Photography

Posted by Philip Northeast

KODAK CCD Image Sensors capture images enabling the orbiter in one of its primary mission objectives – the collection of a full Martian year of weather data for the planet – and has already mapped over one-third of the planet’s entire surface.

Since its launch on August 12, 2005, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s has searched for evidence of water on the surface of Mars by closely scanning the surface of the planet, analyzing minerals, searching for subsurface water, observing dust and water patterns in the atmosphere, and monitoring daily weather.

“Kodak is extremely proud to be part of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter,” said Michael Miller, manager of Kodak’s CCD Image Sensor Business. “We congratulate the entire MRO team, and especially Malin Space Science Systems, on reaching these milestones in their continued quest to unlock the secrets of Mars.”

The orbiter uses KODAK Image Sensors in two key components, the Mars Color Imager that provides daily weather reports for the planet, and the Context Camera, which captures wide-area views of the surface to help provide a context for high-resolution analysis of key locations on the planet.

The Mars Color Imager (MARCI), is a camera monitoring the surface and atmosphere of the planet across five visible and two ultraviolet wavelengths. This camera is based on the KODAK KAI-1001 Image Sensor, a one-megapixel device providing high sensitivity and high dynamic range.

The orbiter’s Context Camera (CTX) is based on the KODAK KLI-5001 Image Sensor, a 5,000-pixel linear CCD device that scans the surface of the planet as the orbiter passes overhead. Providing a resolution of six meters per pixel Kodak claim this allows features the size of a large pick-up truck to be detected, although to date no trucks have been found.

Posted by Philip Northeast

A story, accompanied by pictures, revealed some unusual antics involving Mosley and a group of young women. Mosley argued it was a private affair and he is not a public figure so the publication of the story and photos were an unwarranted invasion of his privacy.

The News of the World argued it had a right, even a duty to expose the peccadillos of the rich and powerful as it is in the public interest. In this context, the term public interest is not the same as curiosity about the latest gossip, rather it relates to the public good. One of the basic tenants of a democracy is the public making informed decisions about people and policy. This formed on of the planks of the News of the World’s defense, as Mosley is an elected official and they claimed the story addressed his character and fitness to hold his position as head of the Federation International Automobile.

The High Court disagreed and ruled there was not sufficient public interest in revealing this part of Mosley’s private life. As Pierre Trudeau once said, “there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." Perhaps this goes for the News of the World as well.

Privacy in Public Places

The High Court ruling does not affect the current basic freedom of expression where photographers can captures images of things in the public view. While the paranoid may choose to believe in the existence of the mythical right to privacy whenever they see a camera, it is just that an urban myth. The essential foundation of the Mosley case is that the pictures were taken in a private place hidden from public view.

Posted by Philip Northeast

One of the side effects of Photoshop on photography is that digital images lack the necessary guaranteed original document status for professional uses such as police investigations and court testimony. Film negatives carry much more weight as proof than does a digital image file. Film is rapidly becoming obsolete, driving demand for a solution suitable for today's digital devices. But conventional rewritable memory cards do not meet legal requirements to prevent data tampering.

SanDisk are launching their SD WORM Card, a Write Once Read Many (WORM) digital memory card to fill this gap. A digital image recorded on a SanDisk SD WORM cards is effectively locked as soon as it is recorded; there is no physical way to alter or delete individual recorded files. Yet viewing the data is simple, as the cards are readable in any standard SD slot attached to a computer or other SD-compatible device.

"As digital media volume has grown and surpassed traditional analog media such as film and audio cassettes in the consumer market, law enforcement agencies and other professionals are facing rising costs and lack of supply," said Christopher Moore, director of product marketing for OEM memory cards at SanDisk. "SanDisk's new SD WORM cards offer professionals a one-stop solution for capturing and archiving critical data, along with many other benefits of moving from analog to digital."

SanDisk say the cards will safely store data for at least 100-years based on reliability data from internal accelerated lifespan testing for cards stored at normal room temperature, with humidity and static protection.

This still does not address the question of the usefulness of ordinary digital images. Most photographers will still use rewritable SD cards, making digital images of an unexpected event still less authoritative than film or WORM images.

Posted by Philip Northeast

The Police returned Bill Henson’s works to the gallery and decide not to charge the photographer over the images of children. They had better things to do as a nationwide swoop netted scores of computers, allegedly containing images classified as child abuse.

This highlights the underlying problem, much of it only recently coming to light. Another symptom is the planned demonstration during the Pope’s upcoming visit to Australia over the allegations that local Cardinal Pell tried to cover up incidences of child abuse within the Catholic Church. Into this contentious environment, Art Monthly magazine decides to promote the public display of images of naked children as a protest against the treatment of Henson.

