The main benefit of DNG is that it’s an open format in the sense that the specification is publicly available. So even if Adobe were to fail, it’d still be possible for other software developers to read the format. With so many RAW file formats out there (every camera has a slightly different file format), the possibility that the RAW files won’t be accessible sometime in the future is very possible. Still, such a problem is a ways off. So what are the immediate benefits?

The big immediate benefit is that the thumbnail and metadata is built into the format. No more sidecar files that are easy to lose or not copy over when moving your photos around. This benefit alone was enough to convert me to DNG. While I don’t care about the thumbnail files, I’ve definitely had to redo my RAW settings due to not copying over an .xmp file. Stupid mistake, sure, but something that should be avoidable in the first place by a well thought out file format.

The DNG files are also smaller by about 25-33%. So that makes them easier to backup and transport around. The reason for this, as explained by Tom, is that when you’re shooting the camera is just concerned about getting the images on your card. So the compression is fast, but not as robust as it could be. When you’re creating the DNG file on your regular computer, time isn’t such an issue so a better but slightly slower compression algorithm can be used. All the data is the same.

So I’m a fan and I recommend you take a look at it. It really does seem to solve some very real problems.

Related posts:

 Party on @ Adobe Creative CS4 launchYesterday I went with Jim Tierney, our company president, to the Adobe CS4 Launch event. It was at Adobe’s headquarters in San Francisco, which is...  Shooting video with the 5D Mark IIMy biggest frustration with the 5D is the lack of AutoFocus. You get very use to AF on traditional camcorders and not having really affects...

If you’re going to use the cloud, it doesn’t matter if you’re FourSquare or just an editor storing some old video… you need to have a backup plan. Technology just isn’t perfect and never will be. For all those people dismissing the cloud because of the Amazon failure, I’ll remind you of the RackSpace failure a couple years ago. Click here for more info on that… but hosting companies, even high-end, We-promise-you-10000%-uptime-and-you’re-going-to-pay-for-it, hosting companies like RackSpace suffer data center wide outages. So the cloud isn’t perfect. Neither is anything else. Sometimes it’s good to remember that as we decide what to do with our critical data.

Related posts:

 The Demise of Digital RailroadIt was very quick, and Digital Railroad is very dead. It’s brings up one of the main concerns with ‘cloud’ computing… mainly, what happens when...  Privacy Law Does Not Protect You OnlineThere has been a great deal of commotion over a web site called Spokeo. Spokeo aggregates personal info about people. So all the info that’s...

Originally posted by Mark Raudonis.  Mark  is a former intern now working in Hollywood.

1. You are here for a short time… make every minute count.
2. If you find yourself stuck doing Xeroxing, it’s your own fault. Be proactive about
your time, your schedule, and what you want to learn.
3. Nobody is going to “hand you” an experience, you create it yourself.
4. You’re onstage here. You may be watching us, but we’re watching you. Make a good impression.
5. Watching someone edit is like watching paint dry. It’s boring! Ask questions. Engage in the creative process. “Outthink” the editor to the next shot.
6. You’re future career DEPENDS on your colleagues. Get to know them. They will be your best source of information for your next job.
7. There are plenty of editors here. Learn something different for each of them.
8. We’re in the communication business. Start by learning to communicate with the team.
Know, understand, and practice communication… and I don’t mean texting!
9. Technology is NOT your enemy. Learn enough about what we use to become confident in using the tools of our trade.
10. Organization is the key to creativity. If you can’t find something, you can’t even begin to be creative. Learn how we organize our projects, our SAN, our servers.

Finally, have fun! I was an intern once. It was one of the best experiences of my career.

Related posts:

 Design schools. Meh.I’ve ranted about design schools before, but it’s come up again. I was chatting with a friend of a friend who’s going to one of...  Overpriced Schools part IIThis is sort of a followup to my Overpriced Schools For Design, Visual Effects, Photography, Whatever post about schools and going into debt getting an...

However, if you are like me and get excited when you see a Humpback whale 10 feet away from the boat, you might let your camera slip out of your hand. At which point you will watch your Canon T2i and Ikelite housing start slowly sinking. It’s like watching a big bag of money go down to Davey Jones locker. Not good. For a split second I considered the fact that we were in a whale sanctuary and I might be fined if I dove in after the camera and underwater housing. After the .25 of a second was up, I dove in and grabbed the camera. Luckily, I don’t think anyone other than Mr. Humpback Whale (and 18 other passengers) saw anything and their were no repercussions. I immediately got back on the boat anyways, so it’s not like I was hanging out having a photo session with the whale.

