Model release grief for Match.com

Oh dear. Another photographer and two companies with teams of lawyers who should know better are in hot water over the unauthorised use of someone’s image. This time it’s in Georgia; the photographer’s Roger Kirby, the websites are Match.com and HealthCentral, and the woman in question is Anne Read Lattimore. As with any of these stories, it comes in several parts. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall relay the sorry tale of the shiny new hair cut and the maybe-less-than-gleaming websites.

When Anne Read Lattimore’s hairdressing salon set up a new website, the owners asked her if she wouldn’t mind having her photo featured on it. Apparently not, as photographer Roger Kirby took her picture at the salon and Read Lattimore agreed to her image being on the website. She didn’t agree to her image being used anywhere else and no paperwork was signed, but so far, things seemed hunky-dory.

It’s hunky-dory until Kirby uploads his photos to Stock.xchng, a free stock image website run by Getty Images. The licence says that the images can’t be used to endorse a product, but somewhere along the way, this appears to have been overlooked or missed.

Before you can say ‘Mark Getty’, Match.com and HealthCentral are using photos that look suspiciously like Read Lattimore to advertise their dating site and to support a story about coming out as a gay person, respectively. Both of these uses might come as a surprise to anyone who knows Read Lattimore: she’s happily married to a man named William. In fact, her friends who saw her advertising Match.com on places like Facebook were mighty surprised. And so was she. Given that she is now suing Kirby, Match.com, and HealthCentral for defamation and misappropriation of likeness, I’m guessing she’s a bit more than surprised.

Fair enough. If I were to find my image being used to advertise a dating site, I’d be mortified. And I’m single. If I were married, I think I might be verging on the livid. It’s not that hard, people. You get the model to sign a model release and you honour its terms.

Or is it that difficult and I’m missing something here?

The papers were filed towards the end of September, so there might be a little way to go yet until we know anymore, but the moral of this story is undoubtedly, use a model release.

(Headsup to Techdirt)

September photo competition winner!

After last month’s brief haitus where Haje was incommunicado and I’d crawled into a hole and hidden, leaving Gareth to judge the August photo competition all by his lonesome, we’re back. We really enjoyed judging this month’s low-key entries, too. There were some fantastic variations on the theme, with portraits, animal photos, and landscapes. But one really caught our eye. So the lucky winner of the prize from Fracture is…

Eerie SS Dicky by Steven Johnson

Many congratulations, Steven! If you get in touch with me, I’ll let you know how to claim your prize.

Everyone who entered: thank you. We loved your submissions. Everyone who didn’t enter: please think about entering this month’s competition. The details will be going up soon!

Low-down on the iPhone 4S camera spec

There was speculation galore as to what exactly Apple would be revealing at its iPhone announcement yesterday. Whilst some people were disappointed that there was only an iPhone 4S and no iPhone 5 (come on people, it’s a phone, I don’t think that anyone needs to be disappointed by it), the camera spec and app development is a bit interesting. Here’s a quick run down of what Apple’s crammed into its glass and stainless steel body.

• 8 megapixel sensor. No megapixels aren’t everything, but that is a 60% increase on the last sensor they used.
• Custom lens with an f/2.4 aperture and an advanced hybrid IR filter to help create sharper and brighter images.
• The camera is pretty quick, but unfortunately the PR is vague on just how fast. The camera app launches faster than on the iPhone 4 and the shot-to-shot capability is ‘twice as fast’.
• Taking photos should be easier and faster. You can access the camera by double-tapping the home button and you can use the volume-up button as a shutter release button. There are compositional grid lines onail your rule of thirds and you can lock exposure and focus by tapping the screen.
• The Photos app gives you some post-processing control, taking care of crop, rotation, red-eye removal, stuff like that. You can organise your images into albums, too. I like that bit.
• iOS 5′s integration with Twitter and iMessage will let you send your images direct to Twitter or straight to anyone else whose number you have.
• Photo Stream means that any photo you take on your iPhone gets pushed to the iCloud automatically and then on to your Mac, your iPad, or even your PC. If you’ve Apple TV, you can look at your Photo Stream there.
• Naturally enough it can make videos. (Well the iPhone 4 could, so they were hardly going to leave it out, were they?) Full 1080p HD resolution and a new video image stabilisation feature. The sensitivity, sharpness, and low light capability have been bumped up, too. And the iMessage thingamy-bob means that you can share your videos with your contacts pretty easily, too.

