They arrived last week and I’ve shot about 30 photos on it.  Keeping in mind that this is a toy, the Bean Sprout sports a whopping 640×480 resolution, that’s one-quarter of a megapixel.  To put that in perspective, my cell phone’s camera is four times as powerful!  Again, this is a toy and I bought it for the sole purpose of it.  The box comes with a non-standard USB cable (don’t lose it!) and a mini disk that contains the software that must be loaded to download photos from the camera to your Windows only computer (UGH, no Mac support?).  Luckily I have a Windows based computer to use since the mini disk is no bueno in the Superdrive slot of my Macbook Pro.  Got the software installed, rebooted (seriously, what software needs a computer reboot these days?) and plugged the camera in the charge.

I was a bit astonished when it told me it was connected at USB 1.1 speeds, I was unaware anything made in the last ten years was that slow, but whatever. The camera actually has a pretty nice feel to it, aside from the shutter button is one mode button on the back that allows you to select from the few available options, like high or low resolution, video mode or clearing the camera of all images.  In high resolution mode the Bean Sprout will hold 26 photos.  The small, two character LCD on the back has abbreviation for all the functions as you cycle through it by pressing the mode button, and confirming your choice by pressing the shutter button.  The user manual is actually really well laid out and explains these functions but I only really paid attention on how to clear the camera.

Six hours later I went to meet up with some friends and test this thing out (the manual says at least an hour, but I wanted to make sure).

The concept is that you can clip the camera to your backpack, belt loop or just about anything else and always take it with you.  But why would I want this when the camera in my phone is 4 times better?  Why not?  It’s a toy, it looks funny and when I was taking photos of my friends and other random things they all asked what it was, how it worked and where they could get one.  My co-worker even bought two for his kids.  The Bean Sprout takes all the seriousness away from photography and lets you take somewhat crappy photos, for fun! No other reason.

Following a night of taking photos I connected the camera back to the computer and launched the horrible software that lets you download them to your computer.  Because the camera doesn’t have the advanced computer chipset of a real camera, the file names reset when you clear the card, so make sure that you don’t over-write any other files on your computer from previous shooting.  So, what do the photos look like?

There are more photos that I’m adding to an album on my Facebook page.  Sure, they are grainy, blurry and there’s obviously no way to focus this thing. So again, why do I like this? Because it’s fun, I can twirl it on my finger, clip it to my keys and always have some fun with it. If it gets dropped, lost or stops working, I really don’t care.  One of my friends called it a digital version of a Holga, a cheap and fun camera that isn’t meant to be taken too seriously.  For better results (I won’t say best results) use it in brightly lit areas and hold it very still, there’s no flash and no settings at all.  I’ll continue to update my Facebook album as I shoot with it, but I have no regrets at all about buying a pair of Bean Sprouts.

Since woot may or may not have them again, you can buy them for under $4 here at Amazon or search here on eBay to find them even cheaper.  They make fun little toys for kids or adults.  Want something a little beefier and substantial? Check out the 5mp Bean with SD slot and LCD on the back for under $50.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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When you hover over any of the main images on the home screen the title and lead info to the blog post are displayed as is left and right navigation arrows to jump to the next image.  Each of the images on the Home base are linked to Posts and not every post needs to appear on the Home page.

Because Jeff had more then two years worth of content, as did I when I upgraded, I knew I’d have to do some shuffling around to make it all work, but it turned out to be far easier then I thought.

On the home page you’ll see a large 950 pixel wide photo and thumbnails across the bottom, all which you choose as you post and can even control the duration spent on each thumbnail as it transitions to the next frame.  The transitions and resizing are all handled server side by jQuery and work flawlessly.  For Jeff, this was a great way to present both recent and his best work right on the front of the site.

The header of the site is clean and straightforward, the logo can be uploaded through the admin panel of WordPress and the main color of the site can even be changed there.  A thick underlining bar indicates what page you’re currently on, in this case the Home screen.  What was different about this theme compared to his previous was how pages and categories are setup.  The arrows to the right of Portfolio and Blog indicate a drop down box by hovering them, but due to the limited vertical space, I opted to stuff some of Jeff’s pages into child pages of the parent page, Portfolio, as shown in the screenshot below.

The ability to use drop downs and then further drop downs allowed Jeff to retain all the pages he had created within his previous theme but have them more organized and in a neater, easier to digest package. For his site, I created the Parent category of Portfolio and then stuffed everything under it.  All pages are as creative as you need them to be, but require setup on each and every one.

