As a photographer, public liability can help you take care of the financial side of your business by making sure that you don’t lose all of your money because of an accident that involves the public. If you were to accidentally damage someone else’s property or injure him or her whilst working, public liability coverage would help you pay for any expenses related to the incident, including legal and medical fees. This is a tremendous help to most small and medium-sized business owners since even having to pay a lawyer in such an incident would deplete them financially.

However, many photographers have yet to understand the case to be made for getting this important kind of insurance because they are often put off by the idea of having to pay a premium. With finances already stretched tight, they may see public liability as just another bill to pay. The key concept that these photographers are not keeping in mind is that the little financial resources they have now will quickly disappear if they are found liable for public damage and don’t have sufficient coverage.

Public liability can also give you peace of mind whilst you’re working so that you only have to focus on the quality of your photography. The job may require you to haul around heavy and expensive equipment, such as tripods, backdrops and large frames, which can also become liabilities when it comes to the safety of those around you. You’re a cautious photographer, but that doesn’t mean that you will be able to prevent all accidents. With public liability insurance, you can be assured that your business will be financially covered even if you suffer a mishap whilst you’re working.

Another job aspect to keep in mind when considering public liability coverage is whether your job as a photographer takes you to potentially riskier places than the average worker. Some photographers go to new heights – and depths – to get the perfect angle, and if you’re one of them, you’ll want to secure a little more coverage when you’re working out your public liability policy to reflect the increased risk that you take on whilst working.

To get started on a public liability policy, you should first do a little research via the Internet to figure out what the most important points of the policy will be for your particular work situation. With a little further investigation, you can also find helpful hints about what questions to ask and get business insurance quotes. However, once you’re ready to commit to a policy, remember to contact a professional insurance agent.

For a while now, I have watched emerging and established photographers tentatively dip their toes into the world of social media. Do I need a blog, a Facebook page or should I really have a twitter account? The list of connections and networks really can be quite daunting and of course, potentially unmanageable. Then there are the statistics, the number of likes, friends, tweets, comments…well you get the picture.

I have spent the last few months on a mission, reading and finding resources about the use of social media, very specifically keeping in mind its use for photographers. I have also been watching how existing photographers use the mediums and tools that are currently available to see what works and what doesn’t for me. As soon as I write this article, the popular opinion on this is likely to shift and a new social media site will likely launch, such is the speed that things are changing and evolving in this space at the moment, but like any business, I believe that as a photographer  it pays to know your market and in a tough but honest way, know where your competition is and what they are doing.

In this article I am going to discuss the ‘Big 3’ social media tools and the potential that I see for them making a difference to photographers.

Social media kit bag

Blogs

I personally discovered blogging over seven years ago now, when my brother first introduced me to the RSS feeds. I have been an avid fan ever since. I have used blogs in my personal and work life, used them to document an 18 month working holiday and currently to document and connect on my own photographic  journey. Blogs let the world have a sense of who we are as photographers, but also as a person which comes out often in our words and writing style. If not a writer, they can still provide an opportunity to feature images, discuss images and very importantly to link to and learn from our influences and inspirations, as discussed in my previous post.

The kicker with blogs is always infrequent posting. I recently read a blog with had been consistently updated up until August ’11. Why..what happened then?  The reader has to be able to stay engaged and want to come back for more, and therefore content has to be kept fresh and recent and relevant when blogging. The use of images to engaged readers and receive comments and feedback is a powerful tool in my opinion.

I blog, therefore I am…every photographer should have one in their social media kit bag.

Facebook

We all use or know about it, but can it actually help our photography business. I would suggest that if you have resisted Facebook on a personal level, don’t necessarily rule it out as a great business tool. The key to Facebook is what you post. As a photographer, and as a business you have access to a phenomenal network, that you just need to tap into the right part of. Consider creating a page to talk about your events, workshops, interests, specialities, and even locations. If I can’t find a photographer on Facebook nowadays, I tend to wonder why not.  The new Facebook subscriptions feature is an excellent way to follow public posts without having to form imaginary, long lost friends and it is therefore a great feature with lots of potential for photographers.

