Driven by the desire to offer an easy and affordable photo book option for professionals to use for their own art and family photos, Artisan State announced the development of their Little Black Book earlier this month. Still in prototype phase, this little 5×7 inch book is filled with 20 pages of brilliant Silver Halide prints, lays completely flat and is flush mounted. Best of all, this hand made album costs just a little over $10!

Artisan State sent me a sample of their prototypes. The book will be available in a thin or thick page option and I like them both. I can see all kinds of possibilities for this little book. I would certainly use them as intended, for my own family photos. They would also make great proof books or mini albums for portrait sessions, parent and grandparent gifts, not to mention a mini portfolio of your best work to carry around with you in your bag and show off to potential clients.

The Little Black Book should be available for ordering by the end of May or beginning of June. I can’t wait to try it out and let you know what I think. How would you use the Little Black Book?

CREDITS : Photographs courtesy of Artisan State and have been used with permission for SLR Lounge. Do not copy, modify or re-post this article or images without express permission from SLR Lounge and the artist.

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Last Week’s Winners – Congrats to Dennis Shem via his comment and Kristopher Lyon via his comment. for winning last week’s Giveaway for the HDR Workshop. Please email me at chris@slrlounge.com to claim your prize!

Now On to the next one! This time, let’s give away the following

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP LIGHTROOM 4 DVD GUIDE: A – Z TUTORIALS FOR MASTERING ADOBE LIGHTROOM (DIGITAL DOWNLOAD)

How Do I Enter?

Entering is easy! Just follow the steps below:

1) Subscribe to our Youtube Page:

2) Comment below

Be sure to include: a) your name and b) a random thought!

Suggestions: the weather in your city, “hello,” what you are doing today.

That’s it! We’ll select 2 random winners (via a random number generator) at the contest’s end on May 29th, 2013 at 11:59pm. Winners will be announced and notified the following week.

ADDITIONAL ENTRIES: Gain 1 additional entry by following SLR Lounge on Twitter and tweeting any of the following:

• “GIVEAWAY for the @Lightroom A-Z Guide Workshop collection by @slrlounge http://bit.ly/12s7aMN”
• “Check out this giveaway for the @Lightroom A-Z Guide by @slrlounge http://bit.ly/12s7aMN”

What If I already own it?

If you already own the prize and you win the contest, you’ll receive a gift credit in the amount of the retail value.

What Exactly Do I Get?

See the trailer for the DVD below. The winner will be receiving the digital download of the product.

The post Lightroom 4 A-Z Guide Giveaway! appeared first on Free Photography Tips Tutorials Reviews and Wordpress Themes.

‘Spike’ is an extraordinary robotic creation that can control the motion and focus of the camera with meticulous accuracy. Frames can be repeated and refined until the desired high-speed imagery is created, removing the variance and delay inherent to human motion.

The Marmalade Identity – The World’s Most Advanced High-Speed Studio

Why a robot? The Marmalade describe their motivation:

Our customers want the unseen. They require a unique image for their brand that no one’s created before. That’s where we start.

We’re always striving to push the boundaries further and further, and that is when Spike was born.

High Speed shots have always been static. We wanted to set them in motion, something that was impossible up to now.

We said to ourselves, there must be a solution. We need software that could handle cinematically. Something that would be able to move. It must be able to create more than just a nice image here and then a nice picture there. It needs to look good between those images as well as it has to be precisely programmable.

‘Spike’ can freely move the camera with unparalleled speed and precision, thereby removing the previously existing creative limitation of having to shoot high speed sequences with a locked camera.

By marrying the hardware of a sturdy and reliable industrial robot to software that was built from the ground up for the demands of motion controlled high speed imaging, we developed a unique system for creating real life camera moves with the ease of use normally associated with 3D Animation.

Exactly repeatable camera moves can be created and modified within a matter of seconds. Using the rich previsualisation features of the system, creative options can be quickly explored on the computer screen and the resulting changes then immediately be performed for real. Additional effects can be triggered in sync with the move, allowing complex effect sequences to be performed.

And of course ‘Spike’ also is at home at slower speeds, producing dramatic product shots as well as stealthy perspective changes.

To see more of The Marmalade’s work, check out their portfolio here.

Until Next Time . . .

Stay Inspired ~ Jules

Thanks Von Wong for sharing this gem.

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These transceivers could probably best be compared to the Pocket Wizard Flex units, but of course are available at a fraction of the cost. For only $99 you are able to get two transceivers, for the price of one Pocket Wizard flex unit you can get 4 of the YN-622’s. So obviously the budget minded photographer is the target market here, but how do the features stack up against the “Industry Standard” Pocket Wizards?

The answer is a lot better than the gear elitists might like you to believe. The YN0622 is a 2.4Ghz wireless flash trigger that supports manual flash, front curtain, rear curtain, high speed sync and Nikon I-TTL. The highest sync speed that this unit can support is 1/8000^th, more than enough for most cameras and situations. You can choose from one of 7 channels or 3 groups, and the unit is rated at up to 100m – which again is more than enough for most situations.

So should you get these over the Pocket Wizard units? It comes down to what you need them to do, if you need the extra range, more channels, and groups then the Pocket Wizard is likely the unit for you. But if the YN-622 does what you need then save yourself some money and get the YN-622’s.

Currently the YN-622N’s are onle available from the Yongnuo store or on Ebay. But expect them to hit Amazon soon, which is where I will be ordering a couple of these for review so keep an eye out.

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Now, if you are like me and own a DSLR this is likely not too big of news for you. I mean this lens is an equivalent to an 85mm F3.5 or so on a DSLR.  But the fact that Nikon has finally taken to making an F1.2 lens after 35 years is a good sign. Hopefully we will see a 50mm 1.2 coming for our DSLRs in the future. **Insert whine about Canon has one and we don’t**

Anyways, this new 32mm F1.2 Lens is now available on B&H for $896.95 and will be available in Silver or Black. This is some serious glass for a mirrorless camera like the Nikon V2 or any of the other Nikon 1 system cameras. I mean at almost $900 you will be spending about as much as you did on the body itself, and that is a pretty big investment for a mirrorless system. I will say this though, I am seriously considering getting myself a Nikon V2 to play around with and this lens only makes it more attractive.

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