So that’s that. Did you know that it can make phone calls, too?

(More info from Apple, of course.)

Our October photo competition

Quite how the inspiration for this month’s competition theme struck me is a bit of an odd one. I wanted to do something associated with postcards, but seeing as ‘go and take a picture-postcard picture’ isn’t exactly very helpful for you or for us, I went for a variation on that. We’re looking for photographs of monuments and landmarks this month. The Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, the Brandenburg Gate, the Sydney Opera House. That sort of thing. Whatever you fancy, it just needs to be monumental. And preferably quirky. It doesn’t have to be quirky, but we like quirky things here in the Mansion. The one that we like the best will win a fabulous 12″ Fracture.

You’ve from today – Wednesday 5 October – until Wednesday 26 October to submit your entry. As ever, you’re allowed one submission per person, and they need to go in our Flickr pool.

If you’ve any questions at all, drop me a note. Otherwise The Rules are here for your reference, and good luck!

The Rules

• If you decide to enter, you agree to The Rules.
• You can’t have written for Small Aperture or be related to either me or Haje to enter.
• One entry per person – so choose your best!
• Entries need to be submitted to the right place, which is the Small Aperture Flickr group.
• There’s a closing date for entries, so make sure you’ve submitted before then.
• You have to own the copyright to your entry and be at liberty to submit it to a competition. Using other people’s photos is most uncool.
• It probably goes without saying, but entries do need to be photographs. It’d be a bit of strange photo competition otherwise.
• Don’t do anything icky – you know, be obscene or defame someone or sell your granny to get the photo.
• We (that being me and Haje) get to choose the winner and we’ll do our best to do so within a week of the competition closing.
• You get to keep all the rights to your images. We just want to be able to show off the winners (and maybe some honourable mentions) here on Small Aperture.
• Entry is at your own risk. I can’t see us eating you or anything, but we can’t be responsible for anything that happens to you because you submit a photo to our competition.
• We are allowed to change The Rules, or even suspend or end the competition, if we want or need to. Obviously we’ll try not to, but just so that you know.

(The picture? That’s the Monument, in London. Reflected in the walls of a public convenience. I kid you not.)

Rest In Peace, Steve Jobs

I'm perfectly happy to admit that it's a little bit curious to be sad about the death of a man I've never met... But there can be little argument that Steve Jobs' impact on the worlds of technology and - indirectly - photography have been absolutely immeasurable.

My thoughts go out to his wife and his four kids - and all the others he leaves behind.

Steve Jobs, thank you for being a strong and inspirational figure.

Editor's note: All of us here at Pixiq are saddened by the death of Steve Jobs. Our thoughts go out to his family, friends, and to everyone who was touched by Steve Jobs. RIP Steve.

Capture Tower Hamlets

Tower Hamlets. London Borough. Home to the Tower of London, Canary Wharf, and what is traditionally regarded as the East End. Did you know that it took its name from being the shambling conglomeration of hamlets that surrounded and serviced William the Bastard’s imposing castle to the north of the Thames? (Now can’t you just tell I’m a historian by training? Don’t worry, lesson’s over.) It’s also a gem for street photography. And the council is somehow managing to encourage people to get out there and have a go at it.

Tower Hamlets council is looking for photographs that summarise the borough in a snapshot. They want people, places, life; everyday and extraordinary. It’s all part of the the Mapping the Change project that aims to document change across three London boroughs.

Anyone over the age of 18 can submit up to five images that they believe capture the essence of Tower Hamlets. The photos must’ve been taken in the borough within the past five years and you need to state exactly where they were taken. (Handy-dandy map here.) So if you happen to be in Outer Mongolia but have photo of Brick Lane that you think deserves a look, why not submit it?

Finalists’ images will be displayed at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archive in November and December. There are prizes on offer for the winners, including a camera, a portfolio review, and shopping vouchers. The terms are straightforward, too, which makes a change.

The deadline’s 17 October, so you probably ought to get cracking. All the details are on the project website.

(Picture’s mine, taken on the corner of Brick Lane and Hanbury Street.)

