Sigma DP1

PopPhoto.com tests the Sigma DP1.

"The DP1 sets a new standard for image quality in a compact camera, especially at ISO 400 and 800. Its fixed 28mm-equivalent f/4 lens has incredibly low distortion and minimal light falloff that adds to image quality"

The downside? Looks to be slow AF and poor lowlight ability (slow lens, and no image stabilization to compensate) and that it'll set you back $800.

 

Technorati Tags: equipment,photography

Perfect Compact?

Still on the trail of the perfect compact and, based on dpreview, it looks like the R8 isn't quite it. Looks like low light and image processing/noise are weak spots.

The new consumables

Digital cameras killed film, and with it 50% of the consumable business (the other 50% being prints, that's a rough 50% BTW). But have camera's become the new consumable? I think Stephen Fry thinks maybe...

Independent best travel of 2007

The Independent has chosen its best travel photographs of 2007.

Does anyone else find it odd that, with one exception, you have to follow a link to see the pictures that won?

I get the impression a lot has changed since I was inspired by Brian Harris' pictures in that newspaper.

More perfect camera

On the trail of the perfect camera, maybe Sigma will be worth keeping an eye on...

The perfect camera

The perfect camera: Pocket sized, great photographers control, superb image quality, cheap reasonably priced.

Ricoh came close except for the noise thing.

Canon arguably got closer.

But what I was really waiting for was a digital something that crossed an XA with an OM-4, only 'more so'.

Then I realized that the real advantage of a pocket sized camera is that it's with you all the time: in your pocket. And while you're waiting for the perfect pocket camera, it's obviously not, well, in your pocket. Thus, waiting for the perfect pocket camera defeats the whole objective of a pocket sized camera.

So I bought one of these & happy I have been.

There's a moral there somewhere...

Flash is bad

Actually, it's not flash that's bad. It's on camera flash that gives flash a bad name. After all, just what is natural light?

Two steps to getting flash off camera:

1. One of these for the flash bit

2. A set of these for off camera bit

Now, if only I could remember what I learnt about lighting at college...

RAW Windows

One of the problems with RAW formats has been the need to use specialized tools to work with the files. Pro photo tools now typically understand many RAW formats, but that doesn't extend to all the other apps that I want to use with photos, or use photos in. In Windows Vista (or more precisely, WIC) that's been made a lot easier by support for image codecs for RAW formats. You can grab a codec for the RAW format used by your camera and then any app that uses WIC to access images gets automatic support for that file type. Great for users and also great for developers, who no longer have to worry about loads of complex code changes just to support the latest RAW format variant.

There's a list of codecs available from different manufactures on the Microsoft Professional Photography site [link] which, interestingly for me, also includes a link to a DNG codec.

Although I shoot with Canon (and therefore .CR2 RAW files), for various reasons I convert to DNG. At the moment that results in a hybrid workflow where I shoot RAW+JPEG because some apps I use don't like DNGs. Looks like we might be getting closer to the time where I don't need to do stunts like that :-) so I'm off to play with codecs for a bit!

Digital Lomo?

Nik's been playing with a Lomo with some results that reminded me of playing with pin hole photography with an OM-4 (the joys of Off-The-Film-Plane metering ;-).

I'm not sure I quite get the 'getting away from digital thing', but that's probably because for me the whole renaissance thing was getting into digital with a DSC-V1 having burnt out on photography. Probably one too many wedding. So I'm quite intrigued with the idea of sticking a lomo-lens on the front of a DSLR body. Litratista has the details on do it yourself, or you can grab a pre-built one for a variety of lens mounts from holamods.

It's a funny old world

Sometimes, someone really should have used DRM (as the BBC reports).

Sometimes, someone really should quit using DRM (as Ars Technica reports here and here ).

Playing with Windows Live Photo Gallery

One of the really nice improvements in Windows Vista is the Photo Gallery. Now the photo gallery team have put out a beta, with some great new features and support for Windows XP. It took a while to sink in just what an improvement the new version is, but this morning I realized that we're using it more than Picasa (for the family part of the photo workflow — PhotoShop and LightRoom still rule for those of us that think we know what we're doing ;-) and also that it's spread onto all the boxes I use, both at work and home — we'll all except the Ubuntu box !-O

Some highlights...

• Auto adjust shows you what was autofixed — so you can tweak really really easily
• Integrated with Live so uploading to spaces is a breeze — I'd love to see flickr there too, but then who wouldn't?
• A superb stitcher — better than almost any of the others I've tried and the best bit? No UI. Proof that simple can be better.

I'm still stuck with the dilemma around destruction-less editing.

