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How to Care for Your Beloved Camera [video]

22 Feb

The post How to Care for Your Beloved Camera appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

In another great video from our friends over at COOPH, they show you how to care for your beloved camera to keep her/him in great working order.

Here’s how to care for your beloved camera

1. Proper cleaning

Use a blow brush to take off bigger particles and process both sides of the lens.
Add finish with a lens cleaning cloth.
Apply a cleaning solution to a cotton bud and clean the contact points.
Use a rocket blower to clean the camera sensor. Tilt your camera down and blow.
Still not clean enough? Put your camera into cleaning mode for a self-clean.
Take out your Gel Stamp and gently stamp the sensor. To clean the gel stamp, use a piece of sticky tape.
Lightly push the gel stamp onto the sticky tape, and the dust will transfer to the tape.
Finish the job using sensor wipes.
Shoot a long exposure against a white background, and when doing so, move the camera in a circular motion.
Then check the image on a big screen to ensure the camera lens and sensor are clean.

2. Lens Swapping

No matter how good your jacket, never change lenses in the rain. Jump in your car and take a pit stop. Change the lens then.

3. The UV Filter

The UV Filter protects your camera from UV light and helps to avoid scratches on your lens when you are shooting wildlife in your home…

4. The Hand Strap

Buckle up so you don’t drop it. Carry it in your hand. Don’t use it like a yo-yo as you walk.

5. The Lens Hood

Not the type you wear. A lens hood gives the camera a safety guard for in case you bump the camera.

6. The Dry Bag.

Ziplock bags, along with some Dry Silica packs, make a perfect DIY Dry Bag. Airtight and condensation-proof.

7. The Dust Blocker

Shower Caps are perfect for dust protection and Sahara Safe!

So, be good to your better half and clean them.

You may also find the following articles helpful:

How to Clean Your Tripod and Make it Like New

How to Clean Your Photography Gear and Keep it in Good Shape

How to Spring Clean Your Memory Cards

How to Clean Your Camera Sensor in 3 Easy Steps

How to Take Care of Your Camera in Cold Weather

The post How to Care for Your Beloved Camera appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

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Photokina 2018: Sony interview – ‘I don’t care about competitors, I care about customers’

19 Oct

Kenji Tanaka, VP and Senior General Manager of Sony’s Business Unit 1, Digital Imaging Group, pictured at the Photokina trade show in Cologne, Germany last month.

At last month’s Photokina trade show in Cologne, Germany we made time to speak to senior executives from several major manufacturers, including Sony. In a broad-ranging conversation, Kenji Tanaka talked to us about competition in the full-frame mirrorless market, the value of APS-C, and future plans for the a7S lineup.

Is there a customer group that you feel you could reach more effectively?

There are many customers in the field of photography, and we want to create products for all of them. Recently, we launched products for sports photographers. That’s just one example. One by one, we want to expand.

What is Sony doing that’s unique?

We are the world’s largest manufacturer of image sensors, and have developed many unique sensors. Looking at the Alpha 9, the stacked CMOS sensor is a good example of both a unique and innovative product. These kinds of things are a strength compared to our competitors.

But the stacked image sensor in the Alpha 9 is kind of like the engine in a formula 1 car. If you only had the engine, the car wouldn’t work. You also need good tires, a good chassis, and a good driver to control the machine.

Our vision is […] to expand the market

How do new competitive full-frame mirrorless cameras affect your planning?

I welcome the shift in the market. Our vision is not to move the customer [from DSLR to mirrorless], it is to expand the market.

I don’t know what the impact of [Canon and Nikon entering the full-frame mirrrorless market] will be but we remain focused on creating new customers. That is our priority. Honestly speaking, I don’t care about competitors, I care about the customers. If customers need more functionality, or more quality, we’ll try to do it.

The Sony a7 III is a high-performance full-frame mirrorless interchangeable lens camera aimed at enthusiast photographers and videographers. According to Mr Tanaka, Sony is more interested in expanding the market than in responding to what his competitors are doing.

Is there anything that surprised you about the announcements from your competitors?

No, not really. I already predicted that Canon and Nikon would join the market, and even Panasonic. It wasn’t a surprise to me. But thinking about innovation in cameras, every company should join the mirrorless market, as this is where there is the most opportunity to innovate.

There are five fundamentals to mirrorless – lens, image quality, speed, battery life – some of our competitors especially struggle with that one – and compactness and light weight. These are areas that everyone is trying to improve, but right now I think Sony is in a good position.

Do you see any customer demand for sensors larger than full frame?

Right now there are a lot of things still to do with full-frame sensors, so at the moment I don’t have any ideas about starting work on new larger imaging sensors.

Sony’s 24mm F1.4 G Master is an impressively compact, but stunningly sharp full-frame wideangle prime lens. On Sony’s APS-C cameras, it offers an equivalent focal length of 36mm.

We’ve been enjoying using your 24mm F1.4 G Master lens. Do you have plans to create more, smaller, lenses in this lineup?

Of course, yes. Some customers want small size as well as high quality, so that’s one of our targets.

Do you have any plans to release new APS-C lenses?

Yes, APS-C is a big market for us. Recently most of our new lenses have been full frame, but APS-C remains a key target.

What are the advantages of APS-C?

Mobility, and ease of use.

The APS-C market is very important for us, […] but we need to ask customers what kind of models they want.

What is your long-term strategy for APS-C and will we ever see another NEX-7 equivalent camera with dual dials ?

We have to get customer feedback. The dual dial on the NEX-7, some customers appreciated it, but some customers didn’t. The APS-C market is very important for us, so we will create new models in the APS-C market, but we need to ask customers what kind of models they want.

Do you think APS-C could be a professional format for Sony in the future?

Professionals have many cameras. Of course, full-frame is usually their main camera, but for a long time, they’ve also used APS-C as their second camera, so of course, APS-C cameras for professional use must exist.

