I've spent the last couple years very involved with the Friendship Centers, a non-profit here in Sarasota. The relationship started when my Dad and I joined a support group at their Caregiver Resource Center. We needed help in better understanding the battle we had ahead of us with my mother's Alzheimer's.  

So, when they asked Dad and I to be featured in an upcoming ad campaign for SRQ Magazine, I was of course flattered, but they needed more than just our participation. Knowing my background in photography, they needed a photographer. Then they described the kind of image they needed. They wanted me in the foreground and Dad behind me, slightly out of focus.

Well, here's another aspect of a great network, or better put, a terrific buddy. Bob and his wife, Holly, come to Sarasota for a couple of weeks vacation each year and he was here at the time. Having worked with him for a lot of years, I put in my request. (Bob's also got a terrific blog, Successful-Photographer.com. It's well worth your time to check it out.)

Bob and I went over to my Dad's place and Bob took over, but there's a reason this in Luminary Corner today... Bob used his Lumix GH4  and the Leica DG Nocticron 42.5mm f1.2 lens. Camera settings were f1.2, ISO 200 at 1/250 sec. There's great light in Dad's place, so Bob used the window light from a 4x6 ft window with shear curtains, camera right.

Added to his gear when traveling is a MeFoto Backpacker tripod for support, which as Bob put it,  "because I was traveling - came in quite handy because it's small for packing."

But there's one more point here and why so many of us love shooting with LUMIX cameras. Under normal vacation "rules" Bob would never have had a lot of gear with him. However, traveling with a couple of LUMIX cameras, lenses and accessories, because they're light, compact and capture outstanding quality, he had what he needed to get the shot.

Mirrorless technology and Panasonic are changing everything or better put is their tagline...

Just click on the banner to check out the GH4, along with the rest of the remarkable line!

Over and over again I've written about the fun of making a visit to your website an experience. It's just like your favorite stores when you're shopping at the mall. Well, you have a choice to make, you can overload your site, not take the time to keep it fresh and look like Macy's the day after Christmas or, you can give it a fresh look and keep the content relevant, exciting and make it habit-forming. 

How great would it be if everybody who visited your site had such a great experience that they turned around and shared it with all their friends?

Check out Panasonic's NEW Lumix Lounge! I know this post has all the feel of an infomercial and maybe in a small way it's meant to be, but over the last year, especially, I've gotten to know all the Luminaries pretty well. I've spent time with them at meetings, in cyberspace and often on the phone. They're an amazingly talented group of twelve totally diverse artists. Each member of the team brings a different quality and skill set to the party.

Now, all that incredible expertise is in one new Lumix Lounge site and you need to check it out.  As you wander through the site, pay attention to the way they're sharing the information.  Then, think about your own website. They've done an outstanding job creating a community and this is only the beginning!

The site starts off with a profile page of each Luminary. Pay attention to the various design elements and links throughout the site. How does it compare with a visit to your site?

One of my favorites is the way they've set up the calendar. There may be only twelve Luminaries, but they're all over the country, teaching programs under the Panasonic umbrella as well as their own workshops. Best of all they each have slightly different skill sets and the ability to help you with the challenges of your technique as well as your business. Outdoor landscape, weddings, commercial, video, fine art, wildlife, portraiture, travel, people and kids...there's nothing they're not shooting.

All of the Luminaries should be on your radar. Staying active in the Lumix Lounge will help make sure you don't miss one of their programs when it's coming to your community.

In "News, Notes & Updates", you've got the ability to review full stories, including relevant videos from each of the Luminaries. Making it incredibly easy to find what you're looking for, all the articles are topic driven.  From Macro to Wedding to Hybrid, Video and Portraiture this section has some of the finest educational "how-to" information in imaging...all at your fingertips.

Another one of my favorite features on the new site is the social media roll, it connects you with everything that's tweeted about Lumix from each Luminary. You've got immediate access to blog posts, tweets and Instagram posts on a wide variety of topics and applications. 

If something is out there and been posted by a Luminary, it's all here by date and easily found and shared.  You'll even find an SCU post or two, again, tying in the Luminaries and Lumix products. From travel photography to workshop information to program recaps and techniques, your only limitation is the speed of your mouse in finding the latest news.
 
One last feature of the new site to check out. In each major section, you've got the ability to view all the content, just by hitting "view all" or "load more". Even in News, Notes and Updates you've got the ability to further define your search with a selection in the drop down box.

Not only is Panasonic carving out their own piece of imaging history with amazing products, but even the way they're working to keep us up to date on the world of Lumix is cutting edge and exciting. 

Click on any image in this post to visit the new Lumix Lounge yourself and you'll see firsthand why I'm having such a good time writing today's post!

Simply put, this is slick!

