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Yearly Archives: 2012

Nikon EN-EL15 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery Service Advisory

Nikon EN-EL 15 Rechargeable Battery Nikon Inc. is asking your cooperation in connection with a voluntary recall of certain lot numbers of its Nikon Model EN-EL15 rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack. The battery pack can experience a short circuit causing it to overheat and possibly causing the outside casing to become deformed, posing a potential hazard to consumers. There have only been seven (7) confirmed reports of incidents of the problem worldwide, and while no injuries have taken place, Nikon Inc. has initiated this recall of the affected lot numbers as a reflection of its commitment to safety and product quality. We are asking that owners of the affected battery pack contact Nikon Inc. to initiate a free product exchange.

The Nikon EN-EL15 battery pack is provided as a supplied accessory with the purchase of Nikon’s digital SLR D800, D800E, D7000 cameras and the Nikon 1 V1 advanced camera with interchangeable lens. It is also sold separately at retail under Nikon’s model number 27011. The EN-EL15 battery pack involved in this recall was first distributed by Nikon in March 2012 and is still being sold at retail.

No other Nikon battery packs are involved in this recall. Nikon’s digital SLR D800, D800E, D7000 cameras and Nikon 1 V1 advanced camera with interchangeable lens as well as any other Nikon cameras are also not subject to this recall.

Check here to find if your battery is affected by this recall.

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Lee Llamas Photography Workshop,Kuwait-2012

Lee Llamas is a Professional Photographer based in Philippines. He is considered to be a Guru in Fashion photography, his creativity and elegance style of working with a disarmingly boyish good looks earned him the “Golden boy” of wedding photography within the wedding industry. Lee Llamas was chosen as the official photographer for Supermodels of the World Philippine franchise from 2001 to 2002. He also made models portfolio shots for Cal Carries International Modeling agency and helped launch careers of stellar fashion models both local and international.

Lee Llamas would be in Kuwait and will be conducting “A Wedding Photography Roadtrip Workshop – Kuwait Leg”, on the 15th & 16th of June at the Safir Hotel, Fintas. There are slots for only 40 participants at a premium cost of KD 40 each (includes 2 days workshop, coffee breaks and lunch) There will be models for the “E” Session, Wedding Gown, and Wedding couples.

Topics covered:

A Wedding Photographers work flow from the beginning in of a wedding to the end, Including the planning, Set-up, Equipment and Package pricing.
Engagement Session Portraits
Outdoor Wedding Portrait
Image Post Processing and Album Layouts

Additionally, there will be a “Roadtrippers” Photography event in the afternoon and evening of the 14th and subsequent evenings of the 15th & 16th where an open discussion will be held on the business aspect of Photography for an additional KD 10.

This event is open to all Skill level of photographers, especially who wish to take their passion into commercial business of Wedding photography. If you are interested and would like to reserve your seat and make payment, Please contact Kyle Stanley, Johnny Dao, or Mondell Salmon. For any additional information contact Kyle Stanley ( +965 9090-9501)

Events & Activities 4

1st Annual Photowalk – A Roaring Success

A couple of days back I mentioned about Kuwait 1st Annual Photowalk, this event turned out to be a roaring success with more than 80 photographers with different skill level of photography participating during the entire day to take their passion to a new height. Photowalks are common event at most places in the world, but for Kuwait this was a total new concept. A “Photowalk” is intended to be more slow paced learning with actual on the spot results as you take photos using the camera settings and composition techniques you have just learned from your peers and Professional Photographers walking along with you. It also serves as a larger networking activity for those professionals looking to meet up with other like minded people.

The idea for the event started about 2 weeks ago as a plan to bring together Photographers from the past 6 months sporting events, and the free seminars by Kyle Stanley and his team have put on at the various Photo club shoots. Photowalk started at the Kuwait Science center parking lot at 5:00 am. Photographers started gathering and receiving their badges according to their skill level. Black for Professionals, Yellow for Creative artists, and Green for enthusiast. The course started out with a meet and greet where by each member introduced themselves and their background in Photography. Basics of Photography where gone over quickly and guidance to the daily events. All the members proceeded to walk down towards the Hard Rock Cafe, stopping along the way to photograph Motorcycle model, landscape shots of the ocean, and impromptu street shots of the Fisherman along the way. Once at The Hard Rock, Johnny Dao gave an open course on Landscape Photography and the use of filters and their adapters. The next meeting point was at the Green Island for Live modeling shoots. Though there was no Ramp walk, the thrill was no less. Audrea Gregga Professional photographer and Freelance makeup artist gave the members the tips and insight on shooting live models. The bright dusty weather provided the lights and the cameras kept rolling with almost all photographers shooting the friendly models – Gabrijela Lovrich, Sandra, MUA Renzy Lim Aurelas & Hala

