I’m not sure if the Nikon D800/D800E is Finally Out title is accurate, as I don’t think it’s official yet, but it does look like a lot of info (including images of it all) has leaked out.
After months of waiting and following terribly teasing rumors and small photo leaks, Nikon finally announced the D800! For the full specs, details, photos, pre-order information, and to find out what that ‘E’ means, read below. And don’t forget to keep checking back for updates as they roll out when the announcement goes live tonight!
So is this going to be your next camera? Is this an appropriate follow up to the now 4 year old D700?
Update - Looks like it’s all official, and DPReview has a hands on with the D800.
Press release from Pentax: PENTAX Announces the K-01—a More Powerful Mirrorless Camera
One of the immediate highlights and benefits of this cameras mirrorless body design is its compatibility with all PENTAX K-mount lenses spanning decades. You won’t have to worry and wonder whether an investment in a camera of this magnitude will force you to abandon some of your favored lenses. The fact is this camera was built to be compatible with your existing equipment.
$700+ is a high cost when for a few hundred more you can get a full featured (and not that much bigger) DSLR in the K-5. The fact that the mirrorless camera will use all your existing K-mount Pentax lenses reaching back decades is awesome however. Would much rather it had a viewfinder though, even just a rangefinder style.
Engadget has more here.
Quick video from G+ with a look at the new Photoshop CS6 and Camera Raw. Not a huge amount of new details, as expected Camera Raw follows the new setup that Lightroom 4 showed up with, and the only real details about Photoshop itself is that it’s going to default to a darker theme.
Think you're all cool with your Project 365 (photo a day every day)? Bah, so old school and lame! Check out instead This Is What Madeline Schichtel Did In 2011, 1 Year In Under 8 Minutes, the same idea but applied to video, and with sound. Very nifty!
Good blog post about some Exposure 4 Details at the Alien Skin blog. If you don't know, Exposure is a very sweet Photoshop plugin to add texture and effects to photos, and it looks like version 4 is shaping up to be pretty sweet! It'll be available in February 2012 for $249, or $99 upgrade costs.
The master of small flashes (photographic stuff I mean, you pervs), Joe McNally has his review of Shooting the Nikon D4.
The D4 is an entirely new chapter in the history of the pixels. It arrived in a nondescript box. We all stared at it, like it was something that got sent from a sci-fi movie, and if we opened it, we would find the still beating heart of an alien life form.
Anyone want to contribute a bit of $ for the "Buy Alan a new DSLR Rig" fund?
Beautiful video and story by Jeff Harris, who has been doing One Self-Portrait a Day Since 1999.
Trey has some follow up from his article yesterday on why DSLRs are a dying breed. The article, Scott Bourne and Other Fallout from DSLR Dying article... & Saving Money is great, and a good read.
So Trey, the HDR / Stuck in Customs guy has an interesting blog post of interest to the Photographically-interested folks out there: DSLRs are a dying breed.
I can't picture myself investing any more money in DSLR bodies and lenses. The new Nikon D4 that is coming out? Not interested.
I don't know if I agree with him 100%, more so with the time frame of 5 years or so than that DSLR technology will fade away just like Film did and non-smartphones are. The biggest issue I have with all of them is the viewfinders (I have yet to find a non-optical viewfinder that doesn't suck), but as he says, this too shall pass.
Kudos to Trey for starting a really interesting conversation :)
Cool little video from a photographer that I greatly admire, Chase Jarvis, announcing the Polaroid Z340 Camera, a digital camera with instant printout. Or maybe an instant camera with digital? Either way it's a fun video and an interesting looking product.
Today there was the announcement of The Hipstamatic D-Series - bringing analog back, one exposure at a time. Basically it's a new twist on social networking + camera apps + "toy camera" apps + the iPhone.
The idea is that you set up a group of people who share a "roll" of 24 exposures (argh, why do we have real world limitations in a digital world without the concept of a limit on the number of exposures). Each users' images contribute to the roll and are synced up with everyone else. Release date of tomorrow (Thursday the 15th).
The business model will be the same as hipstamatic, selling camera upgrades and film types, and you get a free camera with connections to your facebook account.