The Blog section in Phototastic is very similar, it relies on one main category, in this case named Blog, and then child categories under it.  When you hover over the Blog word on the theme the categories are displayed and thumbnails from the most recent photos in posts associated with those categories are displayed, this I thought was pretty amazing and a very slick addition to the theme.  From a user perspective, you can either click any of the specific categories or the word Blog itself to display all recent posts, this is where more of the Phototastic magic happens.

The default view is to show the 45 most recent posts, yes, 45!  All in auto-magically created thumbnails, again done server side.  As a photography, I truly appreciate the ability to show off a vast array of my photos without the clutter of words, but as a viewer, this is like utopia.  The vast array of colors and snippets of photos is wonderfully enticing and makes me want to dive in, but that’s not all Phototastic brings to the table.  In the top right corner you’ll see Switch View, clicking the middle icon switches to list view and shows the 10 most recent articles in a slightly different light.

Again, the thumbnails are all generated server side and it gives the viewer a different way of viewing the same content.

Individual blog postings feature the highlighted photo large at the top, the same one rendered for the front page and thumbnails, then whatever content displayed below it.  The screenshot below is only small sample, to view the entire post click here.

The contact page uses a fairly standard Contact Form 7 Plugin to handle the form new customers fill out.

Overall, Jeff is very pleased with his new site and visitors to it, new and old clients couldn’t be happier.  Installing it was really straight forward and the directions are very well documented.  There was a slight bump for me, as I needed to upgrade the hosting plan Jeff had to run PHP5 instead of the older and slightly out dated PHP4, which wasn’t in the documentation.  Because I was converting an existing site into this new theme, a little more work needed to be done too.  If you are purchasing this theme to start from a fresh site I’d strongly suggest having at least 15-20 posts ready to go before your public launch date.

Because Jeff already had a steady flow of site visitors and the theme upgrade was going to take me at least an hour to do (turned out being longer due to the PHP speed bump, not Phototastic’s fault), I installed the Maintenance Mode plugin and customized it to allow visitors to still get to the About and Contact pages of Jeff’s site and an outbound link to his Facebook Fan page.

One thing to be aware of with Phototastic, image optimization for the web is crucial because your web server will be rendering all the thumbnails for the various ways of viewing the site.  If you don’t optimize them in Photoshop or similar editing program, you could really bog down your server and slow the speed your site loads for customers.  Additionally, while the thumbnails are loading you may occasionally see the following screen.

The little icon in the middle is animated and I don’t think this distracts at all from the site and I’ve only managed to see it a few times even on slower connections.

The logo should be saved as a transparent PNG file, this isn’t mentioned in the instructions but I’d assume for most all applications this would be the best way to display it because of the gradients.  The footer is customizable via the admin panel for left and right side and accepts plain text and HTML.  The only thing I feel the site lacks is a proper integration of social media icons / placement and RSS button.  Because so many people use Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, RSS feeds and other things, having this integration should be standard.  I manually placed a Facebook icon in the footer as Jeff wanted his visitors to be able to fan and follow him there in addition to the site.  We’re still undecided about adding Twitter and RSS icons at this time.

Overall the theme installation went really smoothly, when I did need to contact support about the problem that ended up being a server side PHP error they responded promptly and explained immediately how and what needed to be done to resolve the situation.  Phototastic is coded brilliantly with plenty of options to keep everyone happy.  It’s professional, easy to navigate and displays photographs wonderfully, any photographer should be proud to use this as their theme.  Future plans include filling the right sidebar with marketing material, both on blog posts and pages, as they are separated within this theme, a really nice touch.

Phototastic WordPress theme can be purchased from ThemeSnack.com for $49, a small price to pay for the full versatility of this amazing theme.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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More then a year ago I picked up road cycling and shortly thereafter I started to commute to work by pedaling.  There are no showers at my job, so I had to take a change of clothing, lunch and a few other things in case I caught a flat, along w/ a pocket full of change.  For the time, an existing backpack that I had been using to go to the gym with would due, but there were a few things that I didn’t like about it for cycling.Messenger bags have been the in thing for a few years, whether you rode a bike or not, but I never much liked how they felt and couldn’t get them to sit on my back properly, so backpacks have always been my preferred method of carrying stuff.  When the opportunity came up to review the 2010 Commuter Backpack from Banjo Brothers, I was stoked!

Banjo Brothers is a staple in the cycling community, especially for those who commute.  Their panniers are legendary as with all their bags, but the addition of backpacks not so long ago to help feed a growing desire from the cycling world for two straps instead of one really interested me.  The bag does not disappoint.

