Geotag your photos with Picasa 3.5

Maps and photos.  I can’t think of two things more near and dear to a traveler’s heart than maps and photos.  Being able to combine the two is the ultimate.  But, being able to do it *easily*??  Well, that’s not possible is it? It is now. Picasa (the free-from-Google digital photo management program) released a new version last month.  And one of the major improvements is in the ‘Geotagging’ feature.  Instead of requiring that you use Google Earth, they have embedded a full Google Maps ‘Places’ pane right into Picasa.  Placing a photo at a place on the map is as simple as clicking on the photo and clicking at the place on the map.  I show you how to do this in the video below. Note: You can make it play in full-screen by clicking the icon in the lower right of the playback window that looks like an X . If you’re new to Picasa, or want to learn more, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be co-hosting a webinar (seminar delivered over the web) with Google on November 13.  Register for the free Picasa Webinar here. Geotagging Video: by Chris Guld of Geeks on Tour  Read More →

Go Leaf Peeping Now, Before It’s Too Late

Ahhh, wonderful fall. The waning warmth from the sun brings a welcome chill from summer heat, migrating birds start heading to their southern range, and deciduous hardwoods begin turning red, orange, and yellow heralding the leaf peeping season. Sugar maples give up the green for eye-popping reds, orange and brown tones come to the stately oaks, and white-barked aspens put on a display of vivid yellows and golds. But if its aspens that trigger your camera finger, take your pictures now, as aspens from Arizona to Colorado to Idaho are falling by the tens of thousands. Read more  Read More →

Sebastian Inlet – Florida State Park

by Chris Guld, www.GeeksOnTour.com Florida has a lot of great State Parks and, in this one you can walk to the beach from your RV site.  We highly recommend it.   We took a little walk to toast the sunset last night.  This is our last night with my Mom traveling with us.  It’s been a great 3 1/2 weeks. There was a distant thunderstorm turning the sky all sorts of ominous colors. Mom got all snug in her ‘room’ where she could watch the action. Then, this morning was beautiful.  I made everyone go for an early morning walk. Florida is so much more than Miami Beach and Disney World!  And, it doesn’t get any better for Winter weather!  Florida was our home before becoming fulltime RVers, and it’s still a favorite destination.  The post above was originally written for our personal travel blog.  I looked through my archives and found a few other posts about Florida that I thought you may enjoy. Fort Lauderdale Water Taxi Paddle the Peace River Paddle to Caladesi Island Wakulla Springs State Park I know I’m supposed to write about computer stuff, so here’s a little behind-the-scenes information.  Blogging Tools: I use Microsoft Live Writer to do all my blogging.  It is a fabulous, free application where you can write your blog posts and add your pictures, links, and maps, all offline.  Then, when you’re ready, just... Read more

Using Live Writer for Blogging

by Chris Guld, www.GeeksonTour.com I’ve written about Live Writer a couple of times: Article 1, Article 2. It is a free program downloadable from Microsoft, and the exceptional feature is that it resides locally on your computer and it will upload your blog posts to several different blogging systems.  I now use it almost exclusively for all my blog posts – both Blogger and Wordpress. I’m using it to create this post on RV.net’s blog and I use it to create blog posts for my personal blog on Blogger. It’s single-click easy to add a map to your blog post using Live Writer. I especially like the plugin that links directly to my Picasa Web Album for photos.  I also like that it reminds me to add labels or categories to each post.  To understand the importance of labels and categories, see last week’s post. Let me show you exactly what I’m talking about: View more tutorial videos on blogging.  Read More →

Better Photos with Picasa

Our motorhome is currently parked in Salem, Massachusetts. A little city park called Winter Island. We’re using this home base to sightsee in the area, including Boston. For our day in Boston, we decided to take the ferry. Nothing better than a boat ride to start the day, and what a great way to see Boston for the first time! See our blog post on this wonderful day. Read more  Read More →

Don’t Delete your Original Photos

One of the reasons I really like using Picasa for managing my digital photos is that it protects my originals. If you don’t use Picasa for managing your digital photos – watch this Picasa Overview video to see why we think you should. I’ve had a few emails from Picasa users lately that got me worried. They said that they uploaded some photos to their web albums then deleted them off their computer. What?! NO! Picasa Web Albums is not a way to backup or store your photos. It is a way to share your photos with others over the Internet. If you want an online storage website, we recommend Carbonite. Read more  Read More →

Portrait Photography – Part 2

In Portrait Photography – Part 1 I covered information about lenses, and some basic information about lighting.  Again, the main difference between a snapshot & a portrait is lighting. You can certainly take a wonderful photograph of someone without paying attention to lighting, but a portrait involves posing the subject, positioning the camera & arranging the lighting to complement the shape of the model’s face. In this example, which I have to admit has a slightly overexposed forehead and cheek, the model was quite thin.  I used the combination of the lighting and camera position to add width her face. The general name for the positioning of the key and fill lights is called Broad Lighting. The key or main light is positioned so that it illuminates side of the model’s face that faces the camera.  It tends to widen a thin face & soften facial features. Read more  Read More →

Portrait Photography

Although any photograph of a person (or pet) could be called a portrait, there are some standard techniques for taking them. There is no reason you must use them, but they can be useful if you are willing to spend some time controlling your lighting, choosing your focal length, and other variables. Actually, before discussing lighting, it might be worth discussing lenses. The focal length of a lens & the distance between the camera and subject will have an effect on the shape of the model’s face. If you use a very wide angle lens & get very close to your subject you will end up with exaggerated noses, lips, etc. On the other hand, using a long telephoto lens and moving further away from the subject will produce flattened portraits. Actually, it isn’t the focal length of the lens that causes the change – it is the distance between the camera & subject. Of course if you frame your image in the viewfinder or on the LCD so that the subject’s face fills it, you will need to get closer with a wide lens & further away with a long one, so although technically the focal length of the lens doesn’t make a difference, in practice it does. What is the correct focal length? For the most natural image you want something in the range from 85mm to 135mm, (35mm equivalent). Although this will produce the most natural portrait, you might want to make use of the change of perspective longer or shorter camera to subject distances produces to “improve”... Read more

Birds on Your iPhone

Well, this week I’m straying a bit from photography, but only a bit.  When I am planning to photograph birds, I usually take one of my bird identification books with me.  The problem arises when I’m just out wandering around taking pictures but don’t have my book and need to identify a bird.  Luckily, I have found a bird identification application that can be used with iPhones, & iPods.  The company also produces a version that runs on Windows Mobile for phones & PDAs that use that operating system. There are versions that just cover a limited part of the country as well as a comprehensive version that covers the entire US. Read more  Read More →

10 Unusual Uses for your Digital Camera

Most of us take photographs of people or scenery, and those are perfectly good uses for your camera, if fact, in my opinion those are the best reasons for taking pictures, however there are other uses for your digital camera.  Not everyone will use all of these, but keep them in mind. A digital camera can be used to record all kinds of information: Read more  Read More →

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