No matter how good your camera is, no matter how pretty you are, no matter how great your script, it's the audio that will make or break your video podcast. We can suffer through bad lighting, a poorly scripted joke, an ugly background, etc. But if we can't hear or understand you, you're podcast is going in the trash.

Recently I installed Microsoft Vista Release Candidate 2 on my MacBookPro using Paralells. So far it seems to be fast, stable and very attractive. So far I've only been running Office 2007, FrontPage 2003 and Firefox, but I plan on installing a 3D CAD program soon to really stress it out. I must say that I'm just doing this because...

A lot of people are shooting in the RAW fromat, but a lot of people are still asking why they should. I shoot almost exclusively in RAW and recently I was shooting in what Derrick Story calls "Stupid Mode", not paying any attention to my camer's settings and RAW saved me. I think this shot really demonstrates the power of...

While I was packing for my recent trip to Ireland, I mentioned to Derrick Story that I had three fully charged (proprietary) batteries ready for my Canon point-and-shoot. When he asked if I'd packed my charger, I said I thought that three batteries should be enough, but he insisted I take it. (His words, I believe were, "Wrongo.") I'm writing...

Here's a couple of images from the CD my dear old Dad is making of the plants in the Coffs Harbour Botanical garden, for release next month. The Wombat Berry is the sole member of the genus. Also, here is perhaps the only photo on the internet of the fruit of the Grease Nut Tree, which rejoices in the name...

O'Reilly author Stephen Johnson did a lively, compelling presentation based on his book Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography Tuesday night at the SFDIG meeting. At the outset, Steve told the audience of 100 or so photographer-types he was going to base his two-hour talk on the book. (I admitted to Steve later that this made me a little anxious...

[Note: Mikkel couldn't get this blog entry up from Prague, so he asked me to post it for him---cw] Cologne, Germany--I'm winding up a week at Photokina, the world's largest photographic trade show held every two years here in Cologne. I spent a good deal of the week as a guest in the Adobe booth, talking up our Adobe Lightroom...

Adobe announced the release of Lightroom Beta 4 today at Photokina. This version is a substantial update for both Windows and Mac users. I've been testing various builds of Beta 4 on a Mac since the Iceland Lightroom Adventure, and I can tell you from experience, that it's worth the download. Of all the new features, and there are...

Macs are now as inconvenient as PCs are. I've just been going through a tedious multimedia job. My Dear Old Dad makes image collection CD as his hobby: his first one, Aircraft Spotter, is of scans of WWII vintage aircraft schematics (you can get it on E-Bay, I believe). The new one is a complete catalog of the flowers at...

Here's one of my favorite tips from one of my favorite books, the Digital Photography Pocket Guide: "Don't forget to take pictures of signs and placards. It's a lot easier than taking notes about locations, and the information comes in very handy when recounting your travel experiences." Lately, I've been observing variations on this theme all around. Instead of taking...