Posting photographs on Facebook does need some thought. Who owns them, do you risk them being ripped off and will they actually be de-valued in amongst all the photos of parties, holidays and profile pics. My suggestion is to always link to a website or a blog rather then direct photograph posting. This creates seamless links between your social media kit streams and keeps the photographs under your control. Once again, frequency is the key here, even more so than blogs. The beauty is that a quick link or interesting article or location update can suffice to keep the readers happy. So, given this one a try and put it in the kit bag.

Twitter

Of the ‘Big 3’, this tool took me the longest time to warm to, but it really is the simplest to set-up and manage. Use links, re-tweet and keep it short, sharp and shiny. Connect Twitter to your blog and Facebook page and half of your job is already done with regular updates. The beauty of Twitter is it has been designed for audience targeting so this is inbuilt to a degree. People will follow you based on who you follow and your interests and posts. It is often referred to as ‘micro blogging’ which is quick and simple.  Photographers cannot really be promoted by Twitter alone, but it makes a quick and simple internet presence and so it really does have to go into the kit bag, even if you just use the basics.

As someone who has recently worked in the corporate communications world, I believe that there is still much to learn about the effectiveness of social media channels and it will be exciting to see how they evolve. I believe the key to all social media is to keep it focussed and have a clear idea in mind of what message, brand/connection you want to create. Keep this in mind throughout all your chosen social media kit items and keep them consistent and frequent.

So, go ahead, blog, tweet, like and network away and as a photographer, let the internet work for you instead of it being a fearful unknown.

**As part of my blog Photo web connect, I am happy to research, review and critique social media sites for photographers If you have any comments or thoughts on this article, feel free to let me know.

Link

http://photowebconnect.wordpress.com/

As a developing photographer, my key priority at the moment is taking better pictures. However, to get there, technically, emotionally and physically, these needs all tussle with each other on a daily basis. My journey doesn’t involve guns and overhead Black Hawk helicopters, but it does get impacted by the weather, bureaucracy and money. It is fundamentally underpinned by that one source of driving inspiration and that end goal that keeps us all moving forward, whatever it may be for us.

The journeys of other photographers fascinate me. I attended three short lectures the other day at a camera event in London and while all in a similar photographic genre, the paths taken and the inspirations for each photographer couldn’t have been more different. I overheard some people discussing one of the lectures in the café afterwards…’But he didn’t tell us how he took the shot, what aperture and shutter speed he used’. I felt like looking up and saying ‘Lady you have missed the point…’ but I didn’t…

Each of these photographers was sharing a part of their lives, and their past experiences. Their journey had something for everyone to learn from that wasn’t necessarily what you thought it would be.

I have my own story of course. Aussie born and bred, threw it all in for an initial 18 months working holiday in the UK much later in life and rediscovered a love of travel and particularly photography. 3 ½ years later, currently hooked, moving to the locations of choice to learn and practice photography and living on the edge financially to try and develop a decent portfolio of work. But to me, my journey isn’t nearly as interesting as those of others that I have met and will meet along the way.

Social media, and blogs particularly are effective tools to find out about journeys of others and either become a part of them through the internet, or just actively read, learn and be inspired by them. It is true, there is always someone that we can learn from, someone who has a similar or even polar opposite set of experiences to help us be informed, inspired and motivated. Just today, I have discovered two more journeys that I will be following. Two more twitter accounts and a Facebook page!

So, as I sit here watching the rain pour down, and waiting for the Met office to decide whether it will be possible to take out the cameral today, I can’t help but think…what will be the next part of my journey.

What will be the next part of your journey and who will you meet and be inspired by along the way?

ePhotozine
http://www.ephotozine.com/forums
This is a very active photography forum with a large amount of members (their record stats for members online at one time is 4074!). Together with the photography forum there are lots of camera equipment reviews, photo techniques, photography news and even an online store. The forum software isn’t the best though and we’d like to see it updated to make it more user-friendly.

PhotoSig
http://www.photosig.com/go/forums
PhotoSig is another great photo forum with lots of members from around the world that helps create a diverse yet ultimately helpful community. You can also get your own gallery space and ask for critiques on your photography to help you take better pictures. Unfortunately this forum software is lacking too which makes it difficult to navigate.

