instaimage

Here’s a brand new product that we’re introducing at the Lake Tahoe Invitational Hockey Tournament this coming week!!!  It’s similar to our template collages except that it’s 10 inches high by 20 inches wide… so more like a panoramic collage.  Simple enough, we call it a Pano Poster…

One piece of information about it that you might not have noticed… the large image of the player between the center and the right photo… that “feature”, until now, has only ever shown up in our custom collages!!  As with any company, as time goes on products get better, I’ve added this popular custom collage feature to this template design.  It’s one of the other three images (of your choice) enlarged in the background.  It can be moved to the other side, when I’m designing the poster with your photos I’ll try both and see which looks the best.

I’ll be working on more designs if people like the idea so let me know what you think!

First, thank you to everyone for making this a great year!

It’s been quite a year!

January started with a new hockey tournament for us, we’ve never worked so hard and had so much fun… I’m really looking forward to it this coming year!

February starts High School baseball…

March starts Little League and Softball… which will run until July.

June 2010 found me in the hospital (thank goodness the World Cup was on) for an emergency appendectomy just 12 days before the start of the Nevada District 1 Little League tournament and then the Nevada State Tournament, it all worked out in the end!

After the High Country Championship Swim Meet at the Carson Valley Swim Center, most of August I spent in a hotel room in Monterey trying to get new staff at our Old Time Portrait studio sorted…

Then the Pop Warner season and a VERY exciting Carson High Football Championship season!  Mix in a little soccer and volleyball… The Douglas Girl’s Soccer and Volleyball teams won STATE!!

My second daughter was born in September!!!  Daddy’s Girls for sure!

And now basketball’s started…

I’ve drastically abbreviated the year and I’m sure I’ve left out something major….

I just want to wish everyone the very very happiest holiday season!!  We’ll see you out at the fields, courts, pools, etc. in 2011.  May your new year be the best ever!!

The new Nikon D7000 is out and seems to be in some bit of supply right now…  I stopped by my local Best Buy store to check it out (they had one when B&H Photo and Adorama didn’t… go figure…).

Let me explain my post title… the “kinda” part… I didn’t shoot with the camera, just had one that had a battery in it… so I cannot comment on a whole bunch of stuff… but just a hands on “impression”….

Now, most of you that know me know that I’m a Canon guy.  And I’ll tease you if you shoot Nikon gear… regardless of how good their equipment might be….  My first camera was a Canon AE1… When we started instaimage I did a lot of research and at the time Canon had the gear that fit what I needed… and to this day they still do… but…

Nikon makes some very compelling equipment and this new Nikon D7000 is a prime example.  I am very intrigued with the newest technology that the two companies are coming out with and the Nikon pulled out a lot stops when they “spec’ed” this camera.  One seriously compelling point for me is 39 focus points.  Now, personally I think that’s a bit of overkill… but for those of you that have been shooting with 9 (Canon) or 11 (Nikon) a jump to 39 for the low price of this new D7000 is fantastic!  With this camera they’ve replaced the Nikon D90 and because of that they’re giving GREAT deals on the D90 but if you’re looking for a camera that will get you through A LOT of the next decade… don’t bother with the D90, get the D7000.  There are so many features and functions they’ve upgraded that some Nikon people are calling the D7000 the best Nikon DSLR of 2010…!  (click HERE to read about it) Considering the remarkable equipment that Nikon offers this is a big endorsement.  DP Review just released their complete review… read that review and take from it what you can… they do a good job reviewing camera, a great resource for you if you don’t already know about them.

The auto focus system seemed to be quite responsive.  Like I said I didn’t get a chance to test the camera, get on the motor drive and see if it will do 6 frames per second… yet another new feature that far out spec’s the D90… or test the image quality at 6400 ISO (another major improvement over the D90) but you can see some of those results in the DP Review test.

For me it comes down to the size and ergonomics of the camera, I have large hands, the D7000, as compelling as it might be, is too small.  I prefer the larger bodied cameras (Nikon D300s & D3s or Canon 7D & 1D) even though that size comes with additional weight.  For me the tradeoff is worth it when I have to consider I’ll be holding onto the camera for sometimes over 12 hours a day.

If you have an older Nikon and are considering an upgrade… don’t overlook the new Nikon D7000, they’ve made it worthy of a look if you’re looking at new camera.