The future is digital

By Michael Furtman

It seems that either you are in love with digital photography or you are in love with film and reluctant to make the switch.  

I can relate to that reluctance. However, my first experience with digital photography, using a Nikon 880, convinced me that the future is digital. Though “just” a 3.4-megapixel camera, the photos shot at its highest resolution were spectacular. I used several of these photos – printed at full-page size – in my book, Essays and Excerpts. Other photos in the book were scanned at high resolution with a quality 35-mm film scanner from transparency films, and, frankly, the digital images looked better.

Still, point-and-shoot digital cameras leave a lot to be desired. Most important, I believe, is their inability to shoot action sequences at high resolution, as well as the fact that composition takes place in the viewfinder rather than through the lens.

Then along came the Canon EOS D60. Though not strictly a professional camera, many pros are using it. At about two grand, the Canon EOS D60 is truly affordable, considering that film will be an expense of the past. Anyone flinching at $2,000 first should calculate his or her film expenses over the past year. Even purchased in bulk, transparency film with processing runs better than $12 per roll. Shoot 160 rolls of film and you’ve spent more than this camera costs. Yes, compact flash cards are somewhat pricey, but they last indefinitely, and their prices are dropping daily.

What really sold me on the D60 was its ability to shoot a respectable three frames per second in eight-shot bursts, even at the highest resolution setting. I found, in field use, that letting up momentarily on the shutter button after the first eight shots allowed me to almost immediately shoot another eight-shot burst while the internal buffer wrote the first shots to the compact flash card.  

For those concerned about the final resolution of the shot, the D60 can shoot an uncompressed file (RAW), as well as multiple formats of JPEG files. JPEG, for those new to digital photography, compresses the file to varying degrees, depending on the setting you choose. I found virtually no difference in final image quality between a RAW file and a JPEG at the highest setting. Since JPEG files are smaller than RAW files, I get more photos per flash card. For instance, a 256-megabyte flash card will store 98 photos at the largest/finest JPEG setting, compared to 32 for RAW.  

Perhaps digital photography isn't the norm among outdoor writers and photographers yet, but it soon will be. Being able to see the photo (the camera has a small LCD monitor) is a great aid in getting the proper exposure before completing the shoot. My workflow is greatly simplified, since I can download my photos on location to my laptop in the evening and, if not too weary, delete all the fuzzy or poorly exposed shots. No waiting for film to be processed, and no endless hours over a light box or cataloging slides in file cabinets. I burn “keepers” to a CD Rom.

As you can tell, I'm sold on digital photography. I think if you try it, you will be, too.

OWAA member Michael Furtman lives and writes in Duluth, MN. An award-winning book author, free-lance writer and still photographer, he also co-writes and co-stars in the ESPN2 show "Outdoor Ethics." "The future is digital" is a condensed version of a longer piece. 

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Web writing: Understand the medium

By Scott Richmond

If you’re going to write for the Web, you need to understand two simple facts:

• Everything you can do well in print, you can’t do well on the Web.
• Everything you can do well on the Web, you can’t do well in print.

Print offers great control over layout and typography and excellent graphic reproduction, portability and reading pleasure. The Web offers none of these virtues.

Conversely, the Web’s strengths – timeliness, references to backup material, archiving and retrieval and low production and distribution costs – are difficult or impossible to achieve in print.

Writers and webmasters who regard the Web as a low-cost version of print will fail because the two media are so different.

Write to the strengths

Laurie Lee Dovey’s article on Web style [hotlink to last Tech-E article] was on target.

Short paragraphs, bulleted lists, meaningful subheads, straight facts – these are hallmarks of good Web writing, when used appropriately.

Beyond that, Web authors need to write to the medium’s strengths, especially the ability to refer to other material. For example, if your article references a fly pattern, it should include a hotlink to that pattern on the target Web site, if possible. Follow this link to see an example of a fishing report with extensive references. Hotlinks let users choose their own level of detail.

Hotlinks also increase advertising revenue because every Web page brings up a new ad or two. The more pages that are shown, the more opportunity the Web site has to display an individually targeted ad in a prime location.

So before you start writing your piece, understand the context into which it fits and how it can refer to – or be referenced by – other pages on the publisher’s Web site.

Avoid the weaknesses

Poor graphic reproduction is a weakness of the Web. The bigger the photo, the longer the download time. Large, scenic photos pose a dilemma for Web editors: when small, they download quickly but look grainy and cheap; when big, they download slowly, which annoys users and sends them to another Web site.

When possible, stick to close-ups of fish, game, people, etc. With less subject matter, the graphic will reproduce better. Black-and-white line art or simple drawings with just a few colors also download quickly.

Keep the qualities of the medium in mind, and you’ll please your editors as well as your readers.   

An OWAA member since 1993, Scott Richmond hails from West Linn, OR. He edits and publishes westfly.com.

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The light stuff

By Louis Bignami

Outdoor writing requires far too much time working indoors under lights. Thirty-plus years in this business, along with a half-dozen lighting upgrades and office remodels, have shown me that the right lights make a huge difference in eye comfort. Carefully chosen lighting even seems to help that depressing time after hunting season that, in my case, is due to daylight deprivation.

When computer monitors arrived, my wife and I scrapped our fluorescent lights, as their flicker combined with the monitor refresh rate caused unpleasant interference on the screens. Some fluorescents are noisy, too. We also find that “glow” bulbs (used to start seedlings indoors) allow better color slide sorting on our light table than the standard, “blue” fluorescents. 

