Barney L.

This is a site that is heavily advertised on the internet for models to find work. Or basically any talent to find work. In a way they use people's desperate attempt to find work as a struggling artist to make money. There are many free places for artists to find work but this site charges for it. From that point of view, they do save people time and as such it does provide some level of value. Anyone looking at this site should read a little bit about what people in this industry think of sites like this in general.

http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=*******

Models/actresses looking for easy gigs such as promo work and such might be better off with sites like onemodelplace.com and checking out the casting calls.

Anyone in the graphic arts who wants to share their more private artistic work comes to deviantart and it really is a great website that is free for all artists. Photographers, poets, graphic artists... everyone is welcome. The forum can get a bit unruly at times but overall it is a great community

BHPhotovideo is reliable and has fair prices - I have been using B&H for years and have purchased everything from betacams from them to professional DSLRs. Here has been my experience with them.

Pros:
They are extremely reliable in their shipping and they always have US warranties. They never sell grey market goods and you always get brand new products. Their customer service is excellent and I have been able to both exchange and return products to them without any problem at all. I bought a JVD HD cam from them and noticed a single dead pixel and they exchanged it for me without any problem at all. I have purchases lenses which I thought were soft focus, and those were also exchanged without a problem. They do wait until they receive their old product before they give you a credit, but that isn't much of an issue.

Cons:
Their prices are fair, but they are never the lowest around. You always pay for shipping and they never have special deals or coupons. If you shop around you can almost definitely find whatever you are looking for cheaper elsewhere. They offer no return incentives or email coupons for good customers. Even other mainstream stores such as Dell or Amazon may carry the same item for less because of shipping and special coupons available online. I typically check around a little bit before buying from B&H, and if the price difference is great, I may sacrifice the B&H excellent customer service for a better price.

Sites like this get very mixed reviews because of the very nature of social networking sites. You either love them or hate them. Before the advent of the internet and digital photography, most people who were photographers really were only just photographers and models, well that was their sole occupation. The internet and in particular social networking sites like this allow basically anyone with a digital camera to call themselves a photographer (GWC-guys with cameras) and pretty girls can call themselves models. The photographers need willing subjects to photograph and the models want pictures of themselves to help them land jobs. These sites will exist and this one does do a pretty good job of connecting photographers with models. Sometimes the photographer will pay the models and other times models pay the photographer. It just depends on supply and demand. I give this site a full heart for changing the game in the way people can connect and can find jobs online. I will also say that if a photographer has meager skills or a model is not skilled or attractive they will not find any of these types of sites very useful just like IRL.

I use this website to sell my photos and for anyone who either needs stock photos or wants to make some extra $$$ this is the best site out there. Don't expect to make a fortune, but you can expect to make some money proportional to the amount of work you put into it. It does take time to make some money so do not be discouraged if at first you are not collecting a big paycheck.

I will second this website being one of the best around for both shooting tips as well as the community. It is a great community of photographers who are all very helpful in sharing tips. Even if you are not local to the bay area, they are always available to help. I like how it is a smaller community and not overrun with spammers like on other sites.

The price tag to convert your camera to an IR camera is fairly steep... $400 for my old canon DSLR. The images however are amazing once they convert it. They calibrate it to a standard 50mm 1.8 lens and if you shoot wider you might want to send in your lens for calibration along with it. I usually shoot stopped down to f11 so it is not a big deal but I have heard of others who shoot at f2.8 and such needing calibration. You could also order the filter and have a local shop do it for you, but these guys do a great job and this is all they do so I would use them over a local shop. I would not recommend the DYI guide unless you are really really good. Nice they provide that though

Best part of kidzui is not having to keep watching what your kid is surfing all of the time. Even sites like youtube can be dangerous for them. The few bucks a month is worth MY time not to have to keep looking at their computer screen.

WD2GO is the service by western digital iscompatible with iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android phones, giving users the us the ability to pull files from any PC or Mac remotely -- without monthly fees. The only catch is you have to purchase a WD drive I bought their live duo 6TB drive and it was very easy to set up. Even a complete IT novice can set up file sharing in their own home. They made it easy to stream movies, share files and music. There are a few negatives about the wd2go that I feel everyone should know
1. NO FTP SUPPORT. If you don't know what this is then you won't miss it.
2. Not all video file types are supported by wd2go app on ipad/iphone. I had to experiment to find the exact mp4 resolution, bit rate that would work with this app.
3. You cannot share files on remote desktops. So for me this did not replace dropbox.

