[hinman]

I just set up my website using Monoslideshow on front page and Simpleviewer for Galleries

HinTheMan Photography

My website is only setup for the 2nd day and it is actually lacks navigation and consistency. Your comments and suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks Pentaxians,
Hin

[dazman]

Looks great, Hin. Nice layout, easy to navigate and of course has some lovely photos. Love the blog too.
Daz

[ftpaddict]

I've also used SimpleViewer for past iterations of my website. It's quite nice and easy to set up. Especially if you've got Picasa.

I'll have to look into that monoslideshow you use. (I need something similar for my front page)

I like the colours and layout of your site. Clean interface; easy to navigate.

[hinman]

Looks great, Hin. Nice layout, easy to navigate and of course has some lovely photos. Love the blog too.
Daz

Thanks for the encouragement. My site is far from finished as I need to work on the common banner to tie in the pages. It is a shame that my pages from various sources in SimpleViewer, Monoslideshow and WordPress theme and I don't know enough to quickly integrate them together for consistency. I will work on it and hopefully bring in my better work into my galleries.

I've also used SimpleViewer for past iterations of my website. It's quite nice and easy to set up. Especially if you've got Picasa.

I'll have to look into that monoslideshow you use. (I need something similar for my front page)

I like the colours and layout of your site. Clean interface; easy to navigate.

Thank you for the kind comments. Yes, I use Picasa with the SimpleViewer template and I export album into HTML, very handy to use in Picasa. You can tell that I am pure amateur not stepping out of my comfort zone in post processing, I still use Picasa for the quick fixes, all pictures posted are edited in Picasa

Picasa Demo - Hin's Tech Corner

The monoslideshow is great but it is not free like the SimpleViewer but I find the price inexpensive for website use -- $19.95. The tool can be automated better as it requires a number of manual steps to get it configured for your own site. It is very unlike the simpleviewer easy integration into Picasa, Lightroom, Photoshop and perhaps others.

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Last edited by hinman; 05-27-2008 at 10:54 AM.

[rparmar]

As always I like your photos and appreciate your blog.

However the whole slideshow pan and scan effect is so Mac, so irritating. Can no-one look at a still image any more? Isn't that the essence of photography?

[hinman]

As always I like your photos and appreciate your blog.

However the whole slideshow pan and scan effect is so Mac, so irritating. Can no-one look at a still image any more? Isn't that the essence of photography?

Thanks for being honest in the comments.

I thought the panning is kind of vivid like a slideshow to debut some pictures and I have no intention to make it a Mac like. The monoslideshow uses flash and it is not a mac specific design. And the galleries currently have two 'simpleviewer' which again uses flash but it does not have the panning.

I may work on having a skin choice in the site to turn the slideshow on/off. I am new to all the website setup and it is still a learning process and I fall short in gluing the pages together with a common look with a navigation.

Again, thanks for the honest feedbacks.
Hin

[StarDust]

Very nice slideshow, sharp images and great angles and use of light.
As a DJ (one of two hobbies, guess what the other is), I just have to comment that those 800's have hardly looked better. Man I feel a DJ equipment buying addiction coming on...

[drabina]

I agree with rparmar. I have a Mac but I do find the moving and panning feature (Ken Burns effect?) annoying. For most of the pictures the area cropped is big and will most likely kill the picture. So turned this feature off on my Mac when people watching my photos started to complain that the heads are cut :-)

[rparmar]

I called this the Mac effect since it is so prevalent in their picture viewer. The only time I saw it used well it was turned down so slow you couldn't tell if the image was moving or if your head was freaking out.

I don't mind a "normal" slideshow where images fade into one another. That does not muck with cropping and framing.

[bigben91682]

I agree with everyone on the "cliche" of the panning shots, looking a bit maccish. I wanted to achieve a similar effect on my webpage, a slideshow on the front page, and I was able to do so using JW image rotator, a similar plug in for picasa. It just runs the slides, no motion, and a nice cross-fade. I've used in on my front page if you want to check it out.

ben martin photography

For galleries I use simpleviewer as well, extensively, and really like it's style and ease of use.

Great pictures BTW

[hinman]

I agree with everyone on the "cliche" of the panning shots, looking a bit maccish. I wanted to achieve a similar effect on my webpage, a slideshow on the front page, and I was able to do so using JW image rotator, a similar plug in for picasa. It just runs the slides, no motion, and a nice cross-fade. I've used in on my front page if you want to check it out.

ben martin photography

For galleries I use simpleviewer as well, extensively, and really like it's style and ease of use.