The 2010 model shown here is the same as previous models in build quality and dimensions, but white has been added to the line.  This feature alone has me beyond thrilled.  For whatever reason, bag manufacturers make bags in black or dark navy blue, terrible for commuters who are actually going to use the bag on the road in traffic and want to be seen.  I’d much rather wear this 1500 cubic inch white with vertical reflective silver stripes bag then a 3″ blinky light on my seat post.  Making the bag even that much more amazing is that they actually put a loop at the lower right corner for a blinky light too! When I pedal in traffic I want to be seen, it decreases the chances of being hit and I check my need and desire to color coordinate my attire or to be fashionable in favor of being visible and staying alive.

On with the details.  The commuter bag is, as mentioned previously, 1500 cubic inches (a larger size is also available) and measures 17x12x8″.  Bag measurements have always confused me when looking online, so as a reference, the bag is about the size of a brown paper bag from your grocery store, if your grocery store still has / uses them.  Like a brown paper bag, the Commuter Backpack features a roll-top with strap, this makes the bag waterproof, something most messenger bags can’t offer.  A top flap then comes down and buckles to ensure everything really stays dry.  Because of this feature, you can carry rather odd sized objects very easily inside.

Made of two layers, the outside is ballistic nylon, it has a feeling unto it’s own, but also seems to be very easy to keep clean, even on this white bag.  Should some water get inside, there are two drain holes at the bottom, but don’t fret, there is an inner liner that is designed to be taken out, cleaned, replaced and ultimately should keep everything dry unless you plan on swimming with it.

On the left side (when wearing it) is a large pocket, designed to hold a U-Lock while under the rain flap is a zippered pocket, velcro pocket and a few pen holders.  I wouldn’t put anything sensitive to water there as I’m not sure how waterproof that part of the bag really is, but they are functional.   The bottom is made of cordura, since that typically sees the most abuse.

The straps are ergonomically shaped and feature a chest strap, padded back support, a top handle a removable waist strap.  Also, a cell phone / radio pouch comes with it on the right shoulder (easily moved to the left).

So I’ve used this bag on and off for the last few weeks in a variety of different circumstances, both on and off the bike.  On the bike, it fits really well, feels comfortable without being too tight and was designed to sit slightly lower on the back so it’s easier to look over your shoulder.  The chest strap does exactly what it’s supposed to do for me, but for model Nikki, even with the strap all the way out and the bungee portion of it drawn taught, she couldn’t get it around her, err, lungs.  Neither above or below.   I also found the waist strap to be kind of pointless, almost an add-on.  It’s not shown here in the photos because it was the first thing I removed off it.  The anchor points are great, but it almost seems like a last minute add-on feature that is nothing more then nylon webbing with a buckle.  Not wide enough to be comfortable enough on its own and no padding to it, so I’m glad it was removable.

The Commuter backpack also saw some travel as I took it on a few trips to New York City.  Because of the top loading, no divider inside the bag can be configured to hold nearly anything.  I took the camera divider out of my Tenba Messenger Bag that holds my DSLR, two lenses, light meter and a few other things and it was a perfect fit in the bottom!  Behind that, to where my back was going to be I slid my Macbook in a sleeve and then two days worth of clothing filled up the rest of the space.  I rolled the top down, buckled the rain flap and went on my way.

Bearing in mind that it’s a top loading bag, meaning, I wasn’t getting my camera out for the bus ride to NYC or on the subway without first unloading my clothing, the bag worked great!  It felt comfortable walking through the streets and navigating the subway system, wasn’t overly big and held everything I wanted it to.

Due to the nature of the material making up this bag, it is somewhat stiff, I don’t think it will ever break in the way a traditional messenger bag does over the course of time.  This isn’t a negative feature mind you, I’ll gladly take the padded back (which also aides in airflow) over a non-padded messenger style bag any day.  Also, the lack of compression straps means that the bag, even when empty, is somewhat large.  I’m torn whether I’d like to see them on future models.  Part of me would want to cinch it smaller if it’s not packed full, part of me hates un-needed straps flapping around in the wind.

This roll-top, waterproof, attention getting backpack is a great alternative for cyclists who actually commute and aren’t bike messengers.  It’s also versatile enough to be a multi-purpose bag for college, or just traveling.  The white version seen here should be available in early 2010, black is currently available in 1500 cubic inch or the larger 2000 cubic inch models here.  MSRP for the two bags is $79.99 and $89.99, a price point hard to beat when comparing build quality and functionality with single strap messenger style bags costing two and three times the price.