Will we ever see another ‘professional’ APS-C camera from Sony, in the mold of the erstwhile NEX-7? According to Mr Tanaka, the strengths of APS-C are size and weight, and ease of use. But professionals do use APS-C cameras as ‘second’ bodies.

Do you have a different design approach for APS-C and full-frame lenses?

No. Our strategy is unique – one single mount. For example, future APS-C customers might use our G-Master 24mm F1.4. So our lens design should be consistent for all types of models.

Do a lot of your APS-C customers buy full-frame lenses?

Yes.

Some Sony shooters tell us they want improved weather-sealing. Is that something that you’re working on?

Yes, of course. We’ve heard from many customers. We’re trying.

Someday the a7 III will come down in price and it’ll be easy to buy for anybody

Do you think the price of full-frame mirrorless cameras needs to come down, to make them more accessible?

I can’t speak about pricing strategy, but if we want to increase the number of customers, of course some will accept cameras in the $ 2000-3000 range, but others won’t. Recently, our a7 II was priced at around $ 1000. So I think our customers are pleased with our wide price range in full-frame.

Someday the a7 III will come down in price and it’ll be easy to buy for anybody. A lot of customers want the a7 III, but it will take time.

Why is Sony sticking to SD memory cards?

Memory card performance is related to image processing speed. Right now, processing speed is slower than SD UHS-II, so using SD is OK. But in the future, for example in any camera with 8K/30p video, SD won’t be enough. But for right now, SD is OK. Recently we announced SD ‘tough’ cards, for professionals that need more durability.

Why do your cameras use two card slots?

There are a lot of use cases for dual card slots. For example using one card as backup, or one for JPEG and one for Raw. Dual card slots are very useful to the customer, we think. Some customers are OK with just one card, but from our research we think that many people will want two slots.

The Sony E-mount is ‘open’, to the extent that other lens manufacturers can apply to use the standard. Sigma’s 70mm F2.8 Macro is one of a growing range of lenses from third-party manufacturers that are available in FE mount-compatible versions.

How important are third-party lens manufacturers to your long-term growth?

As you know, the E mount is an open mount. And of course competition will happen. If the customer can choose between many high quality lenses, that is a good thing.

Can you describe your relationship with third-party lens manufacturers?

We have a contract, and if a lens manufacturer wants to create an E-mount lens, they apply to Sony. Then we disclose the specification to that manufacturer. Sony does not approve lens designs, we just disclose the mount specification.

We’re planning a future a7S model right now, but it will take time.

4K is becoming a standard across all categories now, and the a7S II is getting rather old. Are you still interested in this market segment?

Of course, yes. Our a7S II customers want to create many things, and to meet their demands we are thinking about creating a successor model. But the next model should of course be more than they expect. So we’re planning a future S model right now, but it will take time.

What do your existing a7S II customers want to see improved?

They want 4K/60p, 4:2:2 10-bit, and of course more battery power, increased AF accuracy – many things!

The Sony a7S II is aimed at videographers, but in the three years since its release, its capabilities have in some respects been superseded by more conventional a7-series cameras, and the a9. According to Mr Tanaka, an a7S III is on its way, possibly offering 4K/60p, but ‘it will take time’.

Do you think it’s necessary for the a7S II successor to be a hybrid camera, or could it be a dedicated video model?

In my personal experience, the a7S II is a good stills camera. The pixels are very large, so the dynamic range is very wide. There is demand for still camera features I think.

You’ve said that artificial intelligence will play more of a role in future Sony cameras. Can you elaborate on that?

I can’t give you an exact answer, but we feel that AI is useful for many customers. Currently we’re planning upgrades to existing models, and of course future models that will contain new AI features.

Cameras should support creators. Focusing on eyes or focusing on other shapes is a very complex action. Photographers just want to think about composition, or capturing a moment. So I want to remove the need for focus manipulation, or other manipulation. When it comes to autofocus, Sony is very dedicated to developing AI.

Editor’s note: Barnaby Britton

Our meeting with Mr Tanaka last month followed Canon and Nikon’s long-awaited entry into the full-frame mirrorless market, after five years during which Sony effectively had the field to itself. When I spoke to him in Japan earlier this year, Mr Tanaka predicted that both companies would make the leap before the end of the year, and it doesn’t sound like he was surprised to see Panasonic joining in, too. Either way, in his own words, ‘I don’t care about competitors, I care about the customers’.

The a7 III isn’t going to become a poor camera once a future Mark IV version comes out

That should be encouraging news for users of Sony’s well-established a7-series and a9 cameras, who might be justifiably interested in what Canon, Nikon and Panasonic have to offer in the coming years. Also encouraging, for consumers willing to wait a couple of years before buying into new technologies, it seems that Sony will continue its strategy of keeping older models on the market at reduced prices. The last-generation a7 II is a bargain right now, and the a7 III isn’t going to become a poor camera once a future Mark IV version comes out, even if future AI-assisted cameras make photography even easier than it is now.

Speaking of AI, this particular comment is highly significant and worth quoting again in its entirety:

“Cameras should support creators. Focusing on eyes or focusing on other shapes is a very complex action. Photographers just want to think about composition, or capturing a moment. So I want to remove the need for focus manipulation, or other manipulation. When it comes to autofocus, Sony is very dedicated to developing AI“.

Mr Tanaka also had good news for fans of APS-C camera users, and users of the video-oriented a7S II. On the APS-C side, he admits that full-frame has been a major focus recently, but ” APS-C cameras for professional use must exist” and “APS-C remains a key target”.

Mr Tanaka’s list of customer requests serves as a strong hint at features that could make it into an a7S III

The a7S II is a highly specialized camera, intended to satisfy the needs of enthusiast and professional videographers. It’s been due for an upgrade for a little while, and Mr Tanaka’s list of customer requests serves as a strong hint at features that could make it into a Mark III version. Perhaps at next year’s NAB show in spring? Here’s hoping.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Ex-Lexar execs have launched a new memory card company, here’s why you should care

24 Feb

ProGrade Digital is a brand new memory card brand founded by former executives of memory maker Lexar.

