A NEW RECORD – 180 LIGHTSPHERES SHIPPED IN ONE DAY
and WHY WE NO LONGER OFFER UPS SHIPPING since USPS is BETTER

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Wow
everybody, thank you for all the orders!  We are getting them out
thanks to my dad who came out of retirement to help with the shipments
of lightspheres.  We also are hiring back one of our production
workers to work in the warehouse to help keep things going.  But this
is bizarre, when I first met Rocky Gunn’s dad, it was because he worked
in Rocky’s warehouse shipping products?  How much of a parallel is
that? (if you read my IMterview, you’ll see why this is kinda spooky). 
I had so many parallels with Rock that I had the heebie jeebies when I
turned 42 because that’s when he died… anyway…

We totally stopped offering UPS – they are AWFUL!  Missed
deliveries – 2nd day or NDA not arriving on time, so now we use USPS
with Endicia software and they offer signature confirmation, tracking
and a lower cost.  PLUS you can have NDA deliveries by using
Express Mail.

I never thought we’d like the government’s offerings over free
enterprise, but so far USPS is doing better for us than UPS of FEDEX.

If you remember in an early post, we were all freaking out because we
had 300 LS2 orders to fill, and we took over the entire office filled
with boxes, I flew my Canadian P.A. down to help with the shipping – it
took a team of like five of us to get the 300 out in one weekend… and
now we got 180 out in one day!  The software is working!  My
dad has the system down – it’s great!  Only thing is we are trying
to keep a fat stock but we may have some backorders because we order
these 1,000 at a time.  Also, we’re in talks with a distributor in
the U.K. so we may be able to have LS2′s go through the U.K. without
too much going on in shipping costs.  If anyone knows any
distributors in the E.U. who is interested in carrying the LS2, please
email me at garyf@garyfong.com

DENIS REGGIE’S WORKSHOP COMING
SOON IN ATLANTA

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When I took Denis’s
workshop at
his studio in Atlanta, it changed my business instantly that
week.  Until that point, I was pretty much a journeyman
wedding
photographer – charging a moderate fee and doing great by pre-designing
my books.  Doing the workshop with Denis completely opened my
eyes.  Back then, he was charging $28,500 for a wedding (this
was
about 15 years ago) – it’s over $40,000 now… Anyway I never saw
professionalism and marketing ideas like I did with him.  In
fact,
when I went to that workshop I was pretty much a nobody – Montage
hadn’t launched yet and single-handedly Denis gave me the ideas that
made my studio successful beyond my ability to imagine.

His March workshop is going to include a tour of his massive Atlanta
Mansion (compound actually). 
He has an incredible studio facility in his multi-building compound -
just seeing the amount
of wealth this guy could amass as a wedding photographer was insane
inspiration for me.  He has constantly raised the bar on what
dreams were possible and I can honestly say I wouldn’t have had the
success in my studio without his workshop.

You will find that Denis is far too humble about his success, and loves to share and help others to do well.

If you are a wedding photographer and you haven’t been to Denis’s
workshop, you really need to go.  The opportunity to spend an
entire week with the world’s most influential wedding photographer is a
huge deal… click HERE to find more info from Denis’s
website… 

HERE’S A REALLY COOL EXAMPLE OF AN INSTANTMOVIE

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(click on the image to see the movie)  We
are getting so many cool movies activated since we did the formal
launch.  Like everything else, a product takes a form and shape of
its own.  Like I thought people were going to promote just
weddings, but duh, we have been seeing some really cool movies that
have nothing to do with weddings.  Anyway every once in a while I get
an email from support@instantmoviesonline.com with a cool example of an
instantmovieonline.  I really think that this will help a lot of people
get a lot of biz.  It’s been my experience that the super important
thing in being successful is to be on people’s minds – and it’s fastest
and easiest to do this on the internet.

THE NEW DIGITAL INTENSIVE QUADRUPLE DVD SET IS IN PRODUCTION!

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The
Videotaping of the DVD workshop had so much content that even after
extensive editing, the final package wound up being FOUR DVD’s of live
workshop!

FOUR DVD’s - taping sixteen hours of intense digital instruction
including specialized photographic techniques for Digital, including
Digital Infrared, Cross-processing look, flash techniques and a lot of
Photoshop instruction on expanding your creativity with digital post
production…

ONE IMAGE/DATA CD – with color calibration images, actual high resolution comparison files from eight different digital cameras, PDF format documents of control sheets.