Great pictures BTW

Thanks for all the inputs and feedbacks. And special thanks to Ben for the pointer for JW image rotator.

Hin

[cheekygeek]

As always I like your photos and appreciate your blog.

However the whole slideshow pan and scan effect is so Mac, so irritating. Can no-one look at a still image any more? Isn't that the essence of photography?

I'm resurrecting this thread because I'd like to comment on this sentiment. (I found a site using monoslideshow and did a Google search... was interested to see a PF thread mentioning it, so here I am).

Ignore for a moment the phrase "so Mac, so irritating" which indicates a strong bias that may be coloring the objectivity of the writer. ("I hate Macs/Apple, this visual technique was used by Apple, so I hate this visual technique.") If that kind of logic appeals to you, fine, but in that case you would probably also expect it to be rational if Andy Warhol haters then also disliked Campbell's soup. It is the next sentence that I found demonstrating a lack of ability to look very far below the surface of something: "Can no one look at a still image anymore?"

First of all, it remains a still image. It is the frame that is moving. Secondly, when looking at a book of still images (or a gallery exhibit of photographs), the viewer can readily see that there are more images in the exhibit or in the book. The viewer is in charge of how long they look at a particular image before they turn the page or move on to the next image. Perhaps rparmar believes that there is a requisite amount of time that a viewer should spend looking at a particular image before he displays a deficiency of some kind, but in any event the viewer understands that there is more to see and at some point moves on.

Now consider for a moment why this particular technique is called the "Ken Burns Effect". Mr. Burns had a unique problem when creating his landmark series on the Civil War. He was making a television program (which viewers normally associate with moving video) but his raw materials were still photographs. I would argue that his solution was innovative and enhanced the photography. The subtle movement kept viewers attention, shifted focus from one part of an image to another, and was an oddly soothing accompaniment to the narration, dialog and music which accompanied the presentation. Rather than detracting from the still photography, I believe that the Ken Burns Effect enhanced it. The main way was by keeping people attention better than a static Powerpoint slide presentation of the photography would.

rparmar's cry might as well be "Can no one look at a tray of slides anymore" or "Can no one look at Black & White anymore"? I would argue that new things do not negate the old and both can exist side by side. Someone who decides to present things in a new and different way should not be painted with a derogatory brush as if they have somehow sullied all that is holy (such as "The Essence of Photography").

I would argue that a photographer presenting images (or a site face) on the web faces a different set of circumstances from a photography book or gallery, but one similar to the one Ken Burns faced when making his Civil War documentary. The visitor to the web page may see an image and not realize that there are more images to follow. And it is a fact that web "attention spans" are click-happily short. If you want a visitor to stay and explore, you must do something to engage them. Certainly the "Ken Burns Effect" is not the only way, but I think it would be a stretch to say that the effect destroys the essence of photography (in any way).

I personally do not approve of sites that automatically start playing sound (not nice for people who may be perusing your site at work and be startled when music starts coming out their computer speakers, for just one example). However, I do think that the monoslideshow effect is well-used on this photographer's site:
Vision & Imagination » Garry Schlatter Photography (automatically playing sound warning).

If you don't care for the effect when visiting a web site that uses it, you can also choose to "turn the page". But I think it has a similar effect for web sites as it did for Mr. Burns' documentary. It engages, sooths and enhances (not detracts) from the presentation of the still photography. (Your mileage may vary).

[Optical Illusion]

This may be kind of off topic, but I actually LIKE the way Mac's present slide shows... (It looks like some of you don't care for it much...).

Is there any freeware out there that emulates this? (Not web-based hosting, but a program you can download.)

[cheekygeek]

Not sure if it is freeware or not but, from the "Ken Burns Effect" wikipedia page:

Windows PCs can use Gregg Stitt's "MotionPicture" and Gregg Tavares's "Nostalgic", among others. The effect can also be seen in the N73 smartphone by Nokia, applied to the slideshows the phone creates from the pictures stored in it.[8] Many seventh-generation video game consoles also feature versions of this effect, including Nintendo's Wii Photo Channel, Sony's PlayStation 3 and within the Last.fm app for Xbox360.

See also: hollmen.dk - Ken Burns Effect - The free way