| Snow Leopard Update: 10.6.4 ★ | apertureexpert.com |
Update includes expanded tethering support in Aperture 3.
Get the update here
16 June 2010
15 June 2010
| Tiffen Photo fx Ultra ★ | itunes.apple.com |
I’m not too sure how it can be professionally relevant, but 68 filters on iPad’s gorgeus screen sounds interesting.
13 June 2010
| Digital Retribution ★ | pdnedu.blogs.com |
An inconvenient truth:
Another thing to consider is whether ad effectiveness will factor into what photographers charge for ads appearing in media tablet publications. Publishers and third parties will undoubtedly be analyzing the impact of ads that appear in tablet editions, especially those premium ads that include multimedia and interactivity. If research shows that ads are more effective—leading to click-throughs or making a bigger impression on readers—when viewed in tablet editions, publishers will want to charge advertisers more for those ads. Photographers would presumably also want to receive more from clients for licenses to images being used to create the more valuable ads.
Writers, actors, photographers — Artists — are content providers, publishers are the distributors and in-between are agents & managers. What we sometimes forget are how publishers and companies are taking things for granted; content is the heart of the matter, how the content is being utilitized to generate profits should be properly and fairly retributed to the entire food-chain.
| LaCie Rugged USB 3.0 ★ | lacie.com |
One of the first USB 3.0 devices to hit the market. Backward compatible, (you can add a PCIe card to upgrade for your machine too), $150 for 500GB and can sustain a 2 meter drop.
| Gearing up for World Cup ★ | pdngearguide.com |
PDN talks to some shooters covering the first World Cup in African continent, some seasoned World Cuppers, some new comers. The question would be “What would you bring?”
Update: Security remains #1 issue.
9 June 2010
| Lightroom’s Third ★ | computer-darkroom.com |
Major upgrade to Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom:
- Image processing enhanced: new conversion & sharpening algorithms, mindblowing noise reduction. (Did I mention lens corrections?)
- Library & workflow, including but not limited to tethering & video file support.
- Performance boost.
That last one there is the thing that Aperture is god-forsakenly needing. Badly.
Someone knows how to do it right, and it’s not from a camera maker
Earlier Today, Steve Jobs took the stage and introduced their next generation of the iPhone, iPhone 4. One of the big feature from the new device — beyond the stainless-steel and the aluminosilicate glass front/back — is a new imaging system:
The iPhone 4 camera shoots gorgeous 5-megapixel photos and stunning HD video. And with its advanced backside illumination sensor, it captures beautiful images even in low-light settings.
On the stage, Jobs emphasized that instead of focusing on tangible things like megapixels, engineers at Apple are challenged with the question “How to take better pictures?”
More megapixels means squeezing those-already-tiny pixels into the same sensor size, which means that despite the bigger megapixel count, it becomes less sensitive to light. That’s why photos coming out of cellphone cameras are never as good, even far from a regular-sized point-and-shoot cameras.
The 5-megapixel sensor Apple is using on the new iPhone is geared towards getting more photons to the sensor, so they are using the technology that the larger camera uses, a backside illuminated sensor, and they kept the same pixel pitch for the sensors, which means that while the new iPhone is smaller, thinner, the sensor is bigger & better!
John Gruber of Daring Fireball also pointed out that new camera has a different (wider) focal length (the original is equivalent to 37mm — details here).
In a nutshell, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s wrong with the imaging industry. They need to market their products, and competitions are charging ahead the race like an angry bull, we can’t blame them, but we can change our point of view. We must educate ourselves on what we actually need, not what the industry wants us to believe, cause not everyone is like Steve Jobs, and not every company is like Apple.
Update: Learn more about iPhone 4’s camera: iPhone 4 Camera Goes Beyond Megapixels
Big Bag Bugs
© Billingham
(update: link to “My Big Small Bag” added; a peak into my personal packing preference & mini review)
—
“Show me the sketch” asked the lady to the boy.
He handed her the sketch and she replied: “Sure, we can make this”
“Really?” asked the boy.
“Why not?” she continued. “We have suppliers and they surely can make custom bags like this.”
