Everyone is talking about RAID hard drive setups and it’s the only way to fly if you want to protect your images from hard drive crashes – which will eventually happen to you, if it hasn’t already. Here’s a simple RAID setup that I installed for our Asukabook staff at the office. I’ve documented the entire setup process and listed the parts I purchased and where from. This was the easiest setup I’ve done yet! Even a monkey could do it…well, maybe an orangutan, they’re supposedly smarter.
This is a basic RAID level 1 setup, which simply means two hard drives are mirrored and look and act like one to your computer. You use it like you normally would, except every file is written to both drives simultaneously, saving you from having to duplicate it yourself.
How it will work: The case holds 2 bare drives. Each drive I used is 500 GB, but you can use any two identical drives. Since one mirrors the other, you have the actual useable storage space of one 500GB drive. The case connects to my Macs via Firewire 800, but you can use USB 2.0 if you don’t have Firewire 800. USB is slower however. This setup will connect fine to either a MAC or PC.
Parts used:
2 bay hardware RAID case
part# 3610-WAC Dual SATA HDD firewire + USB 2.0 hardware RAID case
price: $399
source: http://www.cooldrives.com
2 – Seagate 500 GB SATA-II bare drives
(note: Seagate is considered one of the most reliable drives, don’t skimp here!)
part: SEAST3500630AS
price: $215 each
source: http://www.macsales.com
Here’s the stuff (minus the cables and other doodads) Notice how nice and small the drive case is. IMPORTANT: Be sure to discharge any static from your body before touching the drives. You can touch a metal part of your computer or grounded metal object. Use a static wrist strap if available. Don’t drag your feet on the carpet while doing this. Don’t put your finger in an electrical socket.
1) remove the trays from the case using the plastic key.
2) remove the plastic blocks by removing 4 screws.
!http://www.kkphoto-design.com/blog_images/raid_03.JPG!
3) place the bare drive in the sleeve and tighten 6 screws. Do this for both trays.

4) Insert the tray back in the case CAREFULLY. Pull out the lever (which releases when the plastic key is poked in the hole), then gently push the sleeve in then close the lever until it locks.

5) Power on the drive and you should see the HDD OK message like this:

6) Plug the drive into your computer and you should see a message to initialize the drives, click “Initialize”.

7) In the drive setup utility, name your drives and choose the options as below. PC users will see a different window, but just initialize like you would any other new drive.

