Fujifilm and Panasonic come together to create a thinner, more sensitive imaging chip

The development of the imaging chip has focused overwhelmingly on resolution, and the desire to cram more and more pixels onto smaller and smaller sensors. However, improvements to image quality can only come from so much increased resolution; the focus now needs to shift to improving dynamic range, sensitivity, and pixel accuracy. We've already seen the potential for a graphene sensor developed at the Nanyang Technological University, but camera manufacturers are also looking to improve sensor technology, too. To this end, Fujifilm and Panasonic have been collaborating on a thinner, more efficient sensor.

Between them, with Panasonic focused on boosting image quality with semi-conductor device technology and Fujifilm devoting its attentions to an organic photoelectric conversion layer (more on those in a moment), they have developed an organic CMOS sensor with higher dynamic range, increased sensitivity, and a wider incident angle. This should lead to better image quality from smaller sensors.

A conventional image sensor comprises a silicon photodiode to capture light, a metal interconnecting layer, a colour filter, and an on-chip micro-lens. Fujifilm has swapped the silicon photodiode for an organic photoelectric conversion layer. This is more sensitive than the silicon photodiode as well as significantly thinner.

Panasonic's contribution has been to increase the ability of sensors to handle electronic signals, preventing highlight clipping and reducing noise. It estimates that these new sensors have a dynamic range of 88dB.

Furthermore, between them Fujifilm and Panasonic have managed to increase the area of the sensor capable of harvesting light. They estimate this should boost sensitivity by 1.2 times compared to a conventional sensor, helping to capture images in lower light settings.

Finally, by swapping the silicon photodiode for the organic photoelectric conversion layer and reducing its thickness, there's been an increase in the angles from which the sensor can detect light. Instead of an incidence of 30 to 40°, you're now looking at about 60°. You can see this illustrated in Figure 1. This should allow for for more faithful colour reproduction and possibly more flexibility when it comes to lens design.

If you're at the 2013 International Image Sensor Workshop to be held in Utah on 15 June, you'll be able to hear more about the technology. However, they are anticipating it will be used across the spectrum of imaging products, so I suspect we'll be hearing more in the future.

How exciting is the iOS 7 camera app?

Whilst everyone else is arguing about whether the new flat design and Crayola coloured icons that comprise iOS 7 are genius or travesty, shall we take a look at what's been updated, reshuffled, and introduced camera-wise?

Taking on an iPhotos feel, photos are now automatically organised into 'moments'. It's a twee name for a fairly neat concept: images are sorted and labelled geographically and temporally using their metadata. This will let you search photos you've taken in one particular location by date. It's a more sophisticated digital version of having holiday albums sorted by year and place, with each photo captioned; you can see all the photos from one place organised by date, too.

Airdrop will allow you to drop an image into someone else's iPhone over the same wi-fi network. If we can Airdrop to other devices, for example a MacBook Air, that'd be neat.

Photo Stream already allowed you to share with your friends and for you to comment on their streams; now you can insert your photos into their shared streams, creating a collective album.

Moving between camera, video, panorama mode, and the square crop feature is managed by a swipe. Yes, you read that right, there's a square shooting mode built into the camera app, along with a range of filters. It feels like a dreadful disease that afflicts smartphones. With any luck, it's a childhood illness and everyone will grow out of it soon.

The conclusion? There's nothing revolutionary or even exceptionally exciting here. It feels more like a consolidation of features and in some respects even a game of catch up. That's not to say that sharing images via Airdrop isn't a welcome addition, it's just that it isn't setting alblaze the world of mobile photography.

Lightroom 5 available now

There were a few worried faces and strained questions when Adobe announced its intention to switch Photoshop from being a standalone package to a cloud-only subscription service earlier this year - what did this mean for Lightroom? Adobe was quick to confirm that Lightroom would remain a standalone option as well as being available in the full Creative Cloud subscription, at which point I think there was a collective sigh of relief, and this moring Adobe has released the newly upgraded Lightroom 5 package.

What then do you get for your £57.64 ($79) worth of upgrade or £102.57 ($149) of brand new photo editing magic product? (Or the automatic update that comes with your monthly Creative Cloud subscription.)

Instead of having to piddle about with the spot healing brush, trying to get a round brush to cover a square imperfection, there's now the Advanced Healing Brush. This allows for irregularly shaped splotches and blotches to be fixed with a bit more panache than a round thing. I mean, really, since when have imperfections been perfectly round?

Being the stickler that I am for straight horizons, I'm looking forward to trying out the Upright tool. Using the angle tool wasn't especially tricky, but having a tool that analyses and corrects at the click of a button might be useful.

If you've bemoaned the inability to apply off-centred or multiple vignettes, the new Radial Gradients tool should bring an end to your woes.

The Book module has been updated to include standard or customer-specific templates and the video slidehow function lets you combine images, video clips, and music in one feature.

If, like me, you store your Raw images on multiple extrenal hard drives rather than on your computer's hard drive, not being able to re-edit an image because you and your files are separated by a plane ride, a train ride, or just a walk upstairs is a bit frustrating. Smart Previews is there to ease the pain of the 'Image Offline' notice - you can make your edits offline and next time you connect, the changes will be applied to the original images.

The brand new standalone package and the upgrade are available now. Head over to Adobe for the details.

The retreat continues: Fujifilm axes 50% of its compact line

It started with Olympus at the end of May, and now Fujifilm has followed suit: it has announced that it will be axing about 20 cameras from its compact range, mostly at the bottom end of the scale.

Huzzah!