Where's my 30x zoom SLR lens?

On SLRs, I prefer to go to the opposite extreme of long zooms...

The other day, I received an awesome question from Nick LaRoque via Twitter. He asks an understandable question: "I have a 30x zoom FujiFilm hs10, how do I get the same zoom range from a dSLR?"

It's a fantastic question, and one that is asked every now and again by people who are used to the ludicrous zoom ranges found in the 'bridge camera' segment of large compact cameras. Nick's HS10 packs a 30x zoom, and there are even wilder examples out there, including the deeply impressive Canon Powershot SX30, which squishes a 35x zoom (equivalent of 24-840mm) into a relatively modest package.

How does it work on the ultra-zoom compacts?

Well, there are a couple of things the compact camera manufacturers do. For one thing, they tend to use rather small sensors; both of the cameras mentioned above use 6.17 x 4.55 mm sensors. That is... Tiny. Compare those numbers to the sensor used in Canon's top-of-the-range compact shooter, the PowerShot S100:7.49 x 5.52 mm; the APS-C sensors used in many digital SLR cameras: 22.3 x 14.9 mm; and the full-frame sensors used in high-end cameras: 36 x 24 mm.

By using tiny sensors, the camera manufacturers can reduce the sizes of the optical elements of the lenses, which makes it viable to create very, very long zooms. That's great news if you like to take photos of things that are far away... Or is it?

The Canon SX30 has a maximum aperture of f/2.7-5.8, and the Fuji is remarkably similar: f/2.8-5.6. The first of those two numbers is not a problem; a 24mm f/2.7 is a reasonably fast lens that is quite versatile. The second number is another story, however. It means that when you are fully zoomed in, you are 'losing' two full stops of light. So: If you were able to take photos at a shutter speed of 1/50th of a second when fully zoomed out, you would have to take your photos at 1/15 when you're fully zoomed in.

That doesn't sound very bad, but the problem is that when you are fully zoomed in, every little vibration of your hands is dramatically amplified. In order to combat that, the rule of thumb is that you need to use a shutter speed that is equal or faster to the inverse of your focal length. I know that sounds a little bit mathematical, but it's easy to grasp with a couple of examples: If you are taking phtoos with your SX30 fully zoomed out, it's the equivalent of a 24mm lens. That means your shutter speed needs to be 1/24 of a second or faster. If you zoom to 100mm, you need 1/100 of a second or faster. And if you zoom all the way in, you're going to need 1/840 or faster. In practice, you're talking 1/1000 of a second, which is a very fast shutter speed indeed.

Now the problem is this: When you are fully zoomed in on the SX30, you are already at f/5.8. If you also need to use a 1/1000 shutter speed, that means that you basically need to be outside in bright sunshine in order to have enough light to be able to take the photo.

The camera manufacturers make a couple of changes to their cameras to make this easier: They introduce optical image stabilisation, which makes it possible to shoot at 840mm at, say, 1/500 or even 1/250 of a second. In addition, they include wide ISO ranges; the HS10 goes to ISO 6400, and the SX30 stretches to ISO 1600.

Of course, optical image stabilisation isn't perfect, and comes at the cost of battery life. Similarly, high ISO comes at the cost of image quality and digital noise.

Ultimately, I'm not saying that superzooms don't have a space in the marketplace, but in my experience, physics (well, optics, really) get in the way of superzoom compacts being as good as they look on paper.

So why can't I get a 35x zoom for my dSLR?

The short answer: You don't want one.

The longer answer is that the superzoom compacts have a 28 mm² sensor. A full-size SLR sensor covers 1620 mm². Put differently, the surface area of a full-frame dSLR sensor is nearly 60 times bigger than that of the super-zooms. There are advantages to the bigger sensor: You get higher resolution sensors, less digital noise, and you are able to get more performance out of your expensive lenses. However, it does mean that the lenses have to be physically bigger.

If the sensor surface is 60 times bigger, it stands to reason that the glass that forms the rear lens element of the SLR lens also needs to be 60 times bigger; and this is where the problems start sneaking in. A compact camera lens might weigh about as much as an iPhone; or about 180 grams, which isn't all that much. Multiply that by 60, however, and you've got a completely different picture: suddenly, you're talking about a lens that weighs 10kg (over 23 lbs). It would also have to be around 70 cm (27") long. Finally, on a 840mm lens, the maximum apertures would be absolutely abysmal.