In June 2017 parent company Micron unexpectedly announced the end of Lexar, but the brand was shortly after acquired by Chinese company Longsys. Now, a group of former executives from both managerial and technical backgrounds has teamed up to produce and market high-quality memory cards, directly competing with Lexar itself and other high-profile storage brands, such as SanDisk.

Initially the new company will offer two lines of cards: The CFast 2.0 cards will be available in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities for $ 230, $ 350, and $ 700, respectively, and offer transfer speeds up to 550MB/sec. The UHS-II SD-card line comes in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities for $ 55, $ 95, and $ 190, respectively, delivering speeds of up to 200MB/sec.

ProGrade says the controllers in all cards are optimized for use in professional cameras, and will each be tested from component-level down to individual memory chips before leaving the factory. Add a three year warranty into the mix, and the new cards look like an enticing alternative to the established brands for photographers who demand maximum reliability.

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The brand was officially announced last week, but rather than simply cover the news, we decided to send ProGrade a few questions instead. Specifically, we wanted to know what sets the brand apart, how they expect to compete with the big guys, and why they started the company in the first place.

Mark Lewis, Vice President Marketing for ProGrade Digital, was kind enough to answer these questions:

Do we really need another memory card company?

Yes. With Micron’s sale of the Lexar brand and Western Digital’s purchase of SanDisk, there seems to be a shift in market focus for these two iconic brands and the future is uncertain.

Their decisions to realign product lines and focus solely on higher margin industrial and OEM SKUs opens up an opportunity for a new player—one with laser-focus on the professional market and whose intent it is to fill the void and service this market of professional photo, video and cinema customers. We at ProGrade Digital are that new digital memory card company who will champion their cause.

How will your company be different than the rest?

We bring several competitive advantages to help us stand apart. First, it’s about the people involved. At the executive and engineering level our team brings extensive experience, having worked for numerous years with leading components suppliers and vendors in the design and delivery of precision products specifically for this niche. Our marketing and sales group also has deep roots within the imaging industry, including professionals who not only produce still and motion capture for ProGrade Digital, but who also regularly create for private clients. Plus we acknowledge our growing family of influencers and ambassadors from both the still and motion capture worlds, individuals whom you will soon be reading more about.

The second way that we will stand apart from the competition is our product. I’ve already touched on the fact that, through our past employment, we bring a deep level of experience having built integrity into both the Lexar and SanDisk product lines. Our work here with ProGrade Digital not only lets us expand upon that foundation but, as a smaller firm, we now have the latitude and drive to make even better products specifically for the imaging markets. Two such ProGrade Digital imaging industry firsts include 100 percent in-factory test (to help us sustain a goal of zero percent failure), plus laser-etched serial numbers on each memory card. The serial number enables us to track firmware, controller and memory type. This ability to track a card’s manufacture gives us one more tool for being that much more proactive when it comes to supporting our customer base.

Other product strengths: as executive members of the SD Association and Compact Flash Association (CFA) we work with device manufacturers and other industry leaders on the development of new technologies. ProGrade Digital products are competitively priced, and distribution is limited so that we may preserve quality and control, plus maintain a direct relationship with our customer.

How can a David hope to compete against a Goliath?

If you know the story about David and Goliath you may recall that, despite Goliath’s physical size, level of experience and massive army to back him up, it was a young, small and nimble David who took precise aim and used the right weapon. ProGrade Digital is tightly focusing on a customer that we know, and specifically developing best-in-class products able to meet the needs of the professional imaging market.

What’s the future for card form factors such as SD, CFast, CFexpress and XQD?

The future for all memory cards continues to evolve. It is difficult to predict exactly what will happen to any particular form-factor, but the standards work currently being developed by the two memory card associations will help drive the direction.

Specifically, plans are in the works to move to the PCIe interface; the PCIe interface will allow for speeds to advance beyond some of the limits of the SATA interface. Of particular note are efforts being done by the Compact Flash Association (CFA) on the CFexpress form-factor. Their work has support from the major device manufacturers, and ProGrade Digital is at the forefront of those developments. As new standards gain in popularity, I believe that we will see some current form-factors slowly begin to phase out.

A big thank you to Mark for taking the time to answer these questions. If you want to learn more about this new memory card company or browse through ProGrade’s whole product line, head over to the ProGrade Digital website.

Press Release:

ProGrade Digital Launches New Line of Professional-Quality Memory Cards and Card Readers for Use with Digital Cameras, Camcorders and Cinema Cameras

Former Lexar Executives Start New Company: Pledge to Focus on Developing and Marketing Products of Superior Performance, Quality and Reliability

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Feb 15, 2018 8:00 am EST-ProGrade Digital, anew company founded on a mission to provide the highest quality, professional grade memory cards and workflow solutions available, today announced a new line of products designed to uniquely fill the needs of today’s high-end DLSRs, camcorders and digital cinema cameras. Memory cards will be offered in a variety of formats and industry-leading capacities. The company will also design and market a selection of card readers, starting with a CFast & SD Dual Slot Workflow Reader that boasts a USB 3.0, Gen. 2 transfer protocol. ProGrade Digital’s new memory cards and card readers will become available in the month of February at www.progradedigital.com, Amazon.com and B&H Photo and Video

ProGrade Digital was founded by former executives from Lexar who held management or technical leadership positions at the company recognized as the pioneer in memory card development for digital photography. The team has more than 60 years of combined experience in the design, development and manufacture of memory cards gained while working for Lexar, SanDisk and other firms. Leveraging its experience and industry relationships, the team will focus exclusively on developing and marketing memory cards, card readers and software optimized for use within professional cinema and photography markets.

“Our goal is to be the professional’s source for top performing, professional grade memory cards and workflow solutions,” says Wes Brewer, founder and CEO of ProGrade Digital. “We will be committed to focusing our efforts on the digital imaging pro who is meticulous about his equipment and workflow-delivering the best service, plus best product quality and reliability.”

