photo credit: lrargerich This is some sort of silly question, but when people look at ISO sensitivity, we tend to be impressed by the increasingly higher values (which mean that you can take pictures without much light and without adding a flash). But no manufacturer seems not willing to offer us the low ISO values…
Category: Technology
Not really photo: History of the telescope
photo credit: anthonycmaki Sometimes, during Summer time, it’s fine to switch to low gear and to wander far from the normal path of things. So, if you like lenses (specially long focal length primes), you may be interested in looking at the dinosaur age of tele-lenses: The Telescope era, which started in 1611 (nearly 400…
Nikon D800: Possible features
Today, the leaks have been collected by our friends of Reportages Photo and they may allow us to discover some of the features of the next Nikon D800 (some believe that it will replace the existing Nikon D700, FX Full Frame photo camera famous for its excellent sensitivity coming from using a reasonably low resolution…
Why Sony uses a semi-transparent mirror in A33/A55
The most recent SLR photo cameras from Sony, the Sony Alpha 33 and Sony Alpha 55 are presenting a striking feature: a semi-transparent mirror replacing the usual reflex mirror that we knew up to now. This looks very nice in the press releases, what does that mean and why use such a technology? Cross-section view…
Operation of the shutter and mirror of Sony A33 & A55
YouTube link YouTube link
Canon likes APS-H
In a rather unusual move, Canon has announced a surprising sensor the developed: a 120 Mega-pixel APS-H sensor. APS-H is the size of the photo sensors used in the EOS 1D series (clearly Pro cameras). And this big sensor has a huge amount of pixels (nearly 7.5 times larger than the company’s highest pixel count…
Small programs for big ISO
Many French-speaking lovers of the Sony (ex-Minolta) photo cameras know about the excellent web site of Alpha Numérique which is providing a wealth of varied informations (often appearing in the link lists I publish monthly in relation with photo software programs). Eiffel Tower, by night – Copyright (C) Yves Roumazeilles Now, I would like to…
Nikon Coolpix S1100pj with video projector
The 2nd Nikon digital point-and-shoot photo camera with an integrated video-projector. YouTube link
Infrared (IR) photograhy
During the analog years of photography, it was possible to photograph pictures taken in the Infrared part of the light spectrum. Quite often, it led to a images that were simultaneously eerie looking (for the shift in colors) and slightly blurred by a reduced quality/resolution. It was only a matter of buying an IR filter…
Microscopy photography
I had missed it, but you should try and look at this marvelous collection of microscopy pictures found at the Nikon’s annual Small World photomicrography competition in 2009. They honored 20 images of very high-quality. Not something that everyone of us would be able to do, but a very beautiful display: 35 Years of the…
Photo hardware breakdowns in Botswana
During a group travel, it is very common to consider that the experience can be considered as a reliability test for photographic hardware. This was really the case during my photo safari trip to Botswana in April-May 2010. The participants were spread on a large spectrum from a pro photographer (Laurent Baheux) equipped with a…
Vintage photo cameras
It’s been years that I fell in love with the excellent Dark Roasted Blend web site. Today, I found a nice post showing some of the most beautiful vintage photo cameras they could find. Recommended visit if you have a couple of minutes to spend.
Laser reticle for your SLR
If you are as found of action movies and action video games as you love photography, you may appreciate the looks of this small hot-shoe accessory which will help you align your camera with your subject. Four separate reticles (Point, Circle Point, Circle Cross, Cross), two colors (green, red), and three laser strengths define this…
Sony and nVidia: 2 partners, 3 dimensions
You wanted 3D photography, Sony decided to bring it to you without even modifying your photo camera. To reach this point, Sony decided to partner with nVidia, the PC graphics card specialist, which presents now a solution for post-processing any picture in order to bring a 3rd dimension to it.. The result is still quite…
5 years of lifetime for a DVD archive
You have been told so repeatedly (I even wrote in 2007 an article about the weaknesses of CD/DVD, a few years ago already), it is mentioned again in an article about backups for the photographers, but there are still some people to believe that the CD or the DVD is a good solution to the…
Sony: Photo and video News
Sony just made a round of announcements that should attract a lot of attention in the photography market (but in relation with video). First and foremost, here are the first samples of the new range of point-and-shoot photo cameras using an APS-C digital sensor. With the NEX3 and the NEX5, they intend to bring a…
Clean hot pixels from RAW files
It is sometimes unpleasant to discover a little annoying problem like a defective pixel on the sensor of a digital photo camera. It produces a small colored pixel (often black or white, sometimes of some other color). On a RAW file, it could be worse if it produces a colored streak. It is most visible…
Sony and 35mm video
You thought that Sony was preparing an SLR photo camera with video recording features? (as previously announced for the successor of the Sony Alpha 700, expected later this year) Here is something else entirely: Sony just presented a video camera (not a photo camera) with a 35mm (or Full Frame) sensor. It will probably knock…
Wipe tourists out
This is a very simple web application created by FutureLab AG. Tourist Remover is part of the graphics software suite Online Photo Manager SnapMania. It works quite simply: You take several pictures of the same location or the same monument. There is always one or more ugly tourists on the photo, but they are never…
Remote control with LiveView display
The best of all worlds, the miracle combination. But, most of all, a great little trick of engineering: a radio remote control for your photo camera which communicates with a small gadget fixed in the flash shoe of your SLR camera and transmitting the image right from the SLR direct AV connector. Really smart thingy.…
Panoramas like a pro: EPIC Pro
GigaPan announces a new motorized panorama head: Epic Pro. This robot-like tripod-based camera mount automatizes the shooting of pictures that will be assembled into one giant panorama image. This leaves GigaPan with a full range of panorama mounts: The EPIC costs $349, the EPIC 100 $449 and the EPIC Pro $895. All three should start…
158 lenses = 1 photo camera
Associate professor Yojiro Ishino and his students at the Nagoya Institute of Technology obtained an official recognition of their achievement when the Guinness World Records certified them as holding the world record for a camera with largest number of lenses. Usually, a DSLR has 1 lens attached. Some 3D cameras have two. This piece of…
RAW for the phones?
In the recent days, I saw a bit of information reproduced on many different photo-related web sites. Initially, I did not intend to write about it, but I am finally changing my mind to comment not the news, but the way it is reported. The news: OmniVision announced a 1/4″ digital photo sensor with 5…
Canon EF Lens Technology
The video has just been updated (it was removed by the user for some short time). YouTube link
The rule of thirds, soon to be enforced
In composition, it is often considered that putting objects of interest on the key attention points helps build more powerful images. Daniel Cohen-Or and Lior Wolf at Tel-Aviv University, Israel, with colleagues at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, created a software program that automatically re-organizes photos to make them more powerful, more pleasing. NS link…