This is a neat idea, sort of a more concentrated and realized version of Color which took a similar tack of sharing photos, except it was a geo located sharing not a social network sharing.
There are a few barriers to having this work I think. The 24 exposures thing, having enough friends who use the app (but not so many that the "camera roll" is used up in 2 or three shots). That said, it's still a neat idea and I plan to download it as soon as it's up and available :) The possibilities for sharing day to day activities with friends who aren't around town are pretty interesting though. Imagine you live in say, Vancouver and have friends you would love to keep in touch with more in say, Philadelphia and Lexington. It'd be pretty cool to share a roll with them and see day to day type images as their day progresses and sharing your own. Now that's something I can get behind.
Pretty amazing story: Days of his Life in Polaroids
His first photo was of his then girlfriend Mindy Goldstein and a friend on March 31, 1979. His last, 6,000 shots later, on October 25, 1997 - his birthday was of Livingston on his deathbed, dying from cancer.
HDR: Before and After is a pretty impressive collection of HDR images showing the before/after in a cool flippy javascripty thing. A nice illustration of when HDR does work and what you can do with it.
Six months ago I mentioned the OpenPhoto kickstarter project, and now, six months later, they open the doors (if you have an invite code). The full writeup is over at Hacker News and according to @openphoto they're a bit overwhelmed right now (but are saving invite requests).
Huge kudos to these guys for making this happen and it's a very cool project. My best wishes to them!
I have an admission to make.
My name is Alan, and I have an addiction to iPhone photo editing apps.
I get the free ones, sometimes pay for them. I love them, the presets, the 70s/80s/90s/Sepia and Black and White and every preset you can imagine.
But I never use them.
This one, however, looks different. Luminance, the universal photo editing app is FREE for a limited time, and after downloading it and having a quick run through, I have to say I'm impressed. An easy to undo timeline, about as many editing options as you'd get out of Lightroom with adjustments to white balance, exposure, hue/sat, split toning, and a host of others, all with easy to understand UI, or just a bunch of what looks like nice presets. So if you're like me people, go off and download this one.
Hey, what could it hurt right?
Amazing images from the National Geographic Photo Contest 2011 over at The Big Picture.
Remember the Lytro? That camera that you can focus with after the fact? Well, it's now for sale, $399 for an 8G model, $499 for a 16G. Interesting (revolutionary? odd?) format as you can see in the images on the camera page. Still, I was expecting a pro level cost for something the size of a truck when this came out, the fact it looks like a real consumer product and under $500? Amazing.
I'm really interested to see how this works in real life (as with all things). The 8G model will store 350 images, my math is fuzzy so you'll have to figure the megapixels, as the details page says it's 11 "Megarays", which I assume sort of translate to MP.
I can't wait till some pro folks get their paws on this one.
Via my buddy Duncan from Lens & Shutter, looks like the Canon EOS-1D X professional DSLR has been announced. Surprised it's not the mythic 1DS Mark 3, however the new machine looks pretty impressive. Here are some high points:
Another page has a lighter weight look at the features, along with icons for dummies like me to easily understand what's going on :)
Photogs out there will be happy to see that Nik has released Color Efex Pro 4. You can see some of the new bits in a video by Scott Bourne over at PhotoFocus.
Adobe Carousel seems like a really interesting product, except for the (monthly subscription) price. If my quick read is correct, it lets you view and edit your images from your lightroom library from any iOS device.
Flickr has rolled out a new feature called GeoFences, which basically allows you to define areas on a map where your geotagging of photos will not show up. You can set it up from the
Geo Preferences page in your account.
Note though, this feature isn't perfect yet, Thomas Hawk notes that it has a huge security flaw in that anyone can download the original image and view the geolocation data from the EXIF data.
This morning Sony announced (officially) the SLT-A77 flagship APS-C DSLR. DPReview has the full press release.
The long-promised A77 makes use of Sony's translucent mirror technology to offer an impressive 12 frame-per-second shooting rate, despite its 24MP APS CMOS sensor
I thought I was "ok" in photoshop for doing photography adjustments, but after watching this video of the adjustments to a Huntington Beach Panorama I realize I am but a worm.