Before Dell bought alienware that was the only computer I used to buy. They had the top notch graphics cards and hardware. In recent years I still bought alienware through dell.com and have noticed a steady decline in the value of what I am buying. They are no longer the top of the line machines but instead are just about equivalent of the Dell XPS line but at a higher price. At this point, I would skip on buying alienware anymore unless you really want that big alien face on your laptop. Even HP with their envy line of pcs can easily match what alienware is putting out these days at a fraction of the price.

When people ask me whether to choose portraiture over portrait professional, I usually will go in this direction. Portraiture by imagenomic was designed for the busy professional who knows photoshop but for the sake of time would rather automate the tedious process of touching up photos. If you have a single masterpiece you are working on then obviously you would do it by hand and use photoshop. If a client is waiting on 30 photos and you have an hour to deliver them, then portraiture comes to your rescue. Probably not the best tool for an amateur as it really only shines when in the hands of a professional who already knows photoshop and uses it as a plug in. As this is a review of the website and they also sell noiseware, I will also say that is an excellent plug in and if you do a lot of high ISO shooting then it is a lifesaver. Though I think these days with sensors becoming better and ISO of 6400, the need for noise reduction is luckily becoming less and less. Still as a package deal for both of them it is worth the price.

I typically have shopped online at BHphotovideo and adorama but recently found Samys camera to be an excellent value and they have better customer service than either of the other sites in terms of really helping you pick out the best equipment for your needs. I heard about them through the Playboy shoot the centerfold workshop http://samysedu.com/2011/06/03/shoot-the-centerfold-weekend-begins/
And met some of their employees who were very knowledgeable. They can sometimes have deals that are not on their website I noticed so call them if you are looking for something specific.

I am giving this a cool rating because I think this is an excellent value for the aspiring photography who does not know photoshop very well and would like to touch up their photos in the easiest way possible. Download the demo and you can see how simple it is to use. For photoshop pros, this is not as useful as it just doesn't have the wide breadth of tools available and you can easily overdo the look and make the portrait appear fake. Combining photoshop and portrait professional together makes the most sense for the professional photographer. Basically just do the work in portrait professional and then create a layer on top of the original and blend in where you specifically think the portait needs help and that will speed up the process. I think the best use case for this software is the amateur photography who has not mastered photoshop and or doesn't own photoshop.

I have been looking to hire a website designer for a new photography website to show off my photos and I was quoted about $1500 just for the design. Foliolink has a great deal of giving you a customized website for a fraction of the price and giving you hosting the only catch is that you need to keep hosting with them. Still not a bad deal and you can set it up within hours.

For those who have a basic understanding of videography and want to learn more, this is the best place to go for that. They have great articles and forums with active users with a vast amount of knowledge.

I wish I knew about this website before the superbowl! Thanks guys for finding this site and I will be ordering come season next year. Prices don't seem to be much more than the cheapy online stores

Sonar X3 is a great mix program for any audio enthusiast. I found it on steam for sale and decided to buy it as it was about the same price as one of their games on steam. It works really well and I have used other similar programs in the past. Workflow in SONARX3 is really good and the Skylight interface makes everything approachable, especially the extensive use of dockable windows. Tools and functions are easy to find. For the price you can't really beat it.

Paul C Buff with his creation of the Alien Bee and white lightening sets of photography lights revolutionized the entire photography lighting industry years ago because of the low cost of his set of lights. Photographers were used to paying thousands for expensive lights until the Alien Bees came along. They are a great set of starter lights with extensive light modifications. Their phone support is also very good and they are a very knowledgeable team. The only thing is that the lower end Alien Bee lights do not have a wide range of f stops and if you are a newcomer to photography and you buy a set of AB lights then you could be selling them in the near future. Paulcbuff does have a higher end line of Einstein lights which are much better but they are at the same price as other higher end lights. I wish the alien bees were more compatible with their set of Einstein lights; the modifiers you buy for alien bees will not work on their other lighting systems. So do not invest too heavily in them if you think in the future you will need a more robust system.

Very cool concept of using acrylic and I have seen some places that do this but often they are extremely expensive. This site has some pretty good prices from what I have seen in the past.

I used to use istockphoto but the problem was the sheer amount of photos on that site it was tough to stand out. Shutterstock is a great alternative and I have got more money off of my photos here than istock.