Photography
Wise words
“The best bit about being a photographer is the time between taking a photo and seeing it on the computer, because there’s still hope.”
Steve Bennett
That came as a bit of a surprise. I spent a few minutes playing with On1 Photo Raw and the first impression was “quite nice”. It felt “light” compared to LR, but since I’ve been using LR for many years now I feel a bit awkward but still. I need to play more with this. Compared to LR, On1 Photo Raw feels more like a cross-plattform app that doesn’t really behave like a macOS app. But it definitely felt more modern and “slicker” than both LR and LR Classic.
Need to play more with it … and watch a few tutorials.
Tomorrow will be an interesting day … no, I’m not talking about the Apple event thingy (it will be a couple of years before I’ll upgrade my iPhone 11). The interesting thing will be to see if Panasonic is going to release the Lumix G9 II - and what the price will be.
One of the things I appreciate with the GR IIIx is that the RAW-files are more or less exactly the colors I see. They are so much closer to my reality than any other camera I’ve tried.
Sigh, I’ve started to see how people are posting AI generated photos claiming they are real photos. 🤦🏻♂️
I would be very interested in an updated version of the Lumix GM5.
Considering moving away from Smugmug
A few months ago I discovered that Smugmug have increased the subscription price significantly
| Year | Subscription |
|---|---|
| 2016 | $75 |
| 2017-2024 | $89.95 (I payed for three years in 2021) |
I remember thinking that $90/year was a lot of money, but since I liked SmugMug I decided to renew. However, the current price for my plan is $138 … a 53% increase compared to the last time I renewed. I also noted that they had removed the cheapest plan, and I’m now on the cheapest plan.
I’m starting to think that $138 is a bit too much money to spend each year for a gallery site. I’m not selling any photos so I don’t make any money that could help offset the cost. These $138 are coming from my “have fun” account … an additional 10 years means $1380 assuming no further price increases, and I can have a lot of fun that amount of money.
My main use for my SmugMug site have been to show off photos from various events, and to let people download photos. I’m very satisfied with how Lightroom and SmugMug integrates with each other, and the site looks good. So I have no complaints regarding the functionality of SmugMug. In other words, my only hesitation is about the price, can I really justify spending $138/year to have somewhere to upload my photos. I really don’t know, right now I’m leaning towards switching to something else.
The good thing is that I’ve payed for another year so I have time to investigate what my alternatives are before making a decision. I’m currently looking at Piwigo and jAlbum which are very different types of software. Piwigo is similar to SmugMug (although not as nice) in that it’s a dynamic web site where you upload you photos and manage them using the site. jAlbum is desktop application where you generate a static web site and then upload it to your server. Piwigo is free, while jAlbum will cost you some money (but you don’t need to upgrade each year). Piwigo and jAlbum assumes that you have a web site where you can upload your site (both have alternatives where they host your site, but I’m looking for the possibility to self-host), I already have this web site space so this is no extra cost for me.
I really don’t know what to do … but I have about 9 months to decide (need a couple of months to actually move my photos if I decide to move).
There is of course an additional alternative, sell enough photos so I could pay for SmugMug with that money … which is a very unlikely alternative 😁.
The Photowalk podcast
I haven’t written about The Photowalk podcast for a while … so it’s time to promote it again.
Are you interested in photography? Are you mostly interested in the photos, the stories behind the photos, the photographers? Then I really recommend that head over to The Photowalk web site and listen to a few episodes. I can’t promise that you will like the show, but I think the chances are high, very high.
The show content can be divided into two parts: The Interviews and The Letters. The letters are written by the listeners of the show, and can range from mundane observations of the world, to moving descriptions of life changing events. The other part are interviews with various interesting photographers, the interviews are expertly done by the show host Neale James. I can’t really explain how he does the interviews, but he always manage to bring out interesting stories from the interviewees.
Of all the available photo related podcats, this is the one I find most interesting. Highly recommended.
The Photowalk podcast
I haven’t written about The Photowalk podcast for a while … so it’s time to promote it again.
Are you interested in photography? Are you mostly interested in the photos, the stories behind the photos, the photographers? Then I really recommend that head over to The Photowalk web site and listen to a few episodes. I can’t promise that you will like the show, but I think the chances are high, very high.
The show content can be divided into two parts: The Interviews and The Letters. The letters are written by the listeners of the show, and can range from mundane observations of the world, to moving descriptions of life changing events. The other part are interviews with various interesting photographers, the interviews are expertly done by the show host Neale James. I can’t really explain how he does the interviews, but he always manage to bring out interesting stories from the interviewees.
Of all the available photo related podcats, this is the one I find most interesting. Highly recommended.