If you know all about panorama blending you can maybe fast forward to about the halfway mark, for me I was pretty shocked at how easy/awesome you can make a shot look with the stuff he did in the second half, blending a silver efex pro black and white layer in luminosity mode to bring out subtle detail. Well worth the watch if you're moderately interested in photography and photoshop.
Top 10 Ways to Improve Google Photos by the well known Thomas Hawk.
Incredible Photos that Capture Day Turning into Night. Nice, and completely doable without the gear that was used (4x5 camera with a 40 megapixel back and a cherry picker).
When Bored At Work, Build A Camera:
Then the idea hit me like a ton of bricks. I WOULD MAKE THIS PIECE OF GARBAGE INTO A CAMERA. I told everybody that I would do so, and nobody believed me.
Via DIYPhotography.net
Strobist points to a pretty cool use of a "few" cameras with on camera flash. Just a few mind you.
Aryk passed on that now Microsoft Live Photo Gallery now supports raw format, so you photogs who don't have a raw processor, or just want to view your RAW files from the explorer, will be able to. Bonus: it works for 64bit as well (previously not available for free without going to a 3rd party codec pack). Good stuff!
Great video calledStand Your Ground about a group of photographers on the streets of London who had the audacity to question the security firms and rent-a-cops asking them to stop shooting photographs and video when filming on the streets. Interesting results.
Thomas Hawk does a cool Google+ vs. Flickr vs. Facebook vs. 500px vs. Twitter comparison.
I will try to compare, the best I can, the attention that the same photograph received from each of these sites over the course of 24 hours. If as a photographer you are looking at photo sharing sites, in part, as a way to promote your work to a wider audience, the engagement your photographs receive online may be of interest. This case is very specific and of course everyone's circumstances will differ, but this is my experience.
Fascinating interview/video of Bruce Gilden a famous New York City street photographer that has a ... "unique" way of doing street photography. Watch the video for some great examples of what he does and how he works.
Disposable Camera Captures Its Own Trip Across the United States. Awesomely cool. A disposable camera was mailed in such a way it could be used while "packed" and postal workers were asked to take pictures with it as it went across the US. Easier to view the images in the link than explain it.
After the kerfuffle a while back about flickr accounts being deleted without warning or chance of retrieval, the flickr blog has responded with their new policies and procedures.
Just discovered loc.alize.us, a cool site that combines Flickr images and their geotagging, all wrapped up in a nice web 2.0 frontend. Very sexy.
Trading fear for photos on a stricken plane is the story of a photographer on a plane that had an engine die and shot what he thought were his last shots ever. Dude is hardcore. Check out the reddit discussion on the link.
DPReview has their in-depth Fujifilm X100 review posted. You'll remember the x100 as the gorgeous rangefinder style digital camera that was announced last year and had the camera nerds frothing at the mouth.
Anyone spare a thousand dollars to help me get one? Anyone?
Amateur Photographer Shoots Largest Ever Photo of the Night Sky. Amazing (and zoomable). Via reddit. Remember you can zoom out and rotate around the inside of the "sphere" in the image. Again, mindblowing.
SF to Paris in Two Minutes on Vimeo. Awesome. Make sure you go through the last few seconds for a few quick shots of the setup.
I know it's a promo video, but those photogs in the crowd who know what the Fuji X100 is will appreciate it. The beauty of this camera is amazing (sadly so is the price). Anyone who wants to get me a review unit I'd love you forever! Check the Fuji X100 Official Promotion Video over at RiceHigh's blog.
If you're photographically inclined, you might be interested to check out the new show from the guys at TWiT, in it's "episode zero" format - MostlyPhoto Beta 1 with @mostlylisa (Lisa Bettany) and @treyratcliff (Trey Ratcliff of Stuck in Customs). I'm only about halfway through but it's nice to hear they're not concentrating on gear, but more on what you can do with the gear you already have. Lots of talk about HDR in the initial show (not surprising because Trey is there) and as a bonus at around 28 minutes in you get to watch Trey do a "live" HDR of one of Leo's photos.
Sadly there's not an RSS feed yet, or anything to subscribe to. Looking forward to it going live so I can add it to my own list of photo podcasts.