FULLY ILLUSTRATED COMPANION BOOK – showing Photography and Photoshop techniques, camera comparisons, methods, histogram theory – tons and tons more…

I don’t yet know the price for the kit – I’ve had a lot of suggestions
that it be in the $2XX.  range – We are aiming for that target.  I’m
only making 2,500 units in the first run so keep your eyes peeled for
the announcement that we are shipping… I definitely plan to have them
in stock at WPPI.

NEW BRIDE-FRIENDLY WEBSITE AT CORNERSTONEALBUMS.COM!

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A lot of you had requested a website for CLIENTS ONLY that has the pricing information kept confidential so you can show your clients the awesome new Cornerstone Digital Albums, but without giving away how much your profits are… so I did it.  I made you a new website that is really impressive for the end user (says things like, available only through the most awesome professional photographers – or something like that… so now you can add this link to your websites, price lists, etc.  We are GOOD TO GO!  And I will have a booth at WPPI and I’ll be able to show you the cool Cornerstone Albums in person – you have been missing out if you aren’t using our stuff!

INSTANT MOVIES ONLINE IS NOW VIRAL!

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I call it the Viral Uphill Spiral (I may be a poet who didn’t even noet).  When you create an InstantMovieOnline – we now have put in a link that allows the viewer to email a friend… so imagine this –

You shoot a gig.  You pop in your CF card and INSTANTLY create a webmovie set to music in minutes.  You impress the heck out of your client by giving them an instant slideshow of their images – PLUS you maybe even create a little gallery on your website of “recent events”… OK so now people view the slideshow, and forward it to a friend – who forwards it to their friends, who forward it to their friends and so on and so on!  And also guess what, there is a link right on the movie that says, “Visit our Website”. 

I can’t think of a better, faster, cheaper way to market your photography.    Check us out at instantmoviesonline.com

RECOMMENDED SETTINGS FOR THE FUJI S3 AFTER PRINT TESTING

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For those of you who shoot Fuji S3′s, I did an extensive test of the camera at all different settings and made 10×15 prints for comparison.  These images were shown to the Digital Intensive L.A. workshop students.  Everyone was surprised how decent the 1.5 megapixel setting was in output.

After heavy testing in shooting, I have found the best results shooting in sRGB mode (for wet process printers outputting photographic paper) 3.5 megapixel setting (for prints up to 16×20″) -get this – F1 FILM SIMULATION MODE .

In my tests I found that the white balance went warm and the overall “look” of the images went flat when I forced the camera to go to WIDE2 dynamic range.  WIDE2 is a recommended setting in extreme situations where blooming is a problem, but because of the flatness and super-warm color cast, I don’t recommend it for everyday shooting.  Additionally, WIDE1 was a pretty redundant setting – since AUTO-DR did almost as good a job of holding in blown out highlights as WIDE 2. 

When you look through the different settings, pick your favorite.  The S3 is a complex camera with WAY more settings than any other camera, and each setting gives a different “look”.  See for yourself by clicking HERE

SEVEN WAY DIGICAM COMPARISON

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I took seven of the most popular digital cameras and tested them for Dynamic Range and skin tones.  In the dynamic range test, I spotmetered a gray card and came up with a reading of about 180/sec at f5.6 in the face area.  Putting the model’s face in the shade and her textured white sweater in the sun (ouch!) I then ran all of the digital cameras within seconds shooting.  In this test we are checking for blown-out highlights. 

See for yourself the results.  The EXIF data is present on the files, so users of Adobe Photoshop can open the files in filebrowser and read the settings that were used.  I think this will be of interest.

For the flesh tone test, I had the model hold the gray card AND Macbeth and then neutral balanced the image to the grey card.  Once I held the neutrals in, I wanted to see how accurate (or pleasing) the flesh tones would be in windowlight (I shot into an open door) with tungsten in the background…. click here to see the tests!

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Instant movies Online is now available is now available for your
pleasure!  This is an early version which has a horizontal window,
(meaning you can load only horizontal images, or recropped Vertical
images).  Imagine making an instant internet movie in minutes with
LICENSE FREE MUSIC and put it in an email or your website.  No
programming skills required! 

You can test it for FREE by clicking here and registering.  If you want to keep and publish the show, it’s only $19 to publish!

I look forward to your comments.