With all the doom and gloom around about the economy it is a good time to reflect on its potential impact, strategies to work with it and make it a positive for your photography or related business. When an economic crisis hits, the natural reaction is for business to rein in its expenditures and that usually means a drop in marketing and advertising budgets, reduced spending on new equipment and software and, if one is not careful, a self-fulfilling depression. Yet a careful read of the literature shows that there is a bright side. There is lots of experience with downturns, recessions and even depressions. It is not clear just how bad this one will be. But in all prior ones there have been businesses that have, from a sound base, expanded … Read entire article »

Photography has been benefiting from the computational capabilities of computers for many years. But so far we have only scratched the surface of what is possible. Computational photography is the application of computer algorithms and processing to the art and science of photography. It is not new but even today we have only just begun to see the potential. It is time to put your seat belt on. We have been benefiting from the influence of computers in our photography for a very long time. Optical design was revolutionized by computer ray tracing. It was responsible for the blossoming of more and more complex but quality lens designs of the last 40 years. More recently the development of sophisticated matrix-type light metering was a product of the ability to embed a simple … Read entire article »

We consider Canon’s latest camera offerings and just what it means. Well it has been a long time coming but the replacement to the 5D is announced and it is not called the 6D. The 5D Mark II seems to be a mix of the new DiGIC 4 sensor combined with the sensor resolution off the 1Ds Mark III (21.1 Mpixels). That combination seems to raise some more questions. It also brings HD video recording to the Canon range, just as the A900 has to Sony’s. This is a feature we will see spreading to many more models. Canon has had issues with the DiGIC 3 chipset, at least in the top end models, and it would seem elsewhere from the rapid replacement of the 40D with the 50D, unless it was … Read entire article »

The dSLR market is maturing and so it is time for camera manufacturers to develop some courage and dare to be different. While there are lots of lovely things happening in the dSLR market, with excellent new models rolling out, there is a need for change as so many of these models just seem to be slight variations on the same. It is time for manufacturers of courage to emerge who will bring out specialist dSLR models that can better meet the needs of particular, niche market segments. Now some manufacturers have done just this, with things like the Canon astrophotography dSLR (now withdrawn), the Nikon aimed at forensic work and the Fuji for infrared photography. But there are much larger niches than these. The niche market of particular passion to me is … Read entire article »

With most manufacturers in a mad rush to add live preview to their newest dSLR cameras, it is worth considering its value for serious photographers. Many manufacturers see live preview as an important component in helping to migrate compact camera users over onto dSLRs. Frankly I find this very scary. While live preview is very handy on small, light compact cameras in many picture taking situations, it worries me thinking of people holding a much heavier SLR at arm’s length. Thankfully there are some serious uses for live preview. Many come to photography later in life and with an aging population there are more photographers than ever with eyesight issues. There are times when an SLR viewfinder, wonderful and bright as they are, can be hard to use for some people. What … Read entire article »

A couple of days ago I attended a press event by Sony where there were many interesting discussions about Sony’s cameras and future. Sony’s current dSLR line-up is the A700, A350 and A200. There is also an A300 in some markets. The A700 is the oldest model in the range and the first all Sony model. The older A100 was a mix of Konica-Minolta and Sony technology. It was clear from the discussions that Sony, while happy to purchase the entire KM manufacturing plant, was not entirely happy with Minolta technology and so was very keen with the A700 to raise manufacturing tolerances and change some of the mechanisms to improve reliability and longevity. The A700 is Sony’s current top model and is aimed at the serious amateur and perhaps the semi-professional. … Read entire article »

For the fourth year running, Technology Futures, Inc. (TFI) provides a list of forward-looking trends for the coming year that will have great consequence to those involved with global business, technology business process, science and universities, government agencies, federal labs, corporate labs, and technology savvy consumers. Press Release  Commenting on the list, author David Smith (Vice President, TFI) states, “2005 and 2006 were periods spent building capacity and capabilities. 2007 and 2008 are years of transition. We saw tipping points in 2007 in several technology areas, such as broadband penetration and the death of single core processing chips.” He continues, “2008 will be a dynamic year impacted by possible actions such as the potential financial instability including the threat of recession, changes in the geopolitical environment, and further changes to the landscape … Read entire article »

