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Four short links: 2 March 2010 - Visualising Tweeted Data, Voting Licenses, Space-Time Mining, and Processing for the iPhone
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
SatScan -- Free software that analyzes spatial, temporal and space-time data using the spatial, temporal, or space-time scan statistics. It is designed for any of the following interrelated purposes: Perform geographical surveillance of disease, to detect spatial or space-time disease clusters, and to see if they are statistically significant; Test whether a disease is randomly distributed over space, over time or over space and time; Evaluate the statistical significance of disease cluster alarms; Perform repeated time-periodic disease surveillance for early detection of disease outbreaks. Nat Torkington 2010-03-02T07:25:01-08:10
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
Long Tail iTunes Book Apps Are More Expensive
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
In an earlier post, I examined the average price of the Top 100 PAID apps and noted that the relationship between price and popularity was somewhat dependent on the category. But in the Book category, I concluded that the Top 10 PAID apps were on average cheaper than those ranked 91-100. But what if we examine all Book apps, will the long tail apps be pricier? Ben Lorica 2010-02-22T07:28:19-08:11
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
The Most Efficient iPhone Developers
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
Last week marked the first time the U.S. iTunes store had over 150,000 apps available. Close to 31,000 different developers (or "sellers") were responsible for those apps, with many offering one to five apps, while a few offered over a hundred different apps. Which developers consistently produce top-selling apps? I examined the percentage of apps produced by a developer that became best-sellers. Ben Lorica 2010-02-11T09:59:50-08:12
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
One hundred eighty degrees of freedom: signs of how open platforms are spreading
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
Visualize open networks--and remember how far we've already come from the days before flat-rate long distance phone calls (much less app stores for cell phones). Andy Oram 2010-02-05T08:27:04-08:13
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
What Facebook's HipHop means for developers and businesses - O'Reilly PHP author Kevin Tatroe puts Facebook's PHP project in context
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
Facebook claims to have reduced CPU usage by 50 percent with its HipHop for PHP project, and now it's releasing the code as open source. O'Reilly author and PHP expert Kevin Tatroe digs into HipHop's applications beyond Facebook. Mac Slocum 2010-02-04T08:33:53-08:14
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
Four short links: 1 February 2010 - Android Charting, Trojan Cameras, Web-based IDE, Projected UIs
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
Bespin -- sexy HTML5 "code-in-the-cloud" IDE from Mozilla Labs. If the future is truly in locked-down hack-free devices whose only interface to the world is through the web browser, these sorts of IDEs are going to become critical for finding and raising the next generation of hackers. This and more in today's Four Short Links. Nat Torkington 2010-02-01T08:30:31-08:15
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
Web developers can rule the iPad
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
Arise, web developers! Our time has come to dominate! A lot of tech commentators seem disappointed that the iPad feels more like an evolutionary step than a revolutionary step. For one group of technologists, though, the iPad is an opportunity for revolution, to take center stage in creating experiences users will want, and even want to buy. The iPad is all about consuming content, but most of the conversation about that content has seen it in traditional silos... Simon St. Laurent 2010-01-29T16:29:58-08:16
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
There is an axiom that the biggest game-changers often result from ideas that, at first blush, seem easy to dismiss. So it goes with yesterday's launch of the iPad, Apple's entry into what they call the 'third category' of device -- the middle ground that exists between smartphone and laptop. Why is the iPad (seemingly) so easy to dismiss? Well, for one, it is an evolutionary device when conventional wisdom suggests that it needs to be a revolutionary device to find a wedge into a new market. In this instance, conventional wisdom is just plain off base. Mark Sigal 2010-01-28T09:25:33-08:17
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
The iPad and publishers: A survey of early reaction
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
Publishers have been salivating over Apple's tablet for months. Some have gone as far to label it the industry's salvation. The jury's out on that conclusion, but the iPad's arrival has certainly inspired discussion. We're using this post to capture early analysis and sort out the real publishing opportunities the iPad could create. Mac Slocum 2010-01-27T15:59:58-08:18
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
Organizing Your Images
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