Update: Beta 2 - Thanks Foz!
BBC has this Audio slideshow that is awesome. Must watch for any photography geeks.
Accompanying the film crews was photographer Timothy Allen. His stunning still images captured unique glimpses of people living in the world's most extreme environments. Take a look at some of them, and listen to him explain how he snapped the most arresting shots.
The collection is called Back to the Future, by photographer Irina Werning, and while I've seen a lot of great pics of people doing the same pose and clothing as a duplicate image from when they were a kid, these shots' attention to detail is amazing.
Eye-Fi has announced a new set of cards with a new Direct Mode which allows wireless transfer of images taken on your camera (with Eye-Fi on it of course) to your iOS device running the Eye-Fi app. 9-5 Mac has a good rundown.
My only reason for not getting the Eye-Fi card is the monthly cost for their geo-tagging service, however with a vacation on the horizon, I might change my tune :)
Update: Looks like I was wrong about the geotagging cost, some cards come with a lifetime included geotagging service.
A second photography related link tonight, check out this Firmware Hack to Bring 4K Video to the Canon Rebel T2i/550D. If you have one of these cameras, and are a bit brave, you might have fun playing with this. 4K video is .... well, damn high resolution lets just say :)
Just in time for the videos you might be making over the holidays, Further Research into Using Chickens as Steadicams has reached a point where you probably want to read the page. Oh sure it's all for fun, but still, it's pretty damn cool :)
Cool video/slideshow of Bruce Dale's National Geographic pictures called 30 Years of BAD Pictures. Awesome stuff.
DPReview has posted a nice in-depth review of the Nikon D7000.
Nikon surprised many people by pushing its enthusiast DSLR distinctly up-market just as Canon was doing the opposite with its 60D. The result is such a highly specified camera that it's generated almost as much interest from existing and would-be D300S customers as from the traditional D90 audience.
Pretty much any photographer will recognize this video, though I have a feeling that this will fall true with pretty much anyone who is self employed.
What do you do if you have 52 Canon 5D Mk 2s? You make a video of surfers in bullet time style!
Hat tip to the reddit article.
Note the other cool video is this behind the scenes one.
A new twist on old pictures.... 3D Van Gogh, using tilt-shift to give a bit of an update to the old master.
Bernie's Better Beginner's Guide to Photography looks like an excellent resource for beginning photographers looking for a solid understanding of the basics.
I know it's not one of the big two, but Pentax is my camera maker of choice and I figured I'd throw up their two announcements here. First is the K-5, a new pro level body with a 16.3 mp sensor, ISO 80-12800 (@6-7FPS) and 1080p video at 25FPS. Second is a nice addition to their lens lineup the 18-135 F3.5/5.6 zoom, what appears to be a nice walkaround lens, and other than being a bit slower, could be a great replacement for my 16-45 f/4.
Canon and Nikon people, you may continue about your business (though with the vague feeling that maybe, just maybe, in-body shake-reduction that allows you to have 50 year old lenses with 2-3 stops of shake-reduction is a good thing and something you're really like to try out.... Just sayin' :)
Update: DPreview has the news and a short hands on the K-5.
Hows this for crazy? John Chiara's Photographic Process is to use a large format camera. Large as in "size of a desk" large.
Cool, the photoclass subreddit has started a series of photo class lessons online. Check out Lesson 1 - What is a camera and Lesson 2 - Different types of cameras.
One of the more interesting developments recently in Camera+, a nifty little iPhone app from Tap Tap is the newest update was supposed to include "volumesnap", a setting to allow you to use the iPhone's volume buttons, making it easier to take pictures and having your phone feel a bit more like a real camera. Sadly this update was rejected recently.
Luckily there is a way to
How to use your iPhone's volume buttons for shutter control in Camera+ even without the update, and it works fine even on older (3G) iPhones. Simply:
If you find you don't like this (for example, if you want to change the music volume while you're taking pictures), just go to cameraplus://disablevolumesnap and it will, unsurprisingly, disable the feature.
Another great Daring Fireball Linked List link to a Statistical Analysis of the Attractiveness of User Profile Pictures, asserting, among other things, that iPhone users have more sex (presumably with other people that is).
