Power of Online Photo Events-RIT Reunion

I was just running the numbers on how wildly popular my web site for the RIT Reunion Photos was this year. We create a custom web site for the event and upload to it live all weekend. Here are some of the numbers.

So you understand… we have two things:
The Reunion Photo Site that people visited first as the home page, then the Photo Galleries themselves (on another site).

(photo by Natalie Best… see web site linked below)

And the photo gallery site stats are pretty impressive:
A total of almost 322,000 photos from the event were viewed.

What was most popular (rounded)?

107,000 President’s Ball Candids
62,600 Ball Couples & Elvis with Couples
52,000 Campus Receptions & PM Candids
48,000 Hockey Event & Receptions
29,000 Athletic Reunions

It’s hard to quantify just how huge this event was… But on just one day the Reunion Photo Site  served 1.22 Gigabytes of material.

This is the main photo site, not including the photo galleries with the big photos… but just the small stuff on the home page of the photo site.

That’s 15 times the volume that people normally see on my entire, main photo site in a day.

The photo galleries served 27.2 Gigs of photos total since they were put up.

Where did they come from?
1700 came from RIT.edu
400 from Facebook: This is the big news.

I can’t promise those were all RIT people… but Facebook didn’t even show up on my incoming links list last month… so I’d guess it’s mostly RIT.
The rest would have been directly coming to the site via the cards we gave out and notes in our slideshow at the Ball, etc.

So I’ve got to say, I’m really excited about the impact of our HuthPhoto Web Event. And the web site stays up for at least a year, continuing to be viewed by visitors. I’ve even see some of our web slide shows from events googling higher than the client’s official web site. What a great way to promote next year’s event, by using the previous year’s photo galleries, web site or slide show.

Thanks to everyone involved in making this happen!
Rob Grow and Kelly Redder @ RIT Alumni have given me free reign over the past 5 years to create this idea.
Peggy Glitch, Rachel Pikus and the other staff work to get it all linked up and promoted to Alumni.

Bob Finnerty at RIT News Services gives us massive play with a prominent link to the photos on the main RIT homepage (this is *critical* by the way, if you do this for your events!)

And my amazing photo team that helped cover over 17 events for 4 days:

Brady Dillsworth
Natalie Best
Richard Baker

Tips for a Young Photographer:Camera Settings, etc

I work with some ‘young’ photographers… some young in years, some just new to professional shooting. Here are some tips I just sent to someone to improve her skill set and to really get great shots at an event she is covering for me next week.

Shutter Speeds:

Try to get in close and experiment with shutter speeds: Faster to cut the effects of ugly florescent bleeding into your nice flash color (say 1/200th or 1/250th of a second)… to dragging the shutter a bit if they are in dimmer light with nice light behind them (say 1/30 or 1/15th of a second). That would be the Shutter Priority on your D200.

Ummm… check the display dude… better shoot a few more frames!

• Lots of Frames:
If you can do the playground, just shoot multiple frames of everything… A series for me is never less than 3 frames, and usually 6-8 frames… sometimes 20 frames as I watch a situation develop… looking for the right moment.

• Control the situation:
Don’t be shy to ask kids to look at you and smile for some.

And look for reflectors in the shot! Well, this is from a series of 32 images… I’ll find a good one.

• Camera Feedback:
Chimp and check your exposure and focus…

• Pre-check and Test:
Pre-check all of your settings to be sure they are decent… Test it once you get the camera out to be prepared. Test it at home the day before an event to be sure you instantly know where all of the buttons are, how each setting affects the image, etc.

• Bracket:
Take a few shots with different settings in the series. Use the feedback you get from chimping (checking the display… we look like chimps doing it…) to tweak the flash power or exposure… I’m always changing my + – settings on flash or ambient exposure (when not doing flash). To really nail the exposure.

Even with the color manually set to Florescent… it’s too Magenta. I’d tweak this manually to add some Green and maybe Yellow.

• Color:
Always set your color manually… I use cloudy for the average outside shot (sunny is too blue still). And Flash for flash shots. Auto color is awful on every camera I’ve ever touched or read about. Even with Flash, I think it must vary the Flash color to take into account a bit of the ambient color around the subject… giving poor color on the subject… Yuck.

