XtremeCamera

Friday Roundup, EXIF, Classes, And More

July 18, 2008

Another Friday is upon us, we made it through the week in one piece, and so lets have a round of applause for everyone here. Gas prices, hints of inflation, loss of jobs, all the things that gnaw at us daily is stressful for everyone, but since the weekend begins in a matter of hours, we can, and should, shelf all the worries and enjoy our passions, including Photography.

Here are some of the things we’ve been able to accomplish this week, just to keep you up to date.

EXIF information has been fixed.

EXIF is the information embedded into your photos by both the camera you use and the image editing software you used. The problem was that the module we use was custom written for us back in 2004, when development first began. Since that time much as changed in the digital camera industry and our modules for our camera makers were updated to reflect those changes. But, after a rewrite of the modules, some code tweaks to the EXIF PHP Parser, we’ve been able to get 99% of the information we feel is important to have with each photograph.

Julia will be writing in her blog today why EXIF is vital to XtremeCamera, so stay tuned for that. Her take on the subject is exactly right.

Photography Class – Basic Photography 101

All 20 seats are filled; the first official class is now closed for new registrations. If you’ve sent us a message to sign up we received it and penciled you in. Once we have all the information organized we will send out a message to let you know all the details. Probably mid-next week.

I wanted to mention something about these classes. We did some research on the web to see what others were offering with respect to online classes and I was very surprised to see that many places offer course in the price range of 250-300 dollars. As an XtremeCamera member you’re entitled to receive the course for free, so if you know anyone that would be interested in attending future classes you might want to mention that our yearly membership cost of $49.95 (less than $5 a month) entitles them to attend any of the classes we put together, which will be many as we move forward. We think this is a good selling point for joining.

Changes to the Premium Trial Memberships
We are about to the last major changeover from the recent move to a more educational site than informal photography site. That being the case, the Premium Trial Memberships needed to be changed as well.

Trial Memberships now last 14-days. Two weeks is plenty of time to decide whether someone wants to be a part of what we have here.

Trial members can comment, but they cannot critique (this will go into effect at some point today). It is, in fact, unfair to the Trial member to even ask them to critique. Since they are new, since the wide range of skill sets are inevitable, asking for critiques is something they shouldn’t have to worry about. Certainly commenting on photos is welcome, since this is a great way to meet people, interact with them, and get a feel for the place.

Trial members will still be able to create their homepage, blog to it, create photo albums, and everything else a regular member can do, so the changes are the length and the commitment to critiquing, both excellent changes for XtremeCamera and the new Trial members.

That’s about it for the day. Other Admins will be making announcements throughout the day so stay tuned.

John Manzione