All of this means that if the SLR manufacturers built a lens that covered the 24-840mm zoom range, it would be so heavy that you could barely carry it, so long that you'd struggle using it, so dark that you couldn't actually take photos with it, and so expensive that you'd have to mortgage the house.

So.. No long zooms at all?

There are a few condenders in the SLR market for solid long-zoom lenses. One of the most popular ones is the Sigma 50-500 lens. It has some pretty favourable reviews, but it has its drawbacks as well. The f/4.0-6.3 maximum aperture range is about as good as they come, but if you need the longer end of the zoom range, you could be better served by more exotic lenses; such as the Canon 400mm f2.8, which is a whopping 2.5 stops faster at the same focal length, or the Nikon 500mm f/4.0... Which is also an incredible lens. Don't look at the price tags, though, you might pass out.

Tamron had a go as well, with their 18-270mm zoom lens. That's still only 15x - a far cry away from the 35x record from the compact camera world - but with f/3.5-6.3 maximum apertures, they've done an amicable job with keeping the aperture range relatively low.

Canon has a 18-200mm  f/3.5-5.6 lens that only works on crop-frame sensors (known as an EF-S lens). This is because the lens intrudes further into the body of the SLR; by putting the rear lens element closer to the sensor, and designing the lens especially for the smaller sensor, they can keep the amount of glass used in the lens down, which means smaller and lighter lenses. Unfortunately, of course, if you buy one of these, and upgrade to a full-frame sensor later, you can't use your lens on your new camera.

Finally, there's a 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 from Nikon as well. The review of this lens on DPreview summarises my take on superzooms rather well; "the phrase 'jack of all trades, master of none' springs immediately to mind. It's a lens which delivers somewhat flawed results over its entire zoom range". 

In general, the general rule of thumb is that the longer the zoom range of a lens, the more compromises the lens designers had to make in turning the lens into a reality. The real question is; do you really want to invest in a SLR camera body, only to be held back by zoom lenses that become the bottleneck of your image quality?

So, instead, for SLR cameras, it's worth exploring the availability of the opposite extreme. To get the most from that fantastic, huge imaging sensor, don't ruin it all by adding inferior glass. A good prime lens, might perhaps be a good choice... Or you could consider a less extreme zoom lens with a solid performance.

Or, finally, if you're in love with the extreme zoom lens on your superzoom compact camera, perhaps you're the person they invented the genre for. When the time comes to replace it, buy one with a higher-resolution sensor, and keep on snapping.

Photo Credit: The man with the long lens: A Longer lens than Me (cc) by Robbie Shade

Winners of Street Photography Now

In October 2010, the Photographers’ Gallery and the authors of Street photography Now, Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren, launched a 52 week street photography project. The idea behind it was to get photographers from across the world back on the street and documenting life around them. Each week there was a challenge and photos were submitted to a Flickr pool. Although it wasn’t intended to be a competition, the two people who were deemed to have made the biggest contribution to the project have just been awarded with £500 of Thames and Hudson books. And they were…

Jo Paul Wallace and Jack Simon

Week 20 (Slow down, the next picture may be very quiet and close), B-side, by Jo Paul Wallace

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Week 48 (Things are what they seem to be, or maybe something else), by Jack Simon

Congratulations both. In addition to their piles of books, both have dedicated galleries of their contributions on the Street Photography Now project website. You can take a look at Jo Paul Wallace’s here and Jack Simon’s here.

September 2011: A record month for me.

It's almost a year since I moved my Photocritic blog over here to Pixiq. I'll be honest with you; it was a tense time. Was I selling out my readers? Would people react well or would they hate it? Would they run away by the droves, or would I collect a nice amount of new readers, and benefit from the cross-promotion with other talented photography writers?

I was worried about giving up control. I was worried about not being able to do the coding myself. I was worried about not being able to implement my own code on the blog. It turns out I was worrying about absolutely nothing. Sure, there are toys I wish I could have, and there are occasional bugs on Pixiq that I think ought to have been fixed quicker (I'm particularly looking at the video player that doesn't work in all browsers - but apparently that is getting fixed soon)...

