Photo “training”
Great day today at the train museum in Sacramento. Looks like first people to post are using “trainmuseum” or “sacramento” as the tag over on Flickr. Here’s the ones from the tag “trainmuseum.”
I found some more with the tag “photowalking.” Oh, and even more with “flickrphotowalk.”
Shel Israel, my coauthor, was there too and made a few nice images. UPDATE: he just added a very nice report on his blog. He says “what Scoble and Hawk did was simple and brilliant.”
Actually, Shel had a brilliant idea of his own: start your own photowalks. I’d love to link to those from my ScobleShow.com site if anyone tries it out.
More than 20 people showed up today, and we got some really great video.
A guy from Apple showed up (works on the Aperature team) and Ryan Montoya, of the John Edwards campaign showed up (do they miss a beat?)
My favorite, though, was Phil Glatz who showed me his rig for taking 3D pictures. He gave me a set of 3D glasses and showed me some of his images taken with a handmade rig and a pair of low-cost 3D cameras. Very cool. He even shows you how on his blog.
Anyway, there are tons of photos coming. If you took some, please leave a link to where they are in my comments here.
And with that, I’m off for a while. Got a heck of a lot of email. I think I’m over 700 now. 739 are in my inbox now. Sigh.
UPDATE: Martin McKay learned not to use 1600 ISO, cause it makes the images look “grainy.” That’s really chip noise, when you push them like that it really brings out the noise. One reason that Thomas Hawk can take lots of images in low light is because his chip in his $3,000 Canon 5D has very low noise characteristics. Not to mention he was sporting a new $1,600 50 F1.2 lens (lowest F-stop lens on the market, that sucker is like a black hole).
Funny aside. The museum wouldn’t let me bring in my tripod. Grrr.
On the way home we were treated to this stunning sunset. Look at that photo on Flickr: it was just posted a few hours ago and see how many comments are there and how many people have already marked it as a “favorite?” And how many “pool” groups there are? Now you are seeing the power of Flickr’s community.
UPDATE 2: if it works out we’re going to do our next Photowalking at Mavericks, where the waves get to be 30 to 60 feet tall. The problem is we’ll only have three days warning that the waves are that tall and the surf contest is on (interestingly enough the contest is sponsored by Ask.com). Then we’ll need to rent Thomas a 600mm lens.
Oh, and thanks to Seagate for giving us $1,200 worth of 8GB Compact Flash cards to hand out as prizes and for sponsoring Photowalking and making that possible to bring you.
Thanks too to photosharing site Zooomr, who not only lends us Thomas Hawk (he’s CEO) but founder Kristopher Tate came today too. I’ll link to their shots when they get them up.
UPDATE 3: I think Kamilyun got the funnest photo of the day.
UPDATE 4: Thomas Hawk has a great writeup and some even better images. Oh, and SmugMug, according to TechCrunch, has a bunch of new features on its photosharing service.
UPDATE 5: Here’s Thomas Hawk’s images. It’s very interesting to compare Thomas’ images with everyone else who was there. He sees things I just didn’t see.
UPDATE 6: Here’s Phil’s 3D images. You’ll need red/blue 3D glasses to view these, but they rock.
Powered By 
January 21st, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Sounds like a fun afternoon.
Hey, I noticed a bunch of my pictures happened to be tagged w/ photowalking. I forgot about that and then saw them when looking through other’s postings up on Flickr from your link above. I didn’t realize those tags went out for Flickr in general. I thought they were just per user. That’s kinda cool! It was an interesting surprise, considering I wasn’t there for today’s train museum adventures. It would have been fun, albeit a little bit of a long drive down from Seattle. :(
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:04 am
Looks like you guys had fun. We need to arrange some of these on the east coast.
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:36 am
It was really great to meet everybody today. Out of my 740 photos, I uploaded 140 of them to my Zooomr account:
http://beta.zooomr.com/smartsets/oheresy/9112
Oh, and thanks for the Seagate drive! =)
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:08 am
Beautiful sunset pic posted…
“Then we’ll need to rent Thomas a 600mm lens.”
Perhaps this could be resolved by purchasing a teleconverter? The only possible issue I can think of would be if the f-stop was below a 4.0 (I also believe you can get t-mounts for telescopes, something that could be another option). Then again, I don’t consider myself to be a pro…
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:22 am
I doubt that shooting surfers will work with a teleconverter, the lens would be too slow: a 1.4x is worth one full stop, a 2x costs two stops.
I was going to suggest a “Bigma” (the Sigma 50-500mm monster zoom) as a possibility, since it’s just about hand-holdable, but I’m betting Thomas wants a faster lens than that. Which is really, really expensive…
Sounds like fun. I wonder if there’s someone in London who might start something like this on a semi-regular basis? (I’d love to volunteer but I’d probably arrange something then not be able to go!)
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:52 am
Some terrific photos but I’m not sure what you mean by the “power of the Flickr community” - can you expand on that?