The moral of the story: Sometimes a $10 lanyard can save you a lot of camera equipment!  (Feel free to post your own stupid photographer tricks in the comment section)

Related posts:

 DSLRs vs. Consumer HD CamcordersI recently finished up shooting a side project DVD on Humpback Whale Photography… watching them and photographing them (facebook: Exploring Maui). A little different from...  Fake or Not Fake?A picture can not lie. We all know the untruth of that these days. But what do you do when a picture isn’t lying, yet...

I’ve written about this before… when Digital Railroad failed a couple years ago and gave photographers 24 hours to download their photos, it should have been a big wake up call for photographers that these services can’t be trusted as archives (at least, not without offline backups as well). Now, maybe they can’t even be trusted as temporary storage. With tech companies it’s all good… until it’s not. Then the CEO announces everyone is laid off and the servers are shut down. I’ve been part of startups where this has happened. As Jason Perlow points out in an excellent blog post ‘Flickr: Too big to fail?’, Flickr is not too big to fail.

AND even if it doesn’t fail, that doesn’t mean your account won’t be accidentally deleted and since Flickr doesn’t have backups of your data, there goes all your photos. Which means all the links on your blog or web site that point to Flickr (or Vimeo or…) get broken requiring a lot of time and aggravation fixing your site. Assuming you have all those photos backup in a single place and you don’t have to go rooting around for the particular photos/videos you uploaded… which would involve even more time.

I’ll point out that I think these sites are great usually. I use them, particularly vimeo. However, it’s important to know what will happen if things go wrong and to know what you’re in for.

Anyways, give Jason’s blog a read… it brings up some good questions and concerns.

Related posts:

 Photos above & below waterI love digital artwork — and it’s what pays the bills! — but it’s always wonderful to seek out non-digital artwork. Through Digital Anarchy, I...  DSLRs vs. Consumer HD CamcordersI recently finished up shooting a side project DVD on Humpback Whale Photography… watching them and photographing them (facebook: Exploring Maui). A little different from...

The DVD has a lot of amazing photos of the Humpbacks, but very little actual video. This is due to the fact that the 5D doesn’t work well for wildlife videography. Now, some of you might have expected that, knowing about rolling shutter, aliasing, and some of the other issues that DSLRs have. However, when I started the project, I was blissfully unaware of most of those issues. Even though we shot with the 5D on a Stedicam Merlin most of the footage was unusable. Between the motion of the boat, the rolling shutter, and fast moving wildlife the 5D proved not to be the camera we hoped it was. (it was everything we expected for the tripod shots, so that came out well. But when we were actually on the boat… not so much.) There are some Final Cut Pro plugins to help out with these problems, but when dealing with a boat and wildlife it was just too much for the camera.

So the DVD was made with a little video footage of the whales and a lot of great photos. It came out fine, but looking to the future we want to shoot videos of the whales. What to do?

Buy an inexpensive HD Camcorder! In my case, I choose the Panasonic TM700 (Canon also has some great ones, but they’re more expensive and nothing I read indicated they were worth the extra money). $750 and it shoots 1080/60p in high quality AVCHD format. The other nice thing, at least for wildlife, is the touchscreen focusing. You can tap the screen on the object you want the camera to focus on. This is incredibly useful because one of the main problems with shooting wildlife is keeping it in focus. And when you’re on a moving boat trying to focus on a fast moving whale you really don’t have the time to manually focus.  It’s extremely difficult and unless you’re a real pro at it, you’re usually going to miss the shot while you’re futzing around with the focus ring.

The image stabilization seems to have a noticable effect on the TM700 (perhaps because it’s designed for video). On the 5D (24-105 lens), the image stabilization doesn’t seem to make a difference. Of course, the real solution is not to shoot handheld and use something like the Steadicam Merlin. But nothing I shot handheld with the 5D was usuable (and very little of the 5D on a steadicam was either), whereas the TM700 produced relatively nice footage. It’s going to be fun to put it on the Merlin.