Memory Card Key Features

Professional-level capacities for CFast 2.0 and SDXC UHS-II memory cards
Optimized controllers specifically designed for use in professional-grade cameras
Rigorous full-card testing with serialized tracking of key components and manufacturing data for the highest quality control
Component-level testing down to individual memory chips for optimal quality
3-year warranty

Card Reader Key Features

Dual slot reader for CFast 2.0 and SDXC UHS-II card formats
USB 3.0 Gen. 2 transfer speed of up to 10Gb/second
Supports concurrent full-speed flow of data from cards in each slot
Portable and compact
Includes two 18? connection cables: one for Type A to Type C and one for Type C to Type C
Magnetized reader bottom firmly connects reader to laptop (using included metal mounting plate)
2-year warranty

ProGrade Digital memory cards are designed to provide the highest levels of performance, quality and reliability in high-end DSLRs, camcorders and digital cinema cameras from manufacturers such as Canon, Nikon, Sony and Blackmagic.

ProGrade Digital cards and card readers are available online at www.progradedigital.com, Amazon.com and B&H Photo and Video.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Why should you care about the Sony RX10 IV? Phase detection autofocus, that’s why

16 Sep

The Sony RX10 IV is a fixed lens camera with a 1″-type sensor and 24-600mm equivalent lens that can shoot 4K video or stills at 24 fps, but that’s not what we think is interesting about it. The addition of phase detection autofocus is pivotal to all of those features. If you have a little over a minute to spare, we’ll tell you why. And for bonus points, we shot this video entirely hand-held with an RX10 IV and continuous AF turned on.

Sony RX10 IV impressions, sample images and more

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Handle with Care: 10 Years of Fragile Glass Boxes Broken by FedEx

10 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

fedex-box-arts

Packing and shipping artwork is a delicate and costly process, unless your intention is to create new pieces by allowing them to break along the way. Starting in 2005, artist Walead Beshty began a decade-long project, sending works of art to galleries around the world with an important twist: the key element of their creation happened in transit.

fedex-cubic-assembly

Beshty would construct glass boxes to fit inside the cardboard shipping containers, matching their interior dimensions (no padding or other protection). Curators then unpacked the finished works, usually cracked but not totally destroyed (being constructed from shatter-proof glass).

fedex-express-tube-art

Each piece was given a descriptive name including the date of shipment, tracking number and box dimensions, then put on display (resulting in titles like: FedEx® Large Box ©2005 FEDEX 139751 REV 10/05 SSCC, Priority Overnight, Los Angeles-New York trk#795506878000, November 27-28, 2007). In some cases, the glass contents are reshipped, changing form again and again as they move between exhibitions.

fedex-pedestals

The net result is a work that tells the story of its own travels, particularly a period between leaving the hands of the artist and being received by a museum or collector. The displays vary, but in some cases the battered boxes become pedestals for the finished sculptural displays.

not-borken

But beyond this fixation with the story behind the art, there is another element that drove Beshty: the “perversity of a corporation owning a shape” – as it turns out, FedEx has managed to copyright the dimensions of their box designs.

fedex-glass-cube

“They are basically a unit of space owned by a corporation in which to ship objects,” explains the artist. This idea of a company being able to “own” an empty volume of air designed to transport goods seemed surreal, and was another factor motivating this unusual mobile art project.

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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So, you don’t care about the iPhone 7? Here’s 10 reasons why you should

10 Sep

The iPhone 7 has a newly designed 12MP camera with a six-element, optically stabilized lens. As well as stills it can shoot 4K video at up to 30p, and the iPhone 7 Plus offers a twin-lens camera providing 28mm and 56mm focal lengths.

Another year, another iPhone, the usual chorus of Internet commenters going to great lengths to tell the world how little they care. But we’d be foolish to ignore the world’s most popular camera – and so would you.

Here’s why.

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Official iPhone 7 sample photos, courtesy Apple

1: 12MP is good enough

Ok, most DSLRs and high-end compacts offer 20MP+ but if we’re being honest, 2MP is good enough for Facebook, 3MP is good enough for a magazine cover, 6-8MP is good enough for a large-ish wall print and anything more than that is a bonus, most of the time. In short, the chances are that 12MP is good enough for you.

2: It shoots Raw

It was only a matter of time before Apple added a Raw capture option to its iPhone series, and the day has come. As such, the iPhone 7 and 7S are arguably more enthusiast-friendly than the majority of low-end zoom compact cameras, and almost all tough cameras.

Adding Raw capture to the iPhone gives photographers a lot more creative freedom, and should allow them to mitigate – if not entirely overcome – some of the limitations of shooting with a control-limited device and a small sensor format. Raw shooting is coming to older iPhones soon too, with the upcoming release of iOS 10.

3: The iPhone 7 Plus has a proper zoom. Kind of.

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus feature 12MP imaging sensors – most likely a 4.9 x 3.7mm BSI-CMOS which gives an equivalent crop factor of around 7X. The 7 Plus has two of them, which form twin cameras shooting at 28mm and 56mm equivalent. Their F1.8 and F2.8 apertures are equivalent in depth of field terms to ~F12 and ~F22 respectively.

The iPhone 7 Plus features a twin-camera design, which comprises 28mm F1.8 and 56mm F2.8 equivalent prime lenses. A forthcoming update will enable a computationally-derived bokeh simulation effect.

A 28-56mm two-step zoom might not set your heart ‘a flutter, but for the average beginner, or keen smartphone photographer, the added versatility of a proper choice of optical focal lengths is a serious selling point of the iPhone 7 Plus over every other phone on the market. A true optical zoom would be hugely complicated, but Apple’s approach makes sense. One lens for landscapes, one for portraits.

5: The iPhone 7 Plus can do bokeh. Kind of.