As an iPhone user, I must agree with this.
</troll>
Some other interesting stuff as well, including analysis of sexiness by camera make, class, flash or no flash, etc.
Wow, I'll never look at eye photographs the same way again.
Great post with examples of Photo Tampering Throughout History. That iconic image of Abraham Lincoln that everyone knows? More like just his head Lincoln.... :)
Fantastic shot and description over on flickr called View From a Car Carrier. Read the description to see what it's like steering one of those huge cargo ships. I also encourage you to go through the rest of the My Office Window set of images showing the varied life of a cargo ship driver who does nothing but ferry these boats in and out of the harbor. This was featured on the flickr blog today.
If you're participating in the Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk, you'll be getting a Free Live Online Lightroom 3 Workshop after the walk is over. If you're not, and are into photography, come on out and give it a shot. I'll be at the Abbotsford location if anyone wants to meet up.
I'm not sure where the LX4 went to, but Panasonic officially announces DMC-LX5 premium compact, successor to the very popular LX3. Improvements include a longer zoom (24-90mm), keeping the wide aperture (f/2.0-3.3), and various other UI and form changes to tweak things.
The discussion thread on reddit on the Holga D is pretty awesome. Sadly it's just a concept imagery, but you have to admit, the idea of a digital camera with a crappy lens and no LCD is a pretty awesome concept. Honestly, if the price were right, it would sell. Some good links in the comments for things like a Diana lens for your DSLR (along with lots of snarky remarks).
Proving that you don't need a "pro" camera to shoot fantastic photos, and if you know what you're doing, you can do a iPhone-only pro-fashion photo shoot.
Of course, as cool as it is to see great shots coming from an iPhone, and as true as the "you don't need a $7000 camera to take great pictures" rule is, this video shows that if you have a bazillion dollars worth of lighting gear, a professional model and make up artist, you can get great shots as well, which maybe isn't what they were trying to do :) Still, it's cool. Love the moment in the video at 3:54ish when the phone rings :)
Two good posts for the photographers out there (or if you're being photographed).
I think for me this might be even more exciting than the new iPhone release, seeing on my ride in this morning that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 has been finally released. Very exciting, and the blogs and podcasts are all abuzz....
Trey Ratcliff, of HDR Tutorial and Stuck in Customs fame, has released another fantastic Stuck In Motion Video. Check out the notes for how he does this. Great work as usual.
This is interesting if you're in the Photography world.... Phase One has aquired Microsoft's Expression Media software. If you remember, "Expression Media" used to be iView MediaPro, a pretty damn good bit of software. It's interesting that a) Microsoft would sell off software that fills a gap in what they have available (though maybe it's not a core competancy of theirs, so they felt it better to put it in the hands of a company that truely knows Photography software), and b) someone aquires software from Microsoft, and not the other way around. It'll be interesting to see what happens here. I've used PhaseOne a bit, and it was more a RAW engine, so maybe grafting that onto the Digital Asset Management (DAM) software in iView-now-Expression Media is something that will put a third pony into the Aperture / Lightroom race.
Fozbaca tweeted out this great article: Master the Art of Photographic Composition. Awesome example images and good stuff!
MacRumors says that Adobe Creative Suite 5 is Now Shipping, so you can grab 'em to check them out.
The idea of putting a camera onto a remote control car and calling it The BeetleCam Project is cool, but the pictures it gets are even cooler. Love the lion image, looks like she's about to give the "Beetle" a good smack to see what it is :)
Yup, it's released. Been a busy day though so I haven't had a chance to look too deeply in. You can check out the discussion of it over on Digital Photography Review, where they highlight the features that are most likely to affect photographers. There's also the 61 minute launch event, and the full CS5 press release.
Pricing and Availability:
Adobe Photoshop CS5 and CS5 Extended are scheduled to ship within 30 days with availability through Adobe Authorized Resellers, the Adobe Store and Adobe Direct Sales. Estimated street price for Adobe Photoshop CS5 is US$699 and US$999 for Photoshop CS5 Extended. Upgrade pricing and volume licensing are available.
