Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's 2009

As another decade comes to a close, I can't help but look back and think of the blessings that I've experienced over the last ten years. The world went through some bumpy times during the 2000's, but I'm hopeful about what is in store for the 2010's.

To my beautiful wife and daughters, who really define the biggest changes for me over the decade, thank you for your love and laughter. More and more everyday, I find myself more deeply in love with you.

To my friends and family, who have shared the up's and down's equally without hesitation, thank you for your being by our side. We love you all.

And to our customers and the photography community, thank you for making this little blog a success, and for allowing us to grow a little dream into a healthy business, we look forward sharing the next decade with you.

I wish you all a blessed new year, and a great new decade.

Godspeed, R

Melting Ice - Time Lapse Photography with the D3

Generally speaking, I feel like I have a pretty decent grasp on the functions available on my cameras. However, every now and then I stumble across something that I've overlooked, and in many cases it can turn out to be pretty cool.

Take for instance the Nikon D3's Interval Timing feature. This feature allows you to program the camera to take multiple photographs over a specified period of time. Wanting to give it a shot, I stuck a wine glass full of ice on the kitchen counter, and programmed the camera to take a photo every 30 seconds, for 4 hours. The result? 480 images of the ice melting over time, compressed into a 20 second movie using Quicktime Pro. First I'll show you the movie, then I'll tell you how easy it is to do. I'm not sure what caused the glitch at the beginning of the video, but we'll work that out in the future.

Pretty cool if you asked me. Especially since all you have to do is capture your images (using a tripod would be my recommendation), and put them in a folder. Open up Quicktime Pro, then go to File->Open Image Sequence and select the folder with your shots. That's it, you're done. Quicktime will allow you to export in a number of different formats, so before you know it, you can be making time-lapse movies as well! Enjoy!

Tweaking the Twitter Contest

We haven't quite gotten the push we were hoping for with the twitter kickoff, and I'm thinking this it's because of our prize structure, so I'm going to tweek things a little bit, and see if it helps get the ball rolling.

The prizes will still be the same, but we're going to give them out a little bit differently.

We're still trying to reach 500 followers, but instead of waiting to give out all the prizes at the end, we're going to give them out at intermediate steps along the way.

So here's the new prize schedule:

When we reach 100 followers, we'll randomly pick one for a $25 gift card to B&H

When we reach 200 followers, we'll randomly pick one for a $25 gift card to B&H

When we reach 300 followers, we'll randomly pick one for a $50 gift card to B&H

When we reach 500 followers, we'll randomly pick one for a $100 gift card to B&H

Think that will help? It means that the earlier you become a follower the better your chances of winning a gift card.

Help us get the word out by tweeting the following. 

Follow @townerjones for a chance to win a GC to B&H once they hit 100, 200, 300 and 500 followers http://bit.ly/90gj0y #tjpcontest Please RT

That's it, Plain and simple!

Hope you like it, and thanks in advance for your help. 

Check out our "Contests" page by clicking the link at the top of the blog for general contest rules.

Upgrading to Windows 7 (Part 3)

Let me first say, Microsoft, in no way, shape or form, is a sponsor or supporter of this blog.

Now, let me say - at least in terms of first impressions - I love this operating system.

I'm sure, like all the Windows OS's before it, Windows 7 will have its fair share of quirks and difficulties, but here's a run down of what I've experienced so far.

1) From start to finish, the fresh install of the OS took about 20 minutes on my machine. Mind you, it's a pretty high performance Dell workstation, but it was extremely fast regardless.

2) This is what made my mouth drop: I didn't have to install a SINGLE hardware driver. This machine was built in 2007, so the hardware is pretty well established, but Windows found updated 64-bit drivers for EVERYTHING, and installed them automatically! I was floored. It was actually a pleasure doing the install - for me - it was completely painless.

3) I love the new interface. For someone who's a neat freak, the newly designed task bar is right up my alley. Yes, I think it takes a lot of it's design from the Mac OS, but wherever it came from I like it.

4) My applications a zippy. With better handling of my multi-core processors and access to all of the RAM installed on my machine, Lightroom and Photoshop snap to attention at my command.

So far so good. As I continue to explore the new OS I'll keep you updated, but thus far, I'm impressed. 

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year. Written by Luke, Spoken by Linus...