Scaling back compact camera production, and in particular slashing the cameras that once-upon-a-time would have fulfilled the needs of the smartphone picture-takers, is a business move I've advocated for quite a while. The smartphone crowd have gone and won't be coming back until their iPhones or Galaxys no longer meet their photographic needs, if at all. Should they reach the point when a fixed aperture, bad zoom, and no control over shutter speed is frustrating them, they certainly won't be looking for a cheap, plasticy, garishingly coloured camera with a slow lens and horrible auto-focus.

The margins on these lower-end cameras are minimal and why would a serious camera company want to put their name to a camera like that, anyway? It hardly inspires confidence in their manufacturing abilities, nor in the benefits of having a stand-alone camera.

Instead, these manufacturers should be concentrating on the compact camera market that does still exist and needs fulfilling. The premium compacts are the obvious focus, but there's a bigger market out there than just those. People like my parents want a reasonable camera, but not one that's all-singing and all-dancing. People like my cousin and his wife want a camera that they can safely take sailing or snowboarding, but won't drown, freeze, or smash.

It seems to have taken a while, but it looks as if some manufacturers are beginning to re-focus their efforts. (Pentax doesn't appear to be subscribing to this new model, seeing as it announced the £80 Ephina yesterday, but that's okay.) Discerning who needs what from a camera, and providing these consumers with the products that they need can only be a good thing for photography.

Open for entries: the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards

The 2014 incarnation of the Sony World Photography Awards, run by the World Photography Organisation (WPO), is now open for entries from professional, amateur, student, and young photographers. Prizes range from $25,000 for the winner of L'Iris d'Or, the overall winner of the professional competition, to new equipment from Sony for all category winners.

There are 15 categories in the professional competition, ten in the open competition, the youth competition is for photographers aged under 20, whilst the student competition is for students of photography studying in higher education aged between 18 and 30.

The professional competition is judged on a series of images from the same body of work that was completed or first published in 2013. Series must comprise between three and ten images and you can enter as many categories as you want, but you can't submit the same series to multiple categories. As for the categories, you can choose from: architecture, arts and culture, campaign, contemporary issues, current affairs, fashion & beauty, landscape, lifestyle, nature & wildlife, people, portraiture, sport, still life, and travel.

Basic members of the WPO are eligible to enter up to three photographs for free, submitted into one category or spread across multiple categories of the open competition. Categories comprise: architecture, arts and culture, enhanced, low-light, nature and wildlife, panoramic, people and places, smile, split second, and travel.

There are three categories for the youth competition—culture, environment, or portraits—and entrants can submit between three and 20 images across the categories.

As for the closing dates: the open and youth competitions close at 23:59 GMT on Monday 6 January 2014 and the professional competition closes at 23:59 GMT on Thursday 9 January 2014.

Should the student focus competition interest you, the brief is to shoot a single image for the front page of a newspaper. Style doesn't matter but content does: the aim is to draw attention to an issue that's significant to you. Entries need to be submitted by 6 December 2013.

All of the information detailing how to enter, the Rules, and more on the prizes can be found on the WPO website.

Super-sensitive, super-light graphene sensors: which manufacturer will bite first?

We're accustomed to stratospheric ISOs making their ways into camera specs, helping us to capture images in lower and lower light situations. But what if changing the material from which camera sensors are manufactured could make them even more photo-sensitive, and lighter and more energy efficient to boot? A team of researchers at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, led by Assitant Professor Wang Qijie, think they've cracked it. With graphene, the super-strong, rather flexible, heat-resistent carbon compound.

A graphene-based sensor has the potential to be 1000 times more sensitive to light than a current model CMOS or CCD sensor by making use of a light-trapping nanostructure that is able to retain light-generated electron particles for longer. In addition, graphene is lighter and more flexible than your usual sensor, with the potential to be five times cheaper. Rather than graphene-based sensors demanding a complete overhaul of the manufacturing process, it's possible to swap-out traditional metal-oxide semiconductor sensor bases for the new-fangled graphene versions without any major changes. It keeps getting better.

We're not just looking at more light-sensitive and more engergy-efficient sensors in our smartphones, compact cameras, or interchangeable lens cameras; being broad-spectrum sensors, they have roles in satellite technology and infra-red imaging, too.

Which major manufacturer will be the first to bite, then?

(Headsup to Tech News Daily, Will Jennings, and Nanyang Technological University)

Street photography and the law

A lot is said and written about photography and the law – and to be honest, you’d be mad to get involved in the fray. Of course, I am that mad, which is why the Rights vs Respect in Photography ended up published here on the site.

Now, the other day, one of my readers, Brad, posted a rather fantastic and soberingly clear comment about what the law actually means to photographers. It was written from an US point of view, but frankly, the law is similar in much of the world. Beyond the law, however, you should be looking for a helping of ‘common sense’. This ‘common sense’ thing isn’t as common as its name would indicate, so hereby; a healthy dose of common sense and a quick refresher of what you can and can’t do when you’re out and about with your camera…

I was so happy to find this in my comments, that I figured it’d be a crying shame if it stayed hidden away as a comment on a long-forgotten blog post, so hereby, republished in all its glory. That means that some of the comments (where they are replying to other comments) are a little out of context, but I’ve linked directly to the correct comment where possible, to clarify.

Take it away Brad:

The law can essentially be summed up like this:

1. You can take a picture of anything you see – especially when you are in public.

2. You CANNOT take pictures where there is an expectation of privacy such as in a rest room or locker room. (more about Expectation on Privacy on Wikipedia)

3. You cannot legally trespass, but if you are on a side walk and you were so inclined you can photograph people in their back yards or on their porch. I think the back yard is over the line though.