Here’s the first test with the TM700. This was basically just taking it out of the box and shooting. There are a number of things that I need to set up, which I think will improve the video even further. But right out of the box it trumps the 5D hands down for for this situation. For interviews and other situations where you have more control over what you’re shooting and how it’s being shot, the 5D is an amazing video camera. For scenics it’s beautiful and for wildlife where you can sit in the bushes with a tripod it works well. But if you’re moving and your subject is moving it starts to present a lot of challenges.

http://vimeo.com/18688733

Vimeo, in this case, darkened the footage, so the original footage is nicer than what you see on vimeo. I’m still working out the best way to get the .mts files through FCP and into Vimeo. But still, good footage from a $750 camera!

Related posts:

 Shooting video with the 5D Mark IIMy biggest frustration with the 5D is the lack of AutoFocus. You get very use to AF on traditional camcorders and not having really affects...  Keeping A DSLR Steady For A Video Shoot?Ever since they started shooting motion pictures one of the biggest questions have been… How do you keep the damn camera steady? And what do...

We’ve been developing plugins for After Effects and Final Cut Pro for a long time and we’ve never received the response to a plugin that we have with Beauty Box Video. The Videomaker award goes next to our award from TV Technology magazine for one of the top 10 products at NAB 2010.

It’s really nice to get some recognition for putting out good After Effects and FCP plugins that really solve problems that people are having. It was definitely an early Anarchismas present! ;-) We’ve got some big plans for Beauty Box in 2011, so there’ll be no resting on our laurels. Expect to see some really cool stuff in the first quarter of next year.

Related posts:

 Beauty Box Video 1.2 ReleasedThe CUDA/OpenGL speed update for Beauty Box Video is  now available. This dramatically speeds up Beauty Box Video and improves the workflow in Premiere Pro...  The LA Kings Use Beauty Box VideoWe were excited to receive an email from Aaron Brenner, of the LA Kings hockey team, letting us know that they had used Beauty Box...

I read a report earlier this year that pointed out that TV is still a very social screen.

Families still watch together, groups of friends watch together, housemates, etc., etc. The TV is still, in many ways, our electronic campfire. This may be somewhat obvious, but it’s in contrast to a computer which is usually a one viewer situation. So the use case for a TV, generally speaking, is very different from a computer screen.

To folks developing applications for iOS and Android this is a significant difference. I don’t think most people will use the TV as just another computer screen. It will still be a more passive experience and one where the group of people watching it will have to agree on any apps or widgets that are viewable on the screen. Many apps will probably be info strips (think ESPN scores running along the bottom of your screen) or pop-up boxes, more than full fledged apps taking over the entire screen. Although, I’m sure games will be significant as they are everywhere.

For content creators, I think it matters a little less. However, if you’re creating content for the web it’ll make a difference if you think it’s likely to be viewed on a TV. That file that looks ok on a 17″ laptop screen may not look so hot on a 52″ TV. Is it a 60 second skit meant for youtube or a 10 minute episode of a regular program on blip.tv? The 10 minute episode is probably more likely to make it to a TV, and you’ll want to encode accordingly.

Does this mean you need to re-encode and re-upload all your content? Well, if InterwebTV was here, right now, then yes you would. But it’s not. At least, not in any meaningful way. If your audience is technology geeks, then that day is probably not too far off. Tech people will probably have  Google TV or some such thing sooner than everyone else. But if you’ve got a wider audience, you can’t listen to early adoptin’ tech folks. You’ll know TV via the net (or Over The Top TV) has arrived when your parents have it. This was my gauge for broadband and I think it’s more or less applicable here as well.

Related posts:

 Evil Geeks vs. Evil MarketersI’ve always said that I’d prefer to have an Evil Geek (Bill Gates) rule the world instead of an Evil Marketing Guy (Steve Jobs). Sort...  Do you share?No… not your wife/husband, sheesh… the dirty minds of you people. Your info. Your techniques. Tips and tricks. I had an interesting tech support call...

Now, I realize that going into a camera store and stealing a $1000 lens is difficult and stealing a $500 software program is relatively easy. But just because it’s easy to steal software doesn’t make it any less wrong. If you can afford to buy a $1000 lens, you can afford to help support the people that make the software you use to organize, enhance, manipulate, and print your photos. We’re all real folks trying to make a living and, even though piracy is given with software, sometimes it hurts when it’s thrown in your face as my friend did (unintentionally, sure, but here’s someone that’s relatively well paid just casually throwing out she wants to steal Photoshop.).

