360Photography

What a great show we had last night with the one and only godfather of light painting and night photography Mr. Lost America Troy Paiva.

In last night’s show we talked all about Troy’s work — his technique, his gear, his social engineering, his workshops, and lots of other tips on how you can make these sorts of photographs yourself. For a more thorough run down on all of Troy’s tips and techniques be sure to get a copy of his third book “Light Painted Night Photography” on Trey Ratcliff’s Flatbooks store. Also be sure and check out Troy’s work at his website http://lostamerica.com.

Joining Lotus Carroll and myself last night were Keith Barrett, Ricardo Lagos, Amy Heiden, Scott Frederick and Ian Ference.

We also discussed the new Canon mirrorless camera, Scott Jarvie’s upcoming Photography Decathlon, the winner of our SmugMug / Blurb Books photo project contest Jordana Wright, a wedding photographer who is being threatened with a $ 300,000 lawsuit, the new Epson V700 scanner that I ordered from Adorama yesterday, a photo by Alex Koloskov and lots more!

Thanks as always to our AWESOME sponsors Adorama, Blurb Books, Drobo and SmugMug. Be sure to check them out at http://adorama.com, http://blurb.com, http://drobo.com and http://smugmug.com

Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

It’s a big claim: “The best pocket camera ever made.” … or so The New York Times declares. No doubt there will be some rumblings from a well-known German company about such a contention. And Nikon will be banging at the gate too!

(insert Productshot_Front_007-1200)

Sony’s story is that the RX100 does do things quite a bit differently from the rest of the crowd. For one thing, as a fixed lens camera, the sensor is claimed to be considerably larger than the rest of the crowd, with many having 11mm sensors (as a diagonal measurement). Sony claims the RX100′s sensor is a one inch job.

Screeech! Reality check! The RX100′s CMOS measures 13.2×8.8mm, which means the diagonal is only 15.8mm and not 25.4m (one inch) … same as the Nikon V1and N1 cameras.

It gets stickier. The RX100 has 20.2 million effective pixels, while the Nikons offers only 10.1 million packed onto the sensor. Same space: smaller pixels. Not a good start!

Well I’ve got that off my chest.

Now let’s look at the lens. At last! A star! One of dear old Carl Zeiss’ top optics: the Vario-Sonnar T* f1.8-4.9/10.4-37.1mm job. Yes, it’s relatively fast at f1.9, but this drops off to a much smaller f4.9 at the tele end, giving a modest 3.6x zoom range (based on the 35 SLR equivalent range of 28-100mm).

Sony Cyber-Shot RX100 Features

Built around an aluminium body, the camera inherits some features from Sony’s Alpha range of cameras which places it in the same territory as the mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras.

Although small, the RX100 feels chunky, solid and workmanlike, while feeling surprisingly heavy for such a small camera. Powered down, it fits a pocket easily. Powered up, the lens protrudes another 3.5cm from the 3.5cm deep body.

It feels good in the hand, although I would have liked a textured grip surface at the front right edge, as there is at the rear edge.

Controls are very Sony-like: power, zoom and mode dial on top; the rear has a Function button (HDR, scene modes, exposure compensation, ISO), with controls for menu, replay, instruction guide and the movie record button.

There is a USB port at the camera’s right end with the mini HDMI and memory card access placed in the camera’s base.

At this point I should mention the lens control ring, close to the body and giving direct access to aperture, shutter speed and manual focus … all operable with the camera in Program AE, shutter or aperture priority and visible on the LCD screen. Pretty neat!

I have to say the manual focus arrangement is one of the best I have come across: easy to access and giving the clearest indication of sharp or unsharp focus. However, I found the shutter button hard to feel for, as it’s recessed beneath the top surface. A bad design flaw.

Maximum image size is 5472×3080 pixels, enough to make a 46x26cm print.

Movies are well taken care of with maximum res at Full HD 1920×1080 in AVCHD or MPEG format for the lesser sizes.