This is just adds to difficulties facing photographers, already targeted as scapegoats for the failures of security and intelligence organizations over the fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq and terrorist attacks inspired by Afghanistan based al-Qaida all around the world, most notably the destruction of the World Trade Center.

In an effort to give the impression of doing something photographers openly and very visibly practicing their art are being harassed and demonized by government messages warning of terrorist threats.

The increasing public awareness of the prevalence of child abuse, mainly in religious and government organizations has created an atmosphere of fear and paranoia over publicly photographing children. This has degenerated in to the ridiculous situation of cases where parents are prevented from photographing their own children playing sport or performing on stage, creating a generation with lost childhood memories.

Photographers do not need someone reinforcing the myth that serious photographers are a bunch of perverts, or terrorists, mainly interested in naked children. The genre of candid street photography practiced by Henri Cartier–Bresson and many others is under threat.

Posted by Philip Northeast

The original film Pentax 645 series earned a place in the camera bags of professional photographers with the normal Pentax attributes of providing quality images at a reasonable price. They were the obvious choice for professionals seeking to enter market segments where image quality is critical.

Browsing Michael Reichmann’s experiences with the new Phase One 645 medium format digital camera focused my attention on the state of that camera market. With a rush of new medium format cameras is the market overheated or, is it a sign of professionals once again seeking the extra quality of larger format cameras. This extra quality could be the deal clincher when pitching for assignments against photographers using 35mm based DSLRs.

Of course Pentax had plans to enter this market some time ago, and even paraded a prototype 645D around the trade shows, but it never reached the market. Some say the Kodak sensor in the prototype may have been partly to blame for the 645D’s demise.

With new management from Hoya and a better long term arrangement with Samsung for sensors may breathe new life into the 645D project. Samsung proved their capabilities with the class leading sensor for the Pentax K20D. If they wanted to Samsung could produce an equally stunning medium format sized sensor. Dust off the old prototypes; fit a new sensor and Samsung electronics and Pentax are back in the serious professional market.

The original design for the Pentax 645D continued the Pentax digital philosophy of backward lens compatibility. This is marketing common sense as there are plenty of professionals with Pentax medium format cameras and lenses gathering dust. If Pentax produces a new medium format digital body this is an easy upgrade path for those professionals who moved to 35mm based DSLRs when they went digital.

Posted by Philip Northeast

Given a palette of colors, I take some time picking good colors, especially those that will work as foreground and backgrounds on a web page. What does this have to do with photography? Well I found a good color combination looking at other color schemes on the net. As soon as I saw the site, I knew these were the colors.

Now painter needs to able to create colors as they work. One of their basic tasks is mixing selections of paints to produce the right colors to represent their view of the world. As a photographer, I have trouble visualizing how to achieve good colors from samples. I tend to spend time with trial and error testing hoping to achieve the desired result.

However, when I see a good color combination I know it. This I think represents one of the differences between photography and painting. Photography as we know it developed from the desire of an Englishman, Fox, to be able to produce images for his scientific papers. Fox had little skill in producing accurate drawings of objects. So, he started developing a photographic process where he could capture and make printed copies of images.

One of the skills, and joys of photography, is viewing the world through an imaginary viewfinder and recognizing the possibilities. This is the similar to the artist’s view of seeing beyond the obvious and being aware of all aspects of the world around us.

A real photographer is always mentally looking at the ever changing interplay of light and angles, looking to bring out those telling details in even the most familiar and mundane surroundings.

Posted by Philip Northeast

Canon has updated one of their excellent hot shoe flash units and it is now the Speedlite 430EX II. Canon says the main changes have been improvements to recycling time with a 20% reduction. Recycling is the time it takes to recharge the flash unit so it is ready for the next shot. So when the action is fast, the updated Speedlite 430 EX II will reduce the number of missed shots.

As part of the revision of the recycling operation Canon say they have also made the Speedlite 430 EX II quieter, reducing the high pitched whine heard in some flash units.

While at first not obviously for photographers, Canon have released two new multimedia projectors featuring a new top-of-the-line REALiS WUX10. This is the world's first WUXGA-resolution (1920 x 1200) widescreen Multimedia Projector using LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) technology. Offering the highest resolution in the Canon projector range the WUX10 provides precise color reproduction and exceptional image quality.

The REALiS WUX10 is a solution for the increasing number of photographers seeking ways of publicly displaying their work. Teamed with a laptop and appropriate software large size high quality slide shows are now simple. This harks back to the days of film transparencies, or slides.