In this age of digital media it is even more critical that we keep track of our digital assets. Lightroom has many features to help you organize your images. The best website I can recommend to you to delve deeply into industry standard organization practice is dpBestFlow.org from the American Society of Media Photographers and funded by the Library of Congress. The site is full of suggestions and videos. Get ready to spend some time there! There are many websites and books devoted to this topic. You should do a little research before embarking on this adventure. The best website I can recommend to you to delve deeply into industry standard organization practice is dpBestFlow.org from the American Society of Media Photographers and funded by the Library of Congress. The site is full of suggestions and videos. Get ready to spend some time there! Gene McCullagh 2010-01-25T09:27:25-08:19
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
Four short links: 21 January 2010 - Wireless Hacks, Real Time Web, 3D Christmas, Mac Sync
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
Brain Dump of Real Time Web and WebSocket -- long primer on the different technology for real-time web apps. Conclusion is that there's no silver bullet yet, so more development work is needed. This and more in today's Four Short Links. Nat Torkington 2010-01-21T08:26:49-08:20
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
Four short links: 19 January 2010 - Stack Overflow Data, Open Source GSM, Nostalgia, and Openness
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
Should We Encourage Self-Promotion and Lies? (Tom Coates) -- And while encouraging people to spot the talented and the creative, we should also be considering how we shame those people who self-promote without creating. The financial collapse has taught us that rhetorical bubbles divorced from reality are a danger to us all. We're already approaching this point - our industry has become venal, insular and dominated by marketing. We have come to value the wrong things. And if we want a continued vigorous, creative, free, open and equal environment, that's something we have to fix. It's not something to aspire to. This and more in today's Four Short Links. Nat Torkington 2010-01-19T09:01:15-08:21
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
Four short links: 8 January 2010 - Healthcare Data, GNU Econometrics Library, Visualizing Changes, View Source Under Attack
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
View Source is Good? Discuss (Alex Russell) -- fantastic post, mandatory reading. View-source was necessary (but not sufficient) to make HTML the dominant application platform of our times. I also hold that it is under attack -- not least of all from within -- and that losing view-source poses a significant danger to the overall health of the web. This and more in today's Four Short Links. Nat Torkington 2010-01-08T09:01:31-08:22
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
Millions of Plastic Guitars Can't Be Wrong
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
If you make a process easy enough, you can change the world. In 1995, two MIT graduates set out to make music-making easy. Now millions of people play their product, and the inventors are releasing the developer tools for free. David Battino 2010-01-07T10:24:51-08:23
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
Windows 7, Snow Leopard, or iPhone Questions? - How to Become a Power User of Your New Gadgets
Digital Media Center - 1 hour 6 min ago
Getting a new gadget or computer is one thing. Learning how to unleash its full potential is another. So if you've got questions about Windows 7, Snow Leopard, iPhone, iPod, netbook, or digital camera, get them answered with an up-to-date, clearly-written book or ebook. And don't forget you can Buy 2 and Get 1 Free by using code OPC10 in our shopping cart. O'Reilly Media 2010-01-06T23:54:26-08:24
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
Leica S2 – First Impression Review
Digital Photography School - 2 hours 53 min ago
This Review of the Leica S2 is a guest Post by Justin de Deney from Camera Advice.
A Lamborghini speeds by as I cross Berkley Square, on my way to the Leica showroom in the heart of Mayfair, central London. I have received an invite to view the new Leica S2 medium format digital camera. I don’t make a habit of attending to these events, but I thought, this being Leica, and, their first medium format pro-camera with autofocus, it might be worth a squint.
Showroom
The showroom is down a small mews, and the interior is reminiscent of an exclusive jewellery store. The lighting is subdued, and glass cases display gift boxes containing brightly coloured, beautifully crafted Leica cameras and lenses. I am ushered upstairs to the studio on the first floor where I have my first glimpse of the camera.
The body is beautifully minimal and owes more to the looks of a 35mm camera than a medium format, reminding me of my first Pentax 67. It feels solid to hold and is pleasingly devoid of endless fiddly buttons and dials. The controls are simplicity itself, thankfully, and buck the trend of most over-complex digital cameras of the moment. There is a traditional shutter dial on the top, next to an easy to read OLED. This highlights each function in a different colour. On the back is the LED screen surrounded by four long buttons similar to the original phase one backs that I often use on shoots. These control the cameras menu functions and feel logical to use. This probably has something to do with my familiarity with the Phase One system.
The camera is tethered (by a USB cable) to a computer. It has a four pin connection which seems solid and reliable, unlike the usbs of most medium format backs which always seem to work loose without a little gaffer tape. It does also have two card slots, this means you can shoot raw to one and jpgs to another. My photo model, the camera demonstrator, waits for me to take the shot. I focus, release the shutter, the file uploads, and the result appears on the 32” apple monitor.
