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Thursday, March 28, 2013

NEW: CHROMAdigital

A friend, Christoper Lang of CHROMAdigital created a site to showcase his photography. He certainly creates wonderful images and I particularly like his rusty car series but I only now discovered his nature images which are simply beautiful. Some of these would look great hanging on the living room wall therefor Chris will also provide his images in print form, on no less than fine art paper.

© 2013 Christoper Lang of CHROMAdigital

 


   

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Open Source (free) RAW File Converter

RawTherapee ® RAW Converter
Cross-platform: Linux, Mac, or Windows, 32-bit or 64-bit
Almost all DSLRs and even some medium format bodies are supported
 



List of Features © 2013 RawTherapee


































  

Update: 

Darktable ®
   Suggested by Christoper Lang of CHROMAdigital

  
Screenshot © 2013 Darktable

An open source photography workflow application
and RAW developer. GNU/Linux / GNOME, Mac OS X 
macports and Solaris 11 / GNOME.  MS Windows not 
supported at this time.
  















   










      Monday, March 25, 2013

      Incandescents Going the Way of the Dodo

      Source: DIY Photography - Quote: Have you tried doing any project that requires 100W incandescent bulbs lately? Light a set maybe? or build a huge ring light (DIY Photography) perhaps? If you went to home depot lately and looked for some 100W or even 75W bulbs you are probably out of luck. Those light were a huge hit as a cheap and very available light source. They had a pretty constant light temperature (incandescent, duh:) and they were cheap and available. Cheap enough that you never needed to carry them from place to place and could have just bought some on location. What's The Sitch (Urban Dic.)? But today, the US is in the middle of a lighting paradigm shift (WiKi) aimed at reducing its power consumption, and light bulbs are among the first to take the hit ...
         


      Saturday, March 23, 2013

      Google+ Now Allows Full-Rez Photos!

      Quote: "Why this is cool
        
      Hitherto, both Facebook and Google+ limited your photos to 2048 pixels across. This was depressing to me and other photographers that take HUGE photos, many of mine over 7000 pixels across. I share a new, original-sized photo here every day on the blog, and all my work is Creative Commons Noncommercial. Basically, I want people to have the original-sized photo to enjoy! I know many other photographers disagree with me and they only want to share tiny images with huge watermarks using horrible fonts. That’s okay. This isn’t for them. But if you’re like me, and you want to upload the original size images to Google and also share on Google+, well now you can! ... © Trey Ratcliff"



      Monday, March 18, 2013

      Multi-rotor Rescue's Another from Top of a Castle


      World's 1st epic FPV quadcopter rescue

      Hadleigh Castle in Essex UK was built around 1215. This story began when mattyboy47 on YouTube was filming the remains of this castle with a GoPro fitted to his Quadcopter when disaster struck. This video is one of two about the rescue mission to retrieve this stranded Quad using my FPV equip Y6 Multirotor flown by me snoopw111 - 22.53 min - Watch on YouTube



      Sunday, March 17, 2013

      Which lenses for the Nikon D800?

      Sixty one (61) lenses tested on the D800
      ... Considered the best all-round Nikon DSLR by the community at large. 

      Given the current mood with respect to large mega pixel sensors and the negativity which surrounds them as being an effective measure of 'picture' quality it's no surprise that large sensor pixel counts have in a sense become a dirty word. Yes pixel count alone is not the mesure of best image quality but the resulting fallout for the layman and their respective learning curve are some of the excellent reasons for having the largest pixel count possible have almost been forgotten.

      With the D800 being thought of the best all around Nikon DSLR in so much as it offer's the maximum number of pixels in a Full frame (35.9 x 24 mm) sensor look at the testing  done by Dx0Mark ...

      Which lenses for your Nikon D800?
       




      1. Introduction
      2. 24 MPIX to 36 MPIX, is there any good reasons to switch?
      3. Nikon D800 and standard lens choices  
      4. The Nikon D800 and telephoto lens and super-zooms choices (to be published on March 22, 2013)
      5. The Nikon D800 and wide-angle choices (to be published on March 25,2013)

      To be continued ...