For bonus points:
when you are in a consistent setting, tweak the color even more with your menus. Often I’m adding or subtracting a bit of yellow and in florescent lighting, I’m always set on the florescent tube setting, then adjusting it more or less Magenta… and sometimes more or less warm/Yellow.

• Image Quality Settings:
Shoot Jpeg Fine files. A normal file for me is like 1.2—1.8 megs.

• ISO Speed/Flash:
ISO around 400-500 is usually good for indoor flash, maybe down to 200 if you are in close and/or are trying to have your flash overpower some strong ambient light like tons of florescent or sodium vapor.

• Depth of Field:
Keep an eye on your focus and depth of field (how far in front and back of the subject is in focus). Focus on the nearest subject, or part of the subject you want in focus… Depth of Field is narrower in front of the subject, so if you back focus, you are pretty much assured of soft front subjects… if you focus on the front subjects (like in a group with a front and back row), you have a fair amount of focus *behind* the front subject to hold focus on the back row. And even if they are a tad soft, the perception is of a fairly sharp image with the front subjects tack sharp.

• Fast Fast Fast:
The only thing is to practice doing this over and over (and at home, at parties, on simple shoots… doing much more than is needed) to be able to in 10 seconds, get 3 fast shots, with chimping on one of them and tweaking the exposure, angle of the flash, watching the background, etc… Fast fast fast, so people don’t mind your standing there.

• Batteries:
Invest in a few sets of NiMH batteries around 2700-2900 miliamps. I’ve been happy with a set of Duracells I got recently, but that power level is cutting edge, so it’s been hit or miss on what brand is good. These batteries are so good now that I bagged using a Quantum Turbo pack (and my turbo was frying a flash every year from the power/overly fast recycle time). You should easily get 2-3 shots off with almost instant recycle with good batteries. And I rarely need more than 1 or 2 sets in a day of heavy shooting.

• Cats:
Get a cat. They are warm and make you feel better after goofing up all of the above

Unless you disturb their repose
(Cat photos by Colin Huth)

Young Fun in Rochester

This is totally off topic… but hey, it’s MY BLOG, right

A friend from my hometown is sending his son up to Rochester for a hockey game and wondered what 18-23 year olds could do in Rochester. So I, the old guy, left it up to my #1 Assistant pal (20 something) Natalie. Here’s what she said and some of my thoughts, directions and few other ideas tacked on. Also, this is around Halloween 2009, so some of the events will be dated if you are seeing this later. Deal with it.

(Any of these things you could google to find, or tell a cabbie… they are very well known and I’m adding the road name where I can)


OK, word is in from my young assistant Natalie:
If they are in the Halloween spirit there are a lot of great Halloween things going on this weekend like the Haunted Manor in South Town Plaza (Jefferson Road in Henrietta)- They have three haunted houses and a few other “halloween/spooky” events.

Also, Brown’s Berry Patch has apple picking and things like that, I did that this weekend and it was pretty fun. (Ken Note: I’m really glad Natalie mentioned this… I’d feel old and uncool doing it, but some of the apple picking things around here are cool… and there’s the corn mazes and if you have time to travel a bit, Letchworth State park is fantastic. Really a destination for photos, walking or this time of year with the leaves turning for Fall.)



The George Eastman House has a new exhibit. (Ken note… look, I know this is geeky, but it is sort of a cool place. It’s a total 1900’s mansion and they have photo shows up and camera stuff. A place to eat, etc. GEH is close to Fisher area too, it’s on East Avenue)

Garbage Plates from Nick Tahous (which got renamed to Stevie T’s) is a must. (ya, this and the Dinosaur BBQ are to totally great hometown places for food. Nick’s is in a tough neighborhood, right off main street…. but the garbage plate is total guy food. Dino is right downtown, like Canal street and one of the best BBQ places I’ve ever been to. Bikers hang out there too, which gives it some cred

RIT:
Always something going on at RIT. Top class hockey team. My school Even just checking out the campus is fun… they have a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, a great coffee shop, etc