In addition to the Photoshop CC and Camera RAW announcements, the Adobe XD team also debuted something entirely different at the MAX conference: the company’s first shot at hardware. Coming in the form of a pressure-sensitive stylus and digital ruler, the two accessories are meant to take the creative brainstorming experience and shift it from pen-and-paper to pen-and-tablet.
In the video preview above, Adobe’s VP of Product Experience, Michael Gough, introduces the two products — code named “Mighty” and “Napoleon” — and walks you though the experience of using them. Read more…
Here’s a dissection video for those of you who like photography better than biology. It’s a Khan Academy lesson that offers a glimpse into how digital cameras work on the inside. The camera being dissected is a Vivitar V25, a 2.1 megapixel camera that you can pick up for around $18 from places like Walmart. Although it’s basically the digital equivalent of a disposable camera, the camera still shares some things in common with higher-end digital cameras. You might be able to learn an interesting thing or two about how your own camera works. Read more…
If you thought the design and hardware specs of Canon’s upcoming 4K-capable 1D C are strangely similar to the company’s flagship 1D X, you’re right: the two models feature identical hardware loaded with different firmware. At Photokina 2012, DSLR filmmaking blog EOSHD spoke to Canon representatives, who confirmed this fact to be true. They write,
The 1D C is a 1D X with a 4K firmware update. Canon’s man told me that the only hardware change was to do with the flash sync jack [...] So essentially the 1D X hardware – sensor, processor, everything – is capable of 4K video, 100%, no heat or bandwidth issues either.
What’s crazy is how much the difference in firmware affects the camera’s price. With a suggested retail price of $15,000, the 1D C more than doubles the 1D X’s price tag of $6,800. Read more…
When learning about ISO, you’ve probably heard that the lower the number, the lower the noise and the higher the image quality, but did you know that this isn’t always the case? The reason is something called the base (or native) ISO of a camera — the ISO achieved without amplifying the data from the sensor. This is usually somewhere between ISO 100 and ISO 200. Why does this matter? Bob Andersson of Camera Labs explains:
We all know that using high ISO numbers results in more sensor noise. More surprising, perhaps, is that using an ISO number below the native ISO number also degrades the image.
An interesting example is that when shooting on a Canon EOS 1Ds MkII, ISO 50 has roughly the same signal to noise ratio as shooting at ISO 800. This explains why the lowest possible ISO numbers can only be accessed through custom functions on some cameras.
If you’ve ever wanted to know what the guts of a Nikon D5100 look like, iFixit just published a meticulously documented teardown of the camera. Aside from pointing out the various parts found in the body, an interesting conclusion the iFixit team came to was that the D5100 has a horrible “Repairability Score” of 2/10, where 10 is easiest to repair. The reason? “Approximately 4 billion screws hold the device together” (They’re exaggerating, of course). Read more…
Photoshop is a pretty resource intensive program that can slow down to a crawl when you’re working with large and/or many files. Aside from beefing up your hardware specs to provide the program with more memory or disk space, there’s also a number of Photoshop and operating system preferences you can adjust to make sure the program runs as smoothly and quickly as possible. The Photoshop performance team recently published a helpful guide with 19 adjustments you can make, which range from optimizing cache level to turning off thumbnail display.
It was only at the beginning of the year that the megapixel race for cell phone cameras hit 14.6 megapixels, but now Sony has unveiled a 16.41 back-illuminated CMOS sensor that can shoot 15 frames per second at full resolution, and is capable of HD video recording (30fps at 1080p and 60fps at 720p). Read more…
An interesting story that popped up a couple days ago is that Sony is planning to outsource some of their CMOS sensor production to Fujitsu in an attempt to reduce production costs. Sony is currently the 6th largest maker of CMOS sensors, with an output of 16,000 sensors a month. Fujitsu will be taking some of the load off Sony’s hands, producing “several thousand” per month. Finalizing the sensors requires proprietary technology, and will still be done behind closed doors in Sony’s facilities.
This is an interesting development that is relevant not just to Sony digital camera users, but possibly to Nikon camera owners as well. Nikon has had a long history of designing their own sensors but having Sony manufacture them. The origins of current Nikon DSLR sensors is an oft-discussed topic in online forums, through Nikon has officially confirmed their use of Sony sensors in the past (e.g. the D3X).