4. You can take pictures of people or children in any public context. BUT DON’T FOLLOW LITTLE KIDS OR YOUNG WOMEN AROUND AND SCARE THEM. Legally though, you can follow people to get that shot – remember the Princess Diana chase. Perfectly legal.

5. You cannot profit from your work without signed releases. But to restate, feel free to snap away. It is only your commercial use that is limited.

6. You NEVER have to surrender your camera to or discuss the nature of your photography with anyone without a court order.

The photo with the guy wearing the ‘I ♥ Michelle Obama’ shirt is Me to, brother. Me too. by Photocritic.org, on Flickr. It was taken street-photography style without permission – but sits very nicely in my portfolio, which is perfectly legal.

Protecting your right to taking photos

I hate government oppression too. I was oppressed last summer at a pool. The Captain of the Guard approached me and asked me about the nature of my photography. I advised him that it was none of his concern as I was in a public place photographing what is in the public view. Furthermore, I told the “Captain of the Guard” to call the police expecting them to tell him there was nothing they could do about it. Without rehashing the whole story, the police can stay there and observe you. They may lie to you and try and intimidate you even making threats such as banning you from a public park (which they cannot do). Luckily, I happened to be on the phone with an attorney at the time. As an aside, you ARE required to provide police with valid ID if asked.

In a case like this, take pictures of the police officers, their badges and their cars. Indeed, take pictures of all the people involved and go public with it. Continue taking pictures of your original subjects. It is perfectly legal, they cannot prohibit it unless you are on a restricted government property or at a nuclear facility. You can also take as many pictures as you want of whatever and whomever you want including the person escorting you out of a private place(for example you are at a mall and being escorted out). If you are alone, get somebody on the speakerphone as a witness to what is being said.

Assault (fear of harm), Battery (physical contact), Terrorist Threats (threats of violence), vandalism (damage to your property) are serious offenses. If someone like an angry spouse or parent threatens you with harm or attempts to seize your equipment calmly offer them the opportunity to stand down and walk away. Suggest that they call the police or their attorney. If they do not stand down, call 911 and press charges.

How to avoid being photographed

For better or worse a person’s sole recourse is to seclude themselves should they wish to not be photographed.

So:

1. When you are in public, dress and behave appropriately or you may find your picture on MySpace or something similar. I don’t know what your son was doing when his ex photographed him, but if they are all appropriate the pictures may convey a different sense than the words the ex is using. Whatever the pictures convey however, is true for that moment in time.

2. Dress your young children appropriately even at the pool. They may be photographed. You CERTAINLY DO NOT want them to appear older or sexually appealing.

3. Encourage your teens to dress and behave appropriately. They may be photographed. Do NOT buy them clothes that you do not want them seen in.

4. Do NOT threaten or harass a photographer. You may find yourself in front of the magistrate if you do. You most certainly will if you threaten me.

5. Be conservative. Do NOT make yourself into an irresistible subject.

As for the lingerie store worker: The contents of the store are NOT copyrighted works. That is not what would prohibit this person from entering the store with a camera. Indeed, unless it is posted otherwise, he can walk into the store with his camera. He CAN be ordered to leave and must comply since it is PRIVATE property. He can enter in the first place by virtue of being a store open to the public. Permission to enter is implied. That is why your store my wish to post a prohibition notice against photography inside the store.

Now, if this is in a mall, mall security can escort him out. He can of course take as many photos of anyone or anything he wants while he is being escorted out of the store or mall.

If he is on the side walk outside the store unfortunately, you are out of luck. He does not need your coworker’s permission to photograph her.

Good photographers are ALWAYS looking for a good photo opportunity. That could be a beautiful woman, a handsome man, a child playing (some facial expressions are golden), an animal, sunset or barn. Who knows.

Young Jealousy by Photocritic.org on Flickr – an example of a street photograph involving children. As I do not have model releases for them, I cannot sell it as stock, but (at least in the UK), I can use it in a newspaper article related to the event in which it was taken (St Patrick’s day parade), or I could post it on Flickr and use it as part of my photography portfolio.

I recommend getting your shot and moving on though. The longer you stay, the more likely you will be noticed.

I don’t know what this guy was doing at your store. If it was a one time thing hopefully he just found her an attractive subject, But admittedly, it sounds “creepy.”

There are times when I may sit or stand somewhere for more than an hour or two just taking pictures of people maybe trying to catch their expressions on an amusement park ride or a water slide. Little kids ooing at zoo animals and the like are awesome shots.

Advice, if someone is trying to seclude themselves from you (the photographer) such as moving to an area out of your view, though it may still be public, respect their privacy. If someone POLITELY asks you not to photograph them or their children you should respect that. If they are rude, screw them. Do what you want. NEVER FOLLOW A LITTLE KID AROUND.

Lastly, there is no expectation of privacy when you are in public. That is why I suggest being conservative. A “peacock” will almost always get its picture taken especially if it spreads its tail. If someone is taking your picture and you do not like it:

1. Politely ask them to stop 2. Leave if they won’t

Consult your attorney if you have any questions.

Brad

Closing notes

Please note:

This post was excerpted from a comment of the ‘Your Rights as a Photographer‘ post, and was republished as an alone-standing article with permission from the original poster.

Please note that nothing on this blog can be considered legal advice – if you have a query, please contact your attorney.

Olympus E-P5: first impressions

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go hands-on with an Olympus E-P5 last night. The E-P5 is Olympus' new wi-fi-enabled flagship PEN, with a 1/8000 second maximum shutter speed and a 16 megapixel sensor that is reputed to offer the same image quality as the OM-D. But what did I think?