I usually don’t lose much sleep over piracy. Much of it is done by people that would never buy the program. They  download the software, use it once or twice, and then don’t use it again. But for artists that use something like Photoshop every day, it does dismay me a little about how common piracy is. Some photographers and artists that would be up in arms if their work was copied and used for an ad without being paid, think nothing of copying software from a friend. Yet, it’s the same principle.

I don’t care if you download a pirated copy of our plugins to try out. But if you find it useful, please… support those of us that work our asses off to bring you cool, useful software.

Yes, there are real people behind all this software… Jim, Garrick, Debbie, and Maggie (see above). And we all greatly appreciate all of you who do find our software useful and help us continue to do something we love… allowing us to create cool software that hopefully makes your jobs easier!

Related posts:

 Fake or Not Fake?A picture can not lie. We all know the untruth of that these days. But what do you do when a picture isn’t lying, yet...  Macro vs Micro at Microsoft Pro Photo Summit.Digital Anarchy — that’s me and Jim Tierney — attended the Microsoft Pro Photo Summit this week. It’s a pro-level gathering that we have attended...

I mean seriously. Geek evil is sort of like ‘pinky and the brain’ evil. Yeah, they might take over the world, but that’s what they plan every night. And even if they succeed, all they’ll end up doing is having chair jumping contests and all night Star Trek marathons (how else do you explain much of Microsoft’s software?)

Marketers, like Steve, are different.

Much more machiavellian (or Heather-esque, if you will) If Apple doesn’t like you or doesn’t like what you’re doing you’re not in the club. So, of course, Apple won’t let developers use the tool of their choice (Flash, .Net, Java, etc.), denies apps that show political satire, and now Apple is having the police raid journalist’s homes for talking about their products in ways Apple doesn’t approve of. It’s getting a bit ridiculous and it’s not slightly ironic that this is the same Apple that used the 1984 ad to announce the Macintosh. Who knew Steve Jobs was the man on the 1984 screen?

Jim Tierney

President

Digital Anarchy

(Although, to be fair, in this photo from 2000, Steve looks like Brain. What does it all mean?!?)

Related posts:

 The Yahoo Of EvilSo the latest news re: Yahoo is that they’re looking for News Corp to save them from the evil clutches of Microsoft. Yes, News Corp....  PC vs. Mac, and PC wins a roundSo according to a story in todays Wall Street Journal, Apple is feeling stung by the recent Microsoft ads that show regular folks shopping for...

Many people I know are freaked out about this. One person was shocked that her photos and blog posts were found. Seriously. There’s a lot of folks out there who are unclear on how all these cookies, logging, networking, and whatever else works.

Privacy Law Needs To Be Updated. Support dotrights.org

Notwithstanding obvious things like blogs, that we put up so other people can see, our privacy is being eroded fast.

For example, a recent Wall Street Journal article discussed how Ebay served ads to friends of the people that were buying things on Ebay. They used a separate company, one like Spokeo, to identify friends of the buyers and targeted ads at them. The assumption was that your friends probably like the same things you do. However, they did it without the knowledge of the buyers.

This should be illegal.

Not because targeting ads should be illegal, but because of other crazy shit companies or the government might do and are doing. Google’s Buzz service, when it was launched, let anyone viewing your social networking page see who you most frequently emailed with… again, without your permission. I wonder how many marriages or business deals were wrecked because of that?

How can they do this? The Electronic Privacy Act, which governs such things, was written in 1986. It is hopelessly out of date and needs to be revised. The ACLU, EFF, Google, ATT, Microsoft, and others have started a movement to get it revised. It’s called dotrights.org.

dotrights.org needs to be supported. We need strong privacy protection for all of us. There’s a lot of data out there about us and it’s pretty easy to gather and use or misuse. Governments, companies and individuals are NOT going to just ignore all this data because it’s the right thing to do. There needs to be a law with teeth that defines what can be done with this data.

Please support dotrights.org.

Your online privacy matters, and right now, you have very little control how much data is out there and how it is used.

Related posts:

 Do you share?No… not your wife/husband, sheesh… the dirty minds of you people. Your info. Your techniques. Tips and tricks. I had an interesting tech support call...  The Demise of Digital RailroadIt was very quick, and Digital Railroad is very dead. It’s brings up one of the main concerns with ‘cloud’ computing… mainly, what happens when...