We’ve seen attempts to blur out backgrounds using software before, but they don’t tend to end well. Typically, in the devices which offer some kind of algorithmic background blur feature, the effect is inconsistent. Even when it works, it doesn’t hold up well to critical examination.

We won’t be able to properly test the iPhone 7 Plus’s bokeh simulation effect for a while, but early samples look very encouraging indeed.

Apple seems to be doing two things a little differently. The first is that the feature only works in ‘Portrait’ mode (when the iPhone 7 Plus’s 56mm equivalent lens is employed), and the longer focal length probably gives it a bit of a head-start in terms of baseline background blur for portraits compared to a bog-standard wideangle cellphone lens.

The second is that rather than just identifying your subject, making a mask, then blurring everything which looks like it probably isn’t your subject, the iPhone 7 Plus’s software makes a very complex depth map of the scene, and selectively applies blur based on the calculated distance of the background from your intended subject. For now, we only have Apple’s sample images to go by, but it seems to work impressively well.

6: It’s optically stabilized

Here’s an exploded view of the iPhone 7’s camera, showing its six-element construction.

This is old news in the mainstream camera market, but optical stabilization still isn’t included in some fixed-lens cameras. Optical I.S. will make the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus cameras more useful in poor light, extending the potential of the products for social and environmental photography.

7: It’s quick, and powerful

Modern smartphones incorporate an incredible amount of processing power, and compared to most cameras they’re capable of churning through much more data. With the cameras activated, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are constantly sampling a scene in preparation for exposure. So effectively, when you tap the shutter button, they’ve already taken the picture. On-sensor phase-detection autofocus using dedicated pixels means there’s virtually no hunting for focus, either.

Apple claims that the iPhone 7/Plus’s imaging processor manages more than 100 billion operations every time a picture is taken. Think about that the next time you take a photo of your cat.

8: It shoots 4K

Maybe you think you don’t care, but trust us – even if you’re not a filmmaker, the ability to capture 8MP frames at up to 30fps can be pretty handy.

9: It’s water-resistant

You can take the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus out in the rain, or drop them in the bath without worrying. How many photographers can say the same thing about their ‘proper’ cameras?

Supposedly, the iPhone 6S was almost water-sealed, but not quite. With the removal of the headphone jack, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus have been made fully water resistant, and are both capable – apparently – of being submersed for up to 30 minutes without damage.

10: Good iPhone cameras lead to better ‘proper’ cameras.

Even if you’re one of those people who has an almost religiously-held indifference to cellphones (and I know you exist because I get emails from you), consider this:

The greater the public’s expectations of the cameras in their cellphones, the more they expect of ‘proper’ cameras, if and when they buy one. There is certainly an argument to be made that the only reason we have things like beautiful high-resolution touch-screens, wireless connectivity, GPS and 4K video in cameras now is the iPhone. That ten years ago, Apple kicked off a smartphone revolution with the original iPhone which lead to the inclusion of these features in cameras becoming an expectation on the part of smartphone upgraders.

Habitual iPhone photographers won’t put up with laggy low-resolution touch-screens on DSLRs, or the omission of features like 4K video and wireless connectivity that they’re used to from their phones. This drives camera manufacturers to add more features to their products, and we all benefit. Right?

10.5: It’s an iPhone camera.

This is an obvious point, but bear with me. Remember what I just wrote about this being the ‘world’s most popular camera?’ Apple has been phenomenally successful when it comes to putting its devices in people’s pockets. More people are taking photographs now than ever before, and the iPhone, in its various versions, is the most popular picture taking device (or strictly speaking, series of devices) in the world.

What that means is that like it or not, when Apple does something, even if it didn’t do it first, it tends to have a certain significance. It’s safe to assume that there are a lot of people talking about the words ‘Bokeh’ and ‘Raw’ today who had never heard the terms before Apple’s launch event this week. Maybe I’m just a misty-eyed optimist, but I think that’s kind of cool.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Primer: What is VR, and why should photographers care?

18 May

VR was everywhere at NAB, and at CES this year.

Virtual reality is an immersive experience that involves multiple senses, and, most importantly, responds to the intentional interaction of the viewer. From the earliest days of synchronized film and sound playback, the illusion of being in a different place or time, and generating an emotional response to the experience, has been the goal of most modern communication and entertainment mediums.

In VR, this illusion is referred to as ‘presence,’ where not only the sights and sounds (and other sensory input) are believable, but the ‘show’ itself reacts to the participant’s actions in a plausible way.

It isn’t hard to imagine how different the experience of browsing through a gallery of images can be when they are not just thumbnails on a tight grid, but rather ‘virtually’ hung by the artist in a spacious VR room that mimics a physical gallery space. VR video adds the active immersion of being in the middle of a busy plaza, or riding inside a rally car during a nighttime ice race. The opportunities to share even simple, daily events become less about what was in the frame at the time, and more about what the whole location felt like.

VR differs from flat, 2D photos by requiring at least a seamless 360-degree view, and eventually full freedom of 3D motion.

Semantics

First, let’s get some semantics out of the way. ‘Virtual reality,’ or VR, has generally been applied to 3D computer-generated graphics. There are some who say that anything that starts with a camera pointed at the real world is not VR. This ignores some of the history of VR (see below), as well as the coincidence that interactive panoramic images and videos on the web are displayed as textures on the inside of a 3D cube (or sphere, in some cases). There are also ways to create realistic 3D data from photographs, and from spherical panoramas in particular, both of which currently offer greater realism than 3D graphics created without the aid of photography.

While we could separate photography from 3D graphics by dogmatically referring to 360 x 180-degree images as ‘spherical panoramas,’ and try to demarcate 2D/3D hybrid technologies as ‘not photography,’ this would be unfair. Therefore, this article will still refer to VR as both an immersive experience, and something that a camera can capture.

This primer will touch on the various technologies and companies involved in VR, but the underlying theme is on how conventional photography and cinematography influence VR, and how VR will influenced them in return.

