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HyperDrive Album

For the last few years, I have been strongly recommending the Sanho disk-based photo viewers and portable memory, to empty your Flash cards into a big portable disk drive. Visibly, they have a very powerful technology which leads to features like:

• Extremely fast copying from card to hard disk drive
• Superb autonomy
• Compatibility with many card formats

Now, Sanho is launching a new product (or product series), the HyperDrive Album, and it boasts pretty nice and precise cons:

• 2GB per minute downloading, with full data verification
• 640GB configuration for $599.00 (or 160GB for $349.00 and any other intermediates)
• 4.8-inch display (800 x 480 resolution)
• 200GB of transfers between battery charges
• Compatibility with the new SDXC card format (and all other common ones)

Go and buy it at HyperShop.com.

Hyperdrive Album

GIMP is an excellent image edition software which could (should?) attract all those who do not want to pay the full price of Photoshop, while they work with Apple, Windows or Linux. the differences are real, but the most obvious one is certainly the interface (and Adobe clearly did a nice work on it). So, why not try to prep up your GIMP to make it look like a near-clone of Photoshop?

photo credit: See-ming Lee ��明 SML

Blair Mathis decided to reduce the distance between them by the installation of several plugins on GIMP. And the result is astonishingly interesting. All the more because the process is fully documented step-by-step, which makes it little more than a longer software installation.

1. PSPI
2. Layers
3. Separate+ from Yellowmagic
4. Liquid Rescale from Wikidot (for an image rescale without deformation as in CS4)
5. Additional brushes from Blendfu
6. GIMP Animation Package
7. Enable GEGL

But if this is not enough, there are also a few hacked versions of GIMP that have been already prepared for the Photoshop lovers. The most renowned are:

• GimpShop whose interface is specially good
• GimPhoto is slightly less convincing but is based on a more recent (and more powerful) GIMP version

Once again, here is how you can (nearly) download Photoshop for free, while being well on the right side of law.

Aviary, one of the best online graphics edition software, just changed its pricing model. Instead of the subscriptions previously used, they went for a new price structure: 100% free. Supported by new financial partners, they offer their tools for free. Impressive free tool suite.

The announcement on the Aviary blog.

It’s been a long time since the first complaint of some photographers using the iPhone about the lack of external memory storage on the Apple top-of-the-line phone. There certainly are good reasons from Apple (Ed.: which ones?) but the need is still there. And, in our economy, when there is a need, there is somebody to provide an answer in the form of a product.

Here comes Zoomit, which brings an extension card reader to your iPhone and iPod, with SD Flash card compatibility.

Source: Engadget.

In most case, long-distance trigger are very limited (by wire length, by price, etc.) This is why some people decide to go DIY. They build their own radio trigger. Here is exactly what DIYPhotography describes us from a concept developed by Marco Jetti.

Photography is an art that needs to be learned. Like the Jedi knights of Star Wars, you need to go through a long learning phase and you may become a true Master.

However, this goes through respect for the rules of the photo Jedi.

1. Learn, Young Padawan

A photo Jedi is not taught, he has to keep learning. He has to keep his eye open for the wisdom of older knights, famous photographers. Always come back to the old masters, search and analyze their pictures for what makes them great. You have to acquire an internal feeling for what will make your photos great.

At first, the photo Padawan is only able to watch and fail. But hard work here will open the path to Jedi knighthood.

photo credit: turoczy

2. Do or do not. There is no try

Don’t try to be a good photographer. Become a good photographer.

The Jedi photographer is all about creating great pictures. The master Jedi photographer has recognized that he must be really willing to be one.

If the photo is not as perfect as you want it to be, shoot again. Now!

If the subject is not there when you want it, come back later to shoot it right.

If the light is not the right one, don’t shoot a mediocre picture, wait for the best light.

3. Beware the dark side

Where the Force is, the dark side is too.
Where the light is, the darkness is too.

Of course, you want to ensure that the dark areas of your digital photographs are well exposed and you should learn how to use the histogram and the blinking areas showing underexposed (and overexposed) of your picture on the LCD of the photo camera.

But also, don’t fear the other photographers. There is no competition. Each photo Jedi has his own path. The photo masters are not there for you to feel small and incompetent. They show what can be done with patience. And, don’t shout if you don’t become a photo Jedi master overnight.

Don’t anger when people criticize your pictures. Learn to hear why they dislike your images. Even better, go and show your photos. Ask for the feedback from other photograph Jedi knights in order to learn even more.

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You just dropped your photo camera or a lens in water; What can you do now if it was not weather-sealed or water-tight?

The first thing to do is to remove all electrical power source. Electricity does ugly things to metal and electronics. So, start by removing the batteries right now. You may be able to dry them separately, but you’d better be ready to buy new ones (the heavy humidity may damage them too much even if they survive).