Speaking of which: sounds of the shutter button and zoom can be heard while shooting video — but you can shoot stills while in video mode. The stabiliser works well as does the auto focus. The instruction manual indicates that in some video resolutions still capture is not possible … but I had no trouble.

Sony Cyber-Shot RX100 ISO Tests

While the specs indicate the camera has an upper ISO setting of 25,600 this is only available in Auto ISO, with the camera making the setting according to prevailing light levels.

At ISO 80 the image was sharp and noise free. Only when ISO 1600 was reached did noise appear. By ISO 3200 noise was up but not to an objectionable level. At ISO 6400 noise was up but definition was acceptable. A good performance.

Startup Times

It took three seconds from startup to first shot; follow-ons about a second apart.

Distortion

No problems at the wide or tele ends of the zoom. A good performance.

Sony Cyber-Shot RX100 Verdict

Quality: the pictures I shot with the RX100 simply jumped off the screen with excellent definition and accurate colour. A top performer, no doubt thanks to Herr Zeiss’s precision.

Why you’d buy the Sony Cyber-shot RX100: a pocket performer.

Why you wouldn’t: a vari-angle screen would have made the camera near-perfect;

An elegant and practical camera it could be used by virtually anyone with any skills level. However, it could seriously sing and dance in polished hands!

Sony Cyber-Shot RX100 Specs

Image Sensor: 20.2 million effective pixels.
Metering: multi zone, centre-weighted, spot.
Lens: Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* f1.8-4.9/10.4-37.1 (28-100mm as 35 SLR).
Exposure Modes: Program AE, shutter and aperture priority, manual.
Effective Sensor Size: 13.2×8.8mm Exmor CMOS.
Shutter Speed (stills): 30 to 1/2000 second and Bulb.
Continuous Shooting: 2.5/10 fps.
Memory: SD/SDHC/SDXC, Memory Stick Pro Duo cards.
Image Sizes (pixels): Stills: 5472×3080 to 2592×1944.
Movies: 1920×1080 (AVCHD); 1440×1080, 640×480 (MPEG4).
Viewfinder: 7.6cm LCD screen (1,228,800 pixels).
File Formats: JPEG, RAW (Sony ARW 2.2), JPEG+RAW, MPEG4, AVCHD.
Colour Space: sRGB, Adobe RGB.
ISO Sensitivity: Auto, 100 to 25600.
Interface: USB 2.0, HDMI mini.
Power: Rechargeable lithium ion battery, DC input.
Dimensions: 102x59x36 WHDmm.
Weight: 213 g (inc battery).
Price: Get a price on the Sony Cybershot RX100 at Amazon.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

Sony Cyber-Shot RX100 REVIEW

Digital Photography School

Probably the number one thing that Yahoo has squandered over the years is the early mover advantage that they had when they bought Flickr and along with it one of the best basic frameworks for group social networking on the web today.

Flickr groups are a potentially powerful social network, even more powerful in fact than Flickr itself as a photo sharing platform. Instead of recognizing and exploiting the full potential of Flickr groups, groups have been left behind to languish in a new more nimble mobile world of instant communication.

Yahoo never even understood what they had. They barely understood Flickr, how could they understand an obscure part of Flickr and the seed for greatness that existed there? Carol Bartz, Scott Thompson (and now Marissa Mayer) couldn’t/can’t even be bothered to set up Flickr accounts.

Today more powerful, wealthy, and connected internet businesses are rapidly building out group oriented features (Google+ Events for example) that will further diminish Yahoo’s potential in the social networking space. Yahoo still does have a chance to try to turn Flickr groups into something larger, but the time is short. Understanding the power of Flickr groups means actually spending time using it and studying it. Like her predecessors, we can’t even get Marissa Mayer to open up her own Flickr account, so my outlook for Flickr groups is not great.

Those that have lived in Flickr groups for various periods of time over the past 8 years know exactly what I am talking about. They know how powerful groups can be. This small population of outliers on the web know that for many of them Flickr groups have been the most addictive thing they have ever experienced on the web — more addictive than Facebook, more addictive than Google+, more addictive than any social experience on the web for them ever. Groups of tight knit communities have flourished in obscurity on Flickr but have resulted in some of the most significant offline real life communication and life involvement for those who know.