That’s it! Now, you can start copying images to this drive. If a drive should ever fail, you’ll hear an alarm from the case. It will tell you which drive is faulty, so remove it and replace it with a new matching drive and put it back in. The case will automatically start to rebuild that drive, copying everything from the other drive to it.
If I have any long term issues to report on this setup, I’ll post them here. But so far, it’s working perfectly.
Aloha,
Kevin
Just back from a great week teaching at the Texas School of Professional Photography, and I learned as much as the nearly 1000 students that blanketed the hotels and campus of Texas A&M.
I learned a little more about the power of passion. I learned how to see through things and cut to the core…a little better.
When I teach workshops, I often talk about “falling in love” with your clients – if only for an hour or two. I forget about any notions I may have formed about them. I try to ignore my assumptions that they are not the “expressive” types or not “romantic”. If you allow yourself to see the real person behind your lens and accept them for who they are, you can capture their inner beauty. You have to peel away the layers and expose something, whether they offer it or not.
Some shells are harder to crack than others. Some shells are there for protection. Some shells are misleading.
When we drop our egos, and see past another persons ego, we obviously cut to the real person. This is when a great photograph happens. But it’s not always easy to do.
When I photograph, and when I teach, I let down my guard. It’s cathartic for me. I can be myself – and hopefully my subjects or students will do the same. Learning happens better, and photographs happen better. It’s all about truth.
What if we let down our guard more often? What would happen? What if we said what was on our minds more often? Would we still have friends?
We would have fewer friends, but better friends.
Allow yourself to open up to your next client. Let them feel your passion, your energy, your soft side. Encourage them to do the same. Be a mirror. Love them for just a little while…it may be the only chance you get – but you’ll have the photographs to prove it :-)
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to blog – so much to do before WPPI. Thanks to everyone who came to see us, it was a great show!
Of course, everyone was disheartened to hear about Joe Buissink, and his absence at this years convention was painfully obvious. Joe has been an icon at WPPI for years and I remember seeing his presentation years ago and becoming truly inspired myself.
What really moved me was his passion. His images are beautiful, but the passion with which he talked about his art really grabbed me. It lit a fire within me too. I decided that I would always try to be true to what really excited me about photography. I would follow my heart and capture the way I felt it.
Over the years, this philosophy has paid off. I have certainly lost clients because I did not fit with their traditional expectations, but I feel that it has also helped me develop a clear style and dedicated clientele.
As soon as I stopped trying to be all things to all clients, my problem clients disappeared.
I also learned the power of passion when selling yourself to clients. When you can speak intensely about your images, and share the emotion that you felt and the thoughts behind the images – the client becomes much more involved and attached to the images. They begin to understand the “artsy” shots, and stop asking why their heads are cut off. They also buy more.
After years of teaching and sharing my experience with other photographers, I began to look at what makes people in other professions successful as well. What they all have in common is passion for what they do and an ability to convey that passion to their clients or audience.
If you feel like you are losing your passion for what you do, run, don’t walk, to the nearest point of inspiration. You CAN get it back or at least get yourself on a different track.
If you’re already wallowing in a sea of passion for what you do, then don’t be afraid to share it! Let your clients see your soft side. Share what’s in your heart and watch your business transform.
I’ve just returned from Orlando, FL where I did some presentations for Nikon at the PMA show. It was a good show, and I got some great business ideas there too – like the value of a big mouth. Good friends of mine, the Lensbabies crew, got their picture on the front of USA Today through diligent schmoozing. This led to a potentially large deal with a major new distributor for their product. Way to go guys!
At Nikon, part of my presentation covered how I use my wireless TTL SB800 flash, the D200 camera (which has a built-in pop up flash), and a collapsible diffusion disk to create great natural looking lighting anywhere.
By setting the camera’s pop-up flash to the TTL wireless controller (Commander Mode) and lowering the power by 1 stop, this becomes the fill light. I then have an assistant hold the SB800 behind the diffusion disk, about 3 feet away, and point the whole thing at the subject – firing the flash through the disk. I try to keep the face of the disk as close as possible to the subject so to keep the lighting soft. I place the disk off to the side at about 30-40 degrees to create directional light, and then the on-camera popup becomes the fill light and trigger.
The light quality from this setup is amazing. It’s soft and directional, very flattering and natural looking. I can light a headshot or small group – upto about 4 people. Full length portraits look great too as the light gradually falls off towards the feet.
You can quickly move from place to place with this setup and take portraits anywhere – even a completely dark room.
Because the off-camera light is TTL controlled from the back of the main camera, adjusting the balance of the lights is quick and easy too. Try this setup outdoors too when the light is rather flat and unexciting.
I just returned from a few days in Washington D.C. teaching a RAW workflow workshop. It was great to be in our nations capitol and to see how the atmosphere is completely different. EVERYTHING revolves around politics – and understandably so. I spent some time with fabolous ex-press photographers, pulitzer prize winners, and presidential photographers. I also spent a day consulting with the International Monetary Fund, which was unexpectedly pleasant. They have a very high end digital studio that produces and astounding amount of imagery and related printed materials. They are, of course, shooting all RAW.
