Email: brqyvn@gmail.com 

Hi Photographer friends,

I'm almost done with my new Pentax K-01 "Everything you need to know...and then some" iBook. I have to say that this is the hardest task I have ever embarked on. It's not easy to write a book, it takes a lot of research and hands-on handling of the camera. It's was ten times harder to write this e-book (or iBook in this case) for the Apple iPad since Apple only released the application last December. There has been very little help from Apple as most "Apple Genious" were not yet trained with the "iBooks Author". I really think they have a winning app here, but it's taking  a little long to publish an "iBook Author Guide". Maybe I should make that my next project!

In the end though, I believe this will be the best e-book in my series. It has everything needed to help the readers understand. It uses all media currently available. It has text, images, video, interactive screens, search inside the iBook or the entire Internet, the ability for the readers to make notes and save the notes as flash cards for later use...and then some.

Does it show that I'm excited?

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What's more, I am contemplating continuing the series with the most popular cameras from all manufacturers. That will include Nikon and Canon cameras.

Oh yes! I'm definitely a Pentax user, but I believe I can be more helpful to the photographic circle by writing iBooks for all the most popular models of all brands.

One last word, frankly, I was a little disappointed with the K-01 not having  an OVF or EVF, but after using the camera for nearly one month, I am really pleased with the live-view that the monitor offers.  I took some images on sunny days, with no clouds, at noon, here in the Mojave desert, and I could see the image on the screen very well. There seems to be very little reflection problems with the K-01. I can't say that even with my K-5. 

I will releasing the iBook next week to 100 Beta testers and shortly after that, it will be available through the Apple App store.

Thank you for your patience, I know I haven't post much lately. This iBook writing has taken over all my other activities.

Yvon Bourque

Here are a few "Screen shots"

Ah! Technology, the more it changes the more it’s the same. New iBook for the Pentax K-01

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

Hi Photographer friends,

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am currently writing a new e-book. This time, it’s about the new Pentax K-01 that was announced in February with a start of delivery at the end of March.

We already heard all kind of negative comments about this new camera, "it's too Boxy", "It looks like a brick", who would want a bright yellow camera?", "Who is Marc Newson anyway?", "It has no EVF (Electronic ViewFinder) or OVF (Optical ViewFinder)  so it's useless", and many other comments.

As for myself, I cannot judge anything by looks only. Pentax has always been on the forefront of technology, daring in their designs, and here they go again. The K-01 is certainly daring or pushing aesthetic to a new level…but why can't aesthetic and functionality live together?

As I am writing my book, I am finding out a lot about the camera, and the specifications are pretty impressive.  We, as human, tend to want the newest technology while we don’t want things to change. It’s an oxymoron, a paradox, or call it what you want, but that’s really the way we are.

The K-01 is a blend of new technology, new aesthetic, bold design, and that’s what the upcoming generation will gravitate to.  I often let other people use my DSLR to take a picture of me or my family or friends as a group, and the first thing they do is to hold the camera like a point-and-shoot, trying to compose the picture by looking at the LCD screen.  They are at lost when I tell them to look in the viewfinder.

Apparently, the most used camera is the world is the iPhone or Smart phones.  That leads me to believe that the new generation won’t care about an EVF or OVF.

So…my new book or e-book will actually be published first as an iBook, for the Apple iPad.

Why would I do that?

Because Apple introduced “iBooks Author” in January and the concept is an absolute game changer.  You get to read a book while experiencing multi-media. Yes, you can view videos, image galleries, interact with images and diagrams, follow Internet links, search the Internet, highlight passages, write and save your own notes, and more. Check it out here and here. I can’t think of a better way to learn.

My new iBook will be available on the Apple App Store for the iPad. I will make a version also available as a PDF file, just like my other e-books.  The iPad 2 has been selling at the rate of a little over one million per week. Not everybody that has an iPad 2  will  buy a Pentax K-01, but many will, I hope.

I am setting up my iBook as a template that will be used for many future “Everything you need to know…and then some” series of camera “How to books”, and this time, for all major brands of cameras.

Ah! Technology, the more it changes the more it’s the same.

Thanks for reading,

Yvon Bourque

The iPad 2, increasingly becoming a serious tool for photography - Workflow for iPad 2.

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

Hi Photographer friends,

I purchase my iPad 2 about seven or eight months ago. I bought one with Verizon 3G capabilities. The Verizon 3G is only $20.00 for one Month, no contract required, and you can repeat that indefinitely or just the months you need it. I wanted one specifically because of the Wi-Fi and 3G Verizon network capabilities. I purchased the 32 GB and thought it would be enough but wasn't sure because pictures do take a lot of memory space.

