The Flickr Brouhaha

I guess I'm one of the Flickr "Old Skool": Got my account back toward the end of 2004 (I think) and have gotten away with putting off merging my Yahoo! ID with my Flickr account. Yesterday I got the "dreaded FlickrMail" saying that, as of March 15, I'll have to merge my Flickr and Yahoo! IDs and use the Yahoo! ID to sign in or I won't be able to access my account on Flickr. This, along with the announcements on limits on the number of contacts (3,000) and the number of tags (75) has created a massive mosh pit in Flickr Central and the Flickr Help forums.

I'm not going to deal with the issue of contacts and tags here, as I cannot imagine ever being able to keep up with 3,000 contacts or slapping dozens of tags on each photo and still maintain my sanity. As to the "forced" merger, however, the reactions seem to range from people who resist ANY change, to people who think anyone who complains about the merger is a whiner and should shut the hell up and leave Flickr, to people who have held their nose and merged their accounts and so far, so good to, well, people like me who are really in two minds about the whole thing.

I certainly have my philosophical issues with Yahoo! and how they use my personal information. But I've had my Yahoo! account for YEARS, so that's kind of trying to slam the barn door shut after the horse is running loose. I do have two concerns, however, that I hope are fully resolved by the time March 15 rolls around and I HAVE to merge:

1) Will Yahoo! respect my cc license? Trying to parse the leagalese in Yahoo!'s TOS left me believing that, yes, if my image is licensed All Rights Reserved, they won't use my photo(s) for any commercial purpose without my expressed consent. However, today some users discovered that wii.yahoo.com was using ALL images tagged wii, even those marked All Rights Reserved. Granted, Yahoo! admitted making an error and reconfigured so only properly-licensed images were displayed, but I wonder if that would have happened had there not been such an angry reaction from the Flickr community (i.e., people tagging ALL of their photos "wii", people uploading images tagged "wii" that called Yahoo! thieves, etc.)

OK, so my images aren't all THAT great and the possibility of Yahoo! plucking any of them to sell their product is probably one of the least of my worries, but it is a concern that needs to be resolved. I'm just not wholly convinced that the snagging of ALL images with a given tag was a simple accident or oversight.

2) Yahoo! is notorious for deactivating a user's account for Gods knows what reason. Maybe inactivity, maybe the user forgot the password (or had the CAPS LOCK on and didn't notice) or some violation of Yahoo!'s TOS, whatever. The problem is, when a Yahoo! account gets deactivated, my understanding is that the merged Flickr account also gets deleted. If I have PAID for a year's worth of Flickr service (which I *just* did before the merger kerfuffle), deleting my--hang on a sec, let me go look--1,300+ photos is a big-time NO-NO, especially given Flickr's No Refunds policy. Yeah, I have all of my images on any combination of hard drives and CDs, but if for some reason I have problems signing into my Yahoo!/Flickr account and Yahoo! decides to just deactivate me, I'm gonna be hella pissed if my account and all those photos gets deleted.

As of about 9:45 tonight, I haven't seen a definitively reassuring answer that if the Yahoo! sign in goes floopy that my Flickr account won't be zapped before the sign in issue gets resolved (which, given Yahoo!'s notoriously pokey and un-helpful customer support, could take quite a while).

And that's really pretty much it for my concerns about merging. I just want to know that my photos are being protected as much as possible (given they're on the internets and are generally fair game for anyone who can right-click on an image...etc., etc.)

editing to add something very important: I do want to commend Flickr staff. They've taken a hell of a lot of abuse in the forums and have done their best to answer users' concerns as timely and accurately as they can. I know times like this it's hard to keep a sense of humour (especially when you're fighting to keep the sense of perspective amid all the hyperbole being flung about). I hope that the worst of it is over soon.

And, hey, isn't it about time for the Flickr Turns THREE party???

(cross-posted at Thinking Out Loud)

Morro Bay

A Nice Surprise

I was going through some of my gear and ran across a roll of exposed 120 film in a bag. I had no idea when I shot it or what was on it when I dropped it off for processing a couple of days ago. All I knew was that I had shot it in one of my Holgas.

It turns out that this was a roll I shot when I first started commuting to San Francisco on the ferry, which means I shot this sometime in September or October of *2005*. Most of the stuff on the roll is boring, but I was very pleasantly surprised with this shot.

Dreaming of Yesteryear

Tree Blossoms (in January!)

Gear Geek: First thoughts on the Canon Digital Rebel XTi

Well, a week on and I'm loving my new Digital Rebel XTi. I got it with the 18-55mm kit lens (which is...okay but not great) and I bought a 70-300mm zoom lens, which I'm using almost exclusively. The 70-300, I'm finding, is good for portraits where I don't want to be right up in someone's face (say, for example, my cats, or this hawk) and it is, of course, great for landscape--or skyscape--photography.

I absolutely love the large LCD screen! It makes reviewing my shots a dream and it's easy to read what my settings are. The controls are easily reached (once I memorize where everything is) and easy for me to understand. I think anyone with experience using a "modern" camera--film or digital--should have a fairly easy time learning the XTi. Inexperienced photographers, or people who haven't picked up a camera since they stuck their K-1000 in a shoebox at the back of their closet, might have a steeper learning curve, but it shouldn't be too difficult.

I have noticed one "dust" spot in the viewfinder, but it doesn't appear on any of my images, so either it's on the mirror, or the self-cleaning sensor (which I really should read up on because it seems to be rather a Big Deal on the XTi) is keeping my images dust-free.

One consistent complaint I read in the reviews of the XTi is that it tends to underexpose images. I've noticed this in my initial shots with the camera as well. Of course, I can crank the EV up +1/2 or +1 stop and futz with the metering to compensate, but I do hope Canon addresses the issue in a firmware update sooner rather than later. The other complaint I've seen has to do with the size of the camera. It's on the small side, which is really nice for those of us with smallish hands. For those of you with bigger hands, you might want to play with it in a store before buying, or check into getting the battery grip.

So far, the plusses far outweigh the minuses with the Digital Rebel XTi. I'm already budgeting for lenses and accessories (i.e., a servicable 50mm and the sweet, sweet 85mm 1.2L and a nice flash unit). I would recommend the XTi for anyone looking to upgrade either from film to digital or from their digital point-and-shoot to a DSLR.

Pinhole Tree

For Pinhole Day last year, I bought a pinhole body cap for my Pentax MX and shot 4-5 rolls of film with it. It was my first try at pinhole photography and I quite enjoy it. Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is April 29, 2007. Check with your local flickr (or other photographers) group for a photo stroll near you!

Tower Sculpture, San Francisco

Wildflowers

I thought I'd lead off with a favourite of mine taken on one of my Holga cameras. This was taken along the shoreline in Alameda, California in 2005.