The post Master Lightroom in Under 20 Minutes With This Video appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.
Do you want to master Lightroom, but you never really have the time?
Then you’re going to love this video from photographer and editing-expert Sawyer Hartman. In just 18 minutes, Sawyer takes you through everything you need to know to start creating gorgeous Lightroom edits, from the absolute basics (such as importing and adjusting exposure) all the way down to Lightroom’s powerful Graduated Filter and Adjustment Brush.
He even includes a downloadable photo (the link is in the video description) so that you can follow along on your own computer.
Watch the video here:
And when you’re done, leave a comment letting us know your favorite Lightroom feature!
The post Master Lightroom in Under 20 Minutes With This Video appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.
Seán Doran uses still images from organizations like NASA and JAXA to create stunning videos. His latest work is ‘MOON in Real Time I,’ which is the first video seen below. Doran denoised, graded, repaired and retimed footage from the JAXA/NHK Kaguya Orbiter archive.
The Kaguya spacecraft, officially known as SELENE, was first launched in September 2007 from the Tanegashima Space Center (TNSC). The Kaguya mission’s primary objective is to collect data to help scientists better understand the moon’s origin and evolutionary history. Kaguya comprises a primary orbiting satellite, which orbits at an altitude of just over 60 mi (100 km), and a pair of smaller satellites, the Relay Satellite and the VRAD Satellite. The smaller satellites are in polar orbit. The orbiters carry various instruments to investigate the moon, including spectrometers, imagers, altimeters and more.
Doran’s retooled and recompiled footage can be seen below. The video is four hours long and is almost hypnotic.
Doran has created a lot of space videos for his YouTube channel. He has hundreds of videos featuring Earth, the Moon, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and more. I’ve selected a few to highlight, but if you’re interested in space, you must visit his YouTube channel.
The 8K video below features music by Phaeleh and follows the International Space Station from Central Africa to Japan in real-time. For this video, Doran converted still images into real-time video.
Sticking with Earth, using the ESRSU image archive, Seán Doran created the ‘Orbit’ trilogy. The first part is seen below. You can view the other parts at the following links: Part 2 and Part 3. Like the previous video, ‘Orbit’ is a journey around Earth using ISS time-lapse photography. Likewise, the video is backed by music from Phaeleh. The 4K video below is simply stunning.
‘Lúnasa^171– One Month of Sun’ is an 8K video that Doran built by repairing and processing 78,846 frames captured by NASA/SDO/AIA/EVE/HMI in August 2014. The video is accompanied by the song ‘Spirit of Fire’ by Jesse Gallagher.
The video below, ‘Mars in Color – Crater in Tyrrhena Terra,’ is compiled using media from NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. The data came from HiRISE, which we wrote about last month.
To view more from Seán Doran, be sure to visit his YouTube channel.
A camera that knows what it’s looking at would have seemed like a farfetched pipe dream not long ago. These days, however, you can even build such a camera in the comfort of your own home. Adafruit has shared a project that allows you to build a camera around Adafruit’s own BrainCraft HAT system, which is itself an AI Machine Learning addition to the Raspberry Pi 4. Plus, it even tells you what it sees.
As DIY Photography observes, the Raspberry Pi Machine Learning camera uses TensorFlow Lite object recognition software to figure out what it is looking at. The project works with either the 8MP Pi Camera Module or the 12.3MP module that includes interchangeable lens support. The enclosure is 3D printed.
So what is a camera that can determine what it’s seeing be used for? As John Aldred points out at DIY Photography, ‘…it opens up a lot of options for connecting the Pi to a ‘real camera’ for shooting photos or video. You could connect a DSLR or mirrorless camera from its trigger port into the Pi’s GPIO pins, or even use a USB connection with something like gPhoto, to have it shoot a photo or start recording a video when it detects a specific thing enter the frame.’