Saw on Camera Dojo that Lightroom 3 beta 2 is Now Available. Native canon/nikon tethering, improved performance, and support for managing video files. Looking forward to playing with this!
Hows this for a good deal, if you're into photography you can watch Captured By The Light, a 2.5h webcast, free. Sweet! Kudos to David Ziser for making this available.
I don't normally pimp random photos, or Trey Ratcliff's work in general, as I assume that everyone already reads his blog. However the latest shot is frikkin' amazing, and best viewed large and on black (click the image to view it). Amazing detail and beautiful HDR work.
The Pentax 645D has been Announced. Again. I think. The 645D is a medium format digital camera with 40mp of resolution, backwards compatibillity with film Pentax 645 lenses, and a price point of under (a bit) $10,000. A bit pricey, but compared to the Hallelblad at $23,000, not all that bad if you're in that business :)
Kudos to Nicolesy for this great find: Judge Joe Brown & Cheap Wedding Photographers. I'm not sure if His Honor Brown really knows his camera gear or is just repeating what his staff has researched for him, but it's entertaining and surprisingly not dumbed down camera lingo. Well worth the 10 minutes to watch the segment, regardless of your opinion of stupid shows like the "Judge [name]" and it's ilk.
Yet another reason I'm terrified to become a wedding photographer :)
Little bit of photographic inspiration if you're stuck with just a 50mm lens and want to see what you can do with it.
Pretty funny series of videos of Mr. Pixel and Mrs. Grain, a couple in counseling. If you're not into photography, you can probably skip this one.
Fascinating and beautiful collection of photos of The One Who Got Away.
If you're a photo geek, you probably have heard of, and most likely use, either Aperture or Lightroom. You've also probably heard that Apple released Aperture 3.0 recently. Lightroom killer tips has taken a stab at starting some good discussion with 5 Reasons To Stay with Lightroom (and not switch to Aperture). The author is biased (duh) and is responding to this article on switching the other way (Lightroom 2 to Aperture 3). From the LR Killer Tips article:
Obviously there's been a lot of buzz around lately about Apple's Aperture 3. I read an article yesterday titled "Five Reasons For Switching from Lightroom 2 to Aperture 3" by a gentleman named Marco. So I figured I'd take a stab at my own rendition of the "5 things" article (no offense to Marco) and write about 5 reasons to stay with Lightroom.
Personally I think it's not a cut and dry thing. Both programs have their good sides and downsides, and quite frankly, I'd love some features from AP3 in LR and vice versa. In reality though, use what works best for you (as always), but don't go flip flopping every time there's a new software release, cause (most likely) your time and effort is worth way more than that :)
The most awesome Trey Ratcliff (@stuckincustoms), famous for his HDR photographs and tutorial, did a talk for the Authors@Google series, embedded below.
The full talk is almost an hour long, and while I have yet to watch it yet (silly work disturbing my video watching), I look forward to seeing it.
Nice article on how In photography, rules aren't laws. Some great advice and inspiration in there for people who are exploring the world of photography.
Interesting article on an artist's decision to not retouch images of super models he took for a gallery show.
Very cool for the photo geeks out there: First Large Format Skydiving Photographs.
So looking through the What's new in Aperture 3 page, it looks like some people's dreams will come true, with "Faces" and "Places" from iPhoto appearing, brushes for retouching (echoing the local adjustment brushes from Lightroom), presets (they didn't have those before?), and what looks like a gorgeous full scren browser for browsing and viewing. Rounding out the major features is new slideshows with advanced affects, ability to combine video and audio with your photos, etc (sounds like they mixed in some Final Cut/iMovie in there as well).
All I can say is I kinda wish I a) wasn't already invested in Lightroom (come on Adobe, bring us Lightroom 3!!!) and that my main and most powerful computer wasn't a windows machine.
Bending over backwards in Photoshop. Literally is a great post from a flickr superstar, photographer and model. Miss Aniela shows how she created a very cool image from another fairly "meh" one. An interview with her was done for TWIP a while back and can be found here.
