Protect your cameras this summer

If you are taking your dslr to the beach, you should plan to protect it from sea water and sea spray.

I went to Wal Mart and bought a roll of vanilla scented (bonus!) small garbage bags, like for bathrooms or the like.


Make a hole in one corner of the bottom of the bag. about 2" (4-5 cm) around.

Push your lens (lens cap on, hood off), through this opening.

Use gaffer tape to seal the bag to either your lens hood and/or the end of the lens.

I use Op/Tech straps that have quick release clips. I take the neck piece off and push the camera ends of the strap through the top of the bag, thus extending the bag falloff area to behind the top of the camera, so gravity keeps it in place. Tape around these holes to seal them and your done.

With this, you have the body and lens encased in plastic, except for the back, but you need access to the controls and LCD, so you don't want that covered anyway. The bag is long enough to hang over your hands, so the back of the camera isn't going to get too wet.

I've used this setup in rain, at the beach, on boats, etc. What you want to watch out for more than anything is salt water. Salt water kills cameras.

Time for a new external HD

Ah, my current RAW hard drive is just about full, so I'll go out today and get a new one. I thought I'd take a minute to talk about these little monsters while I was thinking about them.

I'd like to begin by thanking the manufacturers for selling them cheaper. About a year ago, I was paying 25 cents/GB for them on sale. Today, the one I'm looking at will be 12 cents/GB. Thanks!

I currently have 14 external hard drives. My workflow goes like this:

Shoot photos.
Download to HD RAW 1
Backup images to HD RAW 2
Process images from RAW and transfer them to HD PROC 1
Every night HD PROC 1 gets automatically backed up to HD PROC 2

So, I have four hard drives for current work. I used to backup everything on DVD, but with the file sizes of the images getting bigger, I now only backup processed jpegs to DVD. I can easily shoot between 10 and 20 GB of RAW photos in a single session, and backing these up with DVDs is a pain.

I've only had one external HD fail. For those of you who care, it was a Western Digital. It had lots of important stuff that I think was backed up, but I used to put the CDs on a spindle for storage, and it's such a pain to go back through the spindles, that I just let all that go (for now). Backing up to HD is much better because your work is organized and easy to access.

Very funny

This video hits home on so many levels!

My only friend, the end

I'm retiring from teaching this year! I'll miss it. I love the kids, but I hate grading, I hate the bureaucracy, I HATE the stupid workshops, seminars, and meetings that have nothing to do with my class, I'm not particularly thrilled with the salary (catholic schools pay about 40% less than public schools--but you have to pay the same in college tuition to keep your license current), etc.

I do love teaching, and I will miss it. I will miss it terribly.

I am very excited that my senior portrait photography business has taken off to the extent that it has become a burden to continue teaching. I'll be focusing on the photography from now on--and I'll actually have some time to create new paintings! I'm also excited about that!--as are my art dealers.

To see the newest senior work

To see my newest high school senior portraits, please visit my web site at http://www.muskopf.org/portraits.htm

Working on Martial Arts influenced images

I'm currently working on a set of images focusing on martial arts, yoga, tai chi, and general exercise. These was shot for a fashion student who needed these for her senior project.

Check this out

I totally agree with this guy. It's time to quit fantasy spending and live within our means.