Imagine a scenario in which you want to remotely photograph a specific animal. Perhaps you don’t want to have a camera constantly capturing images or shooting whenever it detects motion, but instead want something more precise and fine-tuned. Maybe a sports photograph could utilize object recognition to capture a specific moment during a game with one camera while manually shooting with another. Aldred also notes that you could potentially have the object recognition software place object keywords into image metadata, which could make organizing large batches of images a much more streamlined process.
Image credit: Adafruit
The technology is still developing, and machine learning takes time, but there’s a lot of interesting potential here and talented, creative individuals often find ways to push new gear and tech to the limits. At the very least, it seems like a fun project. If you’d like to learn more and view the complete parts list, click here. In total, you’ll need the Adafruit BrainCraft HAT (around $ 40), Raspberry Pi 4 ($ 35), a camera ($ 30 and up) a 3D printed case, and a few more odds and ends. Click the following links for helpful user guides: ‘Easy Machine Learning for Raspberry Pi’ and ‘Running TensorFlow Lite on Raspberry Pi 4’.
The post Darktable: Is This Free Lightroom Alternative Right for You? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.
When most people think about software for managing and editing their photographs, the most prominent program that comes to mind is Adobe Lightroom.
And while there are other options, such as Capture One and Apple Photos, there’s another program worth considering:
Darktable.
Darktable is an open-source alternative to the mainstream options, and while it might not have every single feature of its counterparts, it does have one enormous advantage: it’s free. That alone makes it worth checking out, but is it the right solution for you?
Read on to find out.
The Darktable interface will seem familiar to users of Lightroom and Capture One.
What is Darktable?
Darktable might be a new name for you, but it has been around since 2009 and has been steadily growing in popularity ever since. In an era where software costs are skyrocketing and more programs are moving to a subscription model, Darktable’s approach seems almost quaint.
Anyone can use Darktable for free – with no worries about contracts, upgrades, or missing features. This alone makes it a highly compelling editing solution, and certainly one worth considering for photographers without an unlimited budget.
There are some important tradeoffs with Darktable, especially if you are used to using Lightroom or another commercial program. Keep your expectations in check, and remember that the phrase “You get what you pay for” is popular for a reason.
That’s not to say you should ignore Darktable, but just be aware of what you are getting into.
Darktable is great, if you can live with some of its quirks.
Darktable overview
At its core, Darktable is similar to other programs you might already use. It’s a non-destructive image editor (it can handle RAW, JPEG, and many other formats) with a bevy of tools and options to edit your images.
Darktable has two central modes:
Lighttable and Darkroom.
These function much like the Library and Develop modules in Lightroom. Darktable lets you import, categorize, sort, rate, flag, and tag images just like most other programs. Even the name Darktable is a play on the word Lightroom.
That said, there is a bit of a learning curve to Darktable because the features it offers are so overwhelming. Some new users are put off by this at first, but it doesn’t take much time to pick up the basics and start editing.
One additional thing worth noting:
I have found Darktable to be noticeably slower than Lightroom. Edits are shown in real time, but there is just a bit of lag as you drag sliders and change values. It’s not a dealbreaker, but something to be aware of.
Many of the editing tools in Darktable are highly detailed and quite powerful.
In order to find out if Darktable is right for you, it’s helpful to understand precisely how its two main components, Lighttable and Darkroom, function.
Lighttable
In a broad sense, the Lighttable mode is similar to Lightroom’s Library module. You use Lighttable for importing images as well as tagging, rating, sorting, and general organizing.
The Import dialog lets you select files or a folder of images from your computer that is then loaded into the application. You can select multiple files and perform batch operations such as adding keywords, assigning color labels, and even applying GPX files for location data.
The sheer number of options is a bit overwhelming at first, but like any program, the more you use it the more it makes sense. Much of the Lighttable interface will be familiar to longtime Lightroom users, though the program does not strive for 1:1 feature parity. Instead, Darktable presents a logical series of actions and options designed to help photographers manage and import images.
Note also that the Export panel is in the Lighttable module, which is one way in which Darktable differentiates itself from Lightroom and other programs. In the screenshot below, you can see some of the many options available for exporting, which gives you a sense of the sheer depth offered by Darktable:
You can customize many different elements of the export process.