The download time is a little slow, but then this is a medium format, in tethered shooting mode. The auto focus is as good as it gets with a medium format but is noisier than I would expect from such a quality camera. The results though are spectacular. The resolution is 37.9 megapixels and the 3:2 sensor (the same format as a 35mm) is 56% larger than any full frame 35mm camera. I didn’t have time to do any in depth analysis of any of the specifications and lenses but from what I could see this camera shoots quality. This is no doubt down the Kodak sensor and the Leica lens.
LensesAt the moment Leica only make four lenses for the S2. These are a 35mm, 70mm, and 120mm, all 2.5 and a 180mm 3.5. They make two versions, one that works with the camera’s focal shutter and another pricier version with a leaf shutter. This is also reminiscent of the old Pentax. The leaf shutter version means you can sync with flash up to 1/500. This is something I use all the time with my photography so I’d have to stump up the extra cash! They do have plans to increase the range but when this will happen I am not sure.
The lenses as you would expect feel solid. They match the simplicity of the camera body and as a package the whole product oozes class.
I would want to spend some time with this camera before I decided to buy it. I only took a couple of shots in the studio and haven’t yet done any extensive or detailed analysis of it. Having said that I love the styling and simplicity of this kit. I also love the fact that this is a medium format in a 35mm body. I guess the only disadvantage of this is that if you need a back up camera you need a second body and not just another back like the phase one system. Having said that it does feel solid, reliable and has great image quality.
Did I mention the price?Oh yes! The price! The camera body will set you back over $20,000 and each lens is around $5,000. Well what did you expect? This is a Leica and it is medium format. The quality is definitely far superior to any 35mm camera but whether or not it is worth this price tag probably depends on the size of your pockets and for whom you are shooting, but having said that I could definitely see myself working with this piece of kit.
Check out more of Justin de Deney’s work at Camera Advice.
Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.
Leica S2 – First Impression Review
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
1/10 KYOSHO USA-1 4x4 GREAT CONDITION!
kyosho - Sat, 03/06/2010 - 13:38
US $100.00 (0 Bid)
End Date: Tuesday Mar-09-2010 12:38:30 PST
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The Dave Hill Look in Lightroom
Digital Photography School - Sat, 03/06/2010 - 13:00
Dave Hill is a genius. Period. I could look at his images all day long and his behind the scenes videos are strangely addictive. Naturally, thousands want to create his hyper-real, painterly, utterly hypnotising look on their images.
The first observation one can make about his method is the painstaking attention to lighting during the shoot. In the final product, the lighting and contrast make the images what they are. This can’t be done without interesting lighting.
Of course after being engrossed in his work for far too long, I said, “I MUST know how he does that?!” I didn’t find anything from him personally, but there are plenty of photographers out there tearing the method apart and sharing their findings. The first tutorial I ran across was for PS using high pass filters. I got stuck at the end with the masking layer since I’m still only using PSE.
But have no fear PSE users! I found a really great method for creating the Dave Hill look in Lightroom from, who else, Scott Kelby. The following suggestions are his. My additions are in italics.
{SETTINGS}- Recovery = 100
- Fill Light = 100 this doesn’t always work at 100 it depends on the image – you’ll have to experiment
- Blacks = Drag this slider to the right until photo looks balanced again, because setting the Fill Light at 100 will wash the photo out big time. In our example, I dragged it to 24. I haven’t been able to get the blacks all the way up to 24. In the example image, I went only to 17
- Contrast = 100
- Clarity = 100
- Vibrance = 100
- Saturation = -81 (basically what I do here is drag the saturation all the way to the left, to -100 (which removes all color, making it a black and white image), and then I slowly drag back to the right until some of the color starts to return to the image. In my image, I took it down to -61, leaving it a bit more colourful than suggested. I just love the red of the pushchair.
Once you get the look the way you want it, head over to the adjustment brush. In Dave’s work, the models always have silky smooth skin, even the blokes. You can use to pre-set ’soften skin’ brush. When you’ve done the skin, click ‘new’ and do another soften skin brush. In this image, I used 5 or 6 new skin softening brushes before his skin was smooth enough. Even then, it probably could have used more:
Once it’s finished in LR, I headed into PS and did a simple duplicate layer > soft light > very low percent (around 10%) just to add to the contrast. You could even add a gaussian blur to the top layer to soften the image a tad bit more.
I don’t remember if Scott mentioned this or not, but a vignette can be excellent, especially in the case of intentional barrel distortion as in the image above.