• I loved having individual control dials, one for shutter speed and another for aperture, that can be altered to adjust ISO and white balance at the flick of a lever
• The auto-focus seemed entirely capable in conditions that were less than optimal
• Tilting touch-screens are always fun
• It felt comfortable in the hand and looked stylish on the eye
• I'm looking forward to trying out that 1/8000 second shutter speed!

The Olympus E-P5 should be available towards the end of June 2013. Body-only, it will cost around £900; kits start around £1000 for the 14-42mm lens while the ultimate kit, with a 17mm f1.8 prime lens and new VF-4 high resolution viewfinder, is in the region of £1350.

About a Photograph - the stories behind iconic images

Do you ever look at a photo and think 'Heavens-to-Betsy, how did the photographer manage that?' Not necessarily the geeky 'What aperture did you use?' type of questions, but the 'Where were you standing? You were standing, weren't you?' or the 'How did you see that one coming?' startled enquiry. Think Tank Photo, the guys who make the Really Good camera bags, have just started a three-weekly video series called 'About a Photograph', which answers those sorts of questions.

Each episode takes an iconic image—news, wildlife, or sports, contemporary or classic—and the background, the insight, and the story behind it is narrated by its photographer. The series is produced by Kurt Rogers and Deanne Fitzmaurice, Think Tank's co-founders and award-winning photojournalists themselves.

The series kicks off with Agence France-Presse's Saul Loeb talking about his Presidential Hug photo, captured on the 2012 US presidential election campaign trail, when a surprised President Obama was lifted off his feet by a Florida pizza shop proprietor.

You can keep up with About a Photograph on Think Tank's blog.

The RSPCA Young Photographer Awards are open!

Ooh we love to see kids and young people out with their cameras. We also like competitions to inspire and encourage them to take photos. So we're happy to see that the RSPCA Young Photographer Awards are now open for entries!

The RSPCA's Young Photographer Awards opened yesterday and they present photographers aged 18 or younger with heaps of opportunities to submit their work and be in with the chance of winning some great prizes, including an Olympus OM-D and a photoshoot at an RSPCA centre. Very importantly, the competition is free to enter and there's no nasty rights grab for submitted entries. (Although please don't take my word for this and check it out for yourself.)

There are three age categories: Under 12, 12 to 15, and 16 to 18; two themed categories (pet personalities and making life better); a portfolio award; and a People's Choice Award that will be selected from the pet personalities category. And the winners of these categories will be put forward for the Overall Winner prize, too.

Young photographers are eligible to enter five photos in their age category, five in the pet personalities and making life better categories, and they can submit three porfolios comprising five photos each. That's a lot of photos that they can submit!

Being a competition run by the RSPCA, the photos should be of animals, and they don't want photos depicting animals doing anything unnatural or being treated cruelly. There are also rules governing manipulation, submission, and residency.

The registration form is here and you'll find all the information pertaining to the competition on the website, including tips and advice from some pros. The closing date is 26 August 2013. Good luck!

A Vivid controversy or a storm in a tea cup in Sydney?

One censorship argument at a festival celebrating creativity and inspiration is probably enough for any organising committee, but two is overwhelming and potentially damaging. Still, that's the situation at Vivid Sydney, the light, music, and ideas festival that takes over the Australian city between 24 May and 10 June.

'Culling images?'

The first incident arose on Saturday night, when 18 out of 35 images were pulled from the Reportage exhibition that was being projected onto two large screens near the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay. (For those who don't know Sydney, Circular Quay is where the Opera House is located.) Reportage was intended to be a showcase for photojournalism, and included submissions from photographers represented by Magnum, Noor, and Contact.

Being a display of photojournalism, the potential for any of these images to be distressing or offensive was high, but this was something that Destination NSW, essentially the New South Wales tourist board which owns and manages Vivid Sydney, seemed to have overlooked until the very last moment. Sandra Chipchase, Destination NSW's CEO stated: 'What we don't want is children walking around the corner and seeing pictures of dead children... We just don't want violence, dead people or anything that could distress people. In that public domain area it's about entertainment and engagement.' I don't know about you, but I'm not sure that I've ever considered photojournalism to be 'entertainment'.

As a consequence, photographs depicting the Cronulla riots, the 1979 Iranian revolution, and even the aftermath of an Australian bushfire were pulled from the big screen. They are available to see in smaller venues, but photographers who had travelled to see their work exhibited on the big stage were disappointed and at least two have withdrawn their work in protest. Hurt feelings, poor communication, and what appears to be a woeful misconception of the material intended for display: not a great start.

Concealed genitalia

Controversy number two involves the exhibition Home, hosted in the Cleland Bond building in The Rocks area of Sydney. Two photos, depicting three naked people, had tape placed over their genitalia. Stephen Dupont, curator of both Home and Reportage, claims that this was at the request of the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority; the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority has stated that it didn't request that the tape be applied specifically, rather that the exhibition be made suitable for the 'broadest possible audience'.

Dupont discussed the request to tape up the images with the Oculi group, who provided the images for the Home exhibition, and they decided that the photos would stand untaped and as they had intended.

Cut-and-dried

In addition to what can only be described as the naivety of the organisers, there is a question of managing expectations around the exhibitions. In my opinion, how appropriate it is to display gentalia in a closed exhibition with a warning by the door is a cut-and-dried decision: if people are aware of the presence of naked human forms, they can decide whether or not to enter. The request to somehow sanitise the exhibition was unnecessary and offensive to both the photographers and the audience. Apart from finding it condescending for someone to tell me what I can and cannot see, I remain entirely perplexed as to what, exactly, people find so distressing, alarming, or offensive about the human body. We all have one, after all.