      Thursday, March 14, 2013

      Timelapses of the Earth from the International Space Station

         
      The ISS Image Frontier - "Making the invisible visible" from Christoph Malin on Vimeo. This film is a tribute to the International Space Station Program as well as Dr. Don Pettit, NASA Astronaut and ISS Astrophotographer. It can not be emphasized enough, how Dr. Pettits innovative photographic work and his passion has changed the way we see earth from space. Accompanied with great info on the challenges of astrophotography aboard the ISS by Dr. Pettit, this shortfilm features a compilation of 4 special ISS timelapses ("intro", "startrails", "fisheye" and "aurora"). Welcome aboard the ISS - enjoy stunning photography and timelapses from the Space Station!

      Making-of the Video.
        
      ISS Stackings taken from my former Short film "ISS TRONized" -
          
      Special thanks to Dr. Don Pettit!

      Image courtesy of the image science & analysis lab / NASA Johnson Space Center
      "The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth"
      Visit our team at the UNESCO IYA 2009 Project TWAN (http://www.twanight.org) for some of the coolest night sky images and videos on our planet! One people, one sky!
       
      Always believe in your dreams and make it possible!
         
      All the best,
         
      P.S.: Check some of my other films:




      Wednesday, March 06, 2013

      FREE eBook "Earth as ART" by NASA











      Quote: In 1960, the United States put its first Earth-observing environmental satellite into orbit around the planet. Over the decades, these satellites have provided invaluable information, and the vantage point of space has provided new perspectives on Earth. This book celebrates Earth’s aesthetic beauty in the patterns, shapes, colors, and textures of the land, oceans, ice, and atmosphere.
       
      • NASA "Earth as Art" home
      • A FREE eBook download - PDF doc - © NASA



      Saturday, March 02, 2013

      User Review: Nikon Image Space

















       "Most attractive to users with Nikon Cameras
      but open to everyone"

      Nikon Image Space, previously (prior to Jan 28, 2013) my Picturetown provided by Nikon are offering users two free accounts. The most basic of these accounts offer 2GB of free storage space with archival and sharing. The 'basic' account as it's called is open to everyone regardless of their make of camera, Nikon, Canon, Olympus, or whatever brand one uses to create their MoJo ... All are welcome ...
       
      The second account would be of interest or is strictly for owners of Nikon cameras. This account called the 'Special' account offers a respectable 20GB of free storage with it's media archiving and sharing. I soon found upgrading my account was a relatively painless process. To upgrade to the 'Special' account all Nikon require is we provide proof of ownership, any model Nikon assuming the camera can connect via USB. A download, Nikon's camera 'verification' software will be provided to facilitate the upgrade.
       
      After upgrading to the 'Special' account users will also have access some additional features not provided with the 'basic' account. Quoting Nikon "Special accounts also offer more advanced functions, including the ability to apply a password when sharing images, and a function that restricts image download".  

      Unfortunately individuals with cameras other than a Nikon model are limited to puny 2GB of free storage with it's photo sharing and they do not get the additional options. Therefor it's easy to see why Nikon Image Space would be most attractive to those who own Nikon cameras. For those looking for more online storage space there's no word if Nikon is going to offer it's users paid accounts.

      No word if Nikon Image Space is going to offer users paid services.
       
      The online archival and photo sharing business at this juncture in time is very competitive. With an ever increasing and varied amount of choices, features and options to choose from. Many even have online photo editors amongst many other photo centric 'toys' for the lack of a better word to play with. It goes without saying making a wise choice as to which is best for one person to the next is getting harder as more services all vying for our 'user' name come online

      Therefor my attraction to Nikon Image Space was in part due to being a Nikon owner with my D90 and it became clear the 20GB of free storage would be very tempting and hard to resist. Therefor I signed up right away for the basic account with the intention of upgrading to the 'Special' account soon after. 