While a shaky camera can be used, on rare occasion, to good effect… it’s usually something to be avoided. More often than not, it just means your watching a B horror flick and the owner of said shaky camera is about to be bitten in half. Hopefully we can get you shooting stable video so as to insure you are not similarly attacked by creatures that are aggravated by shaky video.

So… how do you avoid such a fate?

How you solve the problem of the shakes is, in part, determined by how much money you want to throw at the problem. I highly recommend you check out The DV Rebel’s Guide by Stu Maschwitz. Stu is a veteran visual effects supervisor who’s worked on Star Wars, Sin City, and many others. The DV Rebel’s Guide is a great resource for shooting professional looking video on the cheap. For example, using a skateboard and sandbags as a dolly. Brilliant! Lots of great info, cool tips, and if you’re just experimenting and playing around the book is very handy.

If you’re considering shooting professionally however, you probably owe it to yourself to get some real equipment. For example, the Steadicam Merlin (pictured above) is a great way to keep a DSLR stablized. It takes awhile to master it, but once you do you can get some beautifully stable shots. Do a search on YouTube for ‘steadicam merlin’ and check out some of the videos. It uses weights to counter balance the camera and keep everything steady. At $799, it’s a little pricey though.

Now, you can create something similar to the merlin with a pipe and weights and it’ll cost you $14. The problem with this (and with the Merlin itself) is that between the weights and the camera, it’s freakin’ heavy! You can only use the thing for 10-15 minutes or so at a go because your arm just gets worn out. One advantage the Merlin has is that you can buy a vest for it (also pictured above), which distributes the weight more evenly over your body and you can work much longer. It’s a great system, but it’ll set you back a cool $2400. But if you’re shooting professionally, it’ll be worth it. It should be pointed out that there are other professional tools, like the Glidecam, that compete with the Merlin. But I’ve used the Merlin, it works, so I can speak from experience with it… but there are plenty of folks that love the Glidecam. There’s also other inexpensive things like the Fig Rig, which allows you to move the camera around more fluidly, but is less helpful for dealing with bumps when walking.

Let’s talk about a few other things…

The tripod head you use for still images won’t cut it for video. You want to be able to smoothly pan the camera from left to right and most photo tripod heads aren’t set up for that. So you need a fluid based video tripod head, such as the one pictured in the top image. These also have a handle that makes smooth panning easier. You’re current tripod will probably work, so you don’t need to replace that, but the tripod head needs to be for video. The prices range anywhere from about $150 – $600. If it’s more than $600 you’re probably buying a head meant for a large film/video camera and it’s probably unnecessary for a 5-10 lb DSLR. Of course, if you’re mounting a 15lb, $7000 400mm prime on the camera, then maybe you should spend the extra $200 and get a tripod head that won’t collapse under the weight. I’m just sayin’…

That covers the basics for stabalizing the thing. From $14 stick and a dumbell and a skateboard with sandbags to a $2400 steadicam rig. Again, the DV Rebel’s Guide has a much more complete discussion of all the options, including stuff I’m not getting into here. This is just a blog and I ain’t spending the next 3 months writing a book.

What if it’s already shaky?

Well, first off, I would look out the window for zombies. They’re usually around when the video gets shaky.

If not, then bolt the door, get the shotgun ready, and we’ll try and stabalize the footage.

This is where things get dicey. If you thought Post Production for photos was bad (for example, if Photoshop makes you sweat worse than a bunch of zombies), you’ll LOVE Post Production for video! Actually, no you probably won’t love it…

So yes, post production. There are many options for video… from iMovie on the low end, to Adobe After Effects and Apple’s Final Cut Pro on the high end. iMovie has stabilization built in. It works ‘ok’. It’s not really a professional tool and it shows. But if you’re just experimenting it’s definitely adequate. Adobe’s After Effects has excellent stabilization, but it takes awhile to learn it. It’s sort of like Photoshop for video, so it’s a very deep program. There’s also a program called Mocha from Imagineer Systems that works as a plugin for After Effects and Final Cut Pro and provides excellent stabilization for both programs.

Professional video stabilization is somewhat difficult. Once you understand how it works, it’s not too tough, but getting there can be a long process for someone without a video background. However, if you’re serious about video, then learning After Effects,  Adobe’s Premiere Pro or Apple’s Final Cut Pro is probably essential. You’ll need at least one of them.

