I enjoy shooting Lacrosse, which is known as the ‘fastest sport on two feet.’   Like most high school sports, there are many rabid parents and fans who love to look at the photos.  I used to think I was ‘fast’ by posting photos of a game within a couple hours of that game. But now I’ve moved it to instant gratification by posting photos as I take them.  At least, pretty much. I do this by streaming photos directly from my camera, as I take them, to my iPhone. I then choose which ones to upload directly to my Twitter or Facebook accounts. In this way, even the fans in the stands can see an ‘instant replay’ of a goal that was just scored.

The new crop of DSLR’s all come equipped with built-in WiFi and for those who don’t have that, you can get a WiFi-enabled SD card.  I’m not sure how the built-in WiFi works, but I shoot in RAW and when I’m shooting on my D800, that’s 36megapixels per shot or about 30 megabytes.  So that will fill up my iPhone fast.  But both my Nikons (D7000 and D800) have two card slots, so I direct my RAW pictures to one slot and then I send lower-res jpeg copies to the Wifi SD Card.  That way, the upload time is about 15 seconds per picture. That’s plenty fine unless it’s a high action game, in which case it’s rather  easy to build up a ‘backlog’ of up two several minutes.   This can cause havoc if you are trying to remember to post that shot of Johnny making his first score, while the game has actually moved ahead by another two scores and you have not been able to find a spare moment (time-out or penalty pause) to Tweet that photo.

To manage the backlog, I simply keep a Notepad open on my iPhone. I’m using Siri, so I can just talk into the phone.  After a big score or other important shot, I’ll note the picture number on the camera (instantaneous), then put that onto the Notepad together with any other info (jersey number, etc), and copy that into my iPhone’s clipboard. Then, while I”m running up and down the field to catch the ensuing action, I can browse my iPhone’s photo folder (where the new photos automatically stream in). Let’s say it’s Photo #365.  When I see that #365 has finally streamed into my iPhone, I tap the ‘share’ button, select ‘Twitter’, then PASTE in the text that I already copied. Presto. It goes out to the world…

Earlier I wrote a short article on how I use Lightroom to organize my photos. This is a short update to use as a ‘crib sheet’.

Always

• Keep your original photos in one place.  May as well be a sub-folder of your “Pictures” folder.
• Keep any photos that you export, in a separate place.
• Keep a full back-up of your photos, on another drive. Include a backup of your Lightroom catalog(s).
• Change the name of any photos that you export from Lightroom.  I use “X” as a suffix. That tells me that this photo was exported, and is not an ‘original’.

Never

Change the name of an original photo.  If you do, Lightroom will not be able to find it.

Suggestions for Managing photos for various uses

• Inside your “Pictures” folder, create two sub-folders. “Original” and “Edited”.  Set your default import settings in LightRoom to import to that “Original” folder. I use dates for sub-folders.
  
• Never change the names of any of your “Original” pictures.  When you export any edited versions, export them to the “Edited” folder. You can set this as a default when you create export pre-sets in LR.
• Create different sub-folders inside “Edited”, based upon your needs.  It’s best to match these to the your Export Presets in Lightroom.  Here are a few that I can think of:

- Web Email/Blog (Example, Resize to longest edge 640, 72 dpi, Quality 65)

- Web Full Screen (Resize to longest edge 2400, 72 dpi, Quality 75)

- Print Quality (No Resize, 300 dpi, Quality 90)

If you do commercial photography  you  now have a storage place for different photo sizes that you can use to easily send out press kits for web, print and emailing.

Create online assets

If you do a lot of marketing with your photos, it’s a good idea to put them up on a sharing site. I reccomend Photo Bucket which allows you to host unlimited photos, and to create different galleries, some public and some private. This allows your entire team to have access to photos for sharing, and also you can point to specific galleries in your press releases to they can to to your ‘online press kit’.

Mirrorless cameras are all the rage – particularly in Europe and Asia, where space has always been a premium. After much online and retail research (much to the consternation of the fine folks at Glazer’s Camera, my local pro shop), I decided to go ahead and purchase one. My choice was the Olympus E-PL5 and I’ll spend the next paragraph explaining why I chose that. Feel free to skip over, because this blog is really about ways to take great, stable, shots with mirrorless cameras.

I chose the Olympus E-PL5 because I was looking for a camera that has these qualities:  Can fit in my pocket, touch-screen focus, no electronic viewfinder, high quality photos, and great lens selection. I did not want or need an electronic viewfinder (“EVF”) because those can’t fit in my pocket – with the possible exception of the Sony Nex6.  Based on those requirements, my choices came down to the Sony Nex-6, Panasonic GX-1, and the Olympus E-PL5.  Sony Nex series is wonderful, but they simply do not have the lens choices.  Panasonic GX-1 felt beautiful in my hand, but its sensor is “old technology” whereas the Olympus E-PL5 is 16mp and, more importantly, is the same as the OMD-5 which, at this point in time, is generally considered to be the best 43 camera on the market.  In the end, I chose the Olympus because of the newer sensor and because the rear screen flips up…which gets us back to what this article is about.

Olympus E-PL5 with Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 (90mm equiv) – a great portrait lens

I took this camera for a spin on a recent trip to Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea and England – together with my “monster” Nikon D800.  Normally I eschew neck straps as ‘for tourists’ and prefer to have a simple wrist grip for my DSLR, while keeping the camera and other lenses in the relatively small, nondescript, weathered waxed canvas messenger bag pictured here, which also houses my computer and other gadgets.  I had purchased a $15 soft case for the Oly that clips to the shoulder strap of the messenger bag, thinking that would be an easy way to protect my investment. I quickly discovered that it made no sense; it simply took too much time to pull the camera out, in order to get a shot. Also, the first time I did that, the tiny thing went catapulting out of my hands and onto the thankfully soft lap of the person sitting next to me on the ferry.  To protect this purchase, I decided instead to attach the ubiquitous neck strap (they always give you one; I always throw them away) and keep the camera around my neck.  This turned out to be a great idea because with the camera hanging in front of me, it was always there, always ready for the photo. More importantly, the neck strap works as a kind of inverse tripod, steadying the camera much better than if I were holding it to my face, looking through an eye-level viewfinder. It also provides a lower point of view, which in most cases I found convenient for shooting people in markets or in other candid situations. And I still had the option to hold it up above my head and flip the viewer down for getting those Pulitzer-potential shots looking over the crowds and down into whatever they are looking at.

With the camera dangling lightly and inobtrusively from my neck (like those old Roliflex’s), I was able to take advantage of the different shooting modes offered by the E-PL5:  Standard shutter-release half-press to focus; tap the screen (as shown) to select the focus point, or tap the screen to select and shoot at the same time. An added bonus is the convenience in switching lenses – hands free- while the camera dangles. Sweet!

One other comment I’d like to make.  Probably when traveling, it makes sense to use a ‘travel zoom’ on this camera.  I’d consider the 35-100 f2.8 for that purpose, once my pocketbook gets filled again.  But another option is to have a couple cheaper, sharper primes and – shock – just add a second body!  That way, you can pick up the appropriate camera and shoot away – instantaneously!

Here is a gallery of photos taken with the Olympus Zuiko 45mm portrait lens.

Photos of the Cambodia portion of my trip, including shots from the Olympus as well as the D800, are found in the previous blog post.

*By the way, all of the photos in this article were taken with an iPhone.