One thing I’ve found with this method in LR is the problem of severe fringing of some of the more contrasty edges as seen here:
No matter what I do to alter the sliders, this does not go away. A biproduct of doing this method in LR, you’re better off finding ways to do it in PS if you have the resource. If not, you can just pretend it doesn’t exist like I do. I really should try harder to be a perfectionist!
Are there other photographers whose skills you totally covet and try to harness for yourself?
Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.
The Dave Hill Look in Lightroom
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums (28 Feb – 6 Mar ‘10)
Digital Photography School - Sat, 03/06/2010 - 07:13
Weekly Assignment
As February has come to an end, so has our series of food assignments. Our last food assignment was focused on Beverages. Whether those were drinks that warm you on a cold day, or the cool refreshing drinks of summer, we wanted to see them all. Our winner this week was GwenieThePooh’s “‘Diet’ Coke”. This was one of those shots that was clever, made us smile, and stuck in our minds during the assignment. Our first runner up was thebubblybeginner’s “Mocho Cocoa!”. The lighting on this shot was great, it was simple and very effective. You can almost feel the warmth of the cocoa and the coolness of the whipped cream on top. And last, but not least was eBomb’s “Cold Bull”. This one really has the feel of a product shot. From the crisp white ice to the bold colours of the energy drink, this shot stood out to us and made us think that it might be a good afternoon pick-me-up at the end of a long week. Well done everyone!
Our newest assignment was also posted this week, and we wanted you to go ahead and Jump!. We had this assignment last year, but it’s always a fun one. Whether it’s a jumping self portrait, an animal, or another person, we want you to make sure that their feet are off the ground! And while that might sound easy once you get the technical part of the assignment down, don’t forget to consider your composition and lighting in these shots too. As always, a quick reminder of the assignment rules. First, your photo needs to have been taken between 24 February – 10 March 2010. Your post must include the words “Assignment: Jump!” and the date that the photo was taken. And last, but not least, your EXIF should be intact, and it’s useful if you can include some of the main points like: camera, lens, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, white balance, etc. Next week’s assignment will be Commute and will run from 3 March – 17 March 2010. We want you to show us how you commute each day. Whether it’s by bike, by foot, by car, by train, by horse… show us how you get from point A to point B.
- Simple Water Droplet Tutorial: Have you ever seen those water droplet shots that look like colourful glass or almost living creatures as the water splashes up? Have you seen them and thought you need all kinds of specialized gear to take these kind of shots? Powerpix put up a tutorial showing how to take these shots with an 18-55mm kit lens that many of us own. So if you’ve ever wanted to shoot water drops but weren’t quite sure how, come check out this thread.
- Digital Rangefinders: In the last few months there have been more and more digital rangefinders hitting the market. They’re smaller than DSLRs, but have the ability to change lenses and are getting good reviews. But one forum member asked about any “overlooked” gems in the digital rangefinder world. So if you’ve used one or are looking at one yourself, why not join in the discussion over in the forum.
- Why do you need a tripod for shooting macros?: If you’re shooting macros you might be wondering if you really need a tripod, especially if you have enough light. After all, you can get a faster shutter speed. If you’ve ever wondered why you might still need a tripod though, you might want to check out this thread where there’s some great information about the benefits of tripods and other gear for shooting good macros.
- Black and White Photography: Once upon a time there was nothing but black and white film. But now, you have the option to not only shoot in colour, but do all sorts of things to enhance your photos. But sometimes this can make it difficult to shoot good black and white photos because we just aren’t used to it. Not to mention it can be hard to see how a black and white photo would come out when the world around us is so colorful. Come share your tips, tricks, hints and suggestions on how to shoot good black and white photos over in the forum.
- What Would You Do: One of the fun and creative parts of our forum is the weekly post-processing game we call “What Would You Do”. You may be familiar with this game if you’ve been on the forums for a while because we’re up to number 136. But if you’re new to the forums, this is our weekly game where where you get the chance to post-process another forum member’s photo and show us what you would do with it. Often times people get some great ideas of how they could improve their shots in ways they may never have thought of otherwise.
Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.
This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums (28 Feb – 6 Mar ‘10)
Categories: Digital Photography Bytes
KYOSHO MINI-Z Atomic Mods MR-02
kyosho - Fri, 03/05/2010 - 16:25
US $150.00 (0 Bid)
End Date: Monday Mar-08-2010 15:25:09 PST
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