A storm in a tea cup?

The decision to pull images that some might find distressing are projected publicly feels much more like a storm in a tea cup to me. Whilst there are some significant questions presented here, not least who gets to decide whether an image is distressing or not, it seems to be a situation resultant of mis-communication and resulting in over-reactions.

Point 1 of mis-communication centres on the expectations surrounding a display of photojournalism. I approached destination NSW, enquiring what, if any, guidance was issued to photographers regarding acceptable material for display at the Reportage exhibition. It responded: 'As per agreed editorial contractual arrangements between Destination NSW and the organisers of Reportage, and given Vivid is a family friendly event, we endeavoured to ensure photos and footage that may cause offence or distress, or were not in keeping with the values of the event, are not presented at the outdoor venue and screen.' My interpretation of this is that Destination NSW wanted 'family-friendly' images, but rather than issue clear guidelines before submissions were made, made reactionary and arbitrary decisions on the acceptability of the material once they'd seen just what was going up on the big screen.

Furthermore, given that Reportage is an exhibition dedicated to photojournalism, I'm intrigued to know exactly what sort of imagery Destination NSW was expecting. By its very nature, photojournalism covers issues that are difficult, distressing, or offensive in a visceral fashion. As Andrew Quilty, the photographer whose bushfire images were pulled from the Reportage projection, put it to Guardian Australia:

I don't know what they [the organisers] expected to come from a festival that shows specifically photojournalism. I don't know if they were expecting photos of cats and what the photographers were eating for breakfast. It seems to be coming from a typical kind of ad-person who has a view of how they want their brand to be perceived.

Point 1 of over-reaction centres on Destination NSW, having been presented with a bundle of images that it wasn't quite anticipating, deciding to pull them from the large outdoor display at the last minute. Running through my head is an xkcd-type scene where bureaucrats are tugging at their hair and screaming: 'But won't you think of the children!'

Having taken a look at the image reel on the Sydney Morning Herald website, which includes the redacted pictures, I have to say that very few provoked feelings of distress or shock in me. Would I be happy allowing my five year old nephew look at the photograph of an Iranian protestor whose hands are covered with blood? Probably not. But the photograph of Mexican immigrants being arrested on the Californian border is hardly controversial. I'm inclined to think that Destination NSW over-reacted, but then I'm not a parent.

I'd be interested to know what you think of the images.

Point 2 of mis-communication focuses on the process of removing the images from the projection. Destination NSW has been quite clear that the images it deemed to be too distressing for display were not removed from Vivid Sydney in their entirety. They can still be viewed at other venues, for example the Customs House, just not on the large public screen. Somehow, though, this seems to have been interpreted as the images have been censored wholesale, and without doubt those photographers who had travelled in order to see their work projected on a large scale, or had expected to see their photos alongside the work of eminent photojournalists, will feel bitterly disappointed.

Point 2 of over-reaction is the response of the photographers. At least two have withdrawn their images from display and Dupont, Reportage's curator, expects more to follow suit. If I were a photographer and my work had been pulled from an exhibition at the very last moment on somewhat spurious grounds, I'd be furious, too. However, foot-stamping and toy-throwing is incredibly unbecoming. How about suggesting an alternative?

After 21:00

Rather than leave Destination NSW looking red-faced with embarrassment and the photographers red-faced with fury, I would be inclined to suggest implementing a watershed for the projection. Before 21:00, it's a more family-friendly set of images that doesn't raise questions parents might not be ready to address with their six year olds. After 21:00, it's a full and frank exhibition. It's a compromise that means no one has to lose out, least of all the photographers who submitted their images in the expectation that they would form part of an extensive and exciting exhibition exploring photojournalism. It would also help to mitigate the impact of a mis-communication that is becoming an international embarrassment.

All those years ago when I was training to become a teacher, one of the fundamental principles instilled into me by my tutor was 'Say what you mean and mean what you say.' Destination NSW could do well to adhere to that notion.

(Headsup to the Guardian and thanks to the Sydney Morning Herald)

You too can be a professional photographer with this app!

We receive all manner of press releases here at the Photocritic Outpost, from the interesting and exciting to the downright boring or even bizarre. I mean, why would anyone want to try to market crisps through a photography website? Some are fortunate enough to bask in our editorial glow; many are placed on a one-way ticket to the delete bin. And then there are the select few that leave us banging our heads against our desks in some crazed act of disbelief. One of those arrived this morning.

The press release in question is for an iPhone app that helps you to pose your models. It sketches out ideas for posing people in all sorts of situations, from kids to something a bit saucy, and groups them according to subject. At first glance this could be vaguely useful: ideas and suggestions for shoots are generally welcome. Sometimes we all need an idea from the aether to inspire our creative juices.

However, if you look at the screen shots of the app in action, you see that it isn't just a collection of pose sketches, but an overlay that you use to arrange your models before snapping them with your iPhone and applying one of the app's range of filters, if it takes your fancy. Thre's no creativity, no vision, and no skills involved. It all feels rather sterile. In fact, it's a bit like painting-by-numbers, but with photographs on your iPhone.

At this stage, the app has reached the 'Heading for deletion unless there's a stupendously redeeming feature in the next sentence' point. Then it comes and you encounter your head-meet-desk moment: the app's makers claim, without any sense of irony, that it can transform you from uninspired amateur to 'professional portraits photographer in only one minute'.

Well that's the 10,000 hours theory blown out of the water in half a sentence and I can probably start selling my Monet reproductions for millions.

