Getty Sale
After a period of speculation and discussion, Getty Images has now been sold to private equity firm Hellman & Friedman—assuming shareholders agree with the $2.4 billion valuation. Hard to pick what the long-term outcome may be, but if nothing else, private ownership of the company should give the management team greater latitude for change. No definitive word on whether the current management team will stay.
February 27, 2008 #
Synchronized Diving
Via Rob Galbraith: A gallery of diving images by Reuters. Synchronized diving is one of those sports that lends itself incredibly well to photography—and photographer David Gray has found some unique perspectives.
February 25, 2008 #
Aperture Interview
Over at the Inside Aperture blog, Derrick Story interviews Apple’s Joe Schorr about Aperture 2.0.
My first impressions: The speed boost is very significant across the board—and the Straighten Tool wins the award for most improved user experience. The changes in RAW decoding appear to be huge, even for older cameras like my trusty Canon EOS 20D—and I much prefer the default 2.0 decode over its 1.1 predecessor. The Retouch and Recovery features are welcome additions, and both work reasonably well. But, alas and alack, the web galleries still suck: While 2.0 offers iPhoto-style .Mac galleries, the standard galleries (now called Web Pages) suffer from all the problems previously discussed here and here.
On the whole, a very worthwhile upgrade.
February 20, 2008 #
Aperture 2.0
Alright, let’s just say that I’m pretty pleased with my prediction from yesterday: Aperture 2.0 was released today, with lots of new goodies, and an upgrade price tag of $99. More details available from Apple and Macworld.
It seems unlikely that support for the Nikon D3 and D300 will be added to Aperture 1.5—so owners of those and other new cameras will have to upgrade to 2.0. On the other hand, with the low upgrade price and the significant improvements, I can’t imagine this would be an issue for most Aperture users.
February 13, 2008 #
Apple Updates
Apple just released Mac OS X 10.5.2 and something called the Leopard Graphics Update 1.0. However, as noted by Rob Galbraith, neither update adds Aperture support for recent Canon and Nikon bodies—a pretty strong indication that an Aperture update is due to be released soon.
It’s been pretty quiet on the Aperture front recently, while iPhoto has been kitted out with a number of great new features, including better web albums. A strong indication that 2.0 is right around the corner?
February 12, 2008 #
Shooting on the Cheap
Strobist links to some great videos by Robert Rodriguez about how to make a movie for practically nothing. Admittedly not as relevant to still photography, but still very inspiring.
February 10, 2008 #
Joe McNally’s Blog
Most of you will probably be familiar with Joe McNally. Turns out, now he also has a blog, where he aims to post tidbits from his life as a professional photographer. Given his enjoyable writing style and high caliber client list, it should be an interesting read.
February 6, 2008 #