I have mentioned before that I most of the time shot my Nikon d50 on Auto. I have yet to shoot my new d90 on Manual. My class requires absolute manual setting and RAW format. No cropping. The reason I never really tried manual is that I have a problem with numbers (and I have 3 semesters of math for my chosen field of study!) and the umbers get confusing. You see, when you talk about Aperture you are talking about the opening in the lens that lets in light. Sounds simple, right? But right off the bat the numbers are backwards. The lowest number indicates the biggest opening and vice versa. Then you have shutter speed. I read that they are all based on one second. But you can dial the speed on your camera from as little as 3000/1 sec all the way up to a minute on most cameras. You can go faster and slower but the confusion comes in what speed I am supposed to shoot at what aperture. And then to make you more confused, you have to pick the ISO. At this point I know where the settings are and I know what high ISO and low ISO does but I DON’T UNDERSTAND what it IS. Thank goodness I have this college class and reading to do. I am determined to really understand this stuff!
Seagate FreeAgent Dockstar and PhotoShow Review and Giveaway!! CLOSED
I have found my nirvana for storage and sharing my photos! Seagate has designed an external hard drive that goes seamlessly with whats called Dockstar, a device that hooks up to your computers router via LAN cable. What this does is make your files on your computer accessible anywhere, on the go! You could take your laptop to New York and log into your files at home that you forgot to transfer before the flight. And with large file sizes like 500 gig and even 1 Terabyte, you should not run out of room on the hard drive! This is absolutely ideal for photo storage.
Seagate sent me a 500 gig FreeAgent Go and Dockstar to review for this new blog! (It was promptly nicknamed Missy, short for mistress, because my husband sweet talks to me when he wants to borrow it and he treats it like its a woman!) It arrived the very day, in fact right before, we needed to back up files and photos to switch computers. This happened 2 more times before I finally was given the power laptop for my needs. Each time we were able to use the hard drive with no problems using just a USB. I was never more grateful for storage. We installed fresh versions of windows, office, and photo/video programs so we needed to make sure everything was safe. And it is!
After we worked on networks and settings for a few days (we had to hook up the PS3 through my laptop) we were able to go ahead and plug in the drive to the dock. The dock has its own power adapter. You just hook up your LAN cable to your computer and voila! Also it has three USB ports so it can also be used for a hub!
When you get your dockstar plugged in and ready to go, the first thing you need to do is go to a special site just for sharing and that is Pogoplug.com. Once you register you will be able to upload. Now because I am on a laptop that has to use the LAN connection for the PS3, I do not keep the dockstar online all the time. I only have one port for that. What I am going to do however is plug it into another computer than can stay on somehow. I wish I had a better router but we have SBC/ATT dsl and they have crappy routers with just one hole for LAN. Ok so anyway you go in it shows your folders on the hard drive. You can choose which ones to share and then even send emails to certain people you want to share with. Also you can have the other people be able to store their photos there too for you to download. You can make it as private or as public as you want.
This setup is perfect for families that live far apart. Also ideal for photographers as they can create very private online galleries for clients. What I love about it is the size, not too big or small. Also its very easy to get started sharing. I realize as I say this that there are some people that are still going to get confused but that’s ok, Seagate has good instructions right in the package. You can also email me if you need help setting up! The other thing I love about it is that besides sharing with family you can actually share items on Twitter and Facebook. The biggest draw for me is the hard drive. I needed a large drive to handle photos.
I do not use this hard drive for class. I would love to but firstly its being used as a safe keeping box and backup of files and photos. And secondly, my class at college is using Mac computers and you cannot use a hard drive formatted on windows in a mac machine. What I will have to do if I want to use one for school is get another one and have it formatted at my college and use it only for college and no sharing.
The only thing I don’t like is that it actually uses LAN. Most computers and older routers only have one input and output for LAN connections and all of ours are taken so I can’t hook up to share. Also the router its connected to (or computer) has to be on all the time if you are trying to access your files from somewhere else. But like I said if you have a nice router with more than one access port then it shouldn’t be a problem.
Buy It: FreeAgent Go hard drive retails for $139.99 and the dockstar retails for $99. You can get them right from the Seagate site!
(Thank You Readers!)
Seagate is giving away one 500 gig FreeAgent Go and a one year subscription to Roxio PhotoShow! With PhotoShow you can create really great one of a kind dazzling slideshows to share online or at home! This prize pack is worth $180!! (Please note this giveaway does NOT include the Dockstar, its the hard drive ONLY and the subscription to PhotoShow)
Mandatory Entry: Go to Seagate and tell me the name of your favorite color of FreeAgent Go hard drive AND tell me what you will use the drive for, storage or sharing with family and friends, etc!
Extra entries:
- Become a fan of Seagate on Facebook
- Follow Seagate on Twitter
- Follow me on Twitter
- You can tweet about this giveaway once a day! Leave the link to your tweet. Example Below you can copy
RT @studiousmommy Seagate FreeAgent Go and Photoshow Giveaway at Studio{us} Mommy! http://is.gd/6xWX1
- Follow Serendipity Mommy blog on Twitter
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This contest is closed. This is a video of me taken in the last hour, choosing the winner, and she has been notified and has 48 hours to claim her prize, winner is comment 633!
Useful Links from Class
These links are lsited in the student resource websites to help with photography-
- Adobe Lightroom Tutorials by Julieanne Kost
- Daily Tips to Improve Your Photography
- LCC Photo Program Information
- Lightroom Killer Tips
- Lightroom Tutorials
- Photo Imaging Educators Association Galleries
- Project Photoshop Lightroom Photo Gallery by LCC Photo Students
- RAW File Format
- The Histogram
- Understanding Depth of Field
- Understanding Exposure, Equivalent Exposures, and Depth of Field (This one is VERY COOL and interactive!)
- Understanding Your Digital Camera’s Histogram
First Day Of Class
.First day of class was Thursday. It was ok in the sense that I was excited to be there but I would have loved to skip the whole rules of attendance and stuff. But in the end I realized that my prof was saying this stuff because he is pretty good at what he does. We got a lot of papers and a couple freebie magazines. We also were informed that we’ll be exclusive using Adobe Lightroom. I only have PS Elements on here so I ordered a copy of Lightroom. It should be here next week.
I’ve been keeping up with my 365 Project and here is the last few pics I have taken and posted..
anniv by SerendipityMom – My anniversay present from Hubby!
1-15-10 by SerendipityMom – War of the cameras!
My Class TextBook
I thought for sure that I would be buying Understanding Exposure but for this class I was told to buy
A Short Course in Digital Photography by Barbara London and Jim Stone
Now I am still on chapter one but I love this book because it had really detailed pictures of the stuff they are talking about and full color illustrations. I think its much more user friendly than Understanding Exposure. There is also a suggested book for Adobe Lightroom but since I don’t have that program its kind of useless to buy it. I do know that I have to get a grey card and some special photo paper for class. The first class is more of an intro and to get used to the curriculum so that’s good. I still have to learn the ins and outs of my new d90!