The event finally concluded in the evening capturing the sunset at the Kuwait Tower. This Photowalk created a lot of enthusiasm among photographers in a hope to have more such events in the future. Over the last 2 days since the event took place, 3 new Facebook pages has been added to serve the photography community here in Kuwait. Topics covered during the events where White Balance, Aperture, Shutter Speed, and Creative composition along with the landscape, detail, and model shooting.

The event was sponsored by Kuwait UPTO DATE, Al Zoba company & Al Ghunaim Photography.

If you are interested to join their Facebook group and view the photo’s taken by the members, click on the link below.

Kuwait Photowalk Photographers [link]

Drawing with Light by Kyle Stanley & Baby Dela Cruz [link]

JPeg Kuwait [link]

Events & Activities 3

XXII TIPA Awards

TIPA 2012 TIPA (Technical Image Press Association) Awards are recognized as the most coveted photo and imaging awards worldwide. Every year, TIPA editors vote for the best photo & imaging products introduced to the market during the previous 12 months. TIPA editors take into account innovation, the use of leading-edge technology, design and ergonomics, ease-of-use, as well as price/performance ratio. Since TIPA member magazines range in content and goals, the award voting process benefits from a wide range of expertise. As a result, the TIPA Awards are bestowed through a majority of votes by very experienced editors.

Every year, there are many different kinds of awards presented in all sectors of commerce, industry, and the arts. Thanks to the independent voting procedure, only the products that really deserve it can unexpectedly win a TIPA Award. And that’s why they are so prestigious. TIPA has member magazines from nine European countries plus Australia, Canada, China, South Africa and the USA.

The annual meeting of the Technical Image Press Association to vote for the best photographic and imaging products in 2012 was held on 24 March 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa.

The TIPA award winners in the Photo and Imaging category are as follows:

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1st Annual Photowalk, Kuwait-2012

The 1st Annual Photowalk event will be taking place on Friday 4th May, 2012. This debutant event will begin from the Kuwait Scientific Center to the Kuwait Towers (both popular landmarks in kuwait) in which over 50 amateur and professional photographers are expected to participate. Photography lovers from all skill levels are invited to take part in this walk which will also include classes and demonstrations by experts.

Photowalks are quite common in most part of the world. I sincerely hope this new initiative here gears momentum and be an annual events over the years to come.

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Events & Activities 2

Deal on Tamron Lens

AAB International Photographic Co. is coming up with yet another offer on DSLR Camera lens and this time it’s the Tamron. Tamron is a Japanese company famous for thier optical lens and provides cheaper 3rd party solutions to most camera brands. AAB has been giving photographers a real treat and value for thier money, their last offer was on Sigma lens and they ran out of stock due to huge popularity and tempting offer. AAB is yet again having a 1 day deal offer on Tamron lens on Thursday 3rd May 2012. I would advice you to visit thier Shamiya outlet as they tend to have more collection.

I have never owned a Tamron lens, so wouldn’t be able to comment on the optics of the lens. Please check the link below from dpreview.com on couple of popular Tamron lens to have an idea of these optics.

Tamron SP AF 10-24 F3.5-4.5 Di II [link]

Tamron AF 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC [link]

Tamron SP AF 70-200mm F2.8 Di LD [link]

You can check AAB facebook page for more information [here]

Image Credit: AAB

Update: Price List and Comparison

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News 2

Nikon Manual Viewer App

Nikon Manual Viewer is a viewer app for iPhones and iPads that allows user to download several of Nikon products manuals for DSLR, Nikon 1 and Speedlights within the app. This definitely is a welcome move to most users like me who tend to refer to their manual to find more technical information. Now that the complete manual is available at the tip of your hand, makes it more convenient. The best thing is it’s free and easy to use, you can download as much product manual you like. To download the manual you need Internet connection, once downloaded the manual are placed in the app bookshelf for future offline use, you can also sort the manual as per your choice. Tap a manual in the bookcase to launch the viewer. The viewer supports Table of contents, Index and Quick search, has the ability to add notes in pages and to bookmark them. The viewer is currently available in English and Japanese language.

