fotos by neil

Camera Bags

2012-01-18T22:08:00.001-05:00

What's your preference? I'm a big fan of KATA bags. Great quality, durable, and if you need them awesome customer service. I have 2 right now. One shoulder/holster that carries my D80 with battery grip and up to my 70-300 attached. I can fit my 50mm and 28-75 in one side Pocket and flash in the other. I also have a KATA 3n1. What a great bag; it functions as a sling for either shoulder or a back pack. In the main compartment I can fit the d80 with 70-200 attached, 3 spare lenses, 2 flashes, a spare body and I can even creatively get my laptop in. In the top compartment, I can fit my bracket, batteries, chargers, etc.I was totally sold on lowpro until I tried these out. There are a lot of great bags out there. Comfort and functionality are key. For me KATA does it.What are your thoughts?

i got nothing

2012-01-05T22:56:00.002-05:00

earlier i was thinking (i know, shocking) about fotography (yes still not shocking). cameras, lenses, lighting, foto shoots and i thought to myself i haven't posted to my blog in a while. while any of the subjects would be good discussion points, i sat down to type and as the title says, "i got nothing". so i guess my blog is about the something that is created when writing about nothing.

you got anything?

Holiday Pics/Family Portraits

2011-11-11T12:00:00.002-05:00

Hey there, in need of holiday pics/cards, family portraits, great gift ideas? Shoot me an email or drop me a line. Having an event or party you would like to enjoy and have someone else take pictures, get in touch to see if I'm available.

Time for new pictures?

2011-05-20T16:44:00.003-04:00

Are surrounded by the smiling faces of cherished loved ones in photos around your house or office?? Want to be? OR are you surrounded by those smiling faces but realized they may be a bit dated? Contact me for availability to take your portraits, partys and family photos.

Let me capture your memories

Neil

All Moved In

2011-04-22T21:34:00.002-04:00

My domain redirect resolved today and it's final!! All moved in and feeling right at home. I have to say thus far the experience with Zenfolio has been AWESOME! I can't say enough about the tools, the interface, the service, the ENTIRE Experience. Almost as soon as I sent emails to my customers, followers and family I began getting compliments about how nice, how easy to navigate and how fast the new site ran. What's better than that? Ok, selling photos is, but the compliments are GREAT too.

I can't forget about Denis at www.uploadjunction.com either. Thanks to him, I DIDN'T have to move over 27000 pictures.

If you are considering a photo website, let me save you the trouble of shopping. Sign up with Zenfolio. If you are hosted elsewhere, switch to Zenfolio!!

Neil

file transfers-upload junction

2011-04-07T15:38:00.002-04:00

So as you may or not know I'm in the process of moving from smugmug to zenfolio. In many ways it's no different from moving your belongings in an apartment or house move. I was bit worried, it took me the better part of 3 years to upload the 30,000 pictures (75gigs) to my website. Never mind my near OCD organization habits. The thought of packing, moving and unpacking, or in digital terms; uploading and organizing would have made for some sleepless nights I'm sure (not that photography doesn't provide that all by itself).

You have to check this out, http://www.uploadjunction.com/. He's a third party programer that wrote this really cool and EASY to use interface that runs in the background and emails you when it's done. He did warn me, that given the volume of my content and the traffic on his servers, "it may take a while". That's ok, it took Carbonite 47 days to back up my 250 gigs when I signed up with them. Currently there are about 9000 pics to go.

Here is the best part (in my opinion, my blog, my opinion!!) IT MAINTAINS THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE FROM SMUGMUG!!! The pictures move in the folders and galleries that they were in and are neatly organized in a locked (hidden from the public) easily identifiable "Group" called "Smugmug Import".

If I was so inclined, I could simply unlock some or all of the galleries and viola!! Same stuff, different host. Although, I'm taking the opportunity to clean things up a bit. Perhaps OCD can change to CDO (the order it should be in anyway).

Thanks Denis (upload junction) and Thanks everyone I have dealt with thus far at Zenfolio.

Neil

smugmug v zenfolio-stick a fork in it!!

2011-03-29T16:00:00.003-04:00

well, a few years ago i went with smugmug because the customization options were plentiful and in my opinion (hell it's my blog) the sites just looked better. as my subscription grew near an end and my frustration grew i looked elsewhere.

i went back to zenfolio because i "heard" good things. first and foremost their customer service was fast, friendly and helpful. i was given samples of websites that required no code to be written by me and they looked great, they were highly customizable, easy to set up and highly intuitive.

i had subsequent questions that seemed like they were answer before i hit send. the help available on the website itself is straight forward and easy to understand. and i'm pleased with the layout of the "editing tool". the ability to set price lists and sell products either fulfilled by them or me is easy as could be.

i'm in the process of moving my nearly 80 gigs of content from sm to zf then i'm moving forward with zenfolio!!

while smugmug may have won an early battle, the war goes to zenfolio.

smugmug v zenfolio- the battle continues

2011-03-22T17:01:00.003-04:00

well, not really! at this point i just need to move my pictures from sm to zf and see how it looks/works with a lot of photos and galleries. Amazingly enough zf's demo site has full functionality including photo transfer.

i have to say, in this case smugmug brought a flimsy plastic spork to a gun fight. zf is wiping the floor with them, neat clean easy to use interface, plenty of options, cheaper to join, better profit margins, OUT FRIGGEN STANDING customer service. are there limitations? i'm sure there are some, but none that matter to me thus far and none that are overshadowed by sheer awesomeness!!

Unless something goes horribly wrong in the remainder of the trial, i can't imagine that i will renew smugmug.

smugmug vs zenfolio

2011-03-16T22:35:00.002-04:00

i was loyal to smugmug for the last few years but a few rounds of poor customer service got me looking around. i know zenfolio had better pricing but ugh the customization and creative options were weak.

well that's all changed! i'm doing a 2 week trail with zenfolio right now. check out the test site.
http://fotosbyneil.zenfolio.com/

to blog or not to blog

2010-12-03T19:05:00.001-05:00

that's the title, what are your thoughts?
neil