I’ve just taken the jump into semi-pro photography kit, picking up a Canon 400d (aka Canon Rebel XTi).
It’s a bit overwhelming at the moment as i’ve never really used my previous cameras outside of point-n-shoot mode – i’ve got a whole bunch of articles to read as well as the well put together manual that comes with the camera. For you camera geeks (Mike :) ) I’ve only got the kit lens at the moment which is a standard Canon EFS 18-55 f/3.5-5.6. I’ve managed to get hold of a Canon prime 50mm f/1.8 (aka Canon Nifty Fifty) from ebay for £45 which according to many, many, many reviews is an excellent lens to start with.

I’ve not had much time to put it to use just yet, just a few pictures of my God-daughter from New Years. I’m hoping to branch into live music photography. After all, I go to enough gigs! I just need to start putting my face about, starting (I guess) with unsigned local bands and hopefully making contacts to get some passes to ‘proper’ gigs :) . (I’ve got a few favours I can try and pull in as well).

Having already got a Flickr Pro account, I was looking for some way to produce a simple but professional looking portfolio. I spent a while on Google looking for something decent. I’ve used Gallery before and wasn’t overly keen on it. Ideally I want something that I can just point at Sets and Collections on Flickr.

Step up to the plate, PhotoFront.

Photofront aims to fill the gap between Flickr’s photo sharing and social networking with a more professional look and feel. Photofront offers the feel of a photography portfolio with the ease of your flickr account.

A pretty simple 5 step sign-up process gives you an excellent looking portfolio, based off of your Flickr sets. You can include or exclude whatever you want.

The standard and free version gives you a hosted site on the PhotoFront server which has a few GoogleAds at the top. For 10USD by paypal you can get an add free version with a few more customisable options. For example, the free version has it’s own HTML Title tags that you can’t change.

Check mine out here, http://photo.maccarocks.com.

Whilst I have a few gripes about it, the admin process is a bit cumbersome in that you have to page through ALL of the options rather than being able to jump to a specific page, it’s definitely the best application i’ve seen so far.

As an aside, any recommendations between Lightroom, Aperture, Elements or anything else for Mac OS X gratefully received.