Nikon Manual Viewer [link]

Knowledge Base 2

EXIF Data

In film era, photographers would record information such as shutter speed and aperture based on events and type of photography. Today this typical information is stored digitally in the form of Metadata, a term for descriptive information embedded inside an image or other type of files. Metadata are quite important in this age of digital photography, as information are stored with the file and are portable and convenient.

Metadata captured by your camera is called EXIF Data, which stands for Exchangeable Image File Format. Every modern digital camera has the capability to record this information and almost most digital photo software can display EXIF information. EXIF Data contains a range of setting such as Image ID, ISO, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, focal length, metering mode, Exposure bias, camera model, lens make and much more.

EXIF data is a great tool for beginners and other level of photographers to find out settings of image they admire from other photographers. EXIF information can be read only from JPEG format images. For RAW, GIF and PNG files, the image needs to be converted to JPEG.

Some photographers choose to strip EXIF Data from their images. Photo software’s including the best online photo management applications like “Flickr” provides users the ability to switch on/off EXIF Data. To read EXIF data on PC, right click on the image and select properties, on the image dialog box select the Details tab. To read EXIF Data with free viewers like Irfanview, open the image, click the Image menu and select Information, go down to the bottom of the dialog box and select EXIF info at the left and select OK. There are many other free viewers as well as browser add-on available to read EXIF Data.

Knowledge Base 1

fototalks 2012 – Kuwait

The Shot Lounge is organizing the biggest photography event “fototalks 2012” in Kuwait. fototalks is an annual event that sheds lights on photographers from Kuwait, Gulf Region, Middle East and the world, that worth to be noticed and recognized. In its maiden event, fototalks will include seminars, workshops and photo challenge over a 2 days program on the 16th & 17th of April,2012 at the GUST Auditorium (W6 500), West Mishref Campus.

fototalks mission is to empower photographers and expose them to be known and give them the chance to share the messages they capture through their eyes with others. The seminar and workshops will be conducted by professional photographers with their expertise in Wild Life, Sports, Children & Portrait, Commercial, Photojournalism and Food photography. The program also includes workshop on Timelapse and Post Processing.

The program is conducted in the evening from 05:00 – 10:00 pm, this makes it ideal for all intrested photographers, videographers, media persons as well others to join the event after office hours. For more information on the schedule of the program, cost of ticket and to register follow the link to their website [here]

Events & Activities 7

Earth Hour 2012 – Kuwait

Inspired by the first Earth Hour in Sydney, in 2008 a group of engineering students at Kuwait University aspired to spread awareness about global warming and to take action on climate change. Living in an oil-producing country is a great economic privilege, however, it raises important concerns about the amounts of carbon emissions. The Kuwaiti Team for Global Warming was established to encourage the people of Kuwait to embrace environmental change in order to balance the effects of oil production. Their aim was to organise Earth Hour in Kuwait and to motivate the people of Kuwait to engage in this global contribution of reducing carbon emissions.

In 2009, the team introduced the idea of Earth Hour to the public by organising an event in a public area overlying Kuwait Towers. The significance of reducing electricity consumption for only an hour was explained by the team members to authorised individuals of the main landmarks of Kuwait – these include Kuwait Towers, Liberation Tower, The Scientific Center as well as over twenty-six malls, embassies, hotels, companies and professional associations. Several non-profit organisations and societies participated in the event to educate people about other environmental aspects and the importance of volunteer work. The team’s work is not only exclusive to organising Earth Hour, they also believe in the concept of reducing carbon emissions beyond the hour. The team contributes towards educating the youth about global warming and climate change by giving lectures and seminars at schools and universities. Furthermore, the members of the team engage in various environmental exhibitions and conferences as well as beach clean-ups. The Kuwaiti Team for Global Warming has also inspired organisations to adopt the idea of Earth Hour and has supported its application in the State of Kuwait during Environmental Day, which took place on February 27th 2012, naming it the Environmental Hour.

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Events & Activities 2

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