“But this isnt really simple, it’s feature-packed, are you sure they can do it?”
“Let’s see.”
The mother took the drawing from her 8 year old son, and he never heard from her again about it.
Yupe. The bag was never produced, and the drawing was never seen again.
I have been a big fan of bags since I was little, and I never was happy with the bags that I purchased throughout the years. Albeit, school bags, camera bags, traveling bags, only until I was old enough to buy my own bag and actually traveled a bit that I was able to get myself some proper bags.
My first camera bag was a small, green army colored box with plastic fittings that costed next to nothing. When it grew too small, I went out and purchased my first serious camera bag, the $120 Lowepro Orion AW that was popular at that time, and despite some broken zipper handle, the bag stands its reputation, I still have it in storage, and it was a good bag.
When I begin working pros, carrying my PowerBook for location shoot became a burdain, so I bought myself a multi-purpose backpack, a khaki colored Crumpler knock-off that was not nearly as usable as intended that I ended up using it not as a camera bag, but a daily backpack. So I purchased another Crumpler knock-off messenger bag, in which the price has proven its unusefulness, it was dying too fast.
An iPad, a couple of years later, I finally decided to get the real thing, I wasn’t really sure what to get as yet, only to learn that what I need as a bag relevant to my current setup was close to nothing, at least that’s what I found in the beginning:
- Lightweight, thin & comfortable to wear and to carry my daily carry stuff.
- Long lasting & looks good.
- Capable of intaking an iPad plus a small pocket camera and/or basic DSLR kit.
Intriqued by the lost bag sketch that never saw the daylight, I began sketching my new ‘dream bag’ design. Think of ShootSac + Crumpler, instead of a detailed rendering of the bag, I came out with a size & material requirement, some friends recommended a few suppliers that are known to be custom bag makers for photographers & users (local), I was excited, and what comes next was a surprise.
I couldn’t remember what was the size/material I decided with and I lost the sketch, none of it was relevant when I rediscovered Billingham again, after a friend showed me his L2 setup. After doing a little research, I shortlisted the following models:
None of it met my size requirement, but both was a good justification, just when I decided on the Hadley, I saw something else on the shop, the new Billingham f/Stop Range bag, it was love at first sight, I dropped my jaw when I learned that it has the same or not perfect size — even better. So I quickly check if my Apple encased iPad fits perfectly, and the bag’s inner compartment was perfect in both width & height to fit the iPad.
Featuring Billingham’s composite lightweight material FibreNyte cloth, minimalistic design & legendary quality, the bag didn’t come cheap, I had to set aside $285 for this beast.
It took me a good few years to understand a thing or two about a good bag, and as the title suggested, big bag really bugs; materials and finishing is everything a bag can offer, my advise is never to settle with less, but quality & build. (Great look doesn’t hurt too).
Why I chose this bag:
- Lightweight, great design & craftsmanship.
- Dedicated iPad friendly space at the rear of the main compartment.
- Just enough additional compartment at the front & back of the bag.
- Bottom & Top are protected with a padded flaps.
- An iPad, basic DSLR kit & a few accessories will fit perfectly in this thing, it’s made for the iPad & digital shooters like me.
What I don’t like about this bag:
- The long quick release strap that is a departure from the old design (it’s a love & hate thing, that I happend to dislike).
- Its price tag.
3 June 2010
| Stormy Weather ★ | robgalbraith.com |
Uh-oh:
And now with the iPad Camera Connection Kit (CCK) you would expect that it would be a slam-dunk to create a simple app that would browse photos on the flash card (hopefully supporting CF via a card reader, not just SD or tethered to the camera). Then you could choose a photo, rename, add metadata and upload it, making a sweet little package for editing and transmitting photos in the field. So we managed to get our hands on a few iPads and the CCKs to investigate. Well like your parents probably told you, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t real and you should be suspicious of it. Do your homework. Unfortunately that is likely the case for the iPad and professional photography: not so sweet.
Photo Mechanic is widely used by photographers and photo editors, and was one of the recipient of this public letter.
2 June 2010
| The Empire Strikes Back ★ | dpreview.com |
Right after winning this clone war.