Of course, you can always hire someone to stabilize the footage for you. Assuming the footage isn’t _too_ shaky, it shouldn’t cost too much. If you don’t expect to have lots and lots of shaky video, then hiring someone to deal with the occasional shot is probably the way to go. However, if you choose to do it yourself, there are many training videos out there that deal with stabilization and can help you get up to speed.

I hope this has provided some useful info to all you crazy folks doing crazy things with DSLRs.

Oh and btw… CHECK THIS OUT: The DSLR shootout, where the folks at Zacuto do a spectacular job comparing a number of DSLRs with a $100K Feature Film camera. The results are pretty amazing!

Related posts:

 Are You A Photographer Shooting Video? Go to NAB.NAB is a huge three letters in the film and television world. However, most photographers will never have heard of it. It stands for National...  Shooting video with the 5D Mark IIMy biggest frustration with the 5D is the lack of AutoFocus. You get very use to AF on traditional camcorders and not having really affects...

Well… apparently not all paper backgrounds are made equal!

I don’t remember who made the paper background we initially tested. But it was awful. Very reflective and prone to hot spots. We figured all paper would have the same problems. After listening to a talk by another company that does greenscreen software, I decided to revisit this and give Savage Paper’s ‘tech green #46′ a try.

So how’d it fare vs. the foam materail we’ve been recommending since day 1?

Excellent! I was very impressed with how evenly it lit. The paper has a very flat finish on it, meaning very little reflection and easy lighting. Of course, we lit everything with two big softboxes, so that helped I’m sure.

I’m going back on my opinion that paper won’t work for greenscreen backgrounds, and give a solid recommendation to the Savage #46 paper. I DO NOT think that all paper will work as well. As in our initial test, some papers are glossy and not suitable for chromakey. Also, Savage just released vinyl backgrounds that come in green and I’m highly skeptical that it’ll work for greenscreen. It’s got a pretty glossy finish, which is usually a disaster for chromakey.

We still recommend the foam material as well. But I think the Savage paper is on par with it, except in terms of reusability. I think the foam material generally works well, it’s easy to transport, and you can easily clean and reuse it.

For full length in a studio, I would give the nod to the paper. I think you’re likely to get a little less spill around the feet, but I don’t think the difference is that significant. You can take a look at the results with the two materials:

There are other materials out there… paint, canvas, etc. The important part with any material is a very flat finish on the surface. If you have that, it should work fine as a greenscreen.

If there are any other manufacturers of greenscreen backgrounds reading this that would like our recommendation on their product, please feel free to contact us to send us a sample. However, right now, the only materials we’re recommending is the Savage #46 paper and foam-backed material made by velcro.

Related posts:

 Greenscreen ObamaGreenscreens are cropping up all over the place. I was in DC for the inauguration and in my hotel you could get a picture with...  Rediscovered treasures: John Riley & Museo Nacional de Costa RicaLast month, Digital Anarchy had some difficulty with our server, store and site… shudder… and had to change vendors unexpectedly. I’ve been combing through our...

However the Financial Times reports a new wrinkle. DSLR sales have slowed significantly less than point-and-shoot sales, meaning the DSLRs are making up a larger share of the digital camera market. Over 8 million DSLRs will be sold in 2009.

What does this mean? How does it affect photographers?

Well, for sure, part of it is just a wrinkle in the numbers. You would expect pros to have a little less discretion about whether to buy a new camera or not than your mom and dad. So the fact that the sale of DSLRs is slowing less rapidly may not be that surprising.

However, part of it is that more and more folks are discovering the joys of photography, the instant gratification that digital brings, and the limitations of point-and-shoots. So I think you’re seeing some of these people opt to buy a DSLR instead of another point-and-shoot when they feel it’s time to replace the camera they bought a year or three ago.

This is something that was discussed at the InfoTrends conference I attended awhile back. It’s definitely a trend that’s occurring and the ability to shoot HD video with the 5D Mark II and especially the 7D, are just accelerating this trend. Also, some limitations of P&Ss, like long lag times when taking a picture, are frustrating some people enough to move up.

Ultimately, I don’t think it affects pro photographers all that much. Some folks doing microstock will be affected by images uploaded to free stock sites like the Stock Exchange (www.sxc.hu). And on the very low end, some overly budget conscious folks may have Uncle Joe shoot their wedding rather than a pro.

