Today was the annual Christmas cookie event of my nieces coming over to make cookies.  I always take photos for them.  This year it was easier than ever.  I used an Eyefi X2 pro in my Canon camera.  That is setup to sync automatically onto my iMac into iPhoto.  Now that Apple has put out iCloud with Photo Stream anything that imports into iPhoto is propagating to my Photo Stream.  Then I can easily show them off to the girls within a few minutes of shooting a photo.

I got the idea to make this great should strap for my camera From PhotoDojo. In essence it is a strap that hangs across your chest that lets your camera hang at your waist allowing you to grab the camera and bring it to your face for quick shots, but also be out of your way when not in use.

I made this strap from 2 straps. I had one wider strap from a free laptop bag I got when I ordered my MacBook pro, and the thinner strap is from an old, and I mean old, camera bag.

The laptop bag strap had great hardware and shoulder pad. I cut off the hardware which was a swivel clip and that allowed me to remove the shoulder pad. The swivel hook’s part that attached to the original strap was wider than the new one which will allow it to slide.

I took the thinner strap, put on the shoulder pad, slid on the clip hook and made the thinner strap one piece with a plastic slip hook. Afterward, I put an eyelet hook on the bottom of my camera in the tripod mount socket. It is a little long, but it works.

Now my camera can hang at my waist and I can pull it up to take a shot without the whole strap moving. You can see an example of how it works here . If you want to order the original you can do so at that link too.

Many of us on Friends In Tech are keen photographers and therefore have decent cameras that are capable of shooting in Raw and JPEG mode and a lot of the cameras are capable of shooting both at the same time.  This has an advantage in that you don’t really need specialized software to edit the JPEG files and the Raw photos are still available for the heavy duty editing that may be required.

However shooting both Raw and JPEG files in the camera slows the writing of files to the media card and also takes up extra space. In my Canon XT camera the jpg files take up an extra 25% of the media space.

By switching to Raw only, you will always have the benefits of the full original file and detail to work from but it makes it harder for quick edits if you need the JPEG formats.

From a hint on Photoshop Insider by Scott Kelby comes a link to the free (registration and email address required) RawWorkFlow.com’s Instant JPEG From Raw utility. The Photoshop Insider link also has some interesting history on the Raw format and a video on how to use Instant Jpeg from Raw too.

Note that the application does not register itself in the start menu or on the desktop – you just select your Raw files, right click and choose the Instant JPEG from Raw menu option.

Try it and let us know what you think.

I didn’t know about this feature either. Flickr Guest Pass:

You can share public photos in your photostream by copying the URL in your browser’s address bar and pasting it an email. Anyone can see your public photos anytime, whether they’re a Flickr member or not.

But! If you want to share private photos with people, use a Guest Pass. You can grant anyone access to the entire contents of one of your sets, including any private photos it contains. A Guest Pass is actually just that URL. This means that whoever sees that URL can access the set and all the photos inside it.

Go to the set you want to share and click the “Share this set” button. Then we’ll help you either send an email to friends via Flickr or make a special web address (URL) that you can share.

You can then expire the pass whenever you want to. I had no idea until I saw it on Daring Fireball tonight. I could see myself using it.

You may or may not be aware, but many FiT members are also photography buffs. As a result, we each put together individual “Best of 2007″ slide shows. These are photographs that were personal favorites of each photographer. We hope you enjoy them.

Kevin Devin’s Best of 2007
Douglas E. Welch’s Best of 2007
Mike McBride’s Best of 2007
Andy Helsby’s Best of 2007
Kreg Steppe’s Best of 2007
Victor Cajiao’s Best of 2007
Larry Pesce’s Best of 2007
George Starcher’s Best of 2007