I’m still experimenting with online photo galleries, and becoming thoroughly frustrated with my options. At the moment, here is how the two front runners compare;

Flickr, Pro:

• Relational/Dynamic view – I love that photos are basically all in one big folder, and that you can assign them to dynamic sets, so that the original photo (with accompanying data) can appear in multiple locations, rather than copying and pasting a photo into multiple albums.
• Licensing – Flickr offers a simple way to license every photo, allowing Creative Commons licenses or Copyrights to be attached to photos. You can have a default license, so that every photo uploaded has the default license, or change the license on a photo-by-photo basis.
• Community – By design, Flickr is like a social network for photos; it exists as a photo sharing community. And while you don’t have to participate in groups, or have contacts, it is nice to be able to easily share photos, or have your work critiqued by others.

Flickr, Con:

• Limited Customization – There is very little you can do to Flickr to personalize it, and make it your own. You can select from one of 4 different views (6 if you have a Pro account), and that’s about it. No colors or themes at all.
• Loss of Control – Since Flickr hosts the images, you can’t tweak the software or add plug-ins to make it do what you want. You are also at the mercy of Flickr, should they change any of their policies or Terms of Service.
• Restrictions – Free accounts have lots of restrictions (bandwidth, number of sets, file size, images shown in archives) but even Pro accounts have some restrictions. The main restriction is file size (currently 10MB per photo for Pro accounts), although who’s to say that Flickr won’t change the annual fee or restrictions?
• Censorship – From what I’ve read thus far, Flickr tends to be a bit over-zealous with censorship issues. A user’s comments, photos and entire account can be deleted, with little recourse, if someone flags a comment or photo as “questionable”.

Gallery2, Pro:

• Complete Control – Since you host it yourself, you are in absolute control. You want all your thumbnails square? No Problem. You want to crop your own thumbnails, rather than have the default? Easy.
• Customization – There are loads of themes for Gallery2, and various color packs to change the color scheme. But if you don’t like those options, you can create your own theme, too.
• Plug-ins – On the nature of customization, if there is something you want accomplished in Gallery that can’t be done out of the box, someone may have already written a plug-in to accomplish what you want. Or, you could write your own plug-in.

Gallery2, Con:

• Strictly Hierarchical Storage – Gallery was built to mimic a photo album, and so photos are stored in a series of nested albums. Photos can show up in multiple spots, but only as links to the original or as replicas, which won’t share any comments.
• Lack of Community – Since you host Gallery yourself, you’re not really part of a community of users. This can go either way, though; I wouldn’t really gain much “community” from Flickr, since few of my friends and family use Flickr, or even know what it is. And do I want random strangers commenting on my photos?

In the end, I simply can’t go with Flickr. Yes they have Dynamic/Relational sets, but I just don’t trust them with my photos. Before, I might have considered it, but with the censorship controversy I’ve been reading about, there is no way I’d entrust my photos to them. I would much prefer to run my own photo gallery and know I have complete control over it, even if it doesn’t do everything I want. This isn’t to say I’ll stay with Gallery2 forever, but at the moment it looks to be the best solution for my needs.

I am constantly amazed at how flexible WordPress is. Little over a year ago, I had only heard of WordPress, but had no real idea what it was. Then my husband started his blog, and I discovered it was like LiveJournal (which I had used for nearly 5 years), only better. Whereas LiveJournal was hosted, and locked you into a limited number of options, with WordPress you could host your own blog, and customize it however you saw fit. With a little CSS and PHP knowledge, you could change the whole look of your blog.

Even if WordPress was only used for blogs, it would still be worthwhile. After all, it’s free, highly customizable, easy to use, and can be hosted at your own domain. But with the large community of WordPress users providing plug-ins, you can use WordPress for more than just a blog. For example, at least 2 of the webcomics I read, Applegeeks and PvP, use WordPress to publish their comics. Using the YAPB plug-in, you can easily convert WordPress into a photoblog, allowing both photo posts and regular text posts. However you want to use WordPress, someone before you has probably already thought of it, and built a plug-in to do what you want. That freedom is what I like about WordPress; no matter what you want to do, you can probably manage it with WordPress.

So, after checking out some camera bags in-person, I’ve learned a few things. First of all, I really need to have a better idea of what all I plan to store in a camera bag, and how I plan to use it. That will give me a better idea of which camera bags to look at, so I can try them on for fit and comfort. Having said that, I did try on some camera bags in the store, to check out the fit.

The Tamrac Velocity 7x may be a decent camera bag for a guy, but I can’t recommend it to any female photographer. The strap goes from the left shoulder to roughly the right armpit; clearly women have a few things in the way, impeding the strap. It also felt rather “flappy” on my back, due to the position of the strap. Of course, it has a waist strap for stability, but that looks like it must be unclipped to rotate the bag around. Overall, it seemed like an ok bag, just not for me.

The Lowepro Slingshot 100 AW had a much better fit, for a sling bag. The shoulder strap goes from the left shoulder to roughly the right hip, so it stayed against my back much better than the Tamrac. It had a stability strap which buckled from the left hip to the main strap, but I thought the bag felt stable enough without the strap. I had a slight issue with one of the features of the Slingshot, though. When spun around to the front, the bag was positioned just under my ribs, to provide a platform for changing lenses or whatnot. It seemed a little high for my tastes, but I may have just had the strap too short. Also, the exterior accessory pouches aren’t as accessible while the bag is on, due to their orientation.