It does open up some new opportunities for those of us that make software or training for photographers. Web sites that cater to new photographers, like SmugMug, will also benefit. If you’re a photographer that does seminars and workshops, this is a big new group of folks that are going to be looking for info on how to take advantage of these big, new-fangled cameras. It’s definitely a trend that’s worth paying attention to. The digital camera market is huge, and if camera makers are shipping 8-9 million DSLRs, there are probably some opportunities there.

Related posts:

 Future of Photo, part IIIn part 1 I discussed some of the habits that may or may not develop. Now I’m going to talk technology. While at the Digital...  Camera sensorsSo an article discussing 2K vs. 4K images popped up on my radar today. It’s named ‘The Truth About 2K and 4K’ and is an...

Potential 3D content?

I sat next to the manager of the CBS station on a recent flight. Among other things we chatted about 3D TV and it’s purpose (if any) and whether it was just a fad. Particularly since everyone has just upgraded to HD.

HD is the type of technology that lots of people can understand and get behind. It’s ‘un-intrusive’, meaning it just makes everything look better. You don’t notice the technology after viewing it a few times (or until you see an SD show). People watching just see a better picture, so they’re happy, and producers don’t have to dramatically change how they shoot and tell stories, so they’re happy (except for the make-up artists who now really need to cover up those unsightly blemishes and removed tattoos… or they can use Beauty Box :-). Everyone has to buy some new equipment, but otherwise the changes are minimal.

3D is very intrusive. And does anyone really want it?

3D requires both the viewer change the way they view content, and it certainly causes producers to create shows that cater to the technology (which is expensive). Usually using the technology for the sake of the technology, not because it helps them tell better stories. We’ve already seen this ad nauseum in 3D movies, where there are things constantly being thrown at the screen or other visual gimmicks that really add nothing to the story or experience. Once the novelty of having things thrown at you wears off, where will 3D be? Probably where web3D is. Nowhere.

Back in 2000 I was part of a company that developed a web3D solution (Cycore’s Cult 3D). Web3D was going to be the next big thing. Everyone wanted to see cars, shoes, mp3 players, and whatever else in 3D. As it turns out… they didn’t. And because 3D is expensive to produce, web designers didn’t want to use it. 8 photos of a shoe is a lot cheaper than creating a 3D model. And for viewers, photos have about the save effect as 3D. Neither gets you closer to actually trying the shoe on. Which is the problem with 3D TV.

3D TV doesn’t really get you closer to feeling like you’re part of the environment. You’re sort of in the scene (and junk is flying at you), but the technology isn’t anywhere close to being good enough to really suspend disbelief. So it just becomes a distraction to the story you’re trying to tell.

Good stories is what makes good content. That’s what people want to watch. 3D in it’s current state (and for the foreseeable future), just doesn’t add that much. And into this you have to consider changing viewing habits with more people watching shows on computer monitors and mobile devices. Yes, IF you’re watching on a regular TV, there are some movies, particularly kids movies, that benefit. Games will probably benefit, and maybe there’s some uses in sports (assuming you’re willing to hang out with your buddies wearing 3D glasses). But mostly it’s a gimmick and I think it’s going to be a very hard sell to get people to care about it beyond the occassional kid movie or game.

Related posts:

 Just pay the pro already…sheesh.One of my roles at Digital Anarchy is creating the web and print graphics. Whenever I tell someone that I do design collateral for a...

HDR Gone Bad

It’s a novelty look and I’m over it. It was cool for a very short time, then everyone decided they wanted to have surreal images. It’s not that hard of a look to achieve, so it’s not that impressive. Get over it.  :-) I much prefer to use HDR for what it was meant for… which is giving a slightly wider dynamic range to create a shot that has similar contrast and color range to what your eye actually sees. No one has seen colors like the photo above has. Alright, well, yeah I’ve taken mushrooms too, so maybe then… but not normally.

The better use for HDR…

Given the normal photo below:

We can use multiple exposures to create the wider dynamic range we’d like to see in a single photo, but can rarely achieve due to the limitations of sensors, file formats, etc. Even when used properly, HDR isn’t without its problems. However, you can frequently get beautifully life like photos that would be difficult to achieve normal. The example below gets the point across (although I’m not holding it up as a shining example of photography, it is good enough to get my point across though):

What you get is more detail in the shadows and highlights than what you’d normally see. You can tease some of this detail out when working with RAW files, but not to the extent you can when you have multiple photos. Of course, multiple photos means you can have ghosting and other artifacts to deal with, so that’s always a consideration.