In all seriousness, this could probably be a fun app for little 'uns and teenagers to mess about with; I can envisage ten year old me and my best friend having all manner of giggles posing each other and applying ridiculous filters. You would have to remove the more, ehm, suggestive poses from the roll first, though. But a fast-track to professional portraits? No, I don't think so.

(And if you're wondering, of course I'm not going to name the app, especially when the subject line of the PR email specifically asked me to recommend it.)

Why white-balance lens caps don't make sense

It may be purely coincidental, but over the last few days, I've heard a lot of buzz about various products that clip onto the front of your camera to help you white balance your images. The idea is that you place a special lens cap on your camera, snap a photo, and use that color as a reference color when you edit your photographs. The devices come in lots of different types: full-covering caps, dome-shaped caps, home-made versions made out of coffee filters or Pringles caps, or any number of other surfaces.

In theory, it's a great idea, but it has a flaw: A white balancing cap like this measures all light that hits it. Can you spot what the problem might be?

Imagine your lighting set-up is like this, for example

You are in the sun, but your subjects are in the shade. Your white-balancing cap will measure the light that's hitting your camera (direct sunlight - or around 5,500 Kelvin or so). However, your subject will be in the shade (around 7,000 Kelvin or thereabouts).

The outcome is utterly predictable: Your white balance is going to be miles off.

So, what's the solution? It's simple:

Don't white-balance where you are taking photos from... White-balance what you are taking photos of.

The Flickr Spectaculr: what's right, and what's wrong

'Make Flickr awesome again.' That was the Internet's message to Marissa Mayer when she was appointed CEO of Yahoo! last year. Last night's announcement of a new-look Flickr with a new business model was her, and her team's, response to that claxon. But are the changes all that awesome?

To summarise, 'New Flickr' has done away with the divide between 'Free' and 'Pro' accounts. Before, 'Free' membership meant limited image display that was supported by ads. 'Pro' accounts cost about $25 a year, enjoyed unlimited storage, provided statistical analysis, and were ad-free. Now, everyone has one terabyte of storage for free and photos are undoubtedly the heart-and-soul of the newly designed site.

If you want to enjoy Flickr ad-free and have access to statistics, you need to pay $50 a year. For $500 a year, you can buy a Doublr account and double your storage space.

Understandably, the split between the 'Wow' and the 'Grr' reactions seems to fall along the divide between ordinary members and 'Pro' members. For ordinary members—those who didn't pay about $25 a year for unlimited uploads, statistical analysis, and no ads—it's a win. One terabyte of storage for free, full-resolution display, and some of the organisational tools that were previously the preserve of 'Pro' members: what's to complain about?

There are two primary complaints that Flickr needs to solve, and quickly. The first is the treatment of its old 'Pro' members. I paid for Pro membership because I wanted the unlimited storage, I appreciated the statistical analysis, and I liked the ad-free experience. 'Pro' exists no longer, and instead there is a great deal of confusion as to which old 'Pro' members will be grandfathered in to the new deal on their old terms. It seems as if some might, and some won't. Apart from not being able to determine easily if our previous contracts will be honoured, why the differentiation at all? Flickr's 'Pro' membership was a relatively small percentage of its overall membership; giving all these loyal users the benefit of the doubt seems only fair.

The old 'Pro' members were the old Flickr stalwarts, who stuck by the site when it felt as if Yahoo! had put it out to seed, but continued to pay them their money and keep the community alive with images and conversation. What could have been a positive transition, with clear communication and recognition for their loyalty, feels more like a shafting. It is, however, an easy fix.

Second, can Flickr please fix its metadata-stripping antics? Display an image online and you run the risk of it being purloined and used without permission; that's a fact of life. However, there are measures that many of us take to protect our images. Some of us use watermarks, some of us only upload small versions of our images, I've disabled the downloading function on Flickr, and most of us append metadata to our pictures. Metadata are a bit like a dogtag, identifying who took an image, where, and when. Unfortunately, Flickr strips images of their metadata, (or takes the collar off of the dog, if you like) so if someone does manage to download one of your pictures, its owner can't be identified. Now that pictures are being displayed bigger and brighter and bolder on Flickr, this is more important than ever. Ensuring that metadata aren't separated from images really would be awesome.

In terms of the look and the feel of the new Flickr: I love it. If the images can't do the talking, then why bother? And the new moasic layouts and easy enlargement options make it all about the images. When Yahoo! addresses the issues that people are finding troubling, Mayer might've answered the Internet's request.

Using time-lapse to help make babies

For most of us, time-lapse photography is something that is beautiful to look at and tricky to get right; for a team of researchers at a lab in Manchester, their time-lapse photography doesn't need to be beautiful to look at, but it does need to be right. They've been using it to monitor the development of embryos in the IVF process, consequently increasing the chances of a successful live birth.

The most common cause of IVF failure is aneuploidy, or chromosomal abnormality. In fact, it's estimated that about 70% of fertilised eggs, whether achieved naturally or via IVF, don't reach birth and in many cases the loss or gain of single chromosome is key.

By imaging an embryo every ten to 20 minutes and observing it at key stages of its development, the team at the CARE fertility clinic is able to identify if it is at low, medium, or high risk of chromosomal abnormality. In all, each embryo is photographed about 5,000 times before it is implanted, or not. The lower the risk of chromosomal abnormality, the higher the chance of a successful implantation, pregnancy, and birth.

At the moment, it is only a very small sample of embryos that have been subjected to CARE's cameras (88, in fact), but the results are encouraging. There was a 61% success rate of babies born to the low-risk group. The medium risk group had a 19% success rate, whilst the high-risk group didn't have any births.

It's early days, but for couples struggling to conceive, time-lapses might be the way forward.