DcResource
http://www.dcresource.com/forums/
The Digital Camera Resource site was founded way back in November 1997. The DCRP is designed to be an unofficial resource for current and future owners of digital cameras. It is aimed more towards the consumer end, rather than the high end of photography. The forums are nice and clean with plenty of active members that help to make a vibrant community.

Talk Photography
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk
This photography forum is one of the most active we have seen, with nearly 3 million posts! Whatever day you visit, there are tons of active members and discussions going on. You can upload your own gallery images and ask for critiques to help you learn better techniques. The forum software is simple and easy to use, whilst the basic template design doesn’t detract from the main thing – discussion! We like the general lack of advertising that sometimes ruins other forums.

Forums are a great way to interact with other photographers. You can even find photographers that are local to you and organise meeting up for a shoot. Try joining one today, they are all free and full of people just like you that are looking to improve their photographic skills!

Do you know any other photography forums that are worth a mention? Do you run a forum for photographers? Write a comment to let us know…

Ten of the pioneering photos of snowflake crystals that American farmer Wilson Bentley began taking more than a century ago are to be sold in New York.

Wilson A Bentley (1865-1931) is thought to be the first photographer to capture images of single snowflakes on camera. He made thousands of the jewel-like prints, and came to the conclusion that no two snowflakes were the same. This concept caught the public imagination and he published other articles in magazines, including National Geographic, Nature (Journal), Popular Science and the Scientific American. His photographs have been requested by academic institutions worldwide. Bentley poetically described snowflakes as “tiny miracles of beauty” and snow crystals as “ice flowers.”

His photomicrography technique involved a microscope and a bellows camera. Snowflake expert Kenneth Libbrecht said the photos did not meet modern standards because of the “crude equipment” Bentley used.

“But he did it so well that hardly anybody bothered to photograph snowflakes for almost 100 years,” Mr Libbrecht added. He perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they melted.

Ironically, Bentley caught pneumonia in a blizzard and died just weeks after the publication of his book Snow Crystals.

Chicago art gallery owner Carl Hammer is selling them along with 16 of Bentley’s winter scenes at an antiques show at New York’s American Folk Art Museum.

“They’re remarkably beautiful,” said Mr Hammer.

“There are imperfections on the outer edges of the image itself and on the paper, but the images themselves are quite spectacular.”

Bentley, who was known as The Snowflake Man, wrote in 1925: “Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others.

“Every crystal was a masterpiece of design, and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost.”

Bentley also photographed all forms of ice and natural water formations including clouds and fog. He was the first American to record raindrop sizes and was one of the first cloud physicists.

Wunderbars’ constant tension stretcher bars are even easier to construct than normal stretched canvas prints. Wunderbars are precision machined so there is no need to measure the frame to get it square or  hit the frame with a mallet to keep it square during stretching, it will always remain square.

The Wunderbars system is touted as a natural progression from traditional stretcher bars and has been developed for photographers and framers from the hobbyist right up to the production canvas framer.

The wood used for Wunderbars is Tulip wood which, unlike pine, is a hard wood with a top quality look and feel. It’s a heavyweight timber with very little knotting. It helps give the completed frame a top quality professional feel. Wunderbars ticks all the environmental boxes too – the wood comes from sustainable sources and it is possible to reset and reuse a frame. FSC wood does cost a little bit more but not so much as to affect a purchasing decision. FSC wood comes from sustainable forests which help protect wildlife and the environment.

Wunderbars canvas frames come in packs of four in a range of sizes from 8inch to 48inch which will limit the canvas print sizes you can offer, but for most people this will be a good starter. It will be interesting to see if photographers try this system or continue to use established canvas printers such as ourselves. Obviously you still need a large canvas printer in the first place to print onto the canvas material. You then have the packaging costs to factor in, not to mention your time taken creating the canvas.

Full marks to Fujifilm though for trying something new. What do you think about the Wunderbars? Will you use them yourself or would you rather not get involved in the canvas printing side of things?

Toshiba, one of the leading innovators in NAND flash memory technologies has announced the launch of the world’s first 64GB SDXC Memory Card.

The new card is compliant with the new SD Memory Standard, Ver. 3.00. Toshiba also extended its industry leadership in memory card solutions by unveiling 32GB and 16GB SDHC Memory Cards compliant with the world’s fastest data transfer rate.