Riz long grain - Copyright © 2007 David Monniaux

Next, you need to dry the camera. As soon as possible. First, use sponge, them some absorbing paper (possibly toilet paper, you will find it nearly everywhere in the world). Try to shake the camera a little, but not too much (you don’t want to drop your camera in the water again!)

After that, a little heat will help. Water will evaporate more easily with warm temperature in a dry air. Avoid at all costs to leave the photo camera on whatever heating system you may find. But a few hours in a warm room will help…

But this will probably not be enough. The finishing touch will be to dip your camera into a bag of rice. This is about the same tip as the one used for the salt in your kitchen or on your table: a little white rice will capture the humidity from the salt crystals and leave it dry. Put your camera in an uncooked rice bag for a week; This may not be very elegant, but it will be do the job for a very little cost.

Only then will you try to insert a battery again. You are never sure that it will work, but all these steps will have tremendously improved the odds.

I am not 100% sure that 3D photography will be a real hit soon (while 3D TV and 3D cinema coul well be), but it is fairly certain there is a need for some support when starting to use it. The photogrpahers willing to wet their toes in this new etchnology will apperciate to find a new web site all about 3D photography:

Start 3D

Here, you will find advice and a place to share the products of yuor tests and trials.

Assuredly, Samsung decided to shake the market of mirror-less SLR (how can we name these cameras?) since the official launch of the Samsung NX-10.

Samsung new web site

They open a new Korean web site at http://www.samsungimaging.co.kr/ which is -for now- dedicated to the NX-10 but which will certainly be the spearhead of the 2010-2011 marketing efforts around the new NX series. It should support Samsung’s strike to become a major actor of the mid-range SLR cameras (what could not be achieved even in the partnership with Pentax).

But they also announce us relatively bad news: The NX10 will not be available on camera shop shelves before March 2010 (in the US and in Europe). We will all have to be patient waiting to the opportunity to get access to this camera which intend to shake up too-well-established categories of the SLR market.

Studio photography is clearly a real specialty and I don’t hide my admiration for those photographers able to master its difficult techniques.

I recently found three demonstrations of what may be a beautiful studio lighting, along with dense explanations and welcome details.

• Anatomy of a photo: Balvenie Scotch
• Professional Studio Lighting – Playing with Mirrors by Peter Kirring
• One simple photo of glasses, by Scott Kelby: from the studio shot to Photoshop.

But, if this is not enough and that yo want to dig deeper into the studio lighting technique, I recommend you start a browser window on Strobist’s Lighting 102 (Introduction). An exceptional source of information.

After that, we only have to try and apply these advices and these examples. Can you reproduce these studio flash lightings?

Pendant la session d’ouverture des Nations Unies en septembre dernier à New York, Platon, photographe pour le New Yorker et connu pour quelques portraits réussis de Poutine par exemple, a installé un studio dans l’immeuble des Nations Unis pour y photographier les grands de ce monde qui passaient là.

Click to reach the slide show

Il a maintenant rassemblé ces photographies dans un diaporama où vous pouvez apprendre bien des choses sur cet exercice et sur les “puissants” en question.

Source New Yorker.

We were previously speaking here of backing up your photos, only a month ago. Here is a serious hard disk drive designed for this task:The ioSafe Solo fireproof and waterproof hard drive line with 2TB.

IoSafe Solo

Not really cheap at 400$ for 2 tera-bytes, and only a USB 2.0 connection, but it looks sturdy.

Do not forget the next Wildlife Festival in Montier-en-Der, from November 19 to 22, 2009.

Even before Photoshop was available, some photographers tried to improve their photos. Sometimes, it was to clean little blemishes, but it could go to quite significant upgrades: removing somebody form a group portrait (like with chairman Mao, below), putting a better body under the head of VIP, etc.

This guy is no longer welcome here!

Source: NY Times.

When you want to go cheap, you’d better be able to build your own devices. For most photographers, a tilt-shit lens is often too expensive for something that you’ll nearly never use. So, why not build your own tilt-shift lens from cheap plumbing parts?

Bhautik Joshi did exactly that. $10 for the whole project, including the lens mount, plus a manual focus lens (less than $50 on will open the doors to architecture and special effects only available to tilt-shift. If you accept quality limited by your ability with tools and crafts.

To follow up on a previous post, here are the ugliest photo cameras I could find (with the very active assistance of The Online Photographer, I have to admit):

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Christine Berrie is a pencil artist whose work can be astonishing. If you are in vintage cameras, you’ll probably love her vintage camera poster.

Copyright (C) Christine Berrie

And you can buy the poster at Etsy.