Finally Canon in Europe yesterday announced its latest DSLR the 1000D, with Canon claiming it represents a more affordable entry point to the world of their EOS cameras.

“The EOS 1000D is a small camera with a big idea: the supreme adaptability and image quality of the EOS system, in an accessible, affordable package,” said Mogens Jensen, Head of Canon Consumer Imaging Europe.

The EOS 1000D joins an increasingly crowded Canon Rebel line up leaving potential buyers searching for searching for differences and wondering why?

Posted by Philip Northeast

Normally people with photographic collections of naked adolescents may have broken laws regarding the sexual exploitation of children. This is the basis of the police action in this case.

A number of high profile people, including Cate Blanchett, have leapt photographer Bill Henson’s defense claiming the work is not child pornography because some respected critics and curators say so, and likens the action to artistic censorship. Malcolm Turnbull, a politician with aspirations to one-day lead Australia, said police should not be tramping through art galleries.

There is no doubt Henson is a serious and accomplished photographic artist. Henson has exhibited his work in Europe and America and some of his other works are on display here.

The question really is not on the artistic merits of the works, but how far can you go justifying actions on the pretext it is art. If Henson is allowed to circumvent the law does this create an ugly legal precedent where people primarily interested in the sexual exploitation of the young can claim immunity “because it is art.”

Henson probably had consent from the models and their parents or legal guardians. However, the laws were set up to protect the innocent and the vulnerable that may not be properly make an informed decision about posing for a well-known photographer.

For example, the recent fuss over Miley Cyrus in a Vanity Fair shoot with Annie Leibovitz covered by a sheet showing only her naked back also raising the issue of informed consent.

One of the roles of art is to question established truths and dogmas. This Henson exhibition is objectionable, not because it shows naked people, but because it could open the door to the sexual exploitation of children. Fine art adult nudes are a well-respected and long running photographic genre.

Posted by Philip Northeast

There is an emerging trend of photographers graduating from the Point & Shoot scene preferring to use the LCD screen, instead of the optical viewfinder. This also involves the two-handed extended arm stance, rather than the normal technique of holding the camera up to the photographer’s head.

Many have no idea how good the optical viewfinder is on DSLRs, especially for critically focus adjustments. The newbies rely solely on autofocus systems or fixed focus lenses. Most camera LCD screens really do not have the resolution for fine focus adjustments required in manual focusing.

The Live View feature now starting to appear on top end DSLRs is useful when using the camera mounted on a tripod. It offers an excellent view of the image for critical composition adjustments; it allows a relaxed consideration of the scene through the lens.

The viewfinder technique also helps brace the camera, minimizing camera shake. It is possible to brace the arms against the body as well as steadying the camera with your forehead. While DSLR cameras are now embracing shake reduction systems, it is better to hold the camera as still as possible and use the shake reduction to gain extra sharpness in the image.

The resolution of DSLRs will show these differences, where as the poorer image quality of the P&S camera’s will mask some of the deficiencies in a photographer’s technique.

The differences between the two types of cameras really becomes apparent when using long lenses or operating controls and zooming at the same time. One significant difference is the extra weight of the DSLR, and particularly quality lenses. Try holding a pro style body with a battery grip and equipped with even a moderate telephoto zoom for any length of time.

Posted by Philip Northeast

Amazon already had been selling some GE-branded cameras but will now expand its offerings to include the 2008 models. This push by a manufacturer to increase its online retail presence highlights the increasing importance of e-commerce in photo retailing. The ability to generate high volumes of sales without the need for shops or knowledgeable sales staff helps keep prices low.

"We're delighted to offer our products through Amazon.com," said Hiroshi "Hugh" Komiya, Chairman and CEO of General Imaging. "Amazon has continued its amazing growth through 2007 and now into 2008, and we're happy to be a part of it."

Many photographers are happy to trade off the service provided by a local expert for the ease of internet shopping. "Many of our customers appreciate the convenience and selection of online shopping, and Amazon.com is obviously a leader in that category," said Rene Buhay, General Imaging's Senior Vice president of Sales and Marketing for the Americas. "We think e-commerce will continue its strong growth, so it's a perfect place for us to extend our brand."

The GE range is currently aimed at the compact point and shoot segment of the market and include an array of popular, advanced functions. The GE cameras offer blink detection and smile detection, helping photographers capture just the right moment when taking shots of people. After a shot is taken, the blink detection feature alerts the photographer if the subject's eyes were closed and allows another attempt. The smile detection feature works by tripping the shutter automatically when the subject smiles.