The new SDXC and SDHC Memory Cards are the world’s first compliant with the SD Memory Card Standard Version 3.00, UHS104, which brings a new level of ultra-fast read and write speeds to NAND flash based memory cards: a maximum write speed of 35MB per second, and a read speed of 60MB per second.

The combination of large storage capacities and increased data transfer rates will meet the needs of a wide range of consumer electronics applications such as digital still cameras and digital camcorders that require high bandwidth data communication. For us photographers this means digital SLR cameras will be able to shoot longer continuous bursts in the highest quality RAW format. Similarly, with these cards, it will be possible to download a 2.4GB video in only 70 seconds.

The SDXC card is the next-generation standard defined by the SD Association in January 2009. The new standard applies to cards with capacities over 32GB and up to 2TB, compared to the SDHC standard, which applies to cards with capacities over 2GB and up to 32GB.

The high level specifications and wide range of memory cards announced by Toshiba will further open the way for developers to bring applications to future generations of consumer products. By further enhancing its SD Memory Card lineups with larger capacity and a higher data transfer rate, Toshiba will continue to meet market demand and to lead the NAND flash memory market.

In the battle to differentiate its products in the competitive digital camera market, the Japanese camera maker has been developing a model that features two identical lenses and image sensors. It snaps almost-identical images that are blended together by a custom chip to produce a 3D image, it said.

The system has been dubbed Real 3D by FujiFilm and can be used for both still images and movies.

There have been attempts to introduce 3D photography in the past but a complicated set-up and reliance on 3D glasses has meant they’re too complicated for widespread use.

FujiFilm’s system makes use of a 2.8-inch 3D LCD panel on the rear of the prototype camera so viewers don’t need special glasses. For display of images the company has also come up with a prototype 3D photo frame that has an 8.4-inch display.

Aside from 3D images, the company imagines a camera with two lenses and image sensors could provide some other clever tricks such as the ability to shoot a wide and telephoto shot at the same time, or for a wide panorama shot by capturing half with each lens.

The prototype 3D camera first appeared at last year’s Photokina show in Germany and recently made an appearance a the PMA show in the U.S. and Tokyo’s Photo Imaging Expo. It’s next step will be onto store shelves. FujiFilm plans to launch its first 3D camera in Japan later this year.

The company sees a bright future in the technology, the aim of which is to capture pictures that are almost as good as the real thing. Whether it takes off or not depends on consumers but this is one technology you want to keep both eyes on.

The Pan-STARRS cameras, built with chips designed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, is part of a prototype telescope installed in an observatory on Maui’s Haleakala Mountain. Its high resolution will improve scientists’ ability to detect asteroids and comets by a factor of five.

“This is a truly giant instrument,” University of Hawaii astronomer John Tonry told the MIT News Service. “We get an image that is 38,000 by 38,000 pixels in size, or about 200 times larger than you get in a high-end consumer digital camera.”

Congress in 2005 directed NASA to detect 90% of near-Earth objects larger than 140 meters by 2020. According to a 2003 NASA report, the 60-meter rock that struck the Earth about 50,000 years ago and formed what is now called Meteor Crater in Arizona released the equivalent of more than 10 megatons of energy. It created a hole over a kilometer across and 200 meters deep.

The telescope is one of four that will eventually be housed in the observatory’s dome. It is part of a system named Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) that is being developed at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy.

The first gigapixel camera was sent to Haleakala in August 2007 and mounted on the PS1 telescope, a prototype of the Pan-STARRS system.

The Pan-STARRS cameras each have 1.4 billion pixels on an area approximately 40cm square. A typical consumer camera has about 5 million pixels on a chip that measures a few millimeters.

The camera focal plane consists of a 60-by-60 arrays of 600-by-600 pixel CCDs. The CCD cells are grouped in 8-by-8 arrays on a single 5cm chip called an orthogonal transfer array.

They develop a chip called an orthogonal-transfer charge-coupled device, or OTCCD, which can shift its pixels to compensate for the blur of random image motion. This is similar in concept to physical stabilization features on consumer cameras, but OTCCD technology manages this feat electronically, at the pixel level.

