German photographer Falk Lumo has an interesting post on his blog regarding full frame and crop sensors. His theory is that camera manufacturers have created an artificial barrier between the two sensor sizes for business reasons, and that we’ll soon be seeing big changes in the camera world as this barrier disappears:
[...] there is an artificial separation between the APS-C and full frame markets. Artificial because less people still believe that full frame must be expensive. And artificial because image qualities beyond an effective resolution of 20 MP may simply require full frame. The new offers from Nikon (D800 and D600) therefore directly address this and may accelerate the disappearance of the artificial market separation. This is known as “supercriticality”: the market ought to offer uncrippled, full frame enthusiast cameras in the $1,500 segment but offers APS-C cameras instead. Supercritical systems “fall” into their preferred state after only small perturbations occur. Once this happens, a D800 type camera will be in the $1,500 segment.
He predicts that full frame cameras will soon be much more affordable and compact as mirrorless cameras eat into the APS-C market, leaving “cameras with a full frame mount but a half frame sensor” to be “a curiosity of the past.”
In many Asian cultures it’s common for families to gather together for formal portraits on special occasions, but this tradition is becoming much harder to coordinate as more and more young people are moving abroad for work. Photographer John Clang has a new series of photographs that features an interesting solution to this problem: Skype webcam projections. Clang visited various individuals around the world and had them video chat with family members in Singapore. By projecting the feed onto a wall and having the entire family pose, Clang shot traditional-style family portraits with the subjects separated by thousands of miles. Read more…
Google Glass team member Max Braun took to the stage at the Google+ Photography Conference yesterday to show off a prototype device, talk about the project’s potential impact in photography, and show off some new sample photographs. He states,
We see glass as an evolution of cell phone photography. It’s the next step of the camera that’s always with you. It’s not meant to replace your professional camera anytime soon [...] We think that photography in Glass is going to open up a whole range of pictures that would not have been possible otherwise.
The Google Glass portion of the talk begins at the 47 minute mark in the video above. Read more…
The image above is one-hundred percent fake. It has no connection whatsoever to the world of things. I created the bolts, lights, textures, and everything else in a free, open-source, relatively easy-to-use software package called Blender. It’s easy enough that even a novice user like me is able to make a pretty convincing image. If you are a photographer that makes a living shooting still-life photos, this should scare you. Read more…
Google’s Project Glass has been all the rage since the company released their mock-ups and video of the project at the beginning of the month, and for good reason — the idea is out-of-this-world cool. But from the start we’ve known that Project Glass was only in the beginning stages, the glasses were an idea that couldn’t yet do many, if any, of the things featured in that futuristic video. A couple of days ago, however, the world got its first glimpse of what Project Glass can do.
In an interview with Charlie Rose, researcher Sebastian Thrun used the glasses and his voice to snap a photo of Mr. Rose and upload it to his Google+. The photo (shown above) is nothing special — it looks like an ancient camera phone image — but it serves as confirmation that the glasses can already perform a few basic functions via voice command. And considering the speed with which technology advances these days, any indication of functionality could mean Project Glass is much further along than we think.
If Google’s vision of the future pans out, we may soon be snapping and sharing photographs using augmented reality “glasses”. The company is working on a product that’s currently going by the code name “Project Glass“. As the concept video above shows, the aim is to have a wearable “computer” that can project useful information about the world directly into the user’s eye, allowing people to constantly interact with the Internet throughout their everyday lives. The glasses would even be able to snap photographs based on voice commands, and then instantly upload them to the web. Read more…
Last November we featured a concept camera called Air that is worn on your fingers and snaps photographs when you frame scenes with your fingers. That concept may soon become a reality. Researchers at IAMAS in Japan have developed a tiny camera called Ubi-Camera that captures photos as you position your fingers in the shape of a frame. The shutter button is triggered with your opposite hand’s thumb, and the “zoom” level is determined by how far the camera is from the photographer’s face. Expect these cameras to land on store shelves at about the same time as the gesture-controlled computers from Minority Report.
Imagine a world in which cameras are as connected to the web as cell phones and purchased with contracts from wireless service providers such as AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint. That world may not be too far off. Last week we reported that both Samsung and Panasonic are considering Android-powered cameras that would offer third-party apps and many of the same things offered by mobile phones.
Samsung officials were also quoted as saying that “in a year or two cameras will have the same processing power and memory as smartphones,” and that, “once the cloud computing era truly dawns, a non-connected device will be meaningless. In that case, the camera will need real-time connectivity, and [carriers] are looking for devices like this.”
Back in January, Polaroid unveiled its SC1630 Smart Camera that’s powered with Google’s Android operating system. Now, more manufacturers may be gearing up to have the popular smartphone OS built into their cameras: Samsung and Panasonic are both reportedly exploring this idea. Regarding what this means for consumers, Engadget writes,
It could be a major breakthrough from a usability standpoint, opening up the in-camera ecosystem to third-party developers. We could see Twitter and Facebook apps that let you not only publish your photos directly with a familiar interface, but also see photos shared by your friends. A capacitive touchscreen would let you type in comments directly as well. You could publish to web-based services, utilize apps that enable post-capture creativity or receive firmware updates directly over WiFi. That hotshoe or USB port could accommodate a variety of different accessories, like a microphone or 4G modem that could be used with several models, including those from other manufacturers.
One potential downside to having an Android-powered camera may be stability — imagine having to regularly reboot your frozen camera.
Adobe is getting serious about making Photoshop a serious tool for editing video. The sample video above was made entirely using an upcoming version of the program. Regarding why this is being added into Photoshop rather than left to Premiere Pro, product manager Bryan O’Neil Hughes states,
Video is now being generated by photographers… everyone really; the 5D Mk. II really kicked it off on the DSLR, but since then we’ve seen just about every DSLR, point and shoot and PHONE generate video… most of it HD! We did several waves of research and regularly heard, “I want Photoshop for video”; “I need a workflow I understand” and for the people who had seen what we introduced in CS3 Extended – “make that easier to use.” Video is being generated by more people than ever before; it’s being shared more places than ever… and yet people are hitting a wall with what they can do with it! They know and love Photoshop… their stills are already passing through it, the fit is more natural than it sounds at first.
You’ll soon be able to do to video just about anything do with stills: filters, adjustments, etc…
