2011-02-04
post/3107579379
Google Art Project: Behind the Scenes at the Tate’s blog (via Robin Ray):
The version of Street View technology used in the galleries involved an extremely high tech and rather silly-looking trolley. It was to be pushed around the rooms at a particular speed and on a peculiar route, and seemed to me to be a marvellous combination of garden-shed and cutting-edge.
2010-12-26
post/2470746743
Before and after shots from Lisa Bettany’s write-up of how the “highly saturated” picture of the rainbow over the Bay Bridge that’s “taking a few leniences with reality” was processed.
Or: “a masterclass into how to gussy up your photo for Explore”.
2010-09-07
post/1082109365
An advert for the Olympus Trip 35 (Wikipedia, Camerapedia, Ken Rockwell). I recently bought one of these at the flea market in Mauerpark (probably paying slightly over the odds) and having run a film through it, it’s working pretty well. Uploads to Flickr soon.
(Source: youtube.com)
2010-06-28
post/745026198
“Like most Nikons, the iPhone 4 tends toward slight over-exposure and over-saturation. Picky pros might find it objectionable, as sometimes highlights or large areas of bright colors lose all detail, but this type of rendering is what an average consumer would say really ‘pops.’”
Jacqui Cheng and Chris Foresman, in iPhone 4: the Ars Technica review.
post/745016484
“The colors pop. Pleasantly, but almost unnaturally, super saturated and contrasty, the kind of processing I love in Nikons, taken to the extreme. That’s the iPhone 4’s secret sauce. Color and contrast. Apple’s not going for accuracy, they’re going for your eyeballs.”
Matt Buchanan & Woody Allen Jang, in Test Notes: iPhone 4 Camera for Gizmodo.
2010-03-21
TSA Screening and Photo Equipment
With the amount of equipment that I pack into my Think Thank Airport International, I’m a regular candidate for a bag check at airport security checkpoints. Two camera bodies, four or five lenses, batteries, and all the miscellaneous stuff makes for a dense bag. I’ve noticed, however, that there’s been an almost perceptible pattern to the airports where this occurs the most.
(Cutting a story shorter…)
Today at SLC, my bag was pulled after the squint. The TSA agent that did the secondary inspection—the bomb swab—mentioned they had pulled it because they couldn’t see through the lenses that were standing on end as the bag went through the machine. Apparently, when on end, all the layers of coated specialized glass appear totally opaque to the scan. But, if the lens is laying on its side, it’s just fine.
My brain chewed on that for a second, thinking about how I could pack my bag so that my lenses were all in the same orientation. It failed. Long lenses travel best laying down. Short lenses go best standing up. Fail. Then, after thinking quickly that scanning from one angle had to be an easily fixable bug, I blurted out, “Well, in that case, it’d be nice if you could see through the bag from two directions at once.”
“Oh, we have machines that do that,” replied the agent, “but this particular one doesn’t. You see how it only has one screen? That means it’s only scanning from the top. If you see a machine with two screens, like that one over there, it means they’re scanning from the top and the side and showing the agent both views at once. Next time, you should look for the line that has a machine with two screens. It might save you a bit of time.”
Ah ha! I’ll be doing that from now on.
2009-12-14
post/283706557
2009-08-31
post/176165766
‘How to use your Brownie Flash III camera’
I could do with this manual.