History of VR

(Clockwise from upper left) Sensorama, Battlezone, Virtuality arcade, USAF virtual cockpit, UIC CAVE, Telepresence HMD.

The term ‘virtual reality’ was originally coined (in French) by Antonin Artaud in his 1938 essays on the nature of theatrical performances, so it’s rather fitting that the first functional VR experience, Sensorama, was conceived and patented (in 1957) by cinematographer Morton Heilig. In 1961, Heilig also patented a head-mounted, stereoscopic display system. While these inventions relied on pre-recorded films with very limited interaction, they introduced the concept of a viewer being immersed in a different environment; including the sights, sounds, smells and even windspeed of the environment being represented.

Though the entirely analog Sensorama never really took off, the concept of immersion was a core aim for early computer-generated 3D graphics. Most pioneering modern VR development was focused on military and aerospace training, where it is much safer, easier, and ultimately cheaper, to teach someone how to react to difficult situations in a virtual environment. The first 3D VR displays showed only glowing wireframes against a black screen (a la Battlezone), while the physical surroundings mimicked a real cockpit or driver’s seat, complete with hydraulics to pitch the cabin during the experience.

In the 1980’s and early 90’s, the increasing visual fidelity of real-time computer graphics (driven both by industrial and entertainment uses) promised more realistic virtual environments, and the first wave of hype for consumer VR built up, entering popular culture with arcade entertainment like the Virtuality systems, and creative works like Neuromancer and The Lawnmower Man.

Recent times

Once this wave of hype broke on the shores of limited computing power, minimal content, and vaporware consumer displays (anyone remember SegaVR?), the relevant technology continued to advance in a consistent, but much quieter, fashion. Real-time 3D computer graphics progressed from plasticky representations on expensive workstations, to the increasing visual realism of PC and console games. In 1994, Apple introduced QuickTime VR as a very simple, portable way to display panoramic content with the freedom to look around, and this extension of QuickTime quickly became known for real estate ‘virtual tours’ and other early forms of photography-based VR on a computer.

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HTML5 static 360 VR sample – click this link for the VR headset version. (Made with Pano2VR)

In 2003, Linden Labs created Second Life, an entirely virtual ‘social world’ in which users could interact using human-looking avatars within an entirely synthetic, and user expandable, 3D world. Connecting people via the internet was not new, nor did Second Life initially support VR headsets with stereoscopic rendering, but this remains a good example of a successful shared ‘virtual reality’, in the original theatrical sense.

The 2007 introduction of Google Street View democratized the idea of spherical panoramic imagery (360 x 180 degrees of coverage) to immerse a viewer in various locations in the real world. This blending of photographic content with geographic data has broadened consumer acceptance of photographic VR, while the 2014 introduction of Google Cardboard (an inexpensive way to turn a modern smartphone into a VR headset) allows this vast amount of panoramic data to be viewed in a more natural, immersive way.

The new hype of modern VR

Recent advancements in consumer electronics have reinvigorated virtual reality and given it new vigor, as well as inspiring new generations of researchers, entrepreneurs, and content creators. The ever-increasing computing power and screen resolutions of smartphones, combined with their built-in gyroscopes and accelerometers (useful for head tracking), have made these ubiquitous devices almost ideal for repurposing as a viewer for VR games, images, and video.

Combining a phone with the simple mechanics of a Google Cardboard-type viewer, VR photos, apps and games (as well as New York Times articles) means that VR content can be appreciated by a wider audience.

Google Cardboard – a $ 15 immersive display for anyone to try out.

Prior to Cardboard, most attempts at making a smartphone into a viewing platform were limited to stereographic toys, without enough software and hardware polish to make it a good experience. Samsung changed this by partnering with Oculus to produce the (currently $ 99) Gear VR headset, which is more than just a pair of lenses and a phone holder. Gear VR has its own accelerometers and gyroscope, as well as a USB connected control-pad, while Oculus provides a content store and software to enhance the experience. All of this pushes accessibility up from the bottom.

The same technology from smartphones has driven down the component cost of higher-end systems for virtual reality and augmented reality (AR), leading to consumer-level, dedicated, head-mounted displays like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and extensions to game consoles like Playstation VR. While the initial adoption of these systems may be mainly with hard-core gamers and technophiles, the experiences and content being developed for these systems can be more ambitious and immersive, which in turn will draw more users to the hardware. The VR ecosystem is spreading rapidly, and spherical VR photos and videos are frequently the first experience most consumers will have.

Follow the money

Recent years have seen explosive growth in terms of business investments into VR, from the display systems (Facebook buying Oculus for $ 2 billion in 2014), to content creation (Nikon and Samsung have recently announced consumer 360 cameras, and Ricoh is on v.3 of theirs), while various VR startups raised over $ 658 million in funding just in the past year. The established games industry has already spent millions of dollars preparing for the 3D VR gaming revolution, which many analysts now say is no longer an ‘if’ proposition, but rather a ‘when.’

Consulting and auditing firm Deloitte has predicted that the VR market (for content and devices) will hit $ 1 billion in sales during 2016 alone. Meanwhile, the games and VR consulting firm Digi-Capital goes even further to say that by 2020, the virtual reality and augmented reality markets will be worth around $ 120 billion. These market predictions are not based on advances in research labs and high-end applications, but rather from the groundswell of video game and mobile technology, along with increasingly diverse content.

As Alexandre Jenny, the Senior Director of Immersive Media at GoPro, puts it; “We are no longer wondering ‘will VR change the world,’ we are in the stage of ‘how will VR change the world?’ VR is certainly the best way to give someone an immersive experience, and that fact is really disruptive in many industries.”

Commercial applications

Aside from research and purely artistic uses of VR (both of which have a long and fruitful history), there are numerous commercial applications for virtual reality, and many more are being developed as the tech progresses. Below are just a few examples.

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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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How to Take Care of Your Camera in Cold Weather

11 Feb

Mid-day, mid-winter, Alaska light. It just doesn't get any better.