While things seem great up to this point, I do need to temper your expectations a bit. My biggest issue with Darktable is evident just from using the Lighttable module: overall responsiveness is not great. Scrolling through images, selecting pictures, editing metadata information, and other simple operations take far longer than other programs. Not that Lightroom and Capture One are speed demons – but comparing them to Darktable is like comparing a Ferrari to a Toyota Corolla. The latter will get the job done, but the former will do it way faster.
That’s not necessarily the only peg to hang your editing hat on, though. While speed is important, it’s not everything, and many quibbles with Darktable are mitigated by its price.
After all, despite my issues with Darktable’s user interface and lack of polish, it’s impossible to overlook the cost. I am still kind of amazed that all these features are in a free program that continues to be actively developed. For frugal photographers, it would be difficult not to recommend Darktable, and for everyone else, it just helps to have some patience.
Lighttable allows you to assign color labels, star ratings, flags, and more.
One note for more technical users: Darktable doesn’t operate with a catalog like Lightroom.
Instead, the program stores all metadata in sidecar XMP files that reside next to your images on your computer. That means any information, such as keywords, star ratings, color tags, and edits, can be transferred along with your images just by copying the XMP files.
Some people find this more freeing than the catalog system in Lightroom, and while I have never had any issues with a catalog system, I do see the benefits of this approach.
Darkroom
While the Lighttable module is used for sorting and organizing your images, Darkroom is designed for the type of in-depth editing you would expect from a program that caters to the most demanding photo editors.
In fact, in terms of sheer editing prowess, Darktable blows Lightroom clear out of the water.
The Darkroom interface is where you edit your photos, much like the Develop module in Lightroom.
On the left side of the Darkroom interface, you will find elements that operate similarly to Lightroom and other editors. Darkroom contains a history panel, a system for managing duplicate images, a snapshot browser, and more. Across the bottom is a series of thumbnails for selecting images. The right side shows a histogram and a series of modules for editing things such as white balance, tone curves, sharpness, lens imperfections, and more.
The final two words of the previous paragraph hide the true strength of Darkroom: the sheer quantity of editing options available is absolutely stunning. Whereas Lightroom has nine modules to choose from, Darktable has dozens. So many, in fact, that most of them aren’t even shown by default and are instead kept tucked away under a module called “More Modules.”
If the default set of modules isn’t enough for you, there are plenty more to choose from.
Beneath the histogram are icons that let you choose from a default set of modules most photographers find particularly useful: Basic, Tone, Color, Correction, and Effects. Click any of these to load modules that correspond to that type of edit.
For instance, click the Basic Group icon to access modules such as Base Curve, Tone Equalizer, Crop and Rotate, Exposure, and White Balance. You can also create your own custom set of editing modules and use the “Search Module” feature to locate a particular module just by typing its name.
Below the histogram is a row of icons that let you switch between sets of commonly-used editing modules. The search bar helps you find a particular editing module quickly.
Click any of the module titles to open its editing parameters, and you will see a familiar set of sliders and numerical values. The key difference with Darktable is the sheer quantity of sliders, values, and editing options at your disposal.
For instance, the Color Balance module contains sliders such as Input Saturation, Output Saturation, Contrast Fulcrum, and Contrast. In addition, there are three separate values (Factor, Hue, and Saturation) for Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights.
Darktable offers fine-grained control over many aspects of photo editing.
Compare this to the options in Lightroom, and you’ll quickly see that Darktable clearly pulls ahead in terms of editing efficacy. And Color Balance is just one of the editing modules available to you. Some of the modules are so technical that Darktable lets you adjust their parameters but actively discourages you from doing so:
Some editing options are so specialized that Darktable warns you against using them. However, these tools are a boon for editors who want the maximum amount of control over their images.
Another powerful feature in Darktable is its implementation of custom masks. Most of the editing options can be combined with masks that can be accessed in the Mask Manager on the left side.
