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| Awaiting warmer weather. Tyler's Beach, Isle of Wight County, Virginia (click to enlarge) Fujifilm X-T4; 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 40mm; 1/640th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 160 |
It is the end of 2020 (Good Riddance!) and there are several things I do at this time of year that you might find helpful to ensure that you and your gear are ready for next year. These are my suggestions as to a few things you may want to check and consider as the new year arrives. You may have other things you do as well. If so, share them with us in the comments so we all can benefit.
1) Pull out all of your gear, make an inventory of it in case of loss or theft, check it for good working order and clean everything thoroughly. Examine each lens and look for any debris or fungus that may be attached to one of the internal glass elements. If your lenses will allow, move the aperture blades and check for any excess oil on the blades. If you feel comfortable doing so, clean you camera's sensor. However, make sure you have the knowledge and right tools to do so safely. If you have any reservations about cleaning your sensor, send it to the manufacturer or a certified independent repair facility. They will clean your sensor and check all functions and make sure everything meets factory specifications.
2) There might have been firmware updates for your cameras and/or lenses that you missed. It is a good time to complete those updates so you now have the latest and greatest functionality.
4) If you store data or images long term on solid state memory devices such as SD cards, thumb drives or SSD drives, you may want to insert each one into a device to be electronically read as, with time, data erodes in solid state memory. By putting them in a device, this in effect recharges them to give you more years without degradation of data on the cards.
5) Check and reset the internal clocks in all of your cameras to synchronize them. I have found clocks on my digital cameras notoriously inaccurate, losing or gaining quite a bit of time over the period of a year. If you use more than one camera when out photographing and want to keep your images in the order in which they were taken, time wise, in Lightroom or another editing program, it makes it much easier if your clocks in your cameras are synchronized.
6) At this point, I also check my camera's settings and reset them to my default so the next time I pick it up, in my mind I know exactly how it is set. Changing settings for a particular circumstance under pressure then becomes a bit easier.
7) If your camera has the ability to program a group of settings, usually designated C1, C2, C3, etc., you may want to review those to make any changes to reflect your changing photographic genre or changing preferences you might have. Also, checking them now ensures that they haven't been accidentally changed or unknowingly reset after a firmware update. Olympus now provides an option to allow changes in custom settings to be ‘sticky.’ By that, for example, if you have your camera set for custom setting C1 and decide to change the base aperture, that change will stay in effect. Previously, each time your camera went to sleep or was turned off, the new change would be nullified.
8) Change the copyright settings in your cameras if your cameras allow you to include copyright metadata and you use a specific year. I do. In all of my cameras I include the copyright symbol (©), the year and my name. I then make sure that the information is "enabled" or "attached" to each image file as they are created. Many cameras allow you to create a copyright but you also have to enable it or "attach" it in a different menu item.
9) Change your import metadata settings in Lightroom or your other editing software. For all of my imports into Lightroom, I include my name, address, website, email, telephone number and the year with the copyright symbol (©) so the information is baked into each file's metadata upon importation. I then no longer have to worry about whether or not my images can be identified. Since I include the year an image was made, I go in on January 1st and update that import preset with the new year. I also create a new export preset to reflect the new year. That way, I can include the date and copyright into the title of each photo I send to this blog, Instagram or otherwise publish. There then will be no question who is the owner and the image is copyright protected.
10) It is also a great time of the year to thoroughly check your computer, run a complete virus scan, clean the registry of obsolete items, clean the trash/recycle bin of items, optimize or defragment your hard drives, etc. I hope you regularly back up all of your images and documents with at least two copies including one of those copies kept off-site. If you don't now is a great time to do that as well.
11) Do an analysis of your photography for 2020. How many images did you make? Did you accomplish what you set out to accomplish? Did you produce the images you wanted to produce? Where do you need to improve? What focal lengths did you use most? What apertures? What shutter speeds? Has your vision changed, say, from wide angle to telephoto? Was your gear adequate? Ask yourself those types of questions so you can get a feel for what you have done to help you figure out what you may want or need to do in the future.
12) Lastly, but something I think is important, take some time to thoroughly think through what you want to accomplish photographically for 2021. What is it that you want to photograph, where do you want to go, what new techniques do you want to learn, etc? Set some photographic goals for yourself. Have you been meaning to start a new project or complete an old one? Now is the time to make plans and create a road map on how to accomplish your goals.
