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March 29, 2018

Give your work more exposure

image-box-homepage-screenshot-110px.pngWe are launching several new things in the community today, 29-MAR-2018. Please give the team your feedback on this in this thread.

The main focus of our work has been to give your work more exposure, in and beyond the community.

Big thanks go out to our recently founded System Beta Group which has been working with the improvements throughout the last three months, including of course our developers and administrators.

The current improvements are:

1. Beta Homepage
To help you as a member getting more exposure of your work, we are starting a public beta (test phase) of showcasing images on the homepage of Nikonians. This is not the final version of the homepage, but rather "work in progress". The homepage will be decluttered and once we start with that, you will have a chance to see this progress as well. You can see the beta page here:
nikonians.org/beta2018

If you scroll down on that page you will find a new "image box" at the bottom with multiple tabs. One of the tabs is titled "Portfolios". This tab contains images from member portfolios.

image-box-homepage-600px.png

"Image box" with multiple tabs on beta homepage.

Clicking on an image on any tab except the portfolio tab leads to either the galleries or the forums. This behavior will change in due time for images from the galleries and we anticipate you will no longer be lead to the galleries, rather you will have the chance to comment and see more information right in the popup.

Clicking on an image top left corner (icon showing for image expansion) shows a popup with a larger view of the image. Here you can navigate between images, start/stop a slide show of the images and see more information including "liking" it.

Liking an image means (a) that it is added to your favorite images in the galleries and (b) that the photographer is informed about it under the "heart icon" at Nikonians.


2. Portfolios
Portfolios are available to all members on Gold and Platinum levels. Images in your portfolio are showcased on our homepage and will be included on another site of ours, greaterphoto.com as well. That site will be available end of April, 2018. More exposure capabilities of your best work is being planned as well and some further customization possibilities of your portfolio will be available.

Your portfolio is available under the address with the format of
nikonians.org/portfolio/YourUsername

Some sample portfolios:
nikonians.org/portfolio/dm1dave

nikonians.org/portfolio/Ferguson

nikonians.org/portfolio/GBaylis

portfolio-screenshot-jrp-600px.png
Another good example from our portfolios. This one being JRP's :-)


All available portfolios are shown here:
nikonians.org/portfolio

Please do start using the portfolio functionality today. Doing this ensures we are getting this right for you.

You can enable your portfolio in "My Profile" tab "Preferences". Adding images can be done directly from your gallery using the "Add to portfolio" link under your images or by using the "Add images" link on your portfolio page.


3. Editor's Choice
We will launch Editor's Choice in the next few weeks, where a team is selecting excellent photographs which then are shown on various locations, including on our homepage. There is a tab for this on the beta page as well. Currently included images on the beta page are only for test purposes and have not been going through our Editor's Choice process.


Other improvements

4. Follow a member instead of "friends"
The friends functionality will soon be replaced by a "Follow a member" functionality, a simpler way to be able to see posts and images done by fellow members, not needing a friendship request to be sent. For now, you can see the tab "Members I Follow" on the beta page, listing friends activities.

5. Worksafe browsing
We have introduced a worksafe mode, which you can set by using a small toggle in the galleries and on the beta homepage imagebox area. Any member can set the "Not safe for work" flag when uploading images into the galleries that might be sensitive for viewing in a work environment. The team can also set specific images as not being "safe for work". This is typically done for e.g. glamour-type photographs.

6. Shortcut buttons on top of homepage
For new visitors to Nikonians, we have some common "task buttons" at the top of the page currently leading to some intermediate pages, which will be improved in due time:

  • Learn more about my Nikon
  • Critique my photographs
  • Post a question
  • Display my photos
  • About Nikonians

Once the buttons are no longer needed, the cross at the top right corner can be used to "collapse" the button area.

7. More menu expanded
The top menu "More" has now gotten revamped, containing all the items of the footer.

Posted by bgs at 12:28 PM

March 16, 2018

March Contest Reminder

mar15-18-110px.jpgA call for entries, the contests are off to a slow start this month.

We have some great themes in the Wildlife, Landscape, Macro, Travel, and Digital Artistry Forums, as well as our Online Assignment.

So, the challenge is on, show us your creativity and photographic skill in fulfilling this months contest themes. The contests are open to Silver, Gold and Platinum members.

This month's themes are...

Wildlife > Birds and Blossoms
Landscape > Dramatic Daylight Sky with Motion Blur
Macro/Close-up > Modern Technology
Travel > The Intentional Tourist
Digital Artistry > Change
Online Assignment > Lakes and Streams

Be sure to vote for your favorite images from the February contests. Winners will advance to the Best of Nikonians 2018. Voting is open to all registered members.

Here is a full list of Current Contest & Polls

march-contests800px.jpg

Posted by dm1dave at 3:37 PM

March 13, 2018

Nikon photographers read

DSC_6399_copy-110px.jpgWe Nikon photographers are a lucky bunch. We have so much to read and there is always a lot to learn, no matter our current skill level; if we are professionally shooting, if photography is "only" our part time profession, or if it is a dear hobby to us.

Members Bonnie Christensen, Wasil Khan and Carol Freshley have been interviewed by Marsha, sharing their photography experiences, background and work in our I Am Nikonians series.

Connie Cassinetto helps us working towards getting successful wildlife photos and how to achieve our artistic photographic vision in her two latest, premium write-ups.

Jim Donelson tells us about the Japanese term Shoshin in photography and Darryll Schiff let's us do black and white photography in our own backyard.

DSC_6399_copy-3.jpg

Bella Wedding by hary21 from Indonesia is one of the many inspiring images you can find in the Nikonians wedding and social events gallery

Did you know that you can find articles at Nikonians based upon their key topics or "keywords"? This page helps you sort and find articles in a different way.

Behind the scenes
We are working hard behind the scenes (yes, really) and the testing team are busy reviewing new functionality. We are making it easier for members to get more exposure on their work and expect to go public beta with some good stuff really, really soon.

We are now sending out this email from a different server, hoping it does not get stuck in filters as much as it did earlier. Please do make sure you add our email address to your address book to ensure it comes through ok.

We went advertising free last year and that was taken very positive by many members. Our current fundraising campaign recently got a good boost by members Mike Sherwin and Mick Klass, big thanks! If you can, please participate and help out too, any amount is helpful.

Some other minor changes;

1. For the forums, you can now enable or disable "auto-jump" to oldest unread message in a message thread - more info

2. If someone likes an image of yours in the galleries marking it as a favorite, you are informed about this under the "heart" icon.

3. The gallery menu now contains a new section listing the main gallery categories.

I am wishing you a terrific rest of the week
Bo (bgs)

Posted by bgs at 9:38 AM

March 4, 2018

January Winners Announced

jan-contests110px.JPGWe are pleased to announce the winners of the January monthly contests.

All six images have been entered in the Annual Best of Nikonians 2018 Contest.

The February Polls and the March contests are being updated, to stay up-to-date see the Current Contests post pinned in the English café.

Follow the links below to see the full images and to congratulate the winners.

Wildlife > Bill Marchel (BillMarchel)
Landscape > William McEwen (Wolfgang55)
Macro & Close-up > Geoff Baylis (GBaylis)
Travel > Russell Whittemore (rosewood_ltd)
Digital Artistry > Gary Worrall (glxman)
Online Assignment > Gerald Oliver (geraldroliver)

jan-contests800px.JPG

Posted by dm1dave at 6:50 PM