This lets you use common shapes, such as a brush or a circle, to create masks. However, Darktable goes one step further by letting you draw custom masks. This is helpful for anyone whose editing has been stymied by the comparatively limited options available in Lightroom.
You can create masks of all shapes and sizes in Darktable, which are useful for applying edits in specific image locations.
Again, I need to temper expectations. Performing many of the editing maneuvers is an exercise in patience, even on a newer computer. Drawing a mask, moving a slider, or even cropping an image often involves precious seconds of wait time, which can really add up when going through hundreds of images.
There is also no mobile support, meaning photographers who rely on tablets or phones as essential components of their editing workflow will be left out in the cold.
Proceed with caution
At this point, you might be ready to cancel all your editing software subscriptions and jump on the Darktable bandwagon.
But before you take the leap, I need to offer a few words of caution. This article is not meant to be a review of Darktable, but rather a tool to help you decide if this program is right for you. And while there is no doubt that Darktable can handle any image editing tasks you throw at it, including more advanced options such as tethered shooting, slideshows, and printing, there are a host of drawbacks, as well.
As much as I want to like Darktable, I just can’t get around its overall sluggishness and lack of polish. Implementing edits is slow, and drawing custom masks can be a patience-draining exercise. Odd interface quirks abound, like truncated slider names and weird thumbnail resizing when switching in and out of the Lighttable mode.
Glitches like this show up far more than I’d prefer. Here, the Lighttable interface is unusable until all the thumbnails can be properly re-loaded by the program.
The sheer level of complexity can also be a significant detriment. It takes a great deal of experimentation, trial and error, and online searching to figure out all the tools at your disposal. While this is true of any image editing program, the relatively small Darktable user base means that there just aren’t as many resources available to aspiring users compared to Lightroom and others.
Is Darktable right for you?
The best person to answer that question is you, and since Darktable is free for anyone to download, I recommend you give it a shot and see what you think.
However, if you want a bit more guidance, the following information might help.
I recommend Darktable for:
Photographers on a budget who still want powerful editing software
Highly technical editors who enjoy really digging into the editing process and don’t mind some software quirks
Users who are unsatisfied with current offerings from Adobe, Capture One, and others, and want to try something different
I do not recommend Darktable for some people, including:
Photographers who value speed and efficiency in their workflow
Editors who want robust software that gets regular, substantive updates to fix bugs and add new features
Casual users who value simplicity and user-friendliness over sheer editing power
Mobile-centric photographers who prefer solutions that work on phones and tablets
For many photographers, Darktable is the best-kept secret in image editing.
Where you fall along this spectrum is up to you to decide. You can’t lose anything just by downloading Darktable and taking it for a test drive.
You might very well be surprised by what it can do for you!
You can download the latest version of Darktable here.
The post Darktable: Is This Free Lightroom Alternative Right for You? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.
We’ve come across a number of weird lenses and lens accessories over the years, but the Soratama from Zenjix certainly stands out from the crowd, for better or worse.
The lens attachment features a 72mm filter thread and is designed to go in front of nearly any lens you can find step down/up rings for. It uses a single sheet of glass with what is effectively a clear marble to turn the world around you into a little globe of sorts.
These globe-style shots aren’t new, per se, but unlike photos that use larger glass orbs, this attachment is smaller and means your hand won’t be in the image. We can’t attest to image quality, but the above video shows what kind of shots are possible with the Soratama. There are multiple versions of the Soratama being sold on eBay, starting around $ 95 with shipping.
Nothing rattles the photography community faster than talking about lens protectors. Some swear by it, while others wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. What is the rage about, and what is the approach you should take with lens protectors? We will discuss all of them in this article. What is a Lens Protector Lens protectors are pieces of glass Continue Reading
The post This is Why You Need a Camera Lens Protector appeared first on Photodoto.
Adam Schultz, oficial photographer for the Biden For President campaign. Photo: Drew Heskett
Adam Schultz is a busy man. Official photographer for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, he’s traveling all over the US with the candidate, taking and sharing pictures of the campaign trail. We caught up with Adam recently to talk about what it means to shoot for a presidential campaign, how 2020 differs from previous election cycles, and why he can’t wait until it’s possible to take pictures of people without masks on.