But ultimately, handing over the keys to the technical side of the blog means that I don't have to worry about caching layers, bandwidth costs, or server tweaking. Being able to ignore all that and concentrate on what I do best - Writing and ranting about photography - has been liberating.

And I believe it shows: the month of September has shown me, more than any other month, that I've made the right decision. My posts alone here on Pixiq attracted a quarter of a million page impressions - yes, that's nearly 250,000 page impressions, just for me. Pixiq as a whole, obviously, got a whole load of extra traffic too.

The top 20 articles in September:

In other words, these are the ones that have been most read... And if you haven't seen one or more of them yet, perhaps you'll find a gem or two here!

1. Nikon: "A photographer is only as good as the equipment he uses"
2. 50 inspirational nude photos
3. Is Apple turning its back on photographers?
4. Lens thieves ruin the day
5. Adding passion to nude photography
6. 150 unmissable photography sites
7. Top 50 photography websites
8. The Dirty Tricks of Food Photographers
9. Making your own flash diffuser
10. Implied nudity in portraiture
11. Prime lenses
12. Macro photography for $10
13. How much should you charge for a photograph?
14. How To: Concert Photography
15. 100 amazing iPhone photos
16. The ultimate guide to HDR photography
17. Creating a photography portfolio
18. Photographing smoke
19. Create your own IR pass filter
20. Giving a good photo critique

Photo Credit: "Dance" on Flickr (cc) by Nuno Duarte.

A slightly different side to steamy

Our intrepid cruise ship photographer correspondent, Ross, currently isn’t sailing the ocean blue. He’s on holiday. So where in the world is he? Well, at home in Scotland, naturally enough. When you spend your life visiting idyllic holiday destinations for a living, a month at home, on the sofa, with your feet up is probably just what you want. Of course, he has been out and about taking photographs.

One month till I’m back to work in the Caribbean: Time for a quick holiday!

There was a bump against my ankle, waking me suddenly. I glanced around. The surroundings were unfamiliar, the immediate view was not. To my left was a trolley stacked high with the finest Scottish produce, bags of tablet, McCoy’s crisps and of course Tunnock’s caramel wafers. There couldn’t be a more Scottish view to awaken to, unless there were Tennent’s lager tins also on offer. I looked down, there was, a row right beside the Bacardi Breezers. Shaking my head I redirected my gaze out of the misted up window. It was almost time.

Rushing past us, the highlands of the North of Scotland were green for once. I know that’s the way they always look in the films as Mel Gibson runs across them but in reality better adjectives would normally be bleak, sleety, or just plain old grey and drizzly.

Spending my whole life jumping from one exotic country to another there’s little time for a holiday. And when that illusive holiday does come there’s always that tricky choice. Where to go? These days ease and convince come into it in a big way, not to mention cost. Spending so much time in airports I’ll do anything to avoid them when I can. It’s not the long waits or intrusive scanning that’s the issue. I just get annoyed seeing a 60p can of Irn Bru being marked up to £1.99. And don’t get me started on the salted peanuts.

With this in mind my holiday was booked quickly, a five-hour car ride north and I was in the Scottish Highlands.
So here I sat, the countryside flashing by, for less than the cost of a Ryanair flight I was in landscape photographer’s heaven.

The Fort William to Mallaig railway. You’ve seen it, really, you have, it may be an obscure north west of Scotland rail route but it featured in the slightly well known series of films. Almost unique in the fact that it still runs with a steam engine it is perhaps better known as the Hogwarts’ Express. The train and its route over the viaduct through the glen have been committed to celluloid for generations to see. If you ever find yourself in the horrendous situation of having to re-watch the first Harry Potter film then you can take some solace in appreciating that scene and considering the photographic possibilities. Be warned though, there’s still about another hour after that to weather.

I’m getting distracted, anyways, shooting on a steam train brings with it it’s own sets of challenges. From the rapidly moving scenery to the changing of light in the glens to the sudden burst of smoke from the engine covering your lens, the whole experience is a steep learning curve.

I shouldered my way to the spot I’d sussed out when we first got onto the train. The passages between carriages weren’t open to the outside, but there were windows. They were the kind that slid down – not all opened fully though. I had found one on the left side of the train that did. That was my spot. Now we were approaching Loch Ness I steadied myself with one last bite of my Tunnock’s wafer before switching to Aperture Priority, putting on my sunglasses and sticking my head out into the overcast gale.