Light Chasers Photography has a great article on How to Shoot (Photographs) Like A Terrorist. An excerpt:
Bring the largest camera (or lens) you have
We all know that terrorists want attention - that's why they plant bombs wreak as much havoc as they can. They want people to notice them so they can get their message heard. This means that terrorists don't want to bring around small, inconspicuous cameras - they don't attract any attention. If you want to look like a terrorist, bring out the biggest hunks of plastic, metal, and glass that scream out "I'm a photographer terrorist."
Nice list from Scott Bourne for you photogs out there: Seven Things To Ask Before You Take Your Next Photograph. Via Andy Ihnatko who also added a few of his own on there :)
One of the (sad IMHO) realities these days is that if you have either a site that gets a non-trivial amount of traffic, or want to have the time available to you to run a site as more than a hobby, you need to run ads. Google ads are the most common, and are easily blocked with Adblock. Note: I both use adblock and also run google ads on this site. Anyway, the very cool site 1001 Noisy Cameras is going ad-free.
The site is a plethora of camera related news, with an amazing amount of content each day and while I had to put 'maybe' in the poll, I definitely wish them the best of luck and look forward to seeing how the endeavor goes.
As an aside, over here in UFies land, the income from having ads on the blog is somewhere between $0.07 - $3.50 a day on average (that's $0.008/h to $0.44/h) . Though I do appreciate everyone who goes to visit some sponsors :)
X-Equals is giving away their +X=IMAGE KIT, 2 years set of presets for Lightroom. Hat tip @nicolesy.
Aryk pointed me to a deal that Gizmodo blogged, where you Buy 200GB of Google Storage, Get a Free Eye-Fi Card. The eye-fi geo card details are here.
This pains me a bit. On one hand, I don't need extra storage from Google. On the other hand, 200G of online storage would be kinda nice. On one hand I know this deal is basically hoping that you forget to cancel the 200G of space and keep on paying the $50/year, but hey, you get a $60 wireless eye-fi card for $50, plus online backup.
Some more info here as well, including some of the fine print. One of the items indicates ("...includes one free year of Web Share and Geotagging ($24.98 value)") that the Geotagging is actually a service, not built into the card.
I normally don't like these "N Amazing Photos of [whatever]" type links, but DPS's link of 25 Spectacular Light Painting Images is pretty spectacular.
Great video of Canon and Nikon, a modern day Romeo+Juliet.
BoingBoing has a great story about a Leopard seal teaching photographer how to catch penguins, told by a National Geographic photographer who went to get some shots in the arctic.
I've seen a few of these types of projects lately. Check out Help-Portrait... there are a couple of videos on there that are pretty powerful, make me want to go and grab my gear.
Andy Ihnatko has a great set of images comparing Droid Camera vs. iPhone with surprising results. Remember of course that more megapixels doesn't mean a better image all the time.
Learn And Explore for the iPhone from Nikon, has become available in the US app store. Nice little app for my Nikon shooting friends.
Macworld has a great review of different outsourced scanning services (for negatives, slides, and prints) and compares a couple of the big ones in terms of time, quality, etc. Good stuff if you have a shoebox of slides that you need to do something with.
Other than it looking way too "CG" for a lot of it, looks potentially interesting (assuming they didn't give away the entire plot in the trailer of course).
Whoah, what a way to start the morning! No, I don't mean that it's Windows 7 release day, I mean I was perusing my RSS and saw: Adobe ships Lightroom 3 free public beta over on 9 to 5 Mac. I'll have more links soon as the coffee kicks in. Here is the release notes (PDF). Main changes are "architecture for the growing size of image libraries" (cool, though catalogs and smart folders work well for this) and better noise reduction (sweet), posting to internet sharing sites directly, better watermarking, and a bunch more stuff.
More info on the Adobe Labs page.
Some demo Videos found as well.
Flickr! It's made of people! just launched. a facial recognition system similar to Adobe Elements, Picasa, and iPhoto (and probably others). Very cool feature, I'm looking forward to playing with it.
Now I just wish support for this sort of tech was built into Lightroom and Aperture!
Update: Note that this isn't a facial recognition system, but just a way to tag people's faces manually in images.