All pictures courtesy of Adam Schultz unless otherwise noted. The following interview has been edited for clarity and flow.
How do you end up as a campaign photographer?
Well in 2016 I worked on the Hillary campaign with Barbara Kinney, who was one of the White House photographers in the 90s, and before that I worked at the Clinton Foundation for eight or nine years. I’ve always been interested in politics and photography. It’s a really interesting niche, being able to use photographs to show what these people do on a day to day basis.
An early January shot of presidential candidate Joe Biden with supporters at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa.
The Biden campaign trialled a bunch of photographers in the early days, but I remember on one of the longer flights back to Delaware, I was showing VP Biden the pictures on my computer, and he was going through them, and he turned to me and asked if he could put some of the pictures on his phone. And that’s when I thought ‘OK, good, he gets it, he likes this stuff!’ From that point on I’ve just stuck close and tried to build trust with him.
What is it about politics and politicians which interests you as a photographer?
I’ve always thought of myself as being a politically-conscious person, I try to keep my ear to the ground, and keep an eye on the issues that affect people. For me personally, I grew up in a household where my parents both had strong opinions, and they always talked about issues, and how important it was to vote, so it’s always been a part of my life.
Being able to combine photography and politics, well that’s a neat job!
A typical ‘pre-COVID’ campaign-trail scene in St Louis, taken in early February, before lockdown measures were put in place.
What does your role as campaign photographer involve?
A lot of it is generating marketing materials, effectively. In this campaign, because of the pandemic, we’ve concentrated a lot more on pictures that show the candidate with people. Whether that’s working on rope-lines or talking to supporters, and making sure that we get the shot of him walking out with the flag of a state behind him, to visually illustrate the fact that he’s at a certain location.
So every day I wake up, look at the schedule, and determine ‘OK, from this event we need a picture of X, Y and Z and from this meeting, we need a picture of him greeting such and such a person’.
If you go to our Flickr account, we’ve done a pretty good job of sharing photos from pretty much every public event that we do. One of the things I wanted to do a lot of in this campaign was to let people see what is actually happening. And Flickr is a great public forum where people can see the photos.
How has the pandemic affected your work on this campaign compared to 2016?
There were a couple of months when we were figuring out our COVID testing, and there were a lot of unknowns around what was safe, and what we could do. Questions like ‘Can we fly?’ And first and foremost, the campaign – and vice-president Biden – has said ‘safety first’. Wear a mask, get tested, all that stuff. There were a handful of times when I saw vice-president Biden before we started rigorous testing, but now, every day before I see him I get tested. So that’s definitely an extra layer, operationally, which has to be built into the schedule.
We always make sure we know exactly how many people can be in a space, what the safe distance is, and of course masks
But this is go-time – we do things every day. We’ve gotten around a lot, and the pictures show it. We’re out at events, being socially distanced, and we’re always following local guidelines, whether that’s state, county or city, whatever. We always make sure we know exactly how many people can be in a space, what the safe distance is, and of course masks. We follow mask mandates religiously. In my opinion, that indicates true leadership. We have to set a good example.
Presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks to his running mate, Kamala Harris, via video call, in August 2020.
Have all of those restrictions affected how you work as a photographer? Are there pictures this time around that you just haven’t been able to get?
One of the things that we used to love to do before the pandemic was rope-line moments. Often VP Biden would spend more time on the line talking to people after an event than the actual event ran for. You have to think about who those people are, who take time out of their day to come to the events and hang out on the line afterwards to talk to him, and tell him about their issues. Unfortunately, this time around, it’s been tough to talk to people like that and shake their hands.
As a photographer, that’s tricky. Events are socially distanced, and group photos always have to have six feet of distance between people. If you look at the photos we’re capturing now compared to this time last year, there’s a huge difference. Last year it was have been pictures of the candidate speaking, working the rope line, group photos, all the traditional kinds of pictures you’d see from a political campaign, but this is a wild time.
