Technology

In the recent days, I saw a bit of information reproduced on many different photo-related web sites. Initially, I did not intend to write about it, but I am finally changing my mind to comment not the news, but the way it is reported.

The news: OmniVision announced a 1/4″ digital photo sensor with 5 mega-pixel resolution. Its reason for fame: It will allow to shoot RAW files even in mobile phones. But, why, oh! why is it such a news?

The reality: No cheap photo camera, like found in the mobile phones, produces anything else than a JPEG file (no RAW).

As a matter of fact, we should notice something: This reality does not come from the limits of the sensor but from the explicit will of the camera manufacturer to integrate the direct production of a very usable file format for users who are not very well technologically endowed. So, one the one hand, marketing does not need RAW files, one the other hand the sensor providers must sell a full-fledged solution including a sensor and chips for automatic JPEG production. Some people, like DxO-Labs, well known for their image management software (clearly aiming at the high-end of photo imaging), are also (more discreet) suppliers of electronic solutions to produce easily JPEG pictures, well cleaned of their noise, a bit improved, and ready to use.

So, where does OmniVision stand? They do not have a full solution and they publish a press release that will turn their weakness of not having the right tools for their market into its exact opposite; But, for that, they had to ignore the reality that RAW is not needed in the mobile phone market. So, the Marketing Department of OmniVision managed a good PR communication: Have many people speak/write about their slightly limited product on “high-end” blogs and web sites, giving it a visibility which goes much farther than the intrinsic qualities of the product.

Kudos to OmniVision, but not to all those who wrote about it without questioning the PR first. They should have asked: “Why a 10-bit RAW in a 5 MP sensor?”

One of the most moderated articles: Photography Blog.

The video has just been updated (it was removed by the user for some short time).

In composition, it is often considered that putting objects of interest on the key attention points helps build more powerful images. Daniel Cohen-Or and Lior Wolf at Tel-Aviv University, Israel, with colleagues at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, created a software program that automatically re-organizes photos to make them more powerful, more pleasing.

Is this to announce one of the following:

1. The picture police?
2. A new powerful feature in Photoshop CS5 and other picture edit tools?

Sunshine is a Danny Boyle movie from 2007 which scenrizes the crew of a space ship sent to save a dying sun. The American Cinematographer offers us a long interview with Alwin Küchler who designed the shooting and the light of this film. Even (or preferably) for a studio photographer, it will be quite interesting to understnad the way light, color and their relative organization were used to sustain the psychological intensity of the movie.

Read it.

Via Strobist.

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.

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.

During years we have been worried because people seemed only interested in getting more Mega-Pixels (MP) out of the new photo cameras (or camera feature sheets). It has been repeated often enough that this single quantity is not a good measure of camera performance. It was, when cameras had so few pixels (less than 3-5 MP) that picture quality was linked first to number of pixels, then to other parameters.

Since 2009, we can consider that the race for more pixels is over. All camera manufacturers decided more or less to go easy on resolution: Over 12-15 MP, you can easily print an A4 or Letter-size print in top quality. Most photographers will never need more. So, why go over 20 MP?

Most manufacturers followed the lead of Olympus and Nikon trying to enlarge the pixels in order to ensure they collect more light and this leads to a higher level of sensitivity as measured by the ISO standard. This is good, because this means that our pictures are going to be better and better, not only uselessly finer and finer. Moreover, maximum ISO sensitivity becomes a relatively good proxy for image quality.

However, there is a slippery slope here. It has already been observed in some Point-and-Shoot compact photo cameras: A manufacturer may be tempted to push a maximum ISO level to ridiculously stratospheric altitudes. It’s not only because you P&S camera can do ISO 1600, that its pictures are still usable (noise cancellation algorithms may be so energetic that most of the details are blurred in the process).

Usually, in the D-SLR market we do not see this happening too often, but there is a risk. With Canon and Nikon leading the race with (pro) cameras over ISO 100,000, we already see figures that are amazingly high and images that are already quite bad (for a pro).

Don’t get me wrong! I’m quite happy to see that technology will soon be allowing us to shoot pictures in darkness without using a flash. But those two very serious camera manufacturers have obviously been racing to reach an ISO landmark. Some others, maybe less able, will reach it not only with barely usable photos, but with really unacceptable pictures. Then, it would become a fruitless race again, with figures creeping into the fact sheets and a real-life comparison will be ever more critical.

For me, the Canon EOS 1D Mk IV and Nikon D3s are useful because they produce absolutely great photos at ISO 32,800, not just because they can collect a barely informational document at ISO 102,400. Let’s be attentive with the present products from Canon and Nikon and the future cameras from all the photo camera manufacturers.

We should still be photographers and not just number-seeking blind consumers. I hope we are.

In the “It had to happen” Department, here is a little bit on information: Canon has submitted a patent application for what looks like a touch screen Man-Machine Interface for a DSLR camera. Of course, this is not exactly new technology (it’s everywhere from point-and-shoot cameras to mobile phones) but a patent from Canon probably means that they are very serious about it in the near future.

Source: US Patent Application No. 12/422,695 via Photography Bay via Engadget.

When seeing the DIY tilt-shift lens described here a few weeks ago, Ted, one of our most active commenters, mentioned that he had done about the same for a DIY high-quality slide duplicator.

Here is how he described his craft to me:

As I did not want to put my hard-earned money in a new one, I bought a full frame slide duplicator on eBay for 5€. Since my camera is an APS, the lens was too far from the rear mount, the slide mount was too close to the lens. Moving the lens closer to the rear mount was easy (just had to reverse-mount the lens internally, check the diagram below), but the slide mount was still too close to the lens and out of focus. So I torn the slide mount apart, and added a small PVC pipe to lengthen the distance between the lens and the mount. As the PVC pipe diameter did not exactly match the original design and was a bit loose, I secured it with a metal clamp. This allowed some added flexibility to perfectly adjust the focus.

Since then I digitized more than 4000 old slides from the 60s, and I’m perfectly happy with it.

Click on the thumbnails to enlarge them

All Digital SLR cameras look a like because it’s a tried design solution. But what about other forms and patterns? Erin Fong is trying to offer something completely different with this Nova camera concept.

Innovative, for sure.

From designer Erin Fong.

If you don’t know, you may be interested in this video from Canon.

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.

totally on the opposite side from the use of an SLR camera with a specialized lens, here is an article offering to use the lens stolen from a dead DVD player to transform a mobile phone into a ultra-micrographic photo camera. Apparently, the harder part is to attach the lens to the phone. But then, if you forget a little the intense vignetting, here is a photo camera of astounding capacity.

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.

Did you already see an SLR camera operating in slow motion? The video here will show you the steps -normally invisible to the naked eye- that are splitting the shutter operation in individual stages:

1. mirror going up,
2. shutter uncovering the sensor,
3. nearly immediately, shutter covering it again (the image is now “in the box”),
4. mirror falling down too.

To make it simpler than it really may be, you can expect that the next Sony Alpha 950 (probable name of the successor to the Sony Alpha 900, improved in the beginning of 2010) will have no less than 32 mega-pixels.

Even for a Full Frame sensor, this is a lot of pixels. But this is what can be obtained from using the newest photo sensor that Sony just revealed: 34.8 MP for the Super HAD CCD II.

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