For me, this bag has proven to be my go-to bag for commuting by bike and short trips.  It stands out on the road and would be hard to miss as a carry-on for a plane ride.  I would maybe like to see Banjo Brothers develop a removable divider system for the inside and / or a built in laptop pouch, and rethink the waist strap, but those minor details don’t interfere with the overall quality and positive  experience this bag has provided me.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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I should start by noting that theater has never much been my thing. I’ve seen Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, Avenue Q etc. etc. and I enjoyed them to be sure, but not enough to pay the exorbitant price tag that inevitably goes with them. Here, in New York, I have discovered the masterpiece of theater for those of us whose goal is to drink and have a good time; Flanagan’s Wake.Flanagan has just died and the citizens of his hometown (and you, as a great deal of the play is improv and interactive) have come to speak of the man’s life and mourn his death. The set is simple and comfortable with a pea green paint job and grainy old pictures circling the casket which is conspicuously upside-down. The actors are never without a bottle of Guinness in hand and the bar boasts Guinness on tap. The Guinness is a little steep at $8 a pint, but is a great addition to the atmosphere; they keep the prices simple and no matter what you order it’ll be between $7 and $12.

The actors are required to take audience suggestions as to Flanagan’s favorite song, his life dream, his favorite story and how he died. They do so with excellent good humor and more than once I nearly laughed myself out of my chair. The participation aspect is incorporated well and does not encumber the play with embarrassment or discomfort on the part of the audience members. Suggestions and participations are quick and often simply shouted one word answers to actor’s questions.

If you happen to be in Times Square on a Friday or a Saturday between 5:45 and 6:30 the play is running a bagpiper followed by Flanagan’s casket through the neon madness. I managed to capture a video of it; the man dressed in the priest outfit in front of the casket is Father Murphy, by FAR my favorite character! The fellow at the front of the casket is the play’s producer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

They are currently running promotional tickets for $25, though I do not know how long this will last; regular priced tickets are $49.95. I would inquire through the website directly. http://www.flanaganswakenyc.com/

All in all, this is a brilliant beginning to a drinking night out on the NYC; the show ends around 9:15pm with a bellyful of beer and laughs and there are at least a dozen Irish bars within 2 blocks so if you want to continue with similar thematic elements you will not have any trouble.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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The other day I interviewed Oderus Urungus of GWAR and had a blast talking to him. Oderus spoke very gleefully about the Depravity of Philthadelphia and why he loves visiting our fair city.  Gwar’s new record, Lust In Space, is available on CD or via download on August 18th. You can pre-order the CD at www.gwar.net or www.metalslave.com and you will get an autographed copy of Lust In Space.  Gwar will be on the road with Lamb of God for four months starting this fall. As no Philly date is set yet, Oderus expects a November or December Electric Factory show. Keep checking www.gwar.net and their MySpace page for updated tour information. Enjoy the brilliant insanity of Oderus.

Stream here or download and listen:

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Having such great results with the premium theme from Theme Forrest, I searched around and found what looked to be the perfect theme, fitting all the needs I had without me even knowing what I needed when I started.  Before this review goes further, I’m going to be as specific as I can with regards to the theme itself, this is not intended to be how-to install WordPress or Themes.  You can hire me to install WordPress and the theme of your choice / customize it though.

Why a premium theme? Like I mentioned, I had great results with my previous client’s site.  Most of these results were because of a well documented install directions, PSD files of the entire site and solid code.  There are thousands of free themes out there, but for the $15-35 for a premium theme from Theme Forrest, the value seems overwhelmingly worth it for me.  They are half or a quarter of what other premium sites charge for themes and some of the best looking one’s I’ve found.  The other reason for me choosing a premium theme is that I know it will limit the chances of seeing another person using the same one as me.  As it stands now, only 50 people have downloaded the theme I chose, who knows if they all got installed yet.  Compared with the average downloads of free themes, I like my odds more of having a somewhat unique theme.

Gallerific.  The theme I chose is called Gallerific and was created by Justin Scheetz, who through a little research also happens to live less than 20 miles from me.  Even though it’s the internet, I like to support local artists.  It instantly appealed to me because of the large images used for the home page navigation, it comes with two different color schemes and utilizes some creative and unique image handling techniques.  It also has a drop down menu system for the header navigation for a super simple and clean look and feel.  I’ve always felt that photography portfolios should be focused on making the images look good, not be so overly complicated that it takes away from the photographs featured.  This meets my needs.  Here’s what my site currently looks like.

Gallerific was a simple install, following the instructions included.  There were however some speed bumps along the way that I needed to iron out, which I’ll cover later in the article.  Because I already had content, most of the initial tweaks were minor ones to properly display the home page.  If you are installing this for the first time, plan on having at least seven unique blog postings ready or this won’t work for you.