      Another feature to attract, Nikon Image Space does not limit or modify my images therefor keeping my image 'resolution' and 'colour BIT depth' as I created them. However this applies only for archival and backups of our images. If for example an image or images are to be posted on a Website, Forum, or any of the popular Social Networking Sites these images will be confined within certain limits.


      The images sizes available for those of us with 20GB accounts are Small, Medium, Large and HD (original size). However for our non Nikon friends with only 2GB accounts Small and Medium are their only choices which would limit WEB usability by displaying only the two smaller image sizes.

      Bad: As a disclaimer I would claim the following as growing pains of a new service which hopefully will improve as the service matures.

       "One does not make a consensus"

      However it's curious but after some reading some user comments at 'Nikon relaunches' I soon discovered (disregarding the trolls) I'm not the only one experiencing some of the same issues. Nevertheless as this is only a user review, one users review and as such I'm fully aware one does not make a consensus.

      Observations and discoveries ...
      1. The user interface I thought was easy on the eyes with it's pleasing light on dark appearance and the application is useable even with the following concerns. Regardless the interface was painfully slow loading and simply moving around the different functions I also found slow moving. I also felt the upload speed was bit slow but I tend to load big files. Although the time needed to display an image was reasonable.
         
      2. With respect to image file type support I was disheartening to discover only JPEG and Nikon's NEF (RAW) file types are supported. I can honestly respect restricting file types only to images but limiting to only two in my opinion just silly and I don't think my expectations are unreasonable. Therefor I think it reasonable most of the more popular image formats should also be supported.   

      EULA: It was never my intention to discuss the Terms of Service for Nikon Image Space. However the good news by what I read Nikon make no ownership claims on our uploaded content.
        
      Conclusion: None of the issues I found where a deal breaker. The service certainly will be replacing my Photobucket account for new content. My archival and sharing requirements are rather meager but being a Nikon camera owner I certainly like the 20GB of FREE storage hook and there are no third-party advertisments. And as sweet as the amount of free storage is the fact this service doesn't shrink my uploads is to put it mildly, pretty cool.
       
      "Nikon Image Space is a good deal for Nikon camera owners" 
       
      But not all is perfect in Nikon Land as the user interface is pleasing in appearance but it certainly could, MUST be improved with the overall slow speed being the main issue. As for supported file types we're only given support for JPEG and/or Nikon's own NEF (RAW). Therefor I think Nikon might be a bit more generous by offering support for most of the more common image file formats. 

      I would also suggest they offer more within the 'basic' account to make the service more attractive to our non Nikon brothers and sisters. Might it or at least look better not making a distinction between a Nikon and non-Nikon user by giving everyone access to the better 20GB accounts?
        

      More Information:

      There you have it Nikon Image Space
        

      Update: Having used Nikon Image Space for well over three months I have yet to see any improvement! The one thing I would liked to have seen is boost in overall speed as the service it still painfully slow. As for my choice I had in good faith intended to use Nikon's photo sharing service over Photobucket's but my opinion has now changed, I have signed with Flickr, my Photostream.

      If Nikon Image Space and it's few issues are the "deal breaker" have a look at Flickr, apparently they have upped the ante by offering a FREE terabyte of storage at full-res although this service is AD based, but it's much faster. Be that as it may there are quite a number of FREE photo sharing services especially within the social networks that offer unmodified file uploads and unlimited storage again making a choice not as simple as one might assume.

      To conclude I don't think a poor-little-camera-corporation like Nikon can compete against the resources available to information power houses such as Google, Yahoo and the social networks such as Facebook, Google+, Instagram and all their wannabes. However if your need is to get away from the prevalent ad-driven photo-sharing options which are about as safe a pointing a loaded gun at your head your choices are severely limited unless you are willing to PAY for your place in the Clouds!  
                

      Image © Trey Ratliff
      Related: Image size reduction is an annoyance and undesirable feature found at many photo sharing sites. Until recently Google+ also reduced the size of our uploads. But apparently things have changed at Google+ because they now offer it's users full-resolution uploading. For the source and How-to read the complete story at Google+ Now Allows Full-Rez Photos! by Trey Ratcliff