Its nice to see they care enough to not just let Flickr wither and die. Problem is they are using poison instead of water. This is not going to bring new users to Flickr, it is going to drive away existing users. The Help forum is full of people announcing they are deleting their accounts. Flickr was about community. Now its just a photo viewer.

Flickr’s layout was simple and clean but functional. This design is simple, but it has lost the functionality and clean look. Not everyone wants edge to edge photos or they would be posting on Pinterest or Google+ instead of here already. Instead of Favorite, Add to Group, etc. up at the top of your screen, they are in the lower right with all the group and set stuff hidden behind the confusing [...] menu. Comments, descriptions, and who’s photos you are looking at aren’t visible until you scroll down. Photo descriptions are gone from our front page, even titles only appear when you hover the mouse on a photo. Our sets are virtually useless now since they are not displayed on the main page where people might actually see them.

Comments are a big part of what makes Flickr a community. Now if you even go to the photo page, you must scroll down to see them. And if there are a bunch of comments, Flickr collapses all but the most recent four comments. I frequently post alternate views in the comments on my own photos, now they would be hidden as soon as four more people comment. I know many other people do the same. Hiding comments is no way to have a conversation with your friends and viewers. Having such large photos everywhere means people don’t need to click to see them anymore. I have always left my front page photos small to make visitors click if they want to get a good look. Now they can just click favorite from the main page and move on. I bet the percentage of commenting goes down significantly. That destroys the value of being on Flickr.

It used to cost $25 to get a Pro account where we actually had some benefits. Now it will cost $50 to be Ad Free and no other benefit. That is insane. They would never get enough ad based income from a user in one year to equal that. Most ad networks pay based on clicks, not views. They just want to push everyone off the paid plans. The loss of unlimited storage doesn’t bother me. 1 TB of photos is plenty of space, even if you were posting 10 MB photos (my 16 megapixel DSLR JPEGs are around 4mb) that would be 100,000 photos. That is basically unlimited unless you are uploading every photo you shoot. And charging $500 for 2 TB, lmfao. But they have said nothing about the other limits Free accounts have always had. Or whether Stats will even exist in the new plans. My guess is they won’t. It would save Yahoo a lot of money not having to process all those Stats. If Stats doesn’t go away, no way they are going to give Stats to free users. They need some way to narrow down who they have to process stats for so they don’t overwork their servers.

I am glad I am not as hooked on Flickr as I used to be. I would be a lot more upset. I am sure they will get some of the annoying stuff improved, but the Flickr we all cared about is dead. They don’t want photographers or quality photos anymore, they just want ad views. I don’t have plans to quit Flickr right now, but if I do, I wouldn’t delete my account. No matter how bad the layout gets, at least we have a history of all those past comments and discussions on our streams.

Here is an interesting quote by Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo:

” … was a decision that we would not have the Flickr Pro piece anymore, and that all – there’s no such thing as Flickr Pro, because today, with cameras as pervasive as they are, there is no such thing really as professional photographers, when there’s everything is professional photographers. Certainly there is varying levels of skills, but we didn’t want to have a Flickr Pro anymore, we wanted everyone to have professional quality photos, space, and sharing.”

I am not a professional photographer, but there are certainly differences in website needs between snapshooters dumping their memory card to Flickr and people who spend hours perfecting a few photos in camera and in software before posting them.

Here are the two new lanterns I ordered and the Spirit Halloween one. Based on the pictures, I was expecting two different shapes and colors, but I guess “actual products may vary.”
Old Lantern (Battery Operated) Item 138511 or N0173 by Seasons USA Inc.
Haunted Lantern – Battery Operated w/Sound Item 181774 or 19668 by Seasons USA Inc.
Bloody Rustic Lantern Item 01001189 from Spirit Halloween

Here are all three lit up to compare their brightness.

And here is what I thought the Old Lantern looked like. If anyone finds one with the longer glass like this, let me know. I like the style.

