“With high quality digital cameras now within reach of every photographer, customers are gravitating to raw file formats that allow them to get more control over final results,” said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe®. “By combining Pixmantec’s raw processing technology and expertise with our own, we’re continuing to deliver on the promise that even your existing raw files can be processed with increasing quality as our software technology evolves.”
Hmm, looks like another small fish gets eaten by a bigger fish. Or perhaps in Adobe’s case, maybe it’s a Great White! Press release here.
Posts in Photography
Macro
macro \’mak-(.)ro-\ aj [macr-]
1: excessively developed : LARGE, THICK 2: of or involving large quantities 3: GROSS
Taking close-up pictures of small things is called “macro photography.” I have no idea why. Perhaps because the small things in macro photography are generally larger than the things you are taking pictures of when doing “micro photography”. If you really want to be pedantic then you should say you are doing “photomacrography”. 
A most green bulb!
Well, well, everyone says that you need to look at the big picture and all that. Sometimes, the small picture is important. Why? It’s details, details and details my good man (or woman)! GOD is in the details. If you don’t believe that, go get a microscope. Anyways, I think it’s really important to sometimes have the smaller things in life. Small pleasures, a walk in a park, or just a chat over coffee. Life is short, enjoy the trip!
The RAW Truth
Adobe Bridge, Camera RAW, Photoshop
RAW, RAW, RAW. A lot of people harp on it. A lot of people don’t know how to use it but more people use it for the wrong reasons. It’s not a miracle file format, nor will it save that horribly over-exposed photo or fix that camera shake for you. The main benefits I see are exposure latitude and color-balance. After shooting 2400 frames in a wedding, you do want the photos of the solemnization ceremony at church or the toast at the ballroom to have the same color and look. No out of whack color balance here. Now, most people know that you can use Photoshop’s levels (in separate RGB channel mode of couse) or white-point tool to fix the color balance but the key here is consistency. Uncle George is looking a bit pasty in one frame and in another frame, he looks like he’s spent the last two weeks in the Bahamas or something. With RAW, you dial in the color temperature you feel it’s right and it’s all done right. I’ll go preach about exposure latitude on another day. I have two dozen out-of-whack JPEG’s to color-match. (Oh yeah, thank God for Photoshop’s color-match…)
One weighty album
After a hundred-plus hours of work, a week of gestation, it’s finally done!
Finally ready at 2kg!
USA/HK Trip, what did and didn’t work
What worked and didn’t work photographically of course…
Everytime a trip is over and I’m back home unpacking or rather leaving a mess of stuff all over my room, copying and backing up the thousands of images captured and other stuff, I tend to look at what I’ve brought and how much of it I used (or didn’t use).
At Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite
This time round, I brought my EOS-20D (no backup), EF16-35mm lens, EF25-105 f/4 IS and EF70-200mm lens. For storage, I had my Dell Latitude notebook PC. With the Powershot A540 and Ixus 40 doing video, disk space became critical at the end of the trip. Of course in terms of backup, I had a external USB disk but 48 Gigabytes of images and video is no laughing matter. In terms of photo equipment, generally, I walked around all day with just a single camera and single lens. My EF16-35mm saw primary service alternating with the EF24-105, 99% of the time. The EF16-35 with the 1.6 crop factor roughly gives me a 25-56mm lens which is useful for most cases but was a bit short at times. 24mm on the other hand, isn’t as wide with the crop factor and I’m really thinking that I need a full-frame camera soon! The tripod was another issue. Although it saw service frequently, I had tremendous problems sorting out the stability and leveling the camera on it. I suppose a sturdy tripod with a good head will help but that usually comes at the expense of portability.
So, if I had to do it all again, nothing much will be changed (of course if you have more $$ then a 5D is an option) other than probably bringing a better tripod and lugging my long lens more often… it’s always the case that not having it and needing it. Oh well.
Sony DSLR coming soon…
Here comes Sony with Alpha, their DSLR brand. Looks like they’ve adopted most of Konica-Minolta’s assets and technology. No point re-inventing a whole new system and mount.
You can find out more here.