII that was announced at PMA 2009. Andy concludes that: “The Canon TS-E 24mm F3.5 L II is a lens which, given its price, has high expectations to meet. The good news is that, in almost all respects, it succeeds – the build [...]

Julius Shulman Dies at 98

July 16th, 2009

LA Times, July 16, 2009: Julius Shulman, whose luminous photographs of homes and buildings brought fame to a number of mid-20th century Modernist architects and made him a household name in the architectural world, died Wednesday night. He was 98. Shulman is considered by most to be one of the greatest Architectural photographers of our [...]