Archive for February, 2009

Picture for today:

Blossom - Taken with 1DsII and 70-200

Extra picture of the mountains:

Mountains in the distance and Pacific Palms in the foreground - Taken with 1DsII and 70-200

Ok, so Flickr doesn’t really hate you. It doesn’t care about you or your property though. Flickr is an online photo hosting/sharing service that I have recommended to many people, including family and friends, and one that I am very fond of. However, like many free services it has it’s flaws. Some are technical, others based in policy. Today, I will be focusing on the policy aspects.

As many may already know, Flickr offers both a free and “pro” version with the latter being a paid subscription. Before I start bashing on Flickr, I should say that I still use it and still recommend it. The pro version acts as a great online backup system because it allows you to access your original image (the one you uploaded). That doesn’t mean that you should be using it as a backup system which brings us to the point of this post.

Flickr has a bad habit of deleting people’s accounts permanently without warning to the owner/user. Not only is it without warning but all images and videos that are removed with no way to recover them. Imagine posting hundreds of your pictures onto Flickr and one day signing in to find that they’re all gone. What a bitch… Here’s an article relating to this topic: http://thomashawk.com/2009/01/how-would-you-feel-if-your-flickr-account-were-permanently-deleted.html

“But I use Smugmug/Photobucket/[insert other photo service] so hah!” Ok, so you don’t use Flickr but that doesn’t mean you’re immune. In late October 2008, Digital Railroad shutdown and gave their users only 24 hours to retrieve their data before the servers were taken offline. For those that aren’t in the know, Digital Railroad was a professional photo storage and hosting site that was used by many companies (including VII Agency) and individuals as part of their hosting and backup strategy. The point is with online hosting/storage services such as Flickr, Photobucket, etc., you’re never guarenteed that the companies behind these services will treat you or your data with respect. And you can never predict what events might unfold such as what happened with Digital Railroad. I’m not telling you to avoid using these services and start hosting all your photos, videos, etc. off your own server like me. I’m just saying that you should bare in mind the grim reality. Anyway, just thought I should give everyone a heads up since I recommend these services so freely.

Till next time…

Edit: Changed October 2009 to 2008. It was a typo… obviously…

Picture for today:

Hummingbird on a tree on the front lawn - Taken with 1DsII and 70-200mm f/2.8 non-IS

By the way, the picture for yesterday was the “Walking to the car” one.

Till next time…

Flickr doesn’t like you… I’ll tell you why in a separate post.

Picture for today and yesterday:

Motion! - Taken with 1DsII and 17-40L

Entrance to the building next to the engineering parking structure - Taken with 1DsII and 17-40L

Till next time…

Since moving to the new server, some visitors to the blog might be wondering what this “A Picture A Day” thing is all about. In short, I try to take at least one picture every single day for the next year. Decided to do this after buying the 1Ds Mark II as a way to justify the price. I needed to really put the camera to good use and one way to do so was to start this project.
For those of you that are wondering what happened to the previous blog posts, they’re still on the old server. I will move them over to this server over the course of the next few weeks. The reason for taking so long is due in part to the Oscars which is this Sunday. I will be helping the TV crews from HK as usual. However, this year I might be able to go and take pictures with them this year. It all depends on how things go down in the next few days.

Anyway, here is the picture for today.

My trusty 1W LED flashlight - Taken with 1DsII and 35mm f/2 @ f/2

Till next time…