HDR is a cool technique and can produce some amazing photography work. The surreal look does, I’m sure, have a time and place, but realize that’s not what HDR was designed for.

Related posts:

 Fake or Not Fake?A picture can not lie. We all know the untruth of that these days. But what do you do when a picture isn’t lying, yet...  Adding MetadataIf you’re a photographer (or other content creator), one of your big concerns should be attaching your information to your photos. It’s pretty easy these...

See if you can figure which link is ours.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalanarchy/sets/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/sets/

On the White House Flickr stream, the photos that I am digging are decidedly non-presidential. They show Obama as a eprson, not a politician, which I would guess is the point of having a stream. Hopefully, you can enjoy seeing a photo of the US president playing hoops, and playing pretty well, no matter what your politics are.

On the Digital Anarchy Flickr stream, I am digging being able to add in photos that don’t have a proper home on our DigitalAnarchy.com website. There is more flexibility in posting a string of fun, related photos on Flickr then adding similar (= repetative)  images to the website.

Wired magazine did an interesting piece on the president’s Flickr stream a few months ago. It covers a bit of the history of photo documenting the less rigid side of presidency. Wired hasn’t covered Digital Anarchy’s stream yet but there’s still time…

Related posts:

 At long last, Steven Parke.Steven Parke is an amazing photographer and artist who Digital Anarchy became friendly with about two years ago. It’s taken almost that long for us...  Obama’s poster uses stolen photoOne of the recurring topics that I’ve seen in recent years is that of copyright and what internet technologies mean to photographers. The challenges that...

Your info. Your techniques. Tips and tricks. I had an interesting tech support call yesterday with one of our users. He’s a photographer that’s been using Primatte for some time. He related an encounter he had with a fellow photographer in his area. She asked him what he was using to create his greenscreen shots, and he told her to go buy one of our competitor’s products! His logic was that he wasn’t going to share info with someone in the same market. He was quite pleased that she was unable to get the same results and was frustrated by the whole thing.

So my question to you is… do you share?

Personally, for me the answer is yes. Sort of. We are not an open source company, so our code is safely behind walls. But I have no problem telling folks what we’re doing from a marketing and support standpoint. There’s definitely some types of info that it benefits everyone, even if you’re competitors, to share. But if it’s mission critical to your success (like our code), then sharing may not be a hot idea. Then again, it may not make any difference because there are so many things that go into a successful company. When you go to ImagingUSA or WPPI there are certainly lots of folks sharing info, who’ve been doing it for quite some time and don’t seem adversely affected by it. But maybe showing off at big national conference is a bit different than showing off at your local photography club that’s filled with potential competitors.

Related posts:

 Adding MetadataIf you’re a photographer (or other content creator), one of your big concerns should be attaching your information to your photos. It’s pretty easy these...  Cheerleading practice with Shawn WrightDigital Anarchy recently added a great photographer to our Primatte Chromakey gallery. His name is Shawn Wright and he runs Wright Studios out of Indiana,...

This does not mean the Flash player is available on the iPhone. Only that the Flash development environment can now build iPhone apps.

Apple of course does not want the Flash player on the iPhone. Why? If you can build iPhone apps that are usable through a browser, who’s going to buy them through the Apple App Store? We’ll see how badly Apple cripples support of HTML 5 in Safari since HTML 5, in some cases, will allow you to build rich internet apps and theoretically get around the App store as well.

Related posts:

 Silverlight & other streams.Another thought about NAB, on the subject of streaming video across the web and other platforms. Companies were talking a lot about tying in with...  Apple and MacWorldSo it’s not overly surprising Apple is dropping out of MacWorld. They don’t run the show and they’re pulling out of tradeshows in general (they...

Anyways, pick up the latest issue of Photoshop User to read the full review. In honor of the review, we’ve recreated their Hot Pick logo in 3D.

Related posts:

 Invigorate yourself.The 3D Invigorator is our newest Adobe Photoshop plugin for creating 3D logos and other fun 3D graphics. We’ve recently posted some great video tutorials...  Photoshop free alternativesAs a developer for Photoshop (and now Aperture) I rarely spend time in other host graphics apps. There are other purchasable ones, like the Corel...