Where I live, it gets cold. Not your “Brrr, I need to put on a sweater” kind of cold, but genuine, bone-chilling, spit-freezes-before-it hits-the-ground, kind of cold. Here in Fairbanks, Alaska, winter temperatures regularly drop far into the negatives, and yearly we suffer through snaps that send the mercury plummeting to -40F (-40C).

You’d think that in such conditions I wouldn’t want to step outside, let alone take photos, but you’d be wrong. Winter light, what few hours there is of it, is absolutely beautiful. That sweet, crisp glow can pull me from the deepest funk, and lure me out with a camera in hand. During many long winter nights, the aurora borealis dances overhead, and that too can draw me from my cozy cabin, into the snowy forest to make images. On the days I made the two images below, it was seriously cold, but that light, yep, that light will get me outside.

Low winter sun, and frosted birches near Fairbanks, Alaska.

To venture out in those temperatures, you’ve got to be prepared. You need the right clothes to stay warm, and you’ve got to make sure your camera equipment is ready too.

Forget about fashion

To shot the aurora during mid-winter in Alaska, you need to dress warm!

You’ve got to dress right. It doesn’t matter what the light is doing, if you get frost-bite on your fingers, and can’t operate the camera. When dressed in my winter-photo clothing, I feel a bit like an onion, wrapped in layer upon layer. From inside to outside my system goes like this: long underwear, fleece or wool sweater and pants, down or synthetic vest, 800 fill down jacket with hood, windproof Thinsulate pants, two pairs of thick wool socks topped by expedition quality winter boots, a musher’s style hat complete with ear flaps, a balaclava or face mask, and thin nimble gloves with a pair of expedition overmitts dangling from wrist straps. Last, I’ll often throw a couple of chemical hand-warmers into my jacket pockets. When temperatures drop to -40F, it’s best not to mess around.

Two of my clients on an aurora photography tour, dressed for the weather.

Two of my clients on an aurora photography tour, properly dressed for the weather.

The author’s well-worn NEOS insulated overboots.

Stay Charged

The fluctuations of electricity mean that a cold battery cannot kick out the same amount of electricity as a warm battery. This means that on a brutally cold day, your camera or flash batteries will last only a small fraction of the time they normally would at room temperature. It’s a problem easily solved by carrying a spare battery or two.

A backup battery will let you swap out the cold, dead one in your camera, but there is a hitch: the spares should not be kept in your camera bag, but in an inside jacket pocket. That way they are warm when they go into the camera. When the dead battery warms back up in your pocket (with the help of the aforementioned chemical hand warmers) it will be ready to use for a while again. I find I can shoot at extremely cold temperatures for the better part of day by cycling two batteries back and forth from my pocket to my camera. Though this will vary a lot, depending on how power-hungry your camera is.

Avoiding Bad Breath

The cold comes with other risks, one in particular, can ruin your day of photography, and that is – watch your breath. I mean it. A mistimed, warm, humid, breath will condense on your lens, resulting in a layer of milky frost on the glass. It doesn’t matter how much money you spend on your lenses, no amount of sharpness will make up for that kind of damage. Wiping at it, usually just smudges it more, and defrosting it inside (see below), can take hours. Watch where you breathe, if you turn your camera around to check lens settings, don’t exhale. I also usually wear a neck gaiter or balaclava that I pull up over my mouth and nose. So with your mouth covered, your breath is directed up, where it frosts on your eyelashes instead of your camera.

This is what happens if you accidentally breathe on your lens during a cold weather shoot.

Lens Caps Exist for a Reason

Breath is the usual culprit of fogged lenses, but when shooting at night, there is always the chance that natural frost will form. To avoid this, use your lens cap when you aren’t shooting. If you are walking from one location to another, taking a break, or searching for a new composition, put the cap back on your lens. When I’m out shooting the aurora at night, my cap is on my lens, even if I’m just walking a short distance to a new shooting location.

AK-Interior-Whites-103193-8

Back Indoors

Last, and perhaps most importantly, is the return indoors. You know how on a hot day, your cold beer glass gathers condensation? Ever watched how those drips can form and run down the bottle, pooling in a messy ring on the hard-wood table? Imagine that happening to your camera gear. It can, and it will. When you step back indoors to take a break, warm up, or finish up for the day, place your camera and lenses into an airtight bag.

A properly bagged and sealed camera, ready to be taken back indoors after a cold outdoor shoot.

Ziplocks are good, but I favor light-weight roll-top dry bags like those used by boaters to keep their gear dry. These are tough, reusable, and work like a charm. Once sealed up tight in a ziplock or dry bag, condensation can’t form on your gear. Just let your camera warm up to room temperature before you pull it out.

AK-NoatakPreserve-KellyRiver-1083-491

The cold scares a lot of photographers, and make no mistake, a frigid, mid-winter Alaskan night is nothing to mess around with. But with a few precautions – warm clothes, spare batteries, avoiding frost, and protecting against condensation – you can take advantage of the stellar beauty of crisp, clear, days and nights like this one.

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Six Ways to Take Care of Your Creative Spirit

07 Aug

I like photographers. Some of my favorite people and closest friends are photographers. In general, I find us to be a likeable bunch: witty, intelligent, wildly attractive. I also find that we reside in a grey area where we aren’t quite regarded as artists. We are the redheaded stepchildren of the art world, and I can say that because I both am a redheaded stepchild and have a redheaded stepchild. Truth be known, she is the easiest kid of the bunch. She pulls no punches, just tells it like it is. Much like photography.

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But we are artists! As much as any painter or sculptor, or person that is covered in bronze paint and stands as still as a statue on a street corner. Have you seen these people? My eyes water just thinking of the shower they have to take every night when they get home from work. I have always been grateful that photography is fairly low on the mess scale. So instead of showering off bronze paint for hours, or ceremoniously ridding the clay from our hands, here are six ways you can care for and nurture your creative artist soul.