I’ll spend a fair amount of time trying to get shots showing what the event looks like from VP Biden’s perspective.
What does that mean for you technically?
One of the things I’ve always tried to do is move around a lot. As much as possible. When we go into a space I’ll move around and get the typical shots, then I’ll spend a fair amount of time trying to get shots showing what the event looks like from VP Biden’s perspective. And that’s where a lens like the 100-400mm is great, you can get those really tight shots. One thing that I’m doing in this role is documenting what the candidate sees, and what he’s thinking about.
If we’re in a smaller room, the trick is to take a picture of two people standing on opposite sides of that room, I’ll reach for the 16-35mm. But I’ll also back up on the 85mm, and for larger events the 100-400mm is great. It’s a really versatile lens. Being able to move around, both physically and in terms of focal length is really important.
Are you looking forward to the day when you can take pictures of people without masks?
We always follow local guidelines, and if the guidelines say ‘wear a mask everywhere, no matter what’ then VP Biden does that. It’s a tough thing to shoot around, because it makes it tough to capture really good moments sometimes. You’ll hear people say ‘I’m smiling with my eyes’ and you can see that, but it’s not the same.
Once we make it through this, God willing, it’ll open up a whole different realm of opportunities for photography. Being able to do normal events again, and shake hands with people again, it’ll be great.
An ABC interview with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in August, conducted according to social distancing guidelines.
What gear do you shoot with right now?
I have three Sony a9 II bodies, about twelve batteries, and four lenses, including the three I mentioned earlier. The Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM, the FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS, which is mostly a backup, then the FE 85mm F1.4 GM, which is a great lens, and the FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS. For me, it’s tricky because I never know exactly what kind of an event, or situation I’m going to walk into. So having those three bodies and those three main lenses gives me a really wide range of possibilities.
What’s the most fun thing about your job right now?
Right now [October 15th] we’re about two and a half weeks out, and it’s just the excitement. We’ve gone through ups and downs, and good days and bad days. This is a very exciting time. Every day I wake up, and I put all of the experience of the last year and a half to use. I follow his schedule, I do it, get the pictures, then edit. I’ll review the day when I’m going through my selects and I’ll think ‘Oh wow that was a really cool day!’
Every day I get to do this is a special day, and it’s important to remember that
A perfect day is one where we do an unscheduled stop. We used to do a lot of them, and it’s trickier now, but there have been a bunch of times where we’re on a two or three-day trip, and we’ll stop by a restaurant, or go to a little hole-in-the-wall place and order a sandwich or an ice-cream or something. Those kinds of things are great. They put the candidate in front of people who wouldn’t necessarily have seen him otherwise and they add a local flavor to the coverage of the campaign. Having those images peppered in among planned events, that really makes it fun.
Do you have any tips for staying healthy and sane, when you’re traveling so much?
Eat right! And never forget to take a step back and look at where you are. Paul Morse [White House photographer during the George W. Bush administration] told me that. To be in this kind of role, and to be given this kind of opportunity is such a cool thing. Some people might see it as a grind, and it is, but I don’t see it like that. Every day I get to do this is a special day, and it’s important to remember that. It’s not about me. I’m doing my job to make sure that the candidate is painted in a good light. There are rough days, but it’s a very special thing.
You can find more of Adam’s work on Instagram, and the official Biden For President Flickr page.
Canadian photographer Eric Paré has built a bullet-time rig using 15 Raspberry Pi cameras synchronised to record pictures at exactly the same moment from different angles. The cameras then create a series of images that show the subject, usually someone jumping in the air it seems, from multiple viewpoints. These images can then be put together as a video to show the person frozen in mid-air as the camera appears to pan around them. The technique, made popular by the fight scenes in the movie The Matrix, requires that the cameras used are all pointing at exactly the same spot and that the shutters are tripped either at the same moment or in sequence.
