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Greyhound

They did it!

I was just having a conversation about the state of films and how everything needs a crazy exposition or twists and turns.

I've been beating the drum that we need 'sometimes' to be given a bare bones story. "Here's the plot laid out in the first few minutes... character x needs to accomplish y. Go!"

Audience now on edge of seat/couch glued to screen to see if character can pull it off.

Done.

This Tom Hanks character is a first time captain charged with escorting a convoy. Guard it against u-boats across the Atlantic to supply the war effort. Will he succeed?

Bravo! You did Apple! Tight one act story full of action!

Did Some Great Waterfall Chasing

 Managed to put on some miles this past weekend.  My foray into the USA since the pandemic, then north of Thunder Bay to Terrace Bay.   For more:  @thunderbaylandscapes on Instagram,  of ThunderBayLandScapes on Facebook 

City Of Thunder Bay Bus Art

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Best Free Recording Software for your Kitchen Studio - Protools First with Mbox 2 Mini

So finally after a few years of pushing Protools 8 on an older Windows 7 computer with an Mbox2 Mini, I made the jump to Protools First.   I had tried casually a few times last year to see if I could use 'First' but ran up against problems with legacy drivers for Mbox. 

I just wrapped up production on my latest project (https://cosmicseam.bandcamp.com) and really noticed my trusty PT 8 wasn't cutting the mustard.   The production sounded good, but I finally decided now was the time.  I debated whether buying new hardware and interface would be the best solution, but it came with a price tag I just can't afford.  I am after all just a 'kitchen studio' writing and recording songs for the pure love of it.

Free 99.99 was the goal and last night I succeeded!  So the Achilles heal to this is the driver for the Mbox.  If you're not careful you will BSOD your Windows 10.  I'm currently on 2004.  I did a scratch install of Protools First on a laptop with Windows 10 1903 and it worked and the Windows Update surprisingly found the driver.   However on a anything newer than 1903 there's a major issue with the driver. 

So "robertomurta" in the Avid forums found a work around to install a specific driver set with instructions here: https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?p=2595552  

Prior to finding this gem of a resource I managed to Blue Screen my newer PC 2x.   Luckily I had created restore points prior to installing and was able to recover both times. 

So a night of installing to my 'better' Windows 10 PC and I managed to fully jump from Protools 8 to Protools First.   My first impressions on First is so far are really good.   It's free 99.99!  The new Expand 2 plugin samples are sounding awesome!  I managed to get my old Radium 49 Keystation working flawlessly.   The only thing missing from First is the Eleven Rack guitar amp simulators.  But those weren't great in the old version, so using an Orange Micro with the headphone out seems to work nicely to give my guitar tracks a better sounding guitar amp.

 

Get That Kodak/Fuji Film Look Within Your Nikon Camera Using Picture Control Editor

I was tired of spending time in Lightroom post processing my images to look like ‘film’. I spent a lot of time creating a preset in Lightroom to try and make my photos look like National Geographic . On a side note when I was a child we had a subscription to NG and I’m sure that had some impact on me and why I like photography so much. But I digress. 

It felt like work after spending hours in nature shooting then coming home to the daunting task of culling, then processing all my photos that were shot in RAW.

I was in the deep end of thinking I had to shoot RAW to get the best amount of data in my file rather than a pleasing picture. I subscribed to the ‘make it the best after you shoot’ method. This literally would take hours of touching up and tweaking in Lightroom. 

I found some articles and forum posts that led me to: https://nikonpc.com/ - a site that someone created and uploaded Nikon profiles that mimic all our favorite film stocks.

You simply browse the examples and download the ones you want to try. Copy the file to your SD card then load it into your camera. VOILA! Film stock settings that manipulate the color definitions, contrast sharpness etc. 

 Now you have more options besides (vivid, portrait etc) in your camera.

It shoots only JPG with these profiles – but I think that’s a positive as it saves space. 

The other great thing as well is with the newer Nikons (like my D5600) is SNAPBRIDGE. Snapbridge  now allows me to connect to my camera to my phone and grab a copy of the pictures which I can then easily put into Instagram and Facebook. I think for this point in time I’ve learned what I can from Lightroom and I just want to spend more time shooting and less time editing. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments. Hope this helps those film enthusiasts that shoot digital! Don't forget - you can now order my prints or canvas at my store: https://adamsabaz.darkroom.tech

Ice Skating on a Frozen Pond

Learning some lessons from my first use of my new camera stabilizer, I made some corrections to my setup and took the ice with my kids skating outside.  The park we skated at is a very scenic spot surrounded by mature trees and monuments.    I swapped out my Tamron with my less heavy kit lens, went full manual and well, I think it went pretty good!   Still have to tweak and nail down exposure via shutter settings but overall I'm very pleased with this little project.