My mind flashed back to the first time I’d taken my camera for a little outing on a steam train. Boy was that a learning curve. It was Alaska, heading through the Chilcout Pass. Manual was useless, the light changing too much, after a while I realised Aperture Priority was the only way to go. Sunglasses were essential; I learned that one the hard way. All’s going well then suddenly the wind blows the smoke into your face…and the tiny fragments of coal with it. Imagine getting a bit of sand in your eye every five minutes, that’s what it’s like, it’ll spoil the day for
anyone. I had no idea what I was in for, even finding a spot to shoot that day was a challenge.

Every photographer will have their own tips for this type of shooting, but the same simple rule applies: Next time will be better! It’s a big learning curve shooting in that kind of environment and you can’t imagine some of the
challenges you’ll have to overcome on shooting a simple train ride. This applies to every environment though, to every shoot.

Think of it like this; you’d be crazy to spend all that money to go on a holiday photographing the Amazon jungles without having a practice in your local forest first.

With practice you know what you’re looking for. You know the gear you need. You know the techniques your going to employ. All this comes together for you to get the most out of your experience and the most out of your photography. Practice really does make perfect. Without practice you’ll stick your head out of the metaphorical train, looking the opposite way, and get hit on the head by the foliage beside the tracks.

All I’ll say is I got some great shots, both on the train and at each end of the journey. Steam engine plus Scottish glens equals great stuff. Without having done this before I’d not have produced pictures of half the quality. Nor been able to dodge many of the pitfalls that ruined my Alaskan shots.

What’s the moral of the story? Is it to take advantages of the country you live in, of the scenery around you
and discover some amazing shots on your doorstep without spending more than a few pounds? Is it to practice before spending all that money on a fancy photography holiday? No.

The moral of the story: If you’ve never tried Tunnock’s caramel wafers don’t pass the chance up, I highly recommend them.

Ross Sheddon is a portrait photographer and digital artist, currently working for Princess. In his career he’s worked everywhere from Vietnam to China to Egypt, Greece, Alaska, and back. Despite running out of new countries to visit his eyes remain open for new weird and wonderful sights always around him.

Video Photo Critique III: Biz Eating Apple

Today's video critique is Biz Eating Apple, by DiaspirePhoto. Take a closer look at it on Flickr!

This is the third in my now-weekly series of video critiques. To see all (well... Both) critiques and to find out how to get your own critique, check out this post.

Well then, with that out of the way, let's get cracking on the critique:

---

Do you enjoy a smattering of random photography links? Well, squire, I welcome thee to join me on Twitter - Follow @Photocritic

© Kamps Consulting Ltd. This article is licenced for use on Pixiq only. Please do not reproduce wholly or in part without a license. More info.

Is Apple turning its back on photographers?

Perhaps I should stick to photography...

I've been thinking about this article for a very long time; I've been using both pieces of software for a while, and I think I've now conclusively made my choice: Adobe Lightroom it is.

There are a couple of subjective reasons for that; Ultimately, I prefer the workflow tools offered up by Lightroom over those built into Aperture, and I like how well-integrated Lightroom and Photoshop CS5 are, for the times when I need editing that's beyond Lightroom's very capable hands.

Apple always had the edge over Lightroom when it comes to pricing; but back in January, Apple took out their machetes and slashed the price even further: the price of Aperture plummeted from $199 to £78.99 (when purchased via the App Store), whilst Lightroom is still retailing at $299.

So, it becomes very hard to recommend one piece of software over the other: They are both capable, and they both have their flaws. The price difference may sway some people (and PC users are out of luck altogether; no Aperture for Windows...), but ultimately, I think the question is very different indeed.

Apple doesn't care about its professional users.

For various reasons, I've been reading and learning more about the film and TV industry  (What? Pictures? That move? I can barely get one photo per hour right, never mind 24 pictures per second. You must be out of your mind), and they've been burned by Apple several times now.