Eric usually uses a collection of EOS DSLRs for his bullet-time videos but thought it would be interesting to use the tiny Raspberry Pi cameras as the lenses can be placed much closer together to create smoother motion in the final video. To do this he mounted 15 cameras on an aluminium rail and synchronised them using a single dashboard that could also control the settings of each camera.
Problems arose due to the wide angle lens of the Raspberry Pi camera and because the cameras are mounted on their PCB using a gum glue that doesn’t hold them in a specific position. This meant that while the boards were all facing the right way the cameras were not, and the footage produced was jerky. Eric solved this issue by remounting all the camera units directly to the boards using a thin adhesive.
Each camera in the rig was connected to the laptop via an Ethernet cable to a switch and Eric triggered the set-up using a Bluetooth presenter controller. He says he didn’t need to make any custom electronics for the rig when shooting with continuous lighting, but he did make a new control board to fit in the rig when he wanted to use flash.
For this experiment Eric used the Pi 3B+ with version 2 of the Raspberry Pi camera module. He says the same set-up would also work with the newer High Quality Pi camera with its 12MP sensor and interchangeable C-Mount lens system.
With the release of Apple’s iOS 14, users can finally add widgets to their homescreen and subsequent pages, paving the way for unique ways to customize your iOS device. Inspired by a widget from iOS Reddit client Apollo, developer Mark Hambly decided to make his own to show off the beautiful astrophotography of NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) project.
A collection of various layouts you can achieve using the new widgets in iOS 14.
The aptly named APOD app, which is free to download (and ad-free), will refresh every day with the latest image(s) from NASA’s APOD feed. You can customize the widget to show up as a 2×2 square, 2×4 rectangle or a 4×4 square to squeeze it into whatever homescreen setup you’ve customized. The widget offers the option to show the current APOD, a random APOD or cycle through a collection of your favorite APOD images you’ve marked within the app.
You can pick between the APOD, a random APOD from the past or a collection of Favorite APOD images you’ve saved.
If you want additional information on the image being displayed, you can tap on the widget and it will take you into the app, where you’ll see the image’s title, the date it was released and the description provided by NASA. You can also browse through the Astronomy Picture of the Day by date and even tap the ‘Random’ button that will surprise you from a past image.
The app is still in its infancy, as it was quickly developed ‘over a few evenings’ as part of a personal hackathon, so if you do come across the bug, just report it to the developer through the app’s settings. The app is available in the iOS App Store.
Fujifilm has formally announced its XF 50mm F1.0 R WR portrait prime lens, the world’s first F1.0 lens for mirrorless cameras that includes autofocus capability. It’s also the 35th lens Fujifilm has developed for its lineup of X-series cameras.
The XF 50mm F1.0 has 12 elements in nine groups, and contains one aspherical element and two extra-low dispersion (ED) elements. It has a rounded diaphragm and its wide maximum aperture means that, paired with Fujifilm’s X-Pro3 and X-T4 cameras, users can autofocus at a luminance level of -7EV. That’s dimmer than a night lit by a quarter moon.
The wide, focus-by-wire focus ring gives users 120° of rotation, allowing for precise movements. It weighs in at 845g (1.86lb), and is dust, moisture and freeze resistant down to temperatures of -10°C (14°F).
Fujifilm says the XF 50mm F1.0 R WR will be available in Fall 2020 at a price of $ 1499 USD ($ 2000 CAD).
Press release:
Heralding a new age of portrait photography: FUJINON XF50mmF1.0 R WR Lens
Introducing the world’s first F1.0 lens with Autofocus*1
Valhalla, N.Y. – September 3, 2020 – FUJIFILM North America Corporation is pleased to announce the launch of the FUJINON XF50mmF1.0 R WR Lens (hereafter “XF50mmF1.0 R WR”), the world’s first autofocus lens with a maximum aperture of F1.0, designed for mirrorless cameras. The XF50mmF1.0 R WR is the 35th interchangeable lens for the lineup of X Series digital cameras.