There wasn't all that many outstanding apps for photography then, other than pictures emailing  and all sort of fun applications.  There wasn't much available to seriously edit photographs. I never thought that the iPad 2 could be good enough for my photographic workflow, photo albums, and other activities tied up to photography.

It's still not fast enough to replace my Asus PC equipped with the i7 processor, 12 GB of RAM, a 23" monitor and software such as Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5, or a good iMac with Aperture, but it's getting closer.

The game changer with the iPad, in my opinion, is when the operating system was upgraded to the iOS 5 operating system.  The biggest bonus that tagged along with the new operating system is the implementation of the iClouds. With iClouds, files, images, emails, etc don't necessarily have to reside on your iPad 2, occupying  precious memory space. You can sync your iPad 2, or all other Apple devices, and even a PC with iTunes installed, to the iClouds. Apple gives you 5 GB of space for free on iClouds, but you can purchase more. It's $40.00 for an additional 20 GB or $50.00 for another 50 GB of space, with a renewable fee once a year. That's not bad at all.

Now, the iPad 2 is still useless unless apps are available to import images from your camera, or other computer, or from the Web. For serious editing, you really need to be able to import RAW files as well as JPEG files, from your camera. With RAW files imported to your iPad 2, you could have a first pass  at the full image parameters, such as white balance, exposure, major crop,etc. Then a good post processing app could be used to do the final tuning to your converted file (usually JPEG). Finally, you should be able save your final image, send it to a printer, or email it, or post it on a Social Media such as Twitter, Facebook or send the image to a Web Album such as Picasa or Flickr. That's a lot of work for a small device such as the iPad 2, which has a limited amount of memory. I didn't think the iPad 2 could perform these tasks.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it can be done. This makes travelling so much easier. Although Laptop Computers are small enough to carry, they are still cumbersome. The iPad 2 can fit in most camera bags or you can simply hand carry it. In a plane or public transportation, you can use the iPad for other entertaining purposes as well, while going to or from a photo shoot..

Of course you can import images in RAW from a photo album, a file sharing app such as DropBox, or file sharing from iTunes. That's not really what I need. I am assuming that the use of the iPad 2 is for when you are away from your home or base computer, just you, your camera and the iPad 2.

You need a Wi-Fi connection (maybe at the hotel where you are staying at or campground or at many of the coffee shops and restaurants). All McDonalds have free Wi-Fi. If Wi-Fi is not available, the iPad 2  has the capability to log on the internet via a Cell Phone Provider. In my case, I use Verizon 3G and likely will have access to 4G when it becomes available everywhere.. That service is also available with AT&T and soon with Sprint.

So...here's is my iPad 2 workflow:

Apple Camera Connection Kit

Photoraw app

I use Pentax DSLRs but any camera that records RAW and uses SD memory cards will work. PhotoRaw app, available on the Apple App Store, is what I use. Apple has a camera connection kit. It accept a USB connection from a camera or an SD card.  (I suggest that you carefully look at your images on the camera screen first and decide which image(s) you want import). The reason for this is that the iPad 2 doesn't have the crunching power to load hundreds of RAW images at one time. In fact, I usually import one image at a time, adjust it to my liking and then save it to the iPad 2 albums as a JPEG for further processing later. Now it's on the iPad or iClouds for access from any of my iClouds' specified devices.

Snapseed app

Once this process is completed, one picture at a time or a bunch of them, I use Snapseed, which has won this year's photography "iPad app of the year", available from Apple App Store. It is  from NIK Software and it's absolutely astonishing.  It's similar to Photoshop, but it has a different approach to applying filters. They include Auto correct, Selective adjusting,Tune images, Straighten and Rotate, Crop, Details, Black & White, Vintage films, Drama, Grunge, Center focus, Frames and Tilt-Shift.

Once you are done with the post-processing, you can share the image(s) through Email, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter or print them if you have a wireless e-printer. There is a new breed of printers that you Email your image to and it automatically print whatever you email to it.

Try it, you will be surprised.

P.S.  I never erase the content of the SD memory cards until I'm home and can import them to my main computer with Adobe Lightroom 3, which is my main catalog.

Other apps I use:

Photo Transfer App, which allows receiving or sending images and video files,  wirelessly, to and from your iPad or your computer.

Image metadata viewer, which allows you to see all metadata from any images in your photo library.

SIMPLY HDR

Simply HDR-HD,  which simulate HDR photography...not real multi-images HDR, but good enough for some situations.

Pano, which does a decent job using the camera in your iPad or iPhone. It not really good enough for printing, in my opinion, but it's good to capture a total view of a location.

I will write about each app in the coming weeks.

Thank you for reading