I don’t really like products with sound because they are usually stupid, but in that case I just disconnect the speaker. The Haunted Lantern is mostly screams, wind, thunder, and what might be crackling noise from a wood burning fire (which is incorrect for a lantern). Not sure if I will disable the sound on this one or not. The flame and sound are motion activated and it is dim compared to the other lanterns so it may go unnoticed without the sound. I use my stuff outdoors and its dark so motion sensors rarely work for me. Not sure what I am going to do about that. Luckily it comes with a try me button that I might be able to extend the cable and trigger it manually. I would not recommend the one with sound unless you are using it in an area with enough light to set off a motion sensor and you like stuff with sound.

Other than the blood spatter, I like the paint job on the Spirit Halloween one, but all three are very similarly antiqued and the difference could be all up to who slaps the paint on during production. All three open just like a real oil lantern would, but the LED bulb is glued in place. On the two non LED lanterns, you can change the bulb if it burns out by opening it as if you were cleaning a real oil lantern. For my needs, the plain cheap one is the best at only $9 from Halloween24.com.

These antique style Halloween lanterns appear very similar to the Deitz #76 Original Cold Blast Lantern. Though its slightly smaller, you can buy the real oil burning one for $17 in red, blue, or green. Of course, for safety purposes a battery powered one is much prefered for Halloween. Deitz makes some of those too, an LED lantern in the same style for $25 in black and a more powerful LED latnern with almost as much candle power as the real oil lantern of that style.

For our recent possible hurricane, I bought a Lamplight Emergency Lighting Kit with a very similar looking (non-Deitz) lantern for around $17 which is much brighter than a Halloween decoration. It is the reason I decided to start looking for lanterns to add to my yard haunt this year.

Of course, for all the stuff I have mentioned you have to be in Manual mode. I have never messed with the scene modes much. It isn’t really manual compared to a more complicated camera so don’t worry too much about that. I have not used them, but on recent ELPHs there is a kids and pets and/or a sports setting in the scene menu which should give faster shutter speeds.

You can turn the exposure down so the camera doesn’t expect as much light and will use a faster shutter speed. But you loose DOF that way and your shots will be darker. You probably can’t go too far down.

You should also zoom the least amount possible, none is best. The wider the shot the more light is let in so the camera can use a faster shutter speed. Wider shots also help catching your subject. Mine is usually jumping cats and it helps make sure I get the whole cat in the shot.

Setting your ISO to at least 200 is probably a requirement for catching fast action unless in the brightest sunlight. The higher the ISO the less light the camera needs so can use a faster shutter, but the image gets noisier the higher the ISO. Don’t be afraid of 400 if you have too, grainy shots are better than blury shots. Sunlight is extremely important if you don’t want motion blur. If you can live with a small amount of motion blur, which can sometimes be interesting and shows the action, then a bit shady or not so bright sunlight will do. Example 1, Example 2, Example 3.

Your other option is to use the flash even in daylight, just turn your camera from automatic to always flash. It will slow down how fast you can shoot and you will probably want an extra battery if you do it a lot since it will drain much faster, but it will help you freeze the action if you are close enough to the subject. Here is an example in the dark. And another example (don’t look if you are mouse fan).

If you get blurry pictures with the flash because the shutter is staying open too long you might have the Slow Synchro setting turned on. You can turn it off in the Menu. It could also happen if you are too far from your subject for the flash to have much effect. For example, when shooting an event from the stands flash (on any camera) isn’t going to do you any good. You are better off with high ISO.

The image quality is good, but I prefer my old Minolta 50mm f2.8 1:1 Macro since the focal range is more useful for non-macro shots and it doesn’t require an adapter for 1:1 so it is much more likely to stay on my camera. Until I got the 50mm, I prefered using a Raynox macro adapter on my zoom lenses instead of the Cosina for shooting macros. Since I was using an adapter either way, I preferred the flexibility of the Raynox DCR-250 which I could use on any of my lenses.

After using the 50mm for a few years, I wish I had a macro lens with 90mm or more so I could shoot from a bit further away. Scaring bugs off isn’t usually a problem for me, but lighting them with my flash at 1:1 can be difficult since the lens is so close to the bug.