Take care of your eyes

When I get home from a long shoot, I always complain that my eyeballs hurt, and they do! It’s not that they are dry or that something is wrong with my vision, it’s just that after being on high alert for hours, my eyes are stressed out. So much so that I actually saw an eye doctor to make sure that I wasn’t going to need to have my eyeballs removed anytime soon. Do you know what the doctor told me? That I need to rest my eyes before and after a shoot just like a professional baseball pitcher would rest his arm before a game. For some reason having an actual doctor, with a high degree in medicine and lots of fancy initials after his name, telling me this, made me actually listen. I’ll save you the office visit; be good to your eyes. They are the only lenses you can’t replace.

lynseymattingly_4

Have other hobbies

Like many pros, I started photography as a hobby. I am the classic “MWAC” (Mother With A Camera), having a career that’s spanned a decade, but rooted from pictures I took of my own children, with a fancy camera I didn’t know how to operate at the time. My former mother-in-law told me I took nice pictures and I figured if she said that, considering that she hated everything else I did, they must be fairly good.

I then immersed myself in photography, reading every blog, shooting every single thing my kids did in hopes that it would be portfolio building. Photography was what I lived and breathed. It’s the only thing people knew about me, but it wasn’t enough. One day, pushed past the brink, frustrated and burnt-out, I sold all of my back-up equipment and extra lenses in a week and had convinced myself, and everyone else, that I was never going to do it professionally again. I kept my Canon 5D and 50mm f1.2L, thinking that I would want to take pictures of my kids someday with something other than the camera on my iPhone.

One outlet is not enough for the average creative person. You owe it to yourself, and to your photography, to be great at something else. Or to be really horrible at something else, but regularly try something else. I make chairs. I find old chairs in flea markets or on the side of the road with “free” signs and I bring them home, let them sit in my garage for months or longer, and then rehab them with new ideas and fresh materials. Sometimes I sell them, sometimes I give them away, and sometimes they turn out really awful and I put them out in my yard with a “free” sign. The point is that this gets out all of my creative energy, and when I am stuck in a photography rut, I make a chair. When a chair frustrates me, I grab my camera.

lynsey_mattingly_chairs

Take Chances

One of my first national publications only happened because I contacted a celebrity that lived a few hours away, who had just had a baby, and asked if I could take her pictures for free. I honestly thought she wouldn’t even respond, assuming she even got the email, because I did some crazy research to even find an email address that might be hers. Not only did she respond, and say yes, but she actually had two publications that were wanting to buy photos of her and her new family. There’s opportunity and there’s flat-out luck, and when you strike both you have a say in your own destiny.

I had been taking pictures professionally for four years, but this was my first huge break and having an international publishing gig, and continuous contacts, has opened doors for me, no doubt. Put every cliche about trying: not knowing until you do, you’ve got nothing to lose, etc., into a pot, and stir. It turns out our parents were right, and all of those silly sayings are true.

lynseymattingly5

Stop Comparing Your Work

When I first became interested in portrait photography I was obsessed with this one photographer’s blog. Not just because her images were beautiful, but also because I loved her words. We had similar backgrounds and a similar style, and when she talked about her life outside of photography, I understood. When she shot images that were different, I got it. Had she sent me a note before study hall, oh how I would have checked every single box. The only thing keeping me from hanging out on her front lawn confessing my profound crush was about a thousand miles. I was infatuated; with her photographs, her business, her life, her success. I wanted it for myself. And because of the similarities, I found myself doing things the way she did, hoping for, and sometimes even assuming, the same outcomes. I wasted a great deal of time trying to align my path with hers and holding her work in a higher regard than my own.

A decade later and my business is, my by own account, every bit as successful as I thought hers seemed. But it is not the same. Until I realized that what worked for her wasn’t always going to work for me, and that perhaps her end goal was different than mine, I wasn’t in any way being inspired by her. My obsession with a woman I hadn’t even met at that point was my focus (and yes, I would later meet her, and boy what a disappointment that was, is best saved for another article). No one else’s tips, ideas, or work can be your focus. Be inspired, yes, but don’t let jealousy, or in my case, crazy obsession, get the best of you. Your images are yours, and they can be whatever in the world you want them to be, so long as you don’t run them through another photographer’s filter.

lynsey_mattingly2

Don’t Stop Taking Snaps

When you are a professional photographer, or perhaps just a really good photographer, it’s easy to put extra scrutiny on your everyday snapshots. The pictures you take on your cellphone or with a Polaroid or point-and-shoot – a pretty landscape, a funny face of a friend, the loaf of zucchini bread you just baked that came out of the oven poofy and golden brown. Those shots are easy to over-think, to obsess over, or to give too much time and attention to, and miss the very point of taking them.

I find myself checking the background when I take pictures of my cat. The world doesn’t need perfect pictures of my cat. I don’t need perfect pictures of my cat. The internet doesn’t even need perfect pictures of my cat (I checked). Let the snapshots be snapshots and view them completely different than your “work” so you don’t tire of doing the everyday picture taking that was likely what gave you a love of photography.

lynseymattingly_halloween

Respect Your Gift

That’s what photography talent is – a gift. You have been entrusted to all its amazement whether you are just beginning, doing it professionally, or as a hobby that enables the creative piece of you to speak. You’re here on this very site, reading about photography, because photography calls to you in some way, due to your natural ability. Treat your gift with compassion, cut yourself some slack when needed, and allow yourself as many periods of rest as you do challenges. I was never a cheerleader and getting sappy kind of freaks me out, so when I say that you (yes, YOU) are a creative force to be reckoned with, you know I mean it.

What’s something you do to take care of your creative spirit?

lynsey_mattingly3

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What is equivalence and why should I care?

07 Jul

Equivalence, at its most simple, is a way of comparing different formats (sensor sizes) on a common basis. Sounds straightforward enough, but the concept is still somewhat controversial and not always clearly understood. We thought it was about time we explained – and demonstrated – what equivalence means and what it doesn’t. Learn more

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