“We’re really excited about the XF50mmF1.0 R WR,” said Victor Ha, senior director of marketing and product management for the Electronic Imaging Division of FUJIFILM North America Corporation. “Not only is it the fastest interchangeable lens Fujifilm has ever produced, but it’s also an incredible tool for visual storytellers to use in telling their stories because its autofocus can achieve critical focus at very shallow depth of fields.”
XF50mmF1.0 R WR Features:
Achieves an Incredibly Shallow Depth-of-Field
The XF50mmF1.0 R WR consists of 12 lens elements in nine groups and also contains one aspherical element and two extra-low dispersion (ED) elements to achieve optimum control of spherical aberration. Used at or near to its maximum F1.0 aperture, XF50mmF1.0 R WR can produce an astonishingly narrow depth-of-field. Its precision-engineered, rounded diaphragm produces large, smooth bokeh for a professional look. Use this new power in selective focus to keep only the subject’s eyes in focus and to create captivating, close-up character images. “But it’s not just for portraits,” said Ha. “Take this lens out onto the street or into a lifestyle session and you’ll turn cluttered locations into clean backdrops with unrivaled subject separation.”
More Options in Low-Light Conditions
The very wide, maximum aperture on XF50mmF1.0 R WR means there are more options when it comes to making images in low-light conditions. At night, or in darkened interiors, XF50mmF1.0 R WR offers the widest apertures yet seen on an XF Lens, allowing more light to be drawn in when capturing your image. The FUJINON XF50mmF1.0 R WR lens also easily achieves fast shutter speeds that freeze movement and keep ISO settings lower for detail-rich results. Alternatively, combine high ISO settings with the F1.0 aperture for incredible versatility and use in other low-light applications like astrophotography.
World’s First F1.0 Autofocus Lens for Mirrorless Cameras
As the world’s first autofocus F1.0 lens made for any mirrorless system, including full-frame, XF50mmF1.0 R WR brings more light to the sensor than any previous XF lens, making it possible for the autofocus to operate on FUJIFILM X-Pro3 and X-T4 cameras at -7EV luminance level. Leaving behind a previous limit of -6EV luminance level with other XF lenses X Series users now have fast and precise low-light autofocus, even in near-darkness. With the added benefits of on-sensor Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF), Face/Eye AF and a powerful DC (direct current) motor, precise and fast autofocus at shallow depths of field is now also a possibility.
120° of Precise Focus
To make the most of its super-shallow depth-of-field, focusing must be precise. As a result, XF50mmF1.0 R WR has a focus ring that has been designed to be more accurate than any previous XF Lens. This makes it possible to adjust the focus from the minimum focusing distance to infinity very precisely. For this, XF50mmF1.0 R WR uses 120° of rotation in its focusing ring to let you focus manually with minimal error – and to achieve accurate focus when using your X Series camera’s Focus Peaking and Focus Assist modes. The 120° of rotation also makes autofocus movements notably precise and deliberate, while the lens’ engineering is designed to minimize focus shift effects during image making.
Lightweight, Durable, Weather-Resistant Design
Despite being a fast, F1.0 lens, XF50mmF1.0 R WR is a lens you can use to make amazing pictures almost anywhere. Measuring 4.07in (103.5mm) long and weighing 1.86 pounds (845 grams), the lens is still quite compact and portable. Like all other weather-resistant XF Lenses, it is sealed in 11 locations to protect against moisture and dust, as well as being capable of use in temperatures down to 14°F (-10°C). When allied to a similarly specified, weather-resistant X Series mirrorless digital camera body, XF50mmF1.0 R WR lets you make unique images in the toughest environments.
Pricing and Availability
The XF50mmF1.0 R WR lens is expected to be available in Fall 2020 at manufacturer’s suggested retail prices of $ 1,499.95 USD ($ 2,000.00 CAD).
For more information, please visit https://fujifilm-x.com/en-us/products/lenses/xf50mmf1-r-wr/.
*1 Among interchangeable lenses for mirrorless digital camera systems as of September 3, 2020, according to Fujifilm data
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