Many people are coming to dSLRs from various sources and the question of what SLR system and camera to buy is a major and distressing one for many people. Due to the constant downward price pressure on dSLR cameras, more and more people are seeing the advantages of an SLR and moving up from compact digital cameras and from film cameras. For such people the question of which brand, and thus system, should they buy always comes up. If you already have some SLR lenses then the decision may be made for you, though this depends on the value of the lenses to you and how much you are willing to spend. If someone is coming to dSLR’s free of any existing investment in 
lenses, then it is a very tough … Read entire article »

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at a press event held by Nikon here in Australia. It was a most interesting and surprising afternoon. The event was based around allowing members of the local photography press to get an initial hands-on with the new D3 and the D300, as well as the recently new Coolpix models. Until we get hold of final production press evaluation copies of these cameras (probably late October, locally), all I can say is that both seem to be very impressive cameras. The D3 is, of course, Nikon’s first full frame digital. But Nikon have been very smart. You can setup the camera so that when you mount a full-frame capable lens the camera will use the whole sensor but when you mount a DX lens, the camera will … Read entire article »

Having the website is an essential part of life for creative professionals and serious amateurs, but it can be full of traps. So you have decided that you need a website. What is the best approach and how to do it in an optimal way? When you enter a web site’s domain name into your web browser, such as www.dimagemaker.com, this domain name is resolved to an actual IP address, or if you like, the exact address of the computer which contains, or hosts, the website. The hosting computer is known as a server and it contains the files that are fed to your web browser as you explore the site. This is how things work with a simple, plain or static html site. More complex sites, such as DIMi, actually have … Read entire article »

As a followup to my article on the HP professional photography blog, I explore some of the reasons why people might want to explore both ends of this spectrum of practice. The in-camera vs post-camera photography article produced a lot of interest. Naturally, there is a lot more to say about something like this. I fall between the two extremes, doing many things in-camera and not being afraid to do a lot on the computer. So lets explore some of the issues. Most of the things that you can do to an image in Photoshop cause the loss or throwing away of image information. Apply a contrast-enhancing curve, adjust levels, tweak color saturation or dodge and burn and you can loose information from the original data captured by the sensor (or film and … Read entire article »

There are thought patterns or ways of thinking that are liberating and others that are limiting. This is true in all of life, but it also applies to our photography. The Western World is dominated by absolutism, by a belief in absolute truths, absolute morality and absolutes, like right and wrong. You even get politicians who get away with statements like, ‘You are either with us or against us’, leaving no room for alternatives. It is arguable as to whether these ways of thinking have ever served mankind well, but there is a real issue with these ways of thinking when it comes to photography and art. So let’s look at how these ways of thinking impact on our photography and/or art. Core to absolutism is the idea of right and wrong, … Read entire article »

Mark Alberhasky discusses one to the deepest questions acing most photographers. During a recent workshop, I was approached by a participant who was feeling overwhelmed by the experience. “How do I decide what to shoot?” We happened to be in a crowded urban market, in the rain, and the conditions were intimidating for an inexperienced shooter.  Her frustration obvious, I had to quickly consider how she could approach the situation so she could take control and establish a comfort level from which to move forward. This is not an uncommon scenario.  Photography is a challenging medium in which to create work because it requires simultaneous decision making on both objective (equipment technology) and subjective (artistic interpretation) levels.  I suspect that when most of us try to think in both directions at the same time, … Read entire article »

An email has prompted a follow-up about the competition that triggered the original piece. As a follow-up to my piece on competition terms and conditions, I have some news about the competition that triggered my writing of the article. I received an email from them this morning saying that since many photographers had complained about their ‘unintended’ terms and conditions granting themselves full rights over all entered images, they had changed these terms. They now only claim perpetual rights over the winning images and only for the purposes of promoting the magazine and competition. This is much more reasonable, as given the nature of the Internet, one can never be sure where something will be mirrored or stored and where it will be seen. Now I have no idea whether my previous … Read entire article »

The latest competition email I received prompted me to comment on competition terms in general. If you are like me, you receive a number of emails a month announcing photographic competitions of some sort. The latest one was from a New York travel magazine. And it looks like an interesting competition until you read the small print, and discover that just by entering the competition you are giving effectively complete ownership of your images to the magazine. Now what really saddens me is that this little detail was hidden in the full conditions rather than mentioned up front on the main competition page. Any legitimate photo competition is not used to collect images for free. Rather the rights of the photographer is always recognised and that the minimum usage rights are requested consistent … Read entire article »