Welcome to The Digital Photography Podcast #34 for Monday July 23rd ... Hell Week.

On episode 28 I told you all about the sale of my company and I warned you that my podcasting schedule would be a little random for a while till all this business is completed. Well, it's almost over, this is hell week ... the new owner of the company is coming this Wednesday to move all the machinery tools and materials to the New York shop. As this was not enough to deal with I decided to sell my airplane too and now I'm coordinating with the new owner to get it trucked up to Canada.

So, all this drama is coming to a close next week and I'm looking forward to getting back to a once a week podcasting schedule ... or perhaps even more frequent than that.

This episode will be a bit short but I have a few topics to get to.

ISO Safety Shift

First off, I've been hesitant to discuss my Canon EOS 1D Mark III on this show for two reasons .. one, I have another podcast devoted exclusively to that camera and secondly I did not want to devote too much time to discussing a camera that appeals exclusively to professional shutter-bugs, more specifically sports shooters. But recently I've gotten a few emails from listeners saying that they wanted to hear more about this camera.

So tonight I wanted to tell you about a feature on the camera that I've fell in love with. It's called ISO Safety Shift. What this feature does is make underexposed images nearly a thing of the past. How it works is this: Say you are shooting a sporting event or any other event with lots of action ... you set your camera to Shutter Priority mode (Tv or Time Value) and set your shutter speed to 1/1000th or 1/2000th of a second or whatever you want.

In the Shutter Priority mode the camera will adjust the Aperture as necessary to properly expose the image ... but what happens if you have a slow lens like a f/5.6 and the camera opens the aperture to 5.6 and still can't get enough light to properly expose the image .... normally in this case you would end up with an underexposed image or you would have to adjust the ISO up until you have a properly exposed image ... by this time you've probably missed the shot.

ISO Safety Shift AUTOMATICALLY adjusts the ISO up as necessary to get a properly exposed image after it's done all it can with the aperture.

With a camera like the 1D Mark III that is capable of ISO settings up to 6400 with minimal noise, letting the camera adjust the ISO up a bit when necessary is a no-brainer. I've turned this feature on and I'll leave it on forever I'm sure.

Photo Assignment - Firetruck

There are currently about a billion forest fires burning in the USA .. I think it's time we honor our local fire departments.

Your assignment is to get a shot of a fire truck. But wait, there's more. I'd like you to step out of your comfort zone and approach the firemen (and firewomen) in your local station and see if you can them to pose for you in front of their rig.

By the way, I'll also accept fireboats and fire helicopters.

So, get out there and get some shots. You may even want to offer the station copies of your photos ... I bet they'd like that.

Post your images to our flickr group

Call for show ideas

Nikon camera tips, tricks, reviews, etc... In text or audio format. Maybe the D40x

Send the ideas and reviews to me via email using the "email me" link at www.allensphotoblog.com