(Via BBC radio news and the website)

Get your entries in for the 2013 IdeasTap Photographic Award

IdeasTap is a charity focused on helping creative people who are just starting out in their careers to find their feet, to get the support and encouragement that they need, and to develop their passion into a workable career path. It covers a diverse range of creative disciplines and works with some of the biggest names in those fields to bring insight and opportunities to its members. In the case of photographers, it is working with Magnum Photos for the 2013 Photographic Award. It doesn't get much bigger than that!

The IdeasTap 2013 Photographic Award offers three winners £5,000 in prize money, £1,500 in project funding, mentoring from Magnum photographers, and the chance to work at Magnum’s offices in London or New York. One winner will be selected from each of the age categories: 16 to 22, 23 to 30, and 31+; in addition, there will be prizes for 18 shortlisted photographers (six from each age group).

The short-listed candidates will benefit from a mentoring session with a Magnum Photographer, Blurb book vouchers, and £150 to have their pictures printed. Come the autumn, their photos will be exhibited, too.

At the exhibition, nine finalists—three from each group—will be selected. The nine finalists will each receive £1,500 to shoot the project of their dreams, create a multimedia Magnum in Motion project, and will receive a second mentoring session. Then of course, the three overall winners will be chosen.

The brief for each category is the same: submit a series of ten photos that fit with one of five themes: conflict, climate, memory, human relationships, or journey. The deadline is 31 May, so if you're interested, you need to get a wriggle on!

All of the details, including how to join IdeasTap (it's free), is available on the IdeasTap website.

TIPA 2013 - who won what

Once a year the Technical Press Imaging Association, or TIPA, meets in a desirable location—this year it was Hong Kong, last year in was Cape Town—to settle on which manufacturers have produced the best easy-to-use compact cameras, most innovative tripods, and the swishest top-end dSLRs over the past 12 months.

There are in fact 40 different categories that are decided on by representatives from TIPA's 27 member magazines, as well as the Camera Journal Press Club of Japan.

Canon took most of the dSLR spoils, winning best entry-level with the 100D, best expert with the 6D, and best video dSLR with the 1D C; Nikon, however, won the advanced category with its D7100.

When it came to compact system cameras, or mirror-less cameras, or EVIL cameras, Fujifilm, Olympus, Panasonic, and Samsung all had a look-in. Fujifilm's X-E1 won the best expert CSC award; Olympus took the entry level CSC honours with the PEN E-PL5; the professional CSC prize went to Panasonic for its GH3; and finally the advanced prize was won by the Samsung Smart Camera NX300. If you can wade your through the difference between 'professional', 'advanced' and 'expert', then you're a better woman than I am.

The compact camera categories were split between Nikon and Panasonic. Nikon walked off with awards for its Coolpix S01 in the 'easy' class and its P520 superzoom. The rugged camera was Panasonic's prize, though, for the FT5 (or TS5, depending on where you are).

Canon, Fujinon, Nikon, Sigma, and Sony all won prizes for their lenses, ranging from 'best CSC prime' (the Fujinon XF 14mm ƒ/2.8 R) to 'best professional lens' (Canon's EF 24-70mm ƒ/2.8L II USM), via best entry-level dSLR lens (the Sigma 17-70mm ƒ/2.8-4 DC MACRO OS HSM).

As for best premium camera, that was the Sony RX1; best professional camera was the Leica M; and best imaging innovation was awarded to Samsung for its 45mm ƒ/1.8 (2D/3D) lens.

If you want to check out the rest of the winners, which includes best media storage, imaging monitor, and photo TV, you can see the whole list on TIPA's website.

I can't help but feel that with a carousel of categories where the differences in criteria aren't necessarily discernible, it's more a case of 'These were all really good products and we need to find some way of showing that.' I can't say that the awards will encourage me to buy a Nikon superzoom, but it must be gratifying for the manufacturers to receive a pat on the back.

Team Photocritic, live and in conversation

On Wednesday 15 May at 16:00 BST, Team Photocritic (otherwise known as Haje and Daniela) will be coming to you live and direct across the Intergoogles from the HQ of the Ilex Press, which publishes some of our books. Video cameras, live transmission, and two excitable writer-photographers. What can possibly go wrong?

We're going to be in conversation, discussing our newest books and our current projects. If there's time and we don't get too carried away, we'll squeeze in a Q&A session. Do line up any questions that you might want to put to us.

Ilex is hosting the event on its Ilex Live site. Tune in for 16:00 if you're in the UK, and if you're not in the UK, here's a nifty timezone converter.

As an added bonus, Ilex will be offering a super-special discount on the e-versions of some of our books. If you head over to the webstore, you'll see what's on offer. The details covering how to claim your discount will be revealed during the broadcast!

See you tomorrow!

The Disappearing Review & why I left Pixiq

Back in November 2012, I received an e-mail from the Powers that Be at Pixiq, stating that they had unpublished a post I wrote back in June of 2011, entitled 42nd Street Photo: One to Avoid, after they had received a formal complaint from the photographic retailer about the post I had written. As far as I can tell, it appears that 42nd Street Photo approached Barnes & Noble directly, requesting that the post is taken down. Pixiq's editorial director decided to fold without first discussing the matter with me, and instructed the Pixiq editors to take the post down.

Obviously, if the editorial director feels that the post was worthy of being taken down, he is probably right, but as someone who is rather passionate about copyright, and the protection thereof, I found it rather interesting that 42 Street Photo decided to use the DMCA to get my post taken down.

Of course, since I'm now back on Photocritic, I can publish whatever I like without a gag order, and the review is back where it belongs: On-line, for anyone to read.

Copyright Infringement?