The power of Flickr groups is that they allow small interest groups (that oftentimes end up transcending their own interest and purpose for existence) to turn into tightly knit communities — strangers bonding in ways that are unusual for the internet. A lot is said about how busy people are today, and people are — but at the same time people are basically bored and lonely. As connected as we are with people that we know, we thirst for more. We thirst for real interaction on the web. “Nice photo,” “wow,” “excellent composition,” are not what we are really after. We are after something deeper — something more real, authentic and meaningful. We long for connection. We thrive for real understanding and admiration. We want to belong to associations. We’ve lost touch with our churches and political parties and social clubs and even our families at times. In our isolation the web becomes our new wild, wild west. We seek connection and group association even if we do not realize it. We want to belong.

Exploring the full potential of Flickr groups and how this structure and format can be improved upon should be a major directive of Marissa Mayer. If Yahoo cares about social networking (and they should) this is where they need to start.

The power of Flickr groups basically comes down to one thing. The threads are super easy to read, bumped and interactive. Simplicity really is the power of groups as much as anything.

Below is a roadmap for how to unleash the real power of Flickr groups. As part of a longer-term plan, Yahoo needs to figure out how to roll out the group framework on Flickr to every single property on Yahoo.

1. Flickr needs more robust blocking tools. If people are going to get up in each other’s grill, they will eventually get up in each other’s grill. If groups are going to bring people to extreme levels of connection, inevitably there will be the destroyers. The basic group format allows group administrators to remove pariahs from the group experience, but this is not enough. Those in the know understand that destroying a group is largely a matter of will power. With the ability to install an unlimited army of Flickr troll accounts who can wreck havoc on a group experience, many have abandoned Flickr groups for this simple reason alone.

Google+ and Facebook understand the need for true and complete blocking. When you block someone on Google+ they are 98% gone. The blocking action renders them invisible to you anywhere in the network. Occasionally you are puzzled when you see the mention of someone’s name in a thread and then you remember, aha, yes, you’ve blocked that person. Not so with Flickr groups. When you block someone on Flickr they are free to roam any group you are a member of and continue harassing you. This drives the most social among us away. While group administration and Flickr themselves may take action if the harassment is significant enough, this is not adequate. It is not immediate. Even if action is taken, a new troll is quickly introduced to allow the same actions (98% of the time this harassment is done anonymously).

Allowing us control over our Flickr social experience should be the first priority for Flickr. Allowing a complete and total block should have been implemented a long time ago, before so many were driven from the Flickr group experience. If someone does not like someone for any reason whatsover, they should be equipped with a tool to remove them from their personal space — even within a group. A total block has deeper implications than simply removing unwanted harassment from your group experience. A total block introduces the threat of group membership shunning another member. This provides a powerful incentive for a group member to engage in more respectful social engagement and interaction.

2. Flickr groups need a mobile experience. This may need to even be a stand alone application for Android and iOS. Flickr needs to introduce a simple interface that allows you to scroll and fave group photos (Instagram style with easy scrolling and tapping to fave). More significantly though they need to introduce a basic thread reader that is as simple and easy to read and respond to threads on the mobile platform as possible. At present Flickr’s mobile app cannot interact with group threads. Trying to browse group threads on the non-mobile web version of Flickr on a mobile device drives all but the most hardcore away from group threads when they are away from their computer. We are increasingly mobile, a proper addiction should follow you from your computer to your phone. Lost non-computer time reduces engagement. Engagement begets engagement in Flickr group threads and giving people 24/7 access should be a goal.

3. Groups need better filtering tools. The goal should be engagement. Every thread in a group that will not produce engagement is noise and wasted opportunity. Allowing individuals to filter out threads that they do not care about is essential. If I do not like football, I should not have to see the “who will win the superbowl” thread in my social group over and over and over again because other group members want to talk football. This also gives group members a key tool to prevent against thread bumping abuse. Sometimes to make a point, a troll will bump one thread over and over and over again. If members have the power to simply hide that thread, it diminishes the power over the group that a troll will have.