Nearly two years after the introduction of the D80, Nikon has announced its successor, the D90. This new DSLR camera inherits its older brother’s outer dimensions, power source, 11-point AF module and most of its external controls, but adds a newly developed 12 megapixel CMOS sensor, EXPEED image processor, and a bigger, much higher-resolution rear LCD screen. The D90 also features a slightly improved viewfinder coverage, 3D focus tracking, ultrasonic sensor cleaning, 50% faster burst shooting, a larger buffer, Active D-lighting, in-camera raw development, an expanded ISO sensitivity range, HDMI connectivity, geotagging and Live View with Face Priority AF. On top of all that, it’s the first DSLR ever produced to offer an HD movie mode.

The control layout of the D90 is also very similar to the D80, with only the dedicated Live View button and an info button to the bottom right of the screen being completely new. The OK button has moved to the centre of the four-way pad, and the focus selector lock has been changed from a slider to a switch, but that’s it really – the other changes are cosmetic only, affecting the shape of buttons well known from the D80, and the colour of their labels. The similarities extend to the power source and the recording medium as well. The D90 runs on the same proprietary EN-EL3e Lithium-ion battery as the D80, and records images on SD/SDHC cards.

So, what’s new then? Quite a lot, actually. For starters, the D80′s ten megapixel CCD has been superseded by a 12 megapixel CMOS chip capable of providing a Live View feed, recording video and capturing full-resolution stills at 4.5 frames per second, up from 3fps in the D80. Even more importantly, the sensor can now clean itself, by way of high-frequency vibrations that will, at least in theory, shake off any non-adhesive dust particles that may have settled on the low-pass filter during a lens change. You can specify, via an option in the Setup menu, whether you want sensor cleaning to take place at shutdown, startup, both or neither, with the default being ‘both’. The cleaning process had no practical impact on startup times, which were near instant. The new image sensor is complemented by a more powerful processing engine and a larger buffer as well.

While the above changes remain invisible until you put the camera to actual use, there is one development that will be very hard to overlook for anyone taking even a casual look at a D90: the rear screen. The D80 already had a nice, big 2.5” TFT LCD with a resolution of 230,000 dots, but it pales in comparison with the D90′s three-inch, 920,000-dot monitor. On the new camera, the screen is used not only to navigate menus and to review pictures, but can also act as a secondary status display, facilitating the transition for former D50/D40/D60 owners who are not yet used to having a top-mounted status LCD on their cameras. And of course it’s also the rear screen that provides live view for capturing both stills and movies.

One of the extras the D90 offers over the D80 is Live View off the main sensor. While other manufacturers have been implementing this feature across their entire DSLR line, Nikon has, until now, reserved it for their higher-priced models, including the D300, the D3 and the D700. With the D90, Live View has arrived to less well-heeled Nikon fans as well. And while on their other cameras, LV was one of the drive mode options, it now has its own dedicated button. Live View is either delivered on the high-resolution rear monitor or on any LCD panel or plasma screen connected to the camera via an HDMI cable. There is a red rectangle in the middle, which you can move practically anywhere in the frame. When in manual focus mode, you can magnify into this rectangle in five steps simply by repeatedly pressing the button marked with a loupe icon, but this magnification seems to be interpolated rather than real.

Live View is also what’s used for the feature that has arguably generated the most interest in the Nikon D90: its movie mode. The camera records high-definition, wide-screen video in 1280×720 pixel resolution, at a frame rate of 24fps, in AVI format using the motion JPEG codec. The maximum size of a single video clip is 2 gigabytes which, given that movies occupy about 100 megabytes of storage space per minute, would theoretically translate into about 20 minutes of continuous recording, but – apparently because of certain legal regulations in the EU –, Nikon decided to limit the clip length to 5 minutes for high-definition movies. By offering video capture in a DSLR, Nikon has made it possible for filmmakers to play with depth of field the way they never could, taking advantage of the relatively big sensor and the wide assortment of Nikkor lenses.

Nikon D90, with its self-cleaning sensor, excellent meter, sophisticated multi-point AF system, large viewfinder, 4.5fps continuous shooting speed, wireless flash options and great degree of cusomisability is hard to beat, especially at its price point of around £679 for body only.

Read the full review over at PhotographyBlog.com