A $200 beast by Schneider Optics, or a cleverly designed $70 Olloclip for your iPhone 4/4S?

Photojojo has some too — simply called ‘cell phone lenses‘, and here’s a thread on Flickr forum discussing this very topic.

Personally, I like the Olloclip, simple & small. But I mind the extra possession.

Pushing image quality with the iPhone is like putting a Ferrari engine in a Honda Civic: expensive & unnecessary. (via TBR)

Panoramic stitching apps are complex, not so user friendly and it often fails to meet our expectation. Keith Cooper of Northlight Images takes a look at the latest iteration of Kolor’s Autopano and touted it as one of the few apps that ‘just works’:

Whilst, from my previous engineering and scientific background, I have a knowledge of much of the maths and processing behind what’s going on, I was really pleased that I didn’t need to know any of this stuff to actually use the software. At no time was I presented with a form or dialog box full of meaningless numbers and asked to set some parameter that meant nothing to me. The details are there in the background if I want to delve and experiment, but the whole point is that I didn’t have to know this stuff to start with.

I have tried Autopano since the earlier versions but still doesn’t find it intuitive enough, however, the latest 64-bit-friendly version of the app sees some major interface & engineering improvements, so much that I began to consider putting my money on it, even though it is far from, well, simple.

gfxCardStatus is a little menu bar applet for dual-GPU MacBook Pros that indicates which graphic mode is in use. But mainly, it allows you to instantly toggle between the two modes on the fly, or automatically, based on app dependencies, or power source.

And here’s a tip to change the icon for MacBook Pros with AMD GPUs.

Priceless, and free. (via TidBits)

Rob Galbraith:

I’ve been using early iterations of the software for months, and recently have switched to using only it for RAW conversion duties, so crisp and natural are the pictures it produces.

He’s talking about a new app that is currently in-development by PictureCode, developer of Noise Ninja. Unprecedented, is his one-word-description of the app, and Jim Christian, the founder of PictureCode, broke the silence via a post in Pro Digital Talk Forum, in response to PictureCode’s years-long hiatus and its lack of updates:

For some time now, we have been quietly developing a powerful, differentiated raw converter that emphasizes image quality. We have been beta testing it for several months, and early users have told us that the image quality is indeed unprecedented. Not only is the noise reduction a significant improvement over Noise Ninja, but there are a half-dozen other algorithms that are arguably best in class, and everything is seamlessly integrated into a streamlined, coherent workflow. It will interoperate with other platforms like Photo Mechanic, Lightroom, and Photoshop. (And yes, it is 64-bit/multi-core.)

We are trying to lock down the feature set in the next couple of weeks and then start the process of final testing and preparation for release. Assuming things go smoothly (and they don’t always, but I am cautiously optimistic based on how things have been going lately) I am hoping to give the go-ahead for a major reviewer to start publishing details within the next 30 days or so, with release to follow shortly afterward.

It took much longer to develop than I expected. Not only were there significant technical hurdles to overcome to achieve the level of quality and performance that we wanted, but there were some nontrivial random events and distractions that slowed down the development effort. And, frankly, it’s just a hugely complex and difficult task — easily an order of magnitude more involved than a product like Noise Ninja.

I suspected early on that they are working on something, and I’m glad to hear Rob’s nod of approval on it, but I got to give it a run before I say something about it.

RAW development means business, and the market’s full of them. From the manufacturer’s door, the big boys like Adobe or Apple, even newer apps like Snapseed or Flare who are not really RAW development apps, but seem to have been able to earn some trust in a photographer’s workflow.

Competition is good, and I’d like to keep a closer look on how this one turns out.

Joerg Colberg on the World Press Photo:

If you look through the series of winning photographs of World Press Photo (I’m talking about the main winning image here, not the many others in the various categories), pretty much every photograph expresses something very specifically seen through our, Western, eyes. Photographers, of course, do their best to take good photographs. But what we see in the news, in newspapers, magazines, and on websites, is a carefully selected number of photographs conforming to usually very specific messages.

The World Press Photo has been a crown jewel of attention in the world of photojournalism — or photography in general — for many years now, and with it, comes a large pool of criticism and questions on how it’s being run.

To the general public, it maybe nothing but an exhibit of good photography behind some of the year’s major events. But to those who are inside the world of the news industry, it’s an alternative way to get your story heard. Or as Joerg called it, ‘a carefully selected number of photographs conforming to usually very specific messages‘ if you ever make it to the finish line.

The problem is that the World Press Photo has gotten so big, it’s not just about good photography anymore, it’s editorial politics. One that has the power to bury the right photograph with the wrong point of view, for the wrong photograph with a world-press-photo-conforming point of view.

Disparity with the right angle makes a good editorial. And that angle is almost always right when you are at the public’s side, but the World Press Photo seems to be on their own territory. Even though considerable efforts are made to ensure its public-serving operation, the results, however, often signals a pattern that are less glorifying.

The World Press Foundation states the following: We believe in the power of visual journalism to inspire and shape us, so I’ll let you render your own conclusion. But to me, it comes down to this: excellence in visual journalism doesn’t always need the right story, send the right message. It inspires one way or another, so you just got to let your ego at bay and let the great image out.

Traveling was never my reason to do photography, but the two has been inseparable since the beginning.

In the last five years or so, I’ve maintained a personal journal of places, sites and great indulgence, I have published some of them through various channels, and now I have decided to put them in one place.

World Wide Will is the new home to that arsenal of materials. Stuffs like photographs, travel anecdotes and placemarks will be its bread and butter, gems like coffee, local delights and the people will be its honey and brown sugar; simply a place where I can call home to leave a trace of some random treasure to a fellow traveler.

Traveling is not cheap, but a great experience is always priceless, and I have been blessed with countless bags of awesomeness. As Alexander Supertramp wisely put: Happiness is only real when they are shared.