Every Monday I post something new about or from one of Panasonic's Luminaries. They're a remarkable group of talented artists and just like Panasonic's slogan, they're "changing photography". 

Today it's a kick to put Rob Knight in the spotlight. Just a quick look at any of his images on Instagram and you'll know he's an educator you want to hang out with.

"Rob Knight has been a professional artist for over twenty years. He’s been a photographer for more than half of that time and an educator since 2010. Rob is a two-time Photoshop Guru finalist and an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop Lightroom. From the mountains of his home state of Georgia to the rain forests of Costa Rica, Rob loves to
chase beautiful light and help other photographers make great images. Rob’s current work includes shooting video along with still images to create hybrid eScapes, and he enjoys sharing the process with his workshop participants. “My students are as excited as I am about hybrid photography,” Rob explains, “I’m having fun showing them how video can support their still photography and add another layer of creativity and storytelling to their images.”

Rob teaches throughout the year and already has nine different programs on his calendar. Just click on the link below to see where he's going to be and then keep tabs on him all year long.

Earlier this past year he and fellow Luminary, Rick Gerrity taught their Rt.66 workshops. They've both become good friends, so, having spent time with them, it was a fun gallery for me to pull images for this post. 

If you've got a chance to attend a program where Rob is teaching or presenting, RUN don't walk to grab a seat...and make it a point to introduce yourself. Rob couldn't be more approachable or more passionate about photographic education!

Intro by Skip Cohen

The other morning I woke up to a loud crash. I stayed in bed for a few minutes trying to think of what fell somewhere in the house. I smiled and went back to sleep.  It was just another paradigm shift! 

Technology is changing everything and along with it, Panasonic's LUMIX tag line couldn't be more appropriate...

In this guest post, courtesy of Daniel J Cox, he's returning to the roots of a blog post he wrote in 2009 about the convergence of Video and Stills. Shooting with a Panasonic LUMIX GH4 he's pulling 8 megapixel stills from the video of the polar bear below.  The quality is amazing.

After reading Daniel's post, check out the experience Bob Coates shared just a few weeks ago and then, Joseph Linaschke's post shooting at the Sonoma Speedway.

Daniel should be on your radar along with all of the LUMIX Luminaries. You'll find everybody hanging out at the LUMIX Lounge, just a click away.

Panasonic is steamrolling the competition with their new 4K Photo Mode that’s available on three different Lumix cameras, GH4, LX100 and FZ1000. I’ve dreamed of this idea since the $50,000 Red One was announced nearly ten years ago and I first blogged about my prediction of the convergence of Video and Stills in a post from April 30th, 2009 titled Daniel’s First Film- A New Face in Town. Panasonic’s introduction of their new 4K Photo Mode finally makes this capability available to the masses. 4K Photo Mode gives  the photographer the ability to shoot video at 3o Frames Per Second and pull individual, 8 megapixel still images from the video clip. I tried it for the first time this past week while working with Polar Bears International and the Arctic Documentary Project in Churchill and it is nothing short of incredible.

The video above was captured using a Lumix GH4 in 4K Video Mode. The lens was a 100-300mm zoom and I was NOT on a tripod. That’s the reason you see less than smooth, video panning. Ideally I would have liked to have been on tripod but this opportunity came quickly and was a simple trial in my mind.  The test was impressive, even more so due to no tripod.

Below are two frames I captured from the video above using Apple’s Aperture. A post detailing how to grab a specific frame from Aperture will be coming in the future. But for now, notice how in the first image I’ve selected, the bear’s breath is highlighted in the shadow. I was able to scrub through the video clip to capture the exact moment the breath was exhaled and even the best frame from that one second opportunity that the camera caught 30 frames of.

The second photo is again from the same video and I chose a frame where the bear’s head was at the top of the arc. A polar bear swings its head up and down as it walks which could make it difficult to get a razor sharp, still frame. By shooting at 1/500th of a second shutter speed and choosing a frame from when the bear’s head was at the top of the arc, where it’s perfectly still for a split second, I was able to obtain a very sharp image.

The ability to shoot at a higher shutter speed than is typical for video gave me the ability to capture sharp still photos. Generally, when shooting video, you are shooting at a shutter speed of 1/30th, 1/50th, or 1/60th. of a second. These shutter speeds are actually essential when capturing video to be shown specifically as video and not still capture. The video I shot above was captured with the GH4 attached to a 100-300mm zoom and the lens was at about the 250mm range. That being the case, those who travel with us know that I regularly talk about the need to get your shutter speed up, equal to or greater than the length of the lens you are shooting. Higher shutter speeds provide sharper images which is essential when shooting in the 4K Video Mode.

To read the rest of Daniel's post and to comment, just click the link below.  In the rest of his post he went into some terrific detail to help you understand the creative potential in 4K mode.