Incandescent lights, especially those on dimmers, work reasonably well for general overhead lighting, but I find them too hot when used at the desk. Furthermore, their color temperature tends toward the yellow end of the spectrum (most fluorescents run toward the blue end), so you can’t match colors well with either. However, when the power company offered huge rebates on halogen lights, which use less power and last far longer than bulbs, we switched to these for home, office, library and studio lights. Then I discovered something even better.

Now, the system that both reduces my eyestrain and cures my sunlight deficiency depression uses 18-Watt, daylight spectrum halogen lights. I currently run two on my writing desk. Both are cool-running Ott-Lites with both base and clamp-on options. I originally bought them for fly-tying. One has a large, 3X magnifying glass on a long-stem, double gooseneck, rigid arm. The other, a “crane” lamp, uses a standard cable and angled base for positioning. With heads set just below eye level, I have pools of glare-free light on both sides of my workstation.

According to Dr. John Ott, a photobiologist who has worked in the field for four decades, the lights are “specially formulated to eliminate Computer Vision Syndrome.” According to my wife, who grabs my lights for her office when color matching digital photographs to CMYK prints, “My eyes don’t hurt after five or six hours.” 

I began using the Ott-Lites a couple of years ago, and I’m still using the bulbs that came with the lights. Ott makes various desk and floor lamps as well as several Natural Light Supplement bulbs, which fit standard lamps and fixtures, 48-inch fixtures, U-bend and Circline fixtures. These bulbs are an affordable upgrade worth a trial.

Ott recommends its TrueColor lamps when color matching. I suppose that’s my wife’s next purchase, but, for now, I find that the standard bulbs work well enough.  

Lou Bignami's credits include a screenplay, a musical, TV scripts and treatments, 38 books and thousands of articles and columns. He's written full-time since 1969 and says, "I'm dumb enough to write a term paper a day, but that keeps the mortgage banker at bay."

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Organization without anguish

By Emma Hitt

If you’re asked, “What presentation did you cover this morning?” and you struggle to come up with a response, then perhaps, like me, you have a poor short-term memory. I’ve learned to compensate, and perhaps I’m better off than I would be otherwise. My solution is to organize myself so that I hardly have to remember anything.

At any given time, I’m juggling at least 10 different clients. The only way I keep track of my client activity is with an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet has seven columns with the following headings:

• date (when the work was assigned)

• client

• description (for my own reference)

• sent? (“yes” once I’ve sent it)

• invoice (the invoice number when I send the invoice)

• charge (the amount of the invoice)

• amount received (the dollar amount when I receive payment).

I color code the entries by client and try to associate each client with its color. This makes it easier to pick out an entry on the spreadsheet. The Reuters Health entries, for example, are bright red, signifying the urgency of end-of-the-day deadlines. The Urology Times is yellow.

If I have to nag a client for payment, I put first notice, second notice, etc., and the date in the “amount received” column. Nagging begins 30 days after the invoice date and happens approximately every 30 days thereafter. I use the same color system for my filing system as I do for the spreadsheet – Reuters Health has a red folder. This makes it easy to select the right folder from the stack.

If a project will take more than 10 hours, I staple a billing sheet to the client’s folder. On the billing sheet, I put rows of 10 squares. If I estimate that a project will take 40 hours, I insert four rows of squares. Each time I complete an hour of work on the project I put an “X” in the square. If I complete half an hour, I put a diagonal slash (half an “X”).

I keep daily totals of everything I do. One day, I might complete a short piece that pays $250, and I’ll do three hours of work on a longer project for which I’ve estimated my rate at $100 per hour. So the total I enter for the day is $550. Since this figure is on a spreadsheet, it can be easily transformed into weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly averages. That way, I always know where I stand financially.

Each client has a separate file for contracts and check stubs. Every time I receive a payment, I do three things: I file the check stub in the client’s “contract and check stubs” file; I enter the amount of the payment in the “amount received” column of the spreadsheet; and I enter the amount on a separate page of the spreadsheet that lists all received payments. This series of checks and balances is important, because if I forget one of the steps, I always remember to do at least one of the other two. Therefore, I know who has paid me and who has not.

Here are some other suggestions:

• I have an ongoing to-do list at my computer. I separate tasks into high, medium and low priority and try to work my way through the high priority list first.

• I store backup materials for completed projects so that they are loosely organized by date and readily searchable.

• I have a 10-pocket file for conference materials. I assign each conference its own folder and label the folder with the conference name, date and the client(s). I file the folders in order of date. Every time I register, book a flight or hotel room, etc., I make a note in the folder. Any pre-conference materials go in the appropriate folder.

• I have only one calendar for due dates, conferences and appointments, both work and social, so that I don’t double schedule.

• Business receipts are stored in separate files labeled “postage,” “travel,” “office supplies,” etc.

• Each microcassette tape gets its own envelope on which I list the name of the client, the date, the interviewee and the length of the interview. I cross out the entry when I’ve transcribed the interview. When I’ve used up a tape, I seal it in the envelope and store it. The entries serve as a log of what’s on the tape in case I need to go back to it.

Only the fittest of these ideas have survived the test of my laziness. I blame my short-term memory for not remembering where the ideas originated. Most of them sprang up on their own accord, but I can’t claim them all as my own. If you have any questions, please contact me.

Emma Hitt, PhD, is a full-time, free-lance science writer based in Atlanta. Her clients include Medscape/WebMD, Reuters Health, Allure Magazine, Doctor's Guide and others.