4. Groups need subscriptions. The most active potential users will go to more than one group. They will spend time in several. In order to get someone to return to a group though, there must be a payoff. After checking group threads and finding them inactive 10 times in a row, I will come back less and less over time. Even when a thread I care about is updated, I won’t know because by then I’ve lost interest due to low payoff. By allowing me to subscribe to threads across all Flickr groups I can be assured that if a thread I care about is updated I will see it. A page of all threads that I’m hyper interested in and care the most about will be irresistible to me. If done right, this page could become the most viewed page on all of Flickr. This page would allow faster more frequent responses to powerful group threads. Again, activity begets activity. Faster more frequent payoffs make it more difficult to walk away from the thread experience.

Letting me build my own personalized group forum of threads that I am 100% interested and invested in across all groups on Flickr would significantly increase the chances that I would engage in threads as other activity took place. Zeroing in on the threads that I care most about would perhaps be the most powerful tool of any social network ever. Too often conversations that we care about are lost on the web forever. Bookmarking them and them bumping them based on activity has never been done by anyone that I’m aware of and would represent one of the most powerful tools in social networking ever.

5. Groups need a significant events page. See Google+ for how to do this right.

Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

Earlier in the week we shared 49 city skyline shots in an image collection that got passed around the web quite a bit. I thought it might be good this weekend to followup with a ‘city’ themed photography challenge.

So your challenge is to shoot and share an image or two on the theme of ‘in the city’. You can shoot some skylines if you wish or can interpret the theme in any other way that you wish. Photograph people in the city, do some street photograph, concentrate on architecture, photograph a street parade or festival – whatever you wish.

Once you’ve taken and selected the ‘city’ image that you’d like to share – upload it to your favourite photo sharing site or blog and either share a link to it or – embed them in the comments using the our new tool to do so.

If you tag your photos on Flickr, Instagram, Twitter or other sites with Tagging tag them as #DPSCITY to help others find them. Linking back to this page might also help others know what you’re doing so that they can share in the fun.

Also – don’t forget to check out some of the great shots posted in last weeks challenge – Water challenge where there were some great shots submitted.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

In the City: Weekly Photography Challenge

Digital Photography School

On Tuesday I did a G+ hangout on air with the community manager from Blogger at Google in Mountain View. At the last minute we were joined by photographer Patrick Smith, who brought the perspective of a more traditional photo blogger.

It's a wide-ranging discussion (video after the jump) and we answered a variety of viewer questions. If you have any related Q's of your own, feel free to drop them in the comments afterwards. Read more »

Strobist

Aspen Trees, Trembling Aspen (Populus tremuloides) are a colorful sight to the landscape in the Western mountain states.

Their bright yellow, almost golden, colors in the fall are an exhilarating sight to see.

These trees have always fascinated me. Colorado and Wyoming have beautiful stands of aspen trees.

One in particular, a unique place called Aspen Alley outside of Encampment, Wyoming in the Medicine Bow National Forest. Both sides of a side road are lined with aspen trees. Taking a walk or drive amongst them is wonderful. For a photographer, the depth of field captured in a camera at Aspen Alley is incredible. A favorite aspen tree drive of mine in Colorado is near Clark in the Routt National Forest. There is a back road that curves through hills and meadows where the aspen thrive.

A peaceful and beautiful place to photograph and capture different landscape angles of aspen trees. Having lived in both Colorado and Wyoming, my explorations are extensive. Photographing places that you have discovered while exploring new areas can be rewarding. I always kept my camera with me when taking drives throughout the mountains and back roads. And the pictures help me recall special aspects and memories of each place.

To view a photo is almost like revisiting that place, even if only in thoughts. Aspen trees reflect a feeling of comfort to me. They are a tree I enjoy photographing the most.

–
Karen Marie enjoys capturing and sharing outdoor images of adventure, inspiration, and simplicity. Specializes in western landscapes, nature, cowboy lifestyles, barns, classics, and more.

Website: http://www.karenmarieimages.com

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