Anyone who is into photography probably noticed the new Canon 1D Mark IV was released and here's a pretty awesome video by Vincent Laforet called Nocturne, shot in ISO 6400 with the Mark IV.
Not the camera I'd want slung around my neck all day, but I don't think I'm on the level that I need a Mark IV :) Dana also points that there is some back story here about the short film.
Trey Ratcliff, of the excellent Stuck in Customs HDR blog and tutorial has created a very cool looking HDR Spotting, a Gallery of HDR Photos by the community. HDR doesn't appeal to everyone, but this is a nice resource to see (and be inspired by) some of the "good" ones.
Two bits of Flickr news tonight:
Found via the Tack Sharp photography podcast is a great collection of Launch Photography of the Space Shuttle and other rockets. Some really good examples of creative views of the same scene.
Maybe that recent update for the Panasonic LX3 wasn't so great. Seems they are suspending the LX3 firmware update and have announced version 2.1 for October 20th. Via 1000 noisy cameras.
Steve Huff has posted a fantastic 13 page Leica M9 review. Wonder if I can just email them and if they'd send me one to play with?
Just a quick note that if you're one of the lucky ones with an LX3, there's a firmware update to version 2.0 ready for you. The list of improvements is impressive as well, faster AF, a new aspect ratio, new scene mode, etc.
Almost every photographer I know (mostly noobs like me) says that their weak point is taking pictures of people and especially strangers, and I also have never had the balls to ask some random strangers to take their picture. Zack's Street Portraits video shows how to do it and how damn easy it is.
The Flickr Blog has details of Galleries, the latest feature on the site. In a nutshell, galleries are like sets of other people's images. Currently you can use Sets to collect images of your own, Galleries allow you to collect up to 18 images from other people.
The camera nerds will probably drool over the newly announced Leica M9, and balk at the price. Still, full frame sensor, classic range-finder body, compatibility with what people claim to be the best lenses in the world, etc etc. Anyone got a few months of mortgage payments spare that they can give me to buy one? Pretty please?
More details and pricing ($7k!!!) here.
Update: Hands on preview over at DPreview.
I just saw the Panasonic DMC-GF1 Hands on Preview at DPReview. I have the LX3, but this one is a) 4/3rds sensor and b) not that much bigger. Seexxxxxxy.......
The latest from Canon has appeared. Check out the Canon EOS 7D at DPReview. Updated are the viewfinder (100% @ 1.0x magnification), integrated speedlight control, 18mp sensor, 8fps, 24fps full HD movie mode, DIGIC 4 (that's one better than DIGIC 3), and other bits. See the link for way more details.
Well, not only is there going to be an Apple Event in September, looks like Leica is set to unveil new products on 9.9.09. The video says "a collection of ground breaking products", and there's a webcast. Personally I'm excited in so much that I greatly admire the craftsmanship, quality and history, but I'm pretty sure I won't be able to afford it whatever it is. Maybe a new M9? A full frame version of the digital rangefinder? Who knows....
DPReview has the press release and images of the Canon PowerShot G11. This comes of course, right after my dad got himself the G10. Same lens, a downgrade from the 15mp sensor in the G10 to a "high sensitivity" 10mp sensor (maybe they listened to people talking about the insanity of huge megapixels on a tiny sensor), better anti-noise (they claim 2 stops) and various other things. No HD video yet either...
Interesting to see what the people screaming in the forums about how Canon was right and DPReview and their unjustified crusade against high megapixels in P&S cameras have to say...
Update: Engadget has a hands on with the G11.
Models.com has a Keep It Real post with a bunch of supermodels without makeup. Look good too, and as they say, more human than the normal plastic people you see in the supermarket rags. That said, they were also still done in an "artsy" way, with good lighting and using a vintage 70's black and white look to minimize and hide some of the imperfects (instead of airbrushing the smeg out of them on the "well lit" covers). Still, good to see some of these (unrecognizable) people looking more human.
Macenstein has a cool Time-lapse video of a Macworld cover creation. As a photography it's particularly interesting in their lighting setup and the amount of post processing that's involved to get the shiny gadgets to look so shiny. Also I didn't realize what was all involved in setting up and tweaking all the stuff on the cover, fonts, and text and layout and whatnot.