On the one hand, Picasa stores edits without altering the original image which is great for getting creative, and letting the kids have a go without worrying about destroying the original. But it is also a hassle because you need to export to e.g. share on flickr and, worse, locks most people into Picasa because other apps don't recognize the sidecar files that describe what's been done. On the other, I can't quite get used to having to save changes permanently with Photo Gallery, and on older hardware perf appears slower presumably because Picasa applies the edits only to the pixels being displayed, not the whole image.

Hummmmph. Oh for a perfect solution...

....;-)

 

tags: photography, Windows Live

Autumn (or why you should geotag)

'̒Autumn̓' described by Nick Tosches demonstrates a benefit of geotagging images (the image in question wasn't geotagged), and of having a good story around metadata within image files more generally.

 

tags: images, geotag, autumn, photography

No TV Service?

So, not hooking up the TV since we moved in (didn't connect the antenna, didn't bother with satellite, and went with a broadband connection but not a cableTV box) doesn't mean no TV, just we really choose what to watch...

Netflix has rolled out Watch Instantly. very very good, even if the choice is a tad limited. We're watching MI5 (spooks to those back home)

BBC has upped the bandwidth it streams to non-UK viewers with the BBC News Player

Joost just opened up to a public beta

Not to mention TV on the XBOX and iTunes

...if this trend continues I'll be back to being a couch potato(e) and conventional TV will be dead. Dodo dead.

A note to record that CDs are dead

They have been for a while in many parts, they are too here now.

Before today...

1. Buy CD (9/10 times, online)
2. CD arrives in post
3. RIP to MP3 and place on server
4. Put CD on shelf in back of cupboard under coats n' stuff

Very, very occasionally, buy something on iTunes...

1. Log-in to the iTunes store
2. Download
3. Listen
4. ...time passes
5. Try to explain to 6-year-old why he can't listed to Nizpoli on his Not-an-iPod-MP3 player :-(

That's all changed 'cause Amazon are now selling DRM-free music and, after practically no sleep last night, Finn & I are eating a slow breakfast and listening to newly download Pink Floyd.

Nice.

Amazon isn't the first to do this, but they've nailed the ease of use, you search for the CD (as we'd normally do) but then offer to buy either the physical media or download as MP3.

Nothing like another brick in the wall (part 2) for accompanying a little homework...

39 mega pixel 'blad

Just when I'm musing upgrading from a 350D/XT to something with a little more pixels, maybe a 40D, Engadget has details of an update to Hasselblad's 39 megapixel H3D II camera. But what really interests me about the 40D is spot metering & whether it would solve the craving for the metering in my old OM-4...

New Picasa

Updated picasa available with improved RAW support and geotagging with Picasa Web Albums & 'added more metadata to JPEG when exporting and uploading'.

I wonder what more means?

 

tags: Picasa, metadata, photography

Slide shows on the web

There's been a lot of Microsoft goodness that I've pointed to recently so it's nice to be able to point and something from another part of the ecosystem.

One of the struggles of working with photos on the web is balancing different use cases: small pictures for fast download on slow connections; higher resolution for larger displays or printing; gallery views and full screen slide shows. We're fussy customers aren't we?

PicLens (via techcrunch) is a plugin for Firefox and Safari browsers that understands popular photo sites and provides a slide show view of the content auto-magically. PicLens lets viewers click on an image which then expands to a full screen viewer (using the knowledge of the photo site to grab higher resolution content on-the-fly). Once full screen, you can browse related images, or drop into a slide show mode. You can also support PicLens on any site by publishing a Media RSS feed.

It's not a perfect solution — there's a number of things I'd like to enable in this scenario, including some nice twists with more intelligent file formats — but it is an interesting step nonetheless.

tags: photography, piclens

The second best podcast in the world...

...is now no longer available as a podcast :-( but the BBCs 'Now Show' remains available on Listen Again. One can only assume that the 'podcast trial' wasn't judged a success.

I really hope this isn't an indicator for the world's best podcast: Kermode.

tags: podcast, now show, BBC, best

Photomapdragon

Given my interest in maps and photos you'll not be too surprised at this link to Cade Metz in the register postulating on what might happen if you could meld PhotoSynth and Seadragon with online 3D mapping...

...if you have any kind of interest in imaging and handling large amounts of data go watch the video from TED (oh, and there's a nice bonus for flickr fans too).

 

tags: photosynth, photography, imaging, flickr

Web Application

"We're going to see more and more breakthroughs like photosynth that don't look like web applications but nonetheless draw from the same deep trends."

said Tim O'Reilly

tags: photography, photosynth