As far as I can tell, the DMCA portion of 42 Street Photo's complaint pivoted on the fact that I had a screen shot of the 42 Street Photo included as part of my blog post:

Says 42 Street Photo: "The author has unlawfully taken a screenshot of the 42photo.com Web site and logo without the express written consent of the copyright holder, 42nd Street Photo."

Now, this is quite interesting, because this isn't technically a copyright infringement; It falls both under US fair use laws, and UK Fair Dealing laws: Using a screen shot in this manner would fall under both news reporting or criticism.

Of course, it is scary to receive a letter from a lawyer saying that you're accused of something under the DMCA, but does that warrant removing the whole blog post?

Libel?

The other part of the complaint from 42 Street Photo is that my negative review might somehow fall under defamation legislation. That's an interesting angle to take. However, for something to be defamatory (whether it's published defamation, in which case it is known as libel, or a more transient defamation, in which case it might be slander), it has to be both malicious and false. It also, generally, has to be about a person - it is rather difficult to defame a company.

Whether my blog post was malicious is neither here nor there, but it most certainly wasn't false.

It is interesting, then, to see how a company like 42 Street Photo decided it was appropriate to turn to the law to try to get negative posts about them expunged from the internet.

Specifically, they wrote that: (...) this post is a highly subjective description of a one-time event allegedly experienced by someone other than the author (...).

'The person other than the author' in this case was my fiancee, now my wife, so the suggestion that I might not know or understand the full details of the case is quite funny.

As for 'highly subjective' — Well... Yes. Of course it is highly subjective; that is sort of what online reviews are all about.

More worryingly, however, is that they claim that the post is "libelous, tortious, harmful and/or defamatory", based specifically on quotes like “42nd Street Photo: One to avoid” (the title of my post) “Tales of dodgy behaviour and atrocious customer service” (after they went through a series of weird business practices that), and “an apparent lack of care about fraud prevention” (charges added to the order by someone who wasn't authorised to do so by the card holder).

So, what's the problem?

Anyway, the worrying thing here is in two parts:

1) By equating a online user review that 42 Street Photo disapproves of as 'harmful' or 'libellous', they are in effect saying that any negative reviews are somehow illegal. I can't quite figure out what they are getting at, but I suspect that 42 Street Photo has received one too many negative reviews, and that they are now trying to do some serious damage limitation — that's the only reason I can imagine why they suddenly decided to take action on a 532-day-old blog post buried deep in the bowels of a very active website.

2) That Pixiq decides to bow to their request by removing my post.

Now, point 2 could be completely innocent (they acted before they read the request properly), mildly immoral (they are trying to get 42 Street Photo to advertise on the site, and don't want to rub them the wrong way), or deeply worrying (negative reviews of any kind are permanently banned from Pixiq, completely ruining the credibility of the site in the process).

What now?

The discussion on the above continued for a while, but I never actually got a response from Pixiq about why they decided not to stand up for one of their writers.

I should add at this point that I have been in journalism for a long time, most notably, I suppose, as the editor of T3.com. We did occasionally get ourselves into some legal wrangling after we wrote something, but that's sort of the way of the world: You write something, someone takes offence, and tries to do something about it. The big difference, however, is that you'll usually find that your publisher will stand up for you: They have a large legal team on staff, and will help defend their editors and writers, if they have done their due diligence.

The fact that Pixiq decided to roll over, and pull my article without even discussing it with me was ridiculous. I'm vaguely amused with 42nd Street Photo's legal petulence, but I'm furious with Pixiq for not shrugging it off for what it was: It was a schoolyard bully squaring up to them, and they ran away without taking on a fight they knew they would win.

I don't know about you, but I think I'm better off here at Photocritic, where I can tell 42nd Street Photo what Pixiq should have said: Your request is hogwash, and the review is staying. Have a lovely week.

Further Reading

• Pixiq Goes Down: Leaving readers and bloggers in the lurch
• Pixiq Goes Down: The response from Sterling Publishing

Raspberry Pi, meet camera

For the princely sum of £20 you can now attach a camera to your Raspberry Pi unit, to fiddle about with and figure out how to take a photo with bare-bones code. This is very much more about learning to code than learning about photography, but it's about learning: I'm enamoured.

The camera unit comprises a five megapixel sensor and lens on a board measuring 25mm x 20mm x 9mm, that's capable of recording 1080p video.

Given it attaches to the Raspberry Pi via a socket and is little more than bare lens, chip, and board, and in order to release the shutter you need to enter a line of code, you might need a bit of ingenuity or teamwork to take a picture. And don't forget that once the camera's plugged in, it's up to you to figure out the code needed to operate it and locate the images that it captures. (Although the Raspberry Pi community is very good at lending a helping hand.)

But isn't that the point? Raspberry Pi is meant to spark children's enthusiasm and curiosity for programming. You plug it in and through a process of trial, error, and discovery, you get to where you want to go. (Or maybe nowhere near it, but it was fun all the same.) In particular with a camera, it gives children something that's both familar and tangible to latch on to whilst they're in the process of learning. Learning, after all, is supposed to be fun.

Once you've figured out how to take a picture, where it's kept, and what to do with it next, there's a Raspberry Pi photograph competition running until 14 June 2013. Pictures need to be taken with a Raspberry Pi (d'uh) and fall into one of four categories: Your Workshop/Den; Your Pi Project; People and Pets; Outdoors.

I think I'm buying one for my niece. (And naturally, by that I mean that I'm buying one for Eva so that I can play with it.)

Raspberry Pis can be purchased on the Farnell element14 Raspberry Pi website for just over £28. The camera unit is just under £20.

(Via Engadget)