Breaking down the home page and all the features.

The header navigation is powered by a combination of both Pages and Categories.  In my case, the Home button takes you obviously to home and is hard coded into the theme.  Blog and Galleries are actually categories for posts, Archives and Contact are Pages.  During setup of Gallerific, you specify which comes first (left to right), pages or categories.

For my site, every post is labeled with the Blog category, this gets everything to show up nicely in one spot and because I sometimes need to post non-photographic updates, like site updates or to promote an art show.  The Gallery category is the Parent and utilizes ten Child categories, all neatly displayed in the roll-over drop down menu system. While the theme comes widget ready, I didn’t like the idea of storing my archives in the sidebar and wanted a specifc page for them.  I created the Archive page and installed the Clean Archives Reloaded plugin that I feel serves as a better overall archive and site map than one in the sidebar.  Lastly is a rather standard Contact page with another plugin for the form used.

Included with Gallerific is a PSD file to customize your logo, I made a minor color tweak to my existing one and uploaded it.  The directions do not specify the file format and I’m thinking it needs to be a PNG, as the JPG I used is slightly off in color.  Search is well integrated and, well searches.  The default install of Gallerific includes a section in the admin panel to easily put your name, address and phone number below the search box.  Because I’m not a studio photographer, I don’t really have a need for those fields and have a specific Contact page for such information.  I edited the theme file header to include some social networking links and an RSS icon.  The only design flaw I found for this theme was the lack of an integrated RSS button, something I hope makes it into the next version release of the theme.  For the time being, I’ve installed the overly trendy Web 2.0 style buttons, these happen to closely resemble iPhone icons.  They will more than likely change when I find something that fits in a bit better with the overall theme.

Moving down is the Featured section of the home page.  Photos in this section appear when posts are in the Featured Category and the photo must be set to a specific width to work properly.  The screen shot above shows what happens when you roll the mouse over it.  Note that it shows the post name, categories it’s filed under, number of comments and the first few words associated with the post.  Clicking the post title or View Details will take you to the specific post.  The arrow to the right will take you to the next Featured posting. This is way cool and a great way to spotlight specific files and a very creative use of WordPress.

Directly below the featured header box are square boxes numbered, in my site’s case, 1 through 3.  When you hover over them a small thumbnail will appear of the other featured posts that can be displayed in the header if clicked.  From the overall size, I’d guess two dozen or so images could be utilized as Featured and gives the viewer another way to access and see images used.

The main body features cropped images from the last six blog postings made and text, customizable from the back end of WordPress.  I really like the fact that every blog post means fresh content on the front page utilizing these lower six boxes, always giving visitors something new and fresh to look at, while the featured box at the top can remain a little more static.  The text to the right is where I’m displaying what would normally be on an About page, which I usually hate on portfolio websites.

The six images also hide one more secret, they are not just links to the blog posts associated with them.  Hover over and you will be given two options.  The first is View Details which will take you to the blog post, the second is View Larger Image.  When the second option is clicks, the uncropped photo opens up and gives the viewer a better idea of what could be seen in the rest of the article.   Once again, giving the visitor to the site more to do while remaining super clean with design.

The footer is clean and utilizes the same header navigation, sans the drop down menu system.  Copyright info is displayed to the right, I’ve chose to leave the credits in the footer and added in text for my RSS feed, which again was lacking, and a little icon for stats tracking.  One design element I find missing here is an Up or Back to Top button, often usefull so the user doesn’t have to manually scroll.

Looking at more details.

One setting that is kind of unique for Gallerific is how Categories are displayed.  Each Category can be displayed as a blog or as a gallery.  For the Blog category, I’ve chose to display it as a blog, same is true if you click on the word Gallery.  This shows one highlighted image that I specify for each post (same as used on the front of the site or for the featured section) and about 40 words followed by a Continue Reading that takes the reader to the rest of the individual post.  This keeps the page neat and clean, which is why I like it.  For each of the child Categories under Gallery, I’ve set them to gallery view, as seen below.

This displays 10 posts that are in the People category in the same fashion as the front page, looking like a nice gallery with the options to roll over images and view one larger or be taken directly to the post.  Text indicating older entries takes the reader to the second page and so on. You’ll note the two images / articles featuring cars in the screen shot above and may wonder why they are showing up in the People gallery.  Because I’ve associated each of those posts with more than one category, including People, they show up under different galleries.  Because you can only specify one image for the display square, it’s hard to be exactly perfect.  Each of those posts also feature photos of people, clicking the View Details button reveals that in the full post.

