Last week I had what I consider to be a unique opportunity to enter a world that my lovely Shannon knows, but I know nothing about.  That world is the world of Software Development.  I still don’t know much about Software Development, but for an evening last weekend I was hired to document the launch announcement and party for Gusto, a new email client coming first to iPad and iPhone very soon.

(Nikon D4, 9,000ISO, Nikon 70-200F2.8VR2@145mm.  1/100th@F3.2)

That’s Shawn Schwegman, he’s the mastermind behind the Gusto project.  I met him only briefly as I was actually hired by his marketing guy whom I used to work with at the Indianapolis Star named Adam Yale.  Since the Star, Adam has worked as the Creative Director at ChaCha, as well as IndyConcerts.com, Sacre Bleu wine, and many others.  In fact Adam made one of my first websites for me years ago as well and currently has one of the most epic mustaches I’ve seen to date.  Between Adam telling me all about Gusto, as well as listening to the presentation (more than once) from the launch party I’d be lieing if I said I wasn’t interested in giving it a shot.

 (Nikon D4, 1000ISO, Nikon 70-200F2.8VR2@160mm.  1/100th@F2.8)

The event was at the Marvis here in Indianapolis and the place was packed with media guru’s and socialites for good reason.  What makes Gusto different from any other mail client is it’s integration of a ALL of your different media’s and emails.  To get started they are supporting just gmail, with an aggressive schedule to ad other services over the weeks following launch.  Gusto will not only house them all in one place, but will draw all of their information into a single searchable service.  This includes Facebook, Facebook messaging, and even your photos.  From my understanding if I went into gusto and was looking for a photo of myself and Adam, I could search and it would bring up any photos that match that criteria (assuming they were tagged of course) while searching my own photos on my phone, dropbox, and even Facebook’s photos all at once.  Cool.

(15 frames stiched together with Auto Pano Pro taken with my Nikon D3, and Nikon 14-24f2.8)

It’s not out yet, but it will be soon and I’ve signed up to be notified when it is released.  We’ll see how it goes, but from everything I saw the other night I’ll definitely be giving it a shot.  Heck, I only know about 5% of what my iPhone can do as it is; why not make it work for me right? Actually I recently discovered the Panoramic feature built into my iPhone and have been shooting more of those when I got places.  Watch my facebook page for neat venues that I shoot in coming in the future as I’ve been mostly using it at sporting events.  The shot above was made out of 15 frames I shot with my D3, but my iPhone is great for doing it on the fly for fun.

(Nikon D4, 3200ISO, Nikon 24-70F2.8N@24mm.  1/40th@F2.8.  Nikon Sb900 Speedlight held in my left hand under my camera to camera right shot into a white reflector card on the speedlight set to iTTL -0.3. SB900 triggered by Nikon SU800 in the cameras hot shoe.)

The event in and of itself was really neat.  I’d never been to a Software Launch party before and it was cool to feel the buzz in the room; especially since the software in question is going to be free when it is launched.  I know I’ve signed up at the Gusto Website to know when it goes live, and if you get a lot of email on your iPhone or iPad you should too.  I know the Windows and Android versions are right around the corner, but it’s about getting into the market before you can cover all your bases right?  The night ended giving away a couple of iPads, as well as with a “Fireside Chat” between Verge’s Matt Hunckler, Shawn Schwegman of Gusto, and IEDC President Eric Doden.

(Nikon D4, 2800ISO, Nikon 70-200F2.8VR2@110mm. 1/100th@F2.8)

In terms of photography the event was like any other event I’ve ever been to.  Shooting grip and grins, details, the festivities ect.  The shot at the top of the blog is at 9,000ISO which always makes me wonder how I used to do things like this with a film camera.  To that note Nikon Announced the D4s this week and it’s capable of an even more impressive range of ISO up to 25,000 native.  (400k+ if you enter WTF territory).  I can’t wait to get my hands on one to see if the hype is true about it being faster and cleaner than the D4, which I already feel is the mecca of all cameras as it is.  Only time will tell I guess.  Until then though, check out Gusto, and I’ll be back with more soon.