You may have spotted the phenomenal backlash recently when Apple launched their new Final Cut Pro, which set the film industry a-bristle. Instead of having two versions of the software; Final Cut Express for the 'prosumer' market and Final Cut Pro for the, well, 'pro' market, they consilidated the software packages back into one. For Express users, that was pretty good news, because for not-a-lot-of-extra-money, they got a lot of extra functionality.

Professional users, however, were not so lucky. Conan O'Brien's editors got a minute of prime-time to whine about the software, and both the app store reviews and the professionals have trashed it for being a monster-leap backwards. The  reviewers for the mainstream media, however, generally reviewed it quite favourably. The message is clear: It's still one hell of a capable software editing package, but it's no longer fit for purpose for professional use.

If this was an once-off occurrence, we might have forgiven Apple, but it isn't. There was another piece of software that was of extreme importance; again to the film industry. Shake was aimed squarely at the professional market, and was used for visual effects and compositing - that is, putting the different pieces of digital footage together into a single frame. You know; adding explosions, and adding backgrounds to shots, that sort of thing.

When Apple announced they were unceremoniously closing the doors on Shake, it shook up the market - several huge film productions - multi-million dollar projects - were completely relying on Shake to get completed. To this day, there are special effect studios who had their tools so deeply integrated with Apple's software that they haven't been able to disentangle themselves; including playing an important role in Weta's production of the blockbuster Avatar, for example. And this despite the fact that the last version of the software was launched in November of 2008 - that's 3 years ago. I'm willing to bet that most of us don't run any 3-year-old software, never mind one of the most popular entertainment industries in the world.

The other big entertainment industry - the music business - also have a software package covered by Apple; Logic Pro. The rumour mill is already spinning that the current version of the software (which was launched in July of 2009) is about to receive an update, reportedly labelled Logic Pro X. Perhaps predictably, current Logic Pro users are already in fear about what Apple might be doing to their beloved piece of software.

But, can't you just use the old software instead?

Of course, a simple counter-argument to all of the above is "if you don't like the new software, why don't you simply not upgrade"? It is true that this is a workable solution for a while, but the truth of the matter is that software slowly loses its lustre over time: Competitors will bring out features and technology that doesn't exist in the old versions of the software, and without the updates, your software cannot benefit from technology advances that happen in the meantime.

Worst of all, 'unsupported' software is just that - unsupported. So, if something should go horribly wrong with your files, and you are unable to figure out what is going on, nobody is able to help you: A simple query will be deflected with "What version of the software are you using". If your answer is "an old version", then they won't help you. And rightly so, I think: If you call up a web developer today to tell them their site doesn't look right in Internet Explorer 7, the only appropriate answer, in my opinion, is "Why are you using a piece of software that was introduced in 2006, and has been obsolete since 2009"?

Er, aren't we meant to be talking about photography here?

So what does all of this got to do with photography? Well, when Aperture was first launched back in 2005, it was seen as a bit of a curious beast. Taking a look now at the news around its launch, it's funny to see how news writers couldn't quite make sense of it. http://bit.ly/nUSQox . For one thing, it cost a whopping $499, and it was aimed squarely at professional photographers. Six years ago, it made sense, when Apple were still the underdog; the go-to brand for graphic designers and photographers alike.

Steve Jobs may well have saved Apple when they were at the brink of bankruptcy, against all odds. However, things have changed a lot in Cupertino since then. From being a fringe hardware manufacturer, they've gone well and truly mainstream: iPods, iPhones, Apple TV, the iTunes music store, not to mention the billions and billions of applications sold for iOS devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

It's hard to imagine any company that is more mainstream than Apple these days; and the software the company is releasing is reflecting that. Instead of innovating, developing and launching industrial-grade tools for professional users, Apple are ramming home their 'simplicity' approach to things. Which is lovely if you are my mother, but not so much if you are a professional artist of any sort.

Apple are making powerful tools more available to the mainstream, which is a good thing for their stockholders: Obviously, it's better to sell a million copies of a piece of software at $80 per copy, than it is to sell fifty copies at $499. What does appear to be the case, however, is that the accountants have taken over the asylum at Apple, and that software engineers are no longer allowed to push the envelope onwards and upwards.

If you ask me, it's only a matter of time before Aperture starts looking more like iPhoto than a professional piece of photo editing software.

As much as I love Apple, I simply don't trust them not to turn their back on me, the professional photographer, and turn instead to the other 200 people who live in my block of flats. After all, why should they bother selling me one copy, when they can sell them two hundred?