As I’ve said, the install went really smoothly and once I wrapped my head around how the categories section worked, I’m more than thrilled to use this as the theme to power my site.  Making images Featured on the front page and creating the thumbnails for the gallery view is very straight forward and well documented.  I do have plans to utilize Parent / Child categories more for an upcoming wallpaper section of the site which I hope to launch in a few months, as well as a page to sell prints from.  The only main problem I had with the theme during install and configuration was that I had existing posts, more than 150 to be exact.  Each post was in a category but didn’t utilize the parent / child sections because, well I had no need to.  Gallerific almost requires that and relies heavily on categories to function to its fullest potential.  Because I wanted every post I’ve published to show up under Blog and needed to move every post in an existing category under the parent category of Gallery, some time was going to need to be invested.  WordPress does not feature a bulk or mass edit categories option, and I spent two full days searching google with different search strings, asking on Twitter and Facebook for a plugin that would simply let me bulk edit categories with no luck.  The plugins I found weren’t supported by the newest version of WP and I was left high and dry.  A week after giving up I tried a new search query and found exactly what I needed and compliant with the newest version of WP, Manageable.  This plugin should be included with the theme as it’s almost essential to anyone looking to use Gallerific on a site with existing content.

I’ve quietly launched this, now 4th version of MikePanic.com over the last two weeks while tweaking and making minor customizations to it, and adjusting all the categories to fit my needs.  Today marks the unofficial relaunch, in this review, and the best my site’s looked since buying the domain name 9+ years ago.  I can’t thank the coder / developer Justin enough for making such an amazing, low cost theme.  Justin currently has six super high quality, amazing themes available for WordPress here, some as low as $15.00.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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On Tuesday June 30th, 2009 I had a chance to speak to Dave Wakeling for the second time in 7 months. He had a lot to share about what is going on with the band. The interview is about 28 minutes and we talk about political change briefly in the beginning and then switch to the tour, the band and recording news as well.  The Beat have begun recording some new material which will be previewed on the Tour as well as a stellar mix of make your feet move Beat Classics. All the details including how they are recording in Analog, their 1983 US Tour with Bow Wow Wow and R.E.M., plus, could there be a special 2 Tone event in the future? Listen in and enjoy. I live in Philly and the Beat will be at these dates and venues in the NE. Go to www.davewakeling.com for the entire tour schedule.

The English Beat will be at the Croc in Allentown on July 17th with Reel Big Fish and Supervillians.  It is the 30th Anniversary Tour for the Beat and should be quite memorable.  Check out these other upcoming east coast tour dates:

• Tuesday 7/7/09 House Of Blues Boston, Mass.
• Wednesday 7/8/09 Hampton Beach Casino, Hampton Beach
• Thursday 7/9/09 Nokia Theatre, NY, NY
• Friday 7/10/09 House Of Blues Atlantic City, NJ
• Saturday 7/11/09 Starland Ballroom Sayreville, NJ
• Sunday 7/12/09 Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel Providence, RI
• Thursday 7/16/09 Northern Lights Clifton Park, NY
• Friday 7/17/09 The Croc Allentown, PA
• Saturday 7/18/09 The Norva Norfolk, VA
• Sunday 7/19/09 Pier Six Concert Pavillion Baltimore, MD
• Monday 7/20/09 The National Richmond, VA

Stream here or download and listen:

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Too many of my favorite bands end their albums with a track that feels like a poorly attached afterthought.  There’s nothing worse than finishing off a masterpiece of an album with a weak, emotionless throw-away song with no “oomph” to speak of (Tool – I’m looking at you).

To me, a great last song is: 1) iconic (Zeppelin, The Beatles), 2) perfectly exemplary of the methodology and style of the band (DMB, Pink Floyd), or 3) a perfect narrative resolution of the album (R.E.M., Rufus).

Here’s my tentative top 10 (as always, it’s subject to change as my tastes evolve… and as I clean up my iTunes to put all of said album tracks in order… I need Mike to hire me an intern!).

Disagree or have additions?  Tell me in the comments!

Best Last Tracks (in no particular order, as of 2009)

• “Dinner at Eight” – Rufus Waintwright (Want One)
• “I Know” – Fiona Apple (When the Pawn…)
• “Lithium Sunset” – Sting (Mercury Falling)
• “Brain Damage / Eclipse” – Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon)
• “Everyday” – Dave Matthews Band (Everyday)
• “Lady Grinning Soul” – David Bowie (Aladdin Sane)
• “Find the River” – R.E.M. (Automatic for the People)
• “A Day in the Life” – The Beatles (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band)
• “I’m Not Worried At All” – Moby (18)
• “Kashmir” – Led Zeppelin (Physical Graffiti disc 1)

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In photography, a bellows is the pleated expandable part of a camera, usually a large or medium format camera, to allow the lens to be moved with respect to the focal plane for focusing.