Speaking of watching your steps. I wanted to share a little Photoshop tip that some may not know of. Often I work on images, running various actions, and doing myriad adjustments. It’s usually easy to tell what I’ve done to the image, but occassionally I’ve combined actions or gone back and forth and can’t really remember how I got that cool new look. Here’s one way to keep track.
Open Photoshop CS2 and open the General Preferences. At the bottom of the window, enable History Log. Check Metadata, and set “Edit Log Items” to Detailed.
Now everything you do to an image is recorded and saved in the images metadata – which you can refer to at any time. It will list every tool used, settings used, and actions run.
To see the details, open an image that’s been worked. Goto File: File Info and click on the History link in the left panel. Everything will be listed there.
While you can’t just click on a step to go back in time, like on the standard history palette, this information is permanently preserved – unlike the history palette, and it takes very little extra storage space in the file. It is also preserved even if you flatten an image and save a JPG copy of it because it’s part of the metadata.
Speaking of government spies, remember that this info WILL be in every image you create, so if you DON’T want someone to be able to see what you’ve done to an image, turn the option temporarily off.
Just got back from a wild show at PPA in Austin, Texas. Wow. It was a big show – about 7000. The floors were packed. It’s exciting to see photographers out in full force – excited about learning and improving their skills.
Gossip: A friend told me about one of the speakers that got escorted out of his room by security for being WAY too obnoxious. Sorry I missed that…
Adobe finally released Camera RAW 3.3 final – which supports the D200. Download it from Adobe.com
Austin is the blues capital of the world, as far as you know. We took time after the show hours to wander the streets and check out a few live music bars (I was purely researching the music, I assure you). We heard this AMAZING guitarist named Eric Tessmer. Wow. This guy is like Stevie Ray, Jimmie Hendrix, and Buddy Guy all rolled into one. Freakin’ amazing. We stood mesmerized, 6 feet away, as he melted his guitar for hours on end. Check it out: http://erictessmerband.com/
As I watched this artist – who completely stood out from all the others in the competing clubs, of which there were many, I began to think about what made him special and unique.
Of course there was the obvious techinal skill – he knew his guitar like, probably better than, the back of his hand. He never missed a beat or slipped a note. He was one with his quitar.
But I think the thing that got me most was his passion and energy. The soul with which he played. This was what he loved to do most in the entire world – it was obvious.
He drew on the obvious influences of other famous musicians, but infused it with his own soulfoul energy and style. He created something new and fresh. Funkier than the others. Different and passionate.
Photographers are the same. It’s the passion and love for what you do that will make your images sing your name. They may be similar to the image someone else captured, but it needs to have your energy and fire in it. If you love what you do, it will show and you will be successful. If you don’t love it – you can re-kindle your love affair, or you should probably move on to something else.
How do you re-kindle your love of photography? Tell me what works for you…
So ya know I’m a Nikon guy…not because I think their better cameras…ok I lied. I’ve been using them for years for my work but I’ve also used Canon, Kodak, and Fuji pro cameras at various times for testing and workshop purposes. I feel that each camera has it’s strong and weak points – obviously.
One thing I’ve always like about Nikon cams is the ergonomics. I love the way they feel in the hand, the solid reliable feel. I love the way the buttons work and it’s simple and easy to find what you need. It’s fast and efficient.
I’ve been using the Nikon D200 for a while now and putting it through it’s paces on wedding jobs, commercial jobs, and portraits (along with snapshots of my family ;-).
I really believe it’s the finest camera Nikon has put out – at any price. And the price is really right on this one. I’ve used every digital camera that Nikon has made, and just put aside my D2x for the D200. The image quality is actually (for my needs) better than the D2x. It’s buttery smooth in the shadows – not a lick of noise or posterization. The high ISO noise is much better than the D2x, and most other cameras I’ve tested from any manufacturer.
This sucka is sharp too. RAW files rock. 10MP is perfect for any wedding/portrait situation – and most commercial jobs too. More than that is simply overkill for most daily work (of my type).
wireless TTL flash control, flexibility, and accuracy is top notch. The best yet.
I have not had any issues with focus – as with some previous camera models. It’s dead on.
In a nutshell:
Good Stuff
1) Excellent image quality – low noise, smooth shadows, sharp.
2) Feature rich and amazing ergonomics. Controls easy to use and fast to access everything you need.
3) Pop up flash on camera is very nice to have for a backup and to control off-camera TTL flashes.
4) Great price and value for the money.
Could be Better Stuff
1) Auto white balance not consistent.
2) Not quite as fast to focus in low light as D2x.
3) Battery life not quite as good as D70 or D2x. (This may be fixed by a firmware update though – doesn’t seem to make sense).
I highly recommend this camera as a main or backup camera for any professional – except maybe sports pros needing the ultimate speed in autofocus. The D2x would be better there. With the vertical grip, it’s about the same size and weight as the D2x. Without the grip, it’s a great travel size – slightly bigger than the D70 – which is another classic all time great camera.
Stay tuned for my next blog where I’ll give my impressions of the new Adobe Lightroom vs. Aperture in day to day use.
Thanks for stopping by. It’s great to be part of this community of fine photographers and educators – I’m quite honored.
I’m going to be very informal here, as I think it’s the only way I’ll have time to keep it up-to-the-minute. I’ll put good stuff out there – things that I discuss with my confidants, cool tips and ideas that I think might be helpful to others. Maybe my experience with a new product or technique.
Sometimes it may just a thought or idea – but I promise to post things that are relevant, educational, or inspirational.
Ciao for now,
Kevin
Are you ready to RAID?