5) Check and reset the internal clocks in all of your cameras to synchronize them. I have found clocks on my digital cameras notoriously inaccurate, losing or gaining quite a bit of time over the period of a year. If you use more than one camera when out photographing and want to keep your images in the order in which they were taken, time wise, in Lightroom or another editing program, it makes it much easier if your clocks in your cameras are synchronized.
6) At this point, I also check my camera's settings and reset them to my default so the next time I pick it up, in my mind I know exactly how it is set. Changing settings for a particular circumstance under pressure then becomes a bit easier.
7) If your camera has the ability to program a group of settings, usually designated C1, C2, C3, etc., you may want to review those to make any changes to reflect your changing photographic genre or changing preferences you might have. Also, checking them now ensures that they haven't been accidentally changed or unknowingly reset after a firmware update. Olympus now provides an option to allow changes in custom settings to be ‘sticky.’ By that, for example, if you have your camera set for custom setting C1 and decide to change the base aperture, that change will stay in effect. Previously, each time your camera went to sleep or was turned off, the new change would be nullified.
8) Change the copyright settings in your cameras if your cameras allow you to include copyright metadata and you use a specific year. I do. In all of my cameras I include the copyright symbol (©), the year and my name. I then make sure that the information is "enabled" or "attached" to each image file as they are created. Many cameras allow you to create a copyright but you also have to enable it or "attach" it in a different menu item.
9) Change your import metadata settings in Lightroom or your other editing software. For all of my imports into Lightroom, I include my name, address, website, email, telephone number and the year with the copyright symbol (©) so the information is baked into each file's metadata upon importation. I then no longer have to worry about whether or not my images can be identified. Since I include the year an image was made, I go in on January 1st and update that import preset with the new year. I also create a new export preset to reflect the new year. That way, I can include the date and copyright into the title of each photo I send to this blog, Instagram or otherwise publish. There then will be no question who is the owner and the image is copyright protected.
10) It is also a great time of the year to thoroughly check your computer, run a complete virus scan, clean the registry of obsolete items, clean the trash/recycle bin of items, optimize or defragment your hard drives, etc. I hope you regularly back up all of your images and documents with at least two copies including one of those copies kept off-site. If you don't now is a great time to do that as well.
11) Do an analysis of your photography for 2020. How many images did you make? Did you accomplish what you set out to accomplish? Did you produce the images you wanted to produce? Where do you need to improve? What focal lengths did you use most? What apertures? What shutter speeds? Has your vision changed, say, from wide angle to telephoto? Was your gear adequate? Ask yourself those types of questions so you can get a feel for what you have done to help you figure out what you may want or need to do in the future.
12) Lastly, but something I think is important, take some time to thoroughly think through what you want to accomplish photographically for 2021. What is it that you want to photograph, where do you want to go, what new techniques do you want to learn, etc? Set some photographic goals for yourself. Have you been meaning to start a new project or complete an old one? Now is the time to make plans and create a road map on how to accomplish your goals.
13) You may want to make a list of what gear you may need and don't already own to accomplish your photographic goals. You can save a bit of money if you know what you will need and wait until that gear is on sale. Most of the time different manufacturers put their gear on sale the same months year after year. That is when I buy mine. You may also have gear that you no longer use or want and it may be time to consider selling some of that. There are several reputable businesses where you can sell it outright if you don’t want to sell through the major auction sites or other online venues.
14) Just one more. Do everything you can to have fun with your photography next year. That may be my most important suggestion. If you aren't having fun with your photography, then you are doing something wrong.
If you have additional suggestions for things to do at the end of each year that can be helpful to others, please leave a comment so we all can benefit.
To each of you I hope 2021 is your best photography year ever! In any case, next year has to be better than the year we've just experienced.
14) Just one more. Do everything you can to have fun with your photography next year. That may be my most important suggestion. If you aren't having fun with your photography, then you are doing something wrong.
If you have additional suggestions for things to do at the end of each year that can be helpful to others, please leave a comment so we all can benefit.
To each of you I hope 2021 is your best photography year ever! In any case, next year has to be better than the year we've just experienced.
Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay positive but test negative!
Join me over at my website, www.dennismook.com.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
All content on this blog is © 2013-2020 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.
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