The bellows provides a flexible dark enclosure (the camera obscura) between the film plate and the lens. In some cameras, the photographer can change the angle of the film plate with respect to the optical axis of the lens, providing alterations of perspective distortion and of the object plane of focus.

The Horseman model I was given comes with the ability to use darkroom enlarger lenses, which means finding them shouldn’t be too hard. It’s still not worked out if Horseman will sell the bellows with or without a lens, though.  Needless to say, I was very excited to get this thing out and play with it.

The overall build quality is everything you’d expect: Solid aluminum, smooth rails, knobs that are easily accessible, and the look of a serious camera when mounted to a tripod.  The base is solid, flat and easily accommodated the tripod mount with no question as to how stable it would be.  Fit and finish are also top notch, although I’ve been told there will still be some more minor tweaks to the production model.

I mounted my Canon EOS 5d to the Horseman bellows and put it atop a tripod. This one was equipped with Manfrotto 410 geared head, which, in my opinion, is one of the best heads made, especially for this application.  The lens was a 105mm f/5.6, a bit longer than I would have liked, but it was what was available to me and I was hell bent on making the most of it.  The bellows would be more at home on a 5d Mark II with its live view LCD screen, but I am not ready to upgrade just yet.  Once mounted, I was ready to start shooting.

The first time you look through the view finder and tilt, shift or swing the bellows and micro-adjust to focus, it all makes sense.  Little bells go off in your head and a warm feeling takes over inside.  This is what photography is all about.  Digital photography has taken something away from traditional film based photography: Shooting on the Horseman bellows really makes you plan a shot out, think about composition, focus and conceive how it should be before shooting.  That aspect alone is probably what was most enjoyable to me, spending 5 or 10 minutes composing each shot I took, swinging and tilting the lens around to find the optimal angle at which I’d shoot my subjects.

Because this has no electronics for the EOS system to focus or give feedback on, (Nikon mount will also be available) shooting the lens in manual or aperture priority mode is a must.  Additionally, the auto-focus confirmation points don’t work so on a full tilt or swing of the bellows where focus is critical; you’ll be chimping and zooming on your LCD to see if you did hit your focus point or not.  Again, with the 5d Mark II this won’t be as much of a problem with the live view, but still fully expect to be zooming in, possibly shooting several of the same shot, and adjusting the focus rail slightly just to make sure.

Getting familiar with the bellows is straight forward, as the knobs and locks are all in somewhat standard locations.  I utilized the left focus rail knob to focus while tapping the shutter button to check for exposure, which worked out well.  Also on the right side is the knob for tilt adjustment while the shift lock release lever is on the left side.  The tilt needs to be operated with both hands, and I accidentally moved the lens board release lever a few times while adjusting everything but quickly got the hang of it.  The first attempt with the bellows is probably the most frustrating because as you look through the lens, it’s hard to do anything but focus: It took me about an hour of using it before I could start to remember where the knobs are, and what they did, so I could utilize the bellows efficiently without having to peak around the camera body to see which knob I was on.

Shooting, like I said, was a pure joy for me.  Most every shot I took was at a full swing, tilt or shift, or combination of some sort for maximum depth of field effect.  I didn’t have much in the way of subject matter to shoot to test out the perspective on it, but I can only imagine the bellows would nail it.

My style of shooting tends to lean more towards people and fashion than landscapes, where a bellows is traditionally at home.  This didn’t stop me from shooting people though, and I got a few other fun items in the mix, too.

The above two shots were taken in the middle of nearly cloudless day, so reviewing on the LCD playback proved to be very hard.  Truth be told, they are slightly back-focused when viewed at 100%, but the first shows a full swing and the second shows the ability to pick a focal point of two subjects standing side by side.  Traditional lenses simply can’t do this. Shooting people tends to be a bit more tricky since they are always moving, no matter how hard they try to stand still. This is where digital photography really comes in handy.  The ability to shoot many frames of the same subject of focus will ensure you get the shot you want when you can’t see through the viewfinder or in review well enough.

This telephone booth was a blast to shoot; it was the first still object I put in front of the camera.  I tried my best to focus on the telephone inside, but with more than 40 shots, I simply couldn’t.  Maybe with wider angle lens I could have, but I still really like this shot and how it came out.