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:09 am
Fantastic photo’s!
Just like to let you know that you’ve inspired others … Photowalking.
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:45 am
If you don’t already, you should use Upcoming.org to organize your walks in the future. And, nice photos!
Example: http://upcoming.org/event/140515/
Joe C.
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:40 am
How much does it cost to rent the lens? If you need a sponsor, I’d be up for it. I’ve never been up there for Mavericks! Chelsea, my daughter, goes every year.
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:16 am
nice foto:)
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:36 am
I had a really great time!
Here is a link to my set of photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xoisabel/sets/72157594493470389/
January 22nd, 2007 at 9:35 am
Francine: a 600 mm F4.0 lens costs $5,000 to buy, but about $100 a day to rent.
John: Flickr has a HUGE community who add onto the photo, who link it into other communities, who build new sets of photos. I find watching the comments fascinating because they take me off to other photos that are superb.
January 22nd, 2007 at 9:49 am
I haven’t ever hit Flickr for photos, oddly enough. I’ve been browsing a site for nature-based wallpapers lately (http://www.foto51.com…lots of desert panoramas) since looking at Vista screenshots makes me want some new wallpaper after years of defaults.
Looks like Flickr is a nice “meta-izing” way to organize lots of sites like that. Also reminds me a bit of that REALLY cool animated photo (or any kind of file, really) organization tool MS Research had that grouped on meta-tags.
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:16 am
Had a great time and thanks to everyone who came out. Thanks again to Seagate for the generosity in providing the micro drives for people.
Martin, the East Coast sounds like a good idea. I shot New York a few years back and loved it. I spent about three days non stop. It was fantastic. Definitely need to get back.
Here’s a link to a set of my images of New York from that trip. I was shooting with a slower zoom lens back then and my old 10D.
http://beta.zooomr.com/smartsets/thomashawk/4258
Hard to get away though and expensive to travel. Hopefully in the near term. Scoble and I were both recently in Seattle and Las Vegas (for CES). The problem at these tech conferences though is that we are both so busy and tired from running around that it makes it hard to actually schedule a photowalking in. But New York, Boston, heck, anywhere on the East Coast would be super cool.
Beau, I’m impressed with your productivity. You took the most shots in the group. Thanks for uploading them so quickly on to Zooomr.
Mike and Damon, yeah I’d like a fast lens if I can get one. You can always rent them. I’ve had my eye on the Canon 300mm f/2.8 for a long time.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/300mm_f_2_8.shtml
Check out the photo of that tiger in the review above!
At $4,000 for the lens it’s out of my price range, but I’d love to rent it and shoot the surfers with it. I’m just not sure if 300mm will give me the distance I need for a shot like that. Anyone else have any other lenses to suggest? Scoble and I could always put on wet suits to get a little closer.
Anyways really great to see so many old faces and meet some new friends as well on Sunday. Looking forward to the next one.
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:47 am
300mm might give you the distance. The f2.8 would be a monster to handhold, though. I shoot a 300mm f4 that is a joy to handhold, and is still plenty fast– fast enough that I can use a 1.4x teleconverter (forget the 2x) and still be able to handhold in bright daylight with 100 ISO film (yes, film– I’m a bit of a photographic luddite).
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:16 am
Canon makes a 50mm f1 lens. . I’d imagine it’s fairly useless close in due to the depth of field wide open.
http://photo.net/equipment/canon/50-1.0.html
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:21 am
Film, definitely old skool! Nice work Joe. Digital is getting better and better but it’s still not at film quality yet.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:47 am
[...] all had a great time on the photowalk with Thomas Hawk and Robert Scoble. I am just sorry that Drumsnwhistles could not attend . I am sure she would have kept up with them [...]
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Joe: nah, for Mavericks from land you need a 600MM lens, maybe even with a teleconverter. Something like Canon’s 600 F4 lens would be killer. Hell, we might even rent a 300 too.
If Canon were smart, they’d send Thomas two to share with other photographers.
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:32 pm
yeah pretty good pics
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I’m still waiting for Canon to send me one.
I was on Oahu last Monday and people were surfing on Waikiki. Unlike the North shore, they were getting pretty close to shore where they would’ve filled the frame at 300mm. But then again, the waves weren’t big enough for a good dramatic surfing shot. And I left my camera in the hotel room.
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Joe, yeah, in Hawaii the surfers come really close to shore. Not in Santa Cruz. The really big waves are a ways off. The best way to shoot them is to get a Waverunner and get into the waves with a waterproof camera, but I’m not gonna do that.
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Leica also makes a 50mm F/1 lens. It’s called the Noctilux and it was first available in the mid ’70’s. It’s a manual focus lens that works on rangefinder cameras with the Leica M mount.
