Author

Sean Chin

Photography, Technology

MindShift Rotation180 Announcement

Ladies and Gents, I am so thrilled to tell you all that I got a great email yesterday from my good friends at ThinkTank Photo. Many of you know that I absolutely LOVE the camera bags ThinkTank makes, especially the Harddrive StreetWalker which I use for travels and the Retrospective 30 for street photography. However, the creators of ThinkTank have not ditched this amazing company, but have formed a new one called MindShift Gear which is targeting the professional outdoor photographers.

” The rotation180° professional backpack brings camera access to a new level.  Its rotating waist pack allows nature and adventure photographers to maintain creative momentum by offering immediate access to primary photo equipment in even the most precarious situations without having to take off the pack, sling it over one shoulder, or even stop hiking.”

Please support the MindShift Rotation180 Kickstarter campaign!

If you are an outdoors or wildlife photographer, I strongly urge you to watch the product demonstration video on the Kickstarter page.

While a fantastic product that I am excited for, I have some of my own suggestions. I’d like to see the option to have the rotating beltpack to come out from the left side of my body when on my back. Why? Because I tend to have my camera on a BlackRapid strap RS-7 (or alternative) for quick hand access on my right side (I am right handed like most). I can see some fumbling if both my camera and the beltpack are to come from the same side of me.

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2012/12/04
1581
Inspirational, Photography

Steve McCurry and Pirelli Calendar

Steve McCurry is without a doubt one of my (if not the top) biggest inspirations in the photography world. He is primarily known for his work with National Geographic which he took the everlasting cover shot called “The Afghan Girl” in 1985. Since then, he’s been awarded many international prizes and also took some breath taking photos of 9/11.

Last year, he was asked to create the 2013 Pirelli calendar in the stunning Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (I will be traveling here early 2013!). Traditionally, Pirelli is known for it’s nude photos but Steve decided to break away from that and instead concentrate on featuring strong activist women who also happen to be very beautiful inside and out. I strongly urge you to watch the video embedded. Steve also doesn’t necessarily need to use the latest of photographic technology either as he is seen wielding the Nikon D3X, D2X and Hassleblad too.

Take care! I will be posting more info on my next big adventure as well as updates on my portfolio gallery!

2012/12/02
1569
Technology

Server Upgrade

OK. Just wanted everyone to know that after many happy years with Bluehost, I’ve decided that it was finally time to move this blog and some of my other major projects Live in Limbo and Voice of Valeri over to a faster Virtual Private Server (VPS) at Knownhost. I actually learned quite a bit about web servers and other technical details about the migration process. Both very intriguing and exhausting at the same time.

I have nothing but high praise for Bluehost, there is nothing wrong with them at all. I’ve always been able to contact them direct 24/7 and have any issues I had fixed pretty swiftly. So why did I move away from them? Well, Bluehost is a “shared-host” in that on one server, they host hundreds of other clients websites and databases with a shared IP address. My larger websites like Live in Limbo have been starting to get much higher traffic and a lot of CPU throttling issues have been plaguing the performance of the site.

Enter VPS, I get a dedicated IP address which helps greatly for SEO and web presence. I also get a guaranteed amount of RAM from my server which results in much better loading speedings and consistency in performance. In the world of VPS, there are different managed types including unmanaged, managed and hybrids. Knownhost is a fully managed VPS service, so I still get around the clock technical support from experts and management systems like cPanel.

Earlier this week, I went ahead and purchased the VS-2 package from Knownhost which includes 960MB of RAM, 40GB of RAID-10 disk space and 2.5TB of bandwidth. This is pretty competitive in my opinion when compared to others such as WiredTree and LiquidWeb. These guys were super helpful, especially Dan and Paul who escalated my concerns and successfully migrated all of my websites’ data and files over to their servers. So far I am extremely happy with their support and strongly recommend them for anyones hosting needs.

Update: The VPS-2 package has since been generously upgraded to 1024MB Guaranteed RAM, 50GB RAID-10 Disk Space, 2x Priority 8+ CPUs, and 2500 GB Premium Bandwidth, at no extra cost to me.

 

2012/11/25
1741
film, Inspirational

My Top 10 Fav Films (as of June 17,2012)

1. Shawshank Redemption (1994)

2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

3. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

4. Blade Runner (1982)

5. Alien (1979)

6. Contact (1997)

7. The Village (2004)

8. Sunshine (2007)

9. The Time Machine (2002)

10. Lady in the Water (2006)

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2012/06/17
1754
Close