Right down the street was an old sedan rotting away; it seemed as if time passed by this little town in rural Pennsylvania.  Knowing right away how great this would look if shot on black & white film, maybe even high ISO film for added grain, I set the tripod back up in front of it and went to town. Pulling the image into Lightroom then Photoshop later, I used a filter to emulate Tri-X  400ISO film.  The full sized image has a wonderful grain to it.

As I adjusted the focus point to the other headlight prepping for the next shot, it dawned on me how much fun I was having, and how amazing the creative control being put in my hands was.  There are effects and filters in Photoshop that could give you similar results, but nothing could get this close, not without a lot of work.  Additionally, I could still use Photoshop and Lightroom to develop the RAW files from my camera and add virtually any film effect with plug-ins and add-ons that I use for my normal photography.  Truly, the Horseman gives the best of both worlds; all the advantages of a bellows and the flexibility to post process however I see fit, as is the case with this similarly composed yet drastically different image below.

The next day I called a friend to see if she could meet me in a field for some quick shots before the sun went down to give the lens one last go before I had to hand it back.  She agreed, and we went out for the following images.

The bellows has a lot to offer, and I wish I had had it longer both to learn how to use it better and to shoot more with it.  I’ve been promised a second go at the production model when that is released, which will hopefully be soon, as I’d like to expand on how I’ve used it, and continue to learn more about it.  Currently, I have no technical specs on the bellows or a release date. Hopefully, it’s due out this summer.

The production model is said to have a thinner mount, and hopefully slightly larger knobs and a notch on the rise/fall portion, so you can feel when you’ve hit the middle rather than have to look around the camera. Horseman will also more than likely put this into some sort of protective field box as well to make transportation safe.

Who is this lens for?  I’d say landscape photographers right off the bat, but also commercial photographers who shoot everything from architecture to catalog work and even food photography.  The price point is rumored to be around $1,700 without a lens. I’d like to see this sell for $1,500 with a lens, but still not 100% sure on any of it.  It’s a very spendy setup, but the results and the pure enjoyment I got from shooting it would put it right up there on my want list of camera gear.  It’s not for everyone, though. A tripod is essential, and so is time – there isn’t much that’s quick about shooting a setup like this. 

I think aside from the joy of shooting, the results speak for themselves, even if I didn’t really get to play with as much perspective as I would have liked.

More photos from my weekend of shooting can be seen here on mikepanic.com.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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When it comes to iPhone 3G Apps, you can never quite have enough, right? Although I beg to differ, as I decided to join the masses, one thing I told myself after I purchased my iPhone was that I certainly would not download useless Apps that contained no apparent reason or use for it.

Well, I openly admit I haven’t quite adhered to Rule No. 1 of Jana’s iPhone Don’ts–I’d say Fluid and Heat Pad are rather unnecessary. However, out of the thousands of pointless Apps that only have some form of reasonable functionality or entertainment like while riding a bus or flying, you’ll clearly come across many that are actually useful, helpful and handy when you need something in a pinch.

Out of the 20 Apps (yes, I counted) that I’ve downloaded–mostly for free–can I just say that Remote ranks up at the top as one of my most favorites? Closely behind, The Weather Channel sits right up there beside it since the default Weather App just wasn’t meeting my forecasting expectations.

Why, out of every App that I could possibly ever imagine having, is Remote my favorite? Normally I set my iTunes to shuffle just about any time I’m listening to music. Perhaps this is the laziness in me, but if someone else is using my MacBook while I’m in the same room (and this happens more often than I’d like it), I can instantly change songs without having to reach over or walk to my computer.

This works in between rooms, too. One morning as I was getting ready for work, my Mac was sitting on the dining room table as I stood in the bathroom. I didn’t like the song, and with the light tap of a finger I chose a more preferable tune. So easy!

I’m not the gaming-kind-of-gal so, honestly, those Apps just aren’t the slightest bit appealing. I did, however, purchase–at the sale price of $1.99–Wolfenstein Classic 3D because growing up I would watch my dad play it on our MS-DOS system. I took a liking to it then tried my luck and beat the game. I haven’t yet mastered the iPhone version. In fact, I’ve only played it once and that lasted a mere 10 minutes before I became frustrated. I just don’t have the time and patience to learn!

While I know preferences and tastes differ, I would recommend Remote to any iPhone and iTunes user. The convenience factor alone makes it pretty awesome. I should mention, though, that Remote connects to your iTunes through a wireless signal, so this minor (and I use that term lightly) detail is pretty pertinent to its functioning.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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