30fps Home Run
Over at SportsShooter.com, USA Today staff photographer Robert Hanashiro explains how he shot Barry Bonds’ record breaking 756th home run in 30fps. It would all seem a little over the top, except who wouldn’t want to shoot with triple Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III cameras and EF 600mm f/4.0 lenses, side by side?
August 31, 2007 #
Panoramic Stock
About The Image reports on a new stock photo agency specializing in panoramic images. I like the concept, but unfortunately, the execution is a bit weak: For example, it’s unnecessarily hard to find pricing and licensing terms for images—and you wouldn’t expect to see Google ads on a stock agency website. So if you have panoramic stock images to sell, you will probably still be better off with the usual suspects, such as Alamy or Veer.
August 31, 2007 #
Polar Panoramas
Over at Photojojo, Dirk Paessler explains how to create polar panoramas.
August 29, 2007 #
Nikon Returns Fire
Following on from the Canon announcements last week, Nikon just released a number of new cameras and lenses. The new D3 seems to be getting the most press, but I am far more excited about the D300, which leaves the Canon EOS 40D in the dust. Highlights include a 12 megapixel sensor, a 51 point autofocus system, a 922,000 pixel rear LCD and a viewfinder with 100% frame coverage. As a Canon shooter, I think that reads like a laundry list of what Canon needs to do with the EOS 40D and siblings.
August 28, 2007 #
Canon Gearfest
Lots of good news for Canon aficionados today. The Digital Photography Review has details on all of them: The new EOS-1Ds Mark III, the EOS 40D, an updated EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM and two new consumer zoom lenses.
The specs of the EOS-1Ds Mark III puts it in a good position to take on medium format digital backs—but it will be interesting to see which of Canon’s lenses live up to the new 21 megapixel sensor. As for the EOS 40D, it comes with a large number of incremental changes, chief among which are a 10 megapixel sensor with dust reduction and an improved viewfinder. Unsurprisingly, both cameras look like real keepers.
August 20, 2007 #
Microscopic World
Check out eyeofscience.com for some pretty eye-popping scanning electron microscope images of bacteria, pollen, ants, electronics and more. Personal favorite: The shark skin.
August 19, 2007 #
Perseids Composites
If you missed your chance to photograph the Perseids meteor shower, fear not: Fred Bruenjes has you covered with some stunning composite images.
August 18, 2007 #
Ami Vitale
PhotoShelter has published a brief profile of Ami Vitale. She is a documentary photographer with a decidedly human touch—and she has produced some great photography over the last few years. More links are available after the jump, including one to her private website.
August 15, 2007 #
Inkless Printing
The Imaging Resource reports that consumer products are now underway based on inkless printing technology developed by startup company ZINK. First out: A digital point-and-shoot camera with a built-in printer.
A couple of comments: First, I would expect this technology to have greater appeal in cell phones, where you could also print business cards, address labels, SMS messages and so on. Second, the new phone uses a traditional 3:2 aspect ratio. I have never been a fan of the 4:3 format, so I think this is great;but there are inherent inefficiencies in wider aspect ratios that make them less attractive for compact cameras.
Either way, Polaroid enthusiasts should be thrilled with the new technology—but will it have enough mass market appeal to catch on?
August 14, 2007 #
.Mac Sample Gallery
If you saw the .Mac web gallery post the other day, you may have noticed that Apple has published a sample gallery online. Take it for a spin and see what you think.
My comments:
- The new galleries sport a number of features familiar to Mac OS X users, including a Cover Flow styled view (called “Carousel”), and the concept of flipping photos over to see more details “on the back”. I’m not sold on the former, but the latter is a neat way of presenting metadata.
- On the main gallery page, you can move the mouse back and forth across album thumbnails to see previews of all the photos in an album. However, while this works fine in Firefox, it doesn’t appear to work in Safari 2.0 until after you have visited the albums in question.
- The albums are reasonably slow to load. Not as bad as some Flash-based galleries out there, but nowhere near as fast as Aperture’s plain HTML galleries. Web surfers are an impatient bunch: No matter how good the photography, if the gallery is too slow, people lose interest.
- Some of the pages seem to continue loading indefinitely in Safari. Presumably this is due to the underlying scripting. While this is mainly an issue if you want to view the source, you may also find the constantly spinning progress indicator annoying.
- It does not appear possible to open albums or photos in new tabs or windows. This is a huge annoyance if you want to load multiple albums in separate tabs.
- As usual with Apple’s galleries, HTML and CSS validation fails miserably.
Overall, not a great effort. It’s surprising and vaguely disappointing to see that Apple has failed to carry their considerable software and usability expertise across to their web galleries. Perhaps it’s time to contract out this work?
August 12, 2007 #
IMG_3544
Fun question posed by Bryan Bedell over at Coudal Partners: Most casual shooters don’t have a file naming scheme other than what their camera provides—so what does everyone else’s IMG_3544 look like? As always, Google has the answer.
August 11, 2007 #
iPhoto Web Galleries
For you Mac users out there, you have probably already noticed the action over at apple.com today. Of special note for photographers is the new web gallery feature in iPhoto. Can improved Aperture web galleries be far behind?
August 9, 2007 #
More Gitzo Tripods
Fresh from review site The-Digital-Picture.com: A write-up on the Gitzo GT2530, smaller cousin of the previously mentioned GT3530S.
August 8, 2007 #
Digital Journalist
The August 2007 issue of The Digital Journalist was just posted. If you’re not already a reader, you should be: It’s an online publication with a great blend of articles, photography, commentary and tech tips.
August 6, 2007 #
Camera Shipments Up
The Digital Photography Review reports that camera shipments for the first six months of 2007 are up by 27% over the same period last year. For digital SLRs, the number is even higher: 75%. Good news for vendors—and good news for consumers as well, as prices will inevitably come down.
August 4, 2007 #
A Hundred Years of Film Sizes
For you history buffs out there, check out this overview of film formats, from 1890 to the present day.
August 2, 2007 #
EOS-1D Mark III Review
The-Digital-Picture.com has posted a Canon EOS-1D Mark III review. Aside from the headline features, highlights include a usable ISO 6400 mode, focus calibration for multiple lenses, a much improved battery, and a control layout similar to the 30D.
August 1, 2007 #