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Please, no wet suits for Thomas or Robert. Bad mental image. ;-)
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:45 pm
This was loads of fun. Thanks for inviting the Sacramento Flickr group. So, how long before we get to see the video, Scoble? I’m not impatient, just curious.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathanchilton/sets/72157594494390395/
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Robert,
I think it’s fantastic what you do, and I am one of very many fans of Thomas Hawk. But whan it comes to photowalking your old hometown of Seattle is ahead of you.
If you look at http://www.flickr.com/groups/seattlemeetups/ you have a meetup group that has been doing monthly photowalks for over a year. Just thought you might want to check it out.
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Henrik: good point. But do they take videos of their Photowalks?
Man: I’m really backlogged with video again. Sigh. So, it’s looking like early February.
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:59 pm
[...] to Scoble and Podtech and also to Seagate who gave us about $1,200 in 8 gig micro drives to give [...]
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
[...] reading Scoble’s post about “Photo Training” where he met a person called Phil Glatz who setup his camera rig for [...]
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Thanks, Robert.
Oh, and feel free to edit out my silly question about Thomas’ new lens. I didn’t realize until last night, when I was thinking over the events of the day, that I had asked him if his new 50mm had any vignetting issues. A 50mm with vignetting? On a full frame sensor?
I guess I had wide angle lenses on the brain. (I’ve been wishing for a wider lens lately, and I certainly could have used a faster one at the time.)
January 22nd, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Robert,
The family and I had a blast yesterday. I don’t think we’ll be able to make the surfing event, but I’ll keep an eye open for the next photowalking event you have. If you want some ideas for the North Bay, let me know. There’s one or two places around here that might be fun to visit, like maybe the Charles Schultz Museum.
Martin McKeay (not McKay)
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:19 am
[...] Photo training [...]
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:28 am
That Sunset photograph is almost mesmerizing - it is sad that there are no larger versions on flickr
BTW: :-D
Brilliant idea to use SNAP Previews on the Links
High quality large thumbnails appear when the cusor hovers over that links :-D
Perhaps you should consider joining the MyBlogLog and coComments communities
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:21 am
[...] to Edimax for sponsoring my innovative trip to take some photos of trains, which had a peak reach of over 20 people! They even gave me some free CD-Rs which they have [...]
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:16 am
Hi Robert. What do you think of the SNAP preview thing that’s suddendly shown up on your site? Did you or WordPress turn it on?
It doesn’t add much value to the browsing experience IMHO.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 am
[...] I just ran across a great post from Robert Scoble’s scobeleizer blog. In this post, he talks about a recent “photowalk” he and a few others did to a train museum in Sacramento. [...]
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Names are enablers
Sometimes something as simple as a name can enable millions of people to share their ideas in ways which had never been done before. One
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:46 pm
David: I’m still deciding. Sometimes it bugs me, other times I like it.
WordPress.com added it, by the way. For me I like it more than it bugs me, which is why I haven’t removed it yet. But, I’m still deciding.
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Better late than never:
Blog posting here.
Flickr photos from the photowalk here.
Thanks again to Thomas and Robert for a great afternoon! And thank you Seagate for my new 8gig card!!
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Photowalking at the California State Railroad Museum
IMG_2827 Hosted on Zooomr
Yesterday I had the opportunity to join photographer Thomas Hawk, and Robert Scoble of the ScobleShow, for a day of Photowalking at the California State Railroad Museum. There were about 25 people in the group. We toured t…
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:12 pm
I wish I could have been there. Let me know when you do a photowalk in my neck of the woods. Maybe a Notre Dame or Chicago photo walk this summer perhaps.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Robert:
Great post, I am an avid flickrite, novice zooomrite, and I love photography! I know what you mean about Thomas Hawk “just seeing things” you didn’t, that is how I often feel, like there are many things I could see if I had the talent. I am working on it though, getting a little better. Wish I was closer to Sacremento, but I am in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada. If you EVER come out this way, shoot me an email, we can get a nice little photowalk here, either down at the strip or a few great museams or natural areas like Red Rock Nat’l Conservation area.
January 27th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
[...] can find the rest of my pictures here. There are some good writeups of the event from Thomas Hawk, Robert Scoble, Shel Israel (who accidently spilled water on me), and Martin [...]
January 28th, 2007 at 12:40 am
So, I really fooled you into think it was an accident?
January 29th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Check this:
cialis
January 29th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Check this:
viagra
February 9th, 2007 at 3:44 am
[...] meet Phil Glatz, who has a cool 3D camera you can build yourself for very little money. I have an earlier writeup about the event [...]
April 20th, 2007 at 9:07 am
[...] here to see Thomas Hawk’s take on the day, and here is Robert Scoble’s post - along with links to other people’s blogs and [...]
September 10th, 2007 at 11:44 am
I want to learn about photography and also i want to know how much it cost
May 14th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Hi Robert… Look like that you guys had a great time.
I am a Photographer here in South Florida (www.paulopics.com)
can you give me some tips so I can start a Photowalk here in my area?
Thanks
Paulo Jordao