Tag: "lighting"

Scott Kelby’s Photo Recipes iPad App Teaches Photography

By Bill | July 28, 2010 | No comment yet

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If you’re a regular here at PadGadget, you know I’m a bit of a shutterbug. I started shooting in high school and learned how to develop and print my own B&W, Color Positive (Ciba Chrome -Slides) and Color Negatives from a great set of teachers. In college I was lucky enough to be friends with a pair of fresh new fashion photographers that did work for a number fashion sites including Vogue. These guys were good friends and I learned a lot from them about photography and the essentials of the trade such as composition and lighting. Unfortunately most of us don’t have friends professionally trained in photography to help us hone our picture taking skills. But don’t worry, if you own an iPad you can now use Scott Kelby’s Photo Recipes Live: Behind the Scenes: Your Guide to Today’s Most Popular Lighting Techniques to learn great photo techniques from a professional.

Best selling author Scott Kelby, has taken “Photo Recipes” from his The Digital Photography Book, and turned them into a powerful teach app for the iPad. The app is a whopper, weighing in at over 1.2GB in size, it is chock-full of over two hours of useful video tutorials spread over 16 different chapters. The chapters cover a range of photography topics including shooting portraits, landscapes, product shots, food, flowers, etc. Each chapter teaches you how to get that professional look by using the right gear, camera placement and the proper lighting for your photographs.

In the app, Kelby takes you behind the scenes and shows you how photographers put together those “special” shots you see in magazines. The step-by-step guide shows you how to recreate the look and gives you tips on dealing with scenes in various indoor, outdoor and studio lighting conditions.

iPad – A Powerful Home Automation and Entertainment Tool

By Bill | June 11, 2010 | 1 comment

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If you’re an iPad owner, there’s a good chance that you’re either a gadget geek or you simply enjoy adopting new technology. Early adopters often tend to be the ones pursuing a “connected lifestyle” through the implementation of home automation or wireless entertainment systems. If you fall into this camp, you’ll be happy to know that the iPad is quickly becoming an integral piece of the connected home with several vendors (such as Savant, Meridian and Crestron) already providing iPad ready solutions.

If you’re a home media and automation enthusiast, Savant just rolled out a new $500 in-wall iPad docking solution which allows you to mount your iPad directly in a wall. This is a great option for using the iPad as an individual room or whole house control unit. With the Savant iPad app, users can control video, audio, lighting, climate, security and other settings.

The docks magnetically-attached removable bezels allow you the added flexibility of being able to easily remove the iPad from its in-wall dock and take it with you anywhere in the house. The dock is also available as a $350 desktop unit and both nicely complement Savant’s Home Automation iPad app to create an attractive iPad-based control solution.