Friday, October 9, 2009

David Ziser's seminar WED night -- wow!

David Ziser's Digital WakeUp Call Tour 2009 was Wednesday night in Farmington and wow did we get our money's worth! He talked a thousand miles an hour, had an amazing amount of energy, had a corny sense of humor and gave tip after tip.

As he stated we learned...
--32 ways to use your on and off-camera flashes for creative and dramatic effects.
--10 of the best camera settings and lens choices for creating striking images on every job.
--7 ways to use the new DSLR video capabilities to transform your product offerings.
--10 "Magic Bullet" techniques to make your digital workflow nearly effortless, highly efficient, and fun with today's top software from Adobe Lightroom, NIK, and LumaPix: FotoFusion.
--20 new product and marketing ideas targeted to today's customers which will add substantially to your bottom line.

We bought two zumbrellas and the LumiPix software. Cannot wait to use them!

Some of the tips were interesting in light of things that we already do in our NATURE photography but never thought to apply to our portrait photography. Such as "zooming the flash", which we do every time we use the better beamer. Well, try this for portraits too. For example, you have a 17-85 or 24-105 lens on your camera and want to take a photo at the reception. The flash automatically goes to 17 or 24 mm if you zoom your lens out. But then what happens is the people's heads or other distractions beween you and the wedding couple are BLOWN OUT. Just zoom to 50 or 80mm and your photons travel a much narrower field and only your couple are illuminated. Wow!

Another tip was the Brinkmann xenon flashlight. We bought ours a few years ago after attending the Mark Bowie workshop in North Haven. We were re-motivated to use it after hearing mark present up at NECCC this past July. But we never thought of bringing one to a wedding!?!

PROGRAM BONUSES included: Tour Handbook including: program notes, photography, marketing and more 2 Hour DVD with extended program content $100 Rebate from American Color Imaging for all new accounts 1 year membership to WPPI and Rangefinder magazine, a $99 value FREE 3 month membership to DigitalProTalkPlus.com, a $45 value FREE 3 month subscription to PPA Magazine, a $15 value FREE PPA Indemnification (no-fault) insurance for all new PPA menbers, a $50 value Over $4,000 in door prizes awarded each evening And a chance to win 1 of 4 Grand Prizes worth over $6,000 (hope I win that!)

Hey and I won a one year subscription to the DWF forum -- very cool!

There were other members from the New Haven Camera Club, Oxford Camera Club and CT-PPA at this seminar Wednesday last night.

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