While I was at the camera shop, I also checked out the Lowepro Rezo 160. Yes, it’s a shoulder bag and not a sling bag, but it seemed nice. The top opens away from the body, so you can still access the camera without taking off the bag. It had a fair amount of space, and didn’t seem nearly as “box like” as my old camera bag.

After checking out the store, I can firmly say that I don’t want a Tamrac Velocity. I really like the look and feel of the Lowepro bags, but now I just need to decide which one I like best. The Rezo was easier to get on and off, and looks more traditional. The Slingshot was nice for the sling bag aspects; weight on the back more than shoulder, and the ability to have the bag on your back and out of the way, but quickly accessible. For everyday use, the Rezo would be perfect. However, if I want to bring my camera along on a bike ride, or wear it for long periods of time (like on a vacation), the Slingshot would probably be more comfortable.

Capacity is also going to be a concern. At this point, I don’t really have much gear; the Canon XT with kit lens, a spare CF card, a spare battery, the battery charger, a few filters, lens cleaning supplies and the manual. Obviously I want a bag with a little room to grow, but I don’t want to lug around a huge, unwieldy bag. I figure as far as lenses go, I may eventually get a mid-range zoom, a wide angle lens, a prime lens for portraits, and a macro lens. At some point I’ll probably also see about getting an external flash. Something that could accommodate the gear I have now, while still leaving space for some gear I plan to get eventually, would be great. Obviously, this means I’m going to need to further research the capacities of the camera bags I’m thinking about.

For Christmas, Matt got me a beautiful digital SLR (Canon Digital Rebel XT). It’s really nice, but now I need to get a case for it to keep it safe. Obviously it’s not going to fit in my old camera case – the old Powershot A610 just barely fit in there. I have the case from my old film SLR, but that is still occupied by the Minolta, and it’s not the greatest of cases anyway. I bought that case over 8 years ago, and at the time all I knew was that it had to hold my SLR. Experience has given me a better idea of what to look for in a bag.

For starters, I need a camera bag that is comfortable. The bag for my old film SLR is basically a big, unwieldy box on a strap. Functional, but not terribly comfortable. Also, I’d like to be able to to get the camera out without having to set the bag down to unload it. For that, I’m going to need a sling/messenger style camera bag. Something that I can carry the weight of on my back, but slide around to the front to access the camera.

Second, I want a bag that has a little room to grow. At the moment, I only have the kit lens for my DSLR, but hope to get another lens or two in the future. I don’t want to get a camera bag that is fitted to just the DSLR, because once I get more lenses or an external flash, I’ll have no where to put them. On the flip side, I don’t want to get a massive backpack style bag that I will never fill, as I’m trying to keep the camera bag mostly streamlined.

Those are the two most important criteria. Some of the other things I’m looking for seem fairly standard. For instance, I want the camera bag to be at least vaguely weatherproofed. It doesn’t have to survive a drop in a lake, but if I transport the bag of gear in a mist or light snow, I want the camera to stay dry. I also want a nice little pocket to store my spare memory card and battery pack. Space to stuff a little notepad might be convenient, in case there is anything important I need to remember about photos or locations.

I’ve been checking out some camera bags online, and the two bags that top my list right now are Adorama’s Slinger, and Tamrac’s Velocity series. Lee has a Slinger bag, and it seems to be quite nice – I’ve obviously not pawed through it, but he recommends it highly, and it meets all my criteria. I checked out the Velocity series online, and it looks like it meets all my criteria, but I would obviously want to check one out in person before I made my decision. I had at first considered Crumpler as I had heard that they were nice bags, but they look to be online only, and I find their website to be painfully obnoxious and unhelpful.

Christmas has come and gone, and I figure what better way to celebrate the New Year than by setting some New Years goals. Matt’s post on the matter gave me a little motivation; I figure if I post my resolutions online for all to see, I’ll be a bit more motivated to actually maintain them. And so, without further ado;

#1 – Get in better shape. While I wouldn’t mind slimming down a little, weight loss isn’t really my goal here. During the warmer months, we used to take a weekly 10 mile bike ride. In 2007 we didn’t go nearly as often; the heat, moving into a new apartment, and wedding planning all kind of got in our way. The few trips we did make, though, weren’t even for the full 10 miles, as we hadn’t kept in shape over the winter. My goal is to get back into shape, so that when warmer weather arrives we’ll be able to jump right back into the full 10 mile bike ride. We have the workout area in the clubhouse to use, and Matt’s friend Leonard gave us some exercises we can do without ever leaving the apartment.

#2 – Become a better photographer. Matt got me a fabulous digital SLR for Christmas, and I would love to be able to utilize it to it’s full potential. In order to become a better photographer, though, I need to practice. I was considering doing Project 365 (photo a day, not faces), but as January 1st has already passed, I wouldn’t be able to do it for the entirety of 2008. I could always start it mid-year, and still shoot for a year, just not a calendar year. Shooting a photo a day also brings up the question of what I will do with the photos; Flickr, Gallery2, or something else? For now, though, I’ll just focus on shooting the pictures; what to do with them after that can be a concern for later.

#3 – Finish what I start. I have a nasty habit of starting projects, and then putting them on the back burner, where they languish. I have at least 3 craft projects that were moved to the back burner, where they are for the most part, forgotten. I blame at least part of this on my discovery of feed readers – I spend a lot of time on the internet “catching up” on feeds that I ordinarily wouldn’t have read. What I’m trying to do is allow myself to catch up on my feeds once ( and ONLY once) a day. I may need to prune back the number of feeds I read, in order to make time to actually do things away from the computer.