So where does that leave Adobe?

If there's one thing you could never accuse Adobe of, it is to simplify their software. Lightroom will, over the coming years, undoubtedly slowly grow out of control with more and more features and more and more bloat. However, as professional photographers, I think we can handle the occasional hardware upgrade to cope with the additional load it'll put on our computers. As a professional, I can trust Adobe to leave all the tools where I need them; right at my fingertips.

And for that 1400-word reason, I'll stick to Adobe Lightroom for the foreseeable future.

New toys from Flickr

With over five billion photos on Flickr, it has moved far beyond a niche hangout for photographer-types. It’s mainstream and it’s social, and it’s embracing that. Or at least it’s going a bit of way towards running with realising that it’s part of the social media phenomenon but trying to maintain some olde worlde charm by introducing Photo Session.

The idea is that you can get all your friends who are scattered across the globe together in one virtual place, be it from their laptops, iPhones, or iPads, to look at photos of your latest trip kayaking down the Nile, at the same time, with conversation, possibly some wine, and doodles. Yes, doodles.

It might be the doodles that gives Photo Session a glimmer of hope

You choose the photos and invite upto ten people to join the session. Then you can flick through your album and yak about the icky colour of the Nile and its fearsome crocodiles until your hearts are content. There are no special requirements, but if your guests want to play with the stuff, like the doodles, then they need a Yahoo! ID.

Now I don’t know about you, but I was kinda glad when photo-sharing websites like Flickr allowed me to escape the mind-numbing marathon sessions of sitting through other people’s interminably boring holiday snaps that left me wondering whether eating the photographic paper might induce a faster death. The Photo Session oodjimaflip seems somehow regressive, no? Maybe the doodles features will salvage it?

In other slightly more practical news, there’s also a shiny new Android app for Flickr. You can take photos, mess around with filters, and then send them on to Flickr, as well as Facebook, Twitter and anywhere else that you share photos online. The interface has been custom-designed for Flickr, so that you can make use of maps and tags and navigate it easily. And of course you can see the comments and activity on your own Flickr photos and look at them full-screen.

Nikon: "A photographer is only as good as the equipment he uses"

So, what do you do if you're working at Nikon, and you realise that, from your point of view, too many people are using non-Nikon equipment? You try to influence the unwashed masses into thinking that it's all about the equipment.

Over on their Facebook group, the Japanese photography giant posts that "A photographer is only as good as the equipment he uses, and a good lens is essential to taking good pictures! Do any of our facebook fans use any of the NIKKOR lenses? Which is your favorite and what types of situations do you use it for?"

Well, there's something wrong with that statement; the bottleneck of any photographic process is the photographer who's behind the controls. It appears that even people who follow Nikon are acutely aware of that, resulting in a PR backlash of epic proportions:

Maybe it'll teach them...

The Dead Sea Scrolls just got interactive

Despite my constant mocking of the megapixel race in common-or-garden cameras, I am more than happy to admit that there are times when resolution really is make-or-break, and I’ve just found an instance of it. Google, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the photographer Ardon Bar-Hama, and scores of archaeologists and historians have worked to make five of the Dead Sea Scrolls accessible via the marvel that’s the intergoogles.

Zoomed right in to the Temple Scroll

The Great Isiah Scroll, the Temple Scroll, the War Scroll, Commentary on the Habakkuk Scroll, and the Community Rule Scroll have all been photographed in 1,200 megapixel glory so that you can zoom in close enough to see the contours of the animal skin on which they were written. If you’re browsing the Great Isiah Scroll, you can also click on the Hebrew text to get an English translation, or just look on in wonder at something written about 2,000 years ago that was preserved by being hidden in jars in a series of caves.

The Great Isiah Scroll, with translation

I reckon this is pretty awesome, and not in a godly way!

(You can read more on the omniscient Google’s blog.)

500px print-sales battle spills out on the internet.

It seems as if it's curious times in the the world of 500px, as they are shaking up their print sales offering, a battle that seems to have been going on in meeting rooms at both 500px and Fotomoto is spilling out into the public.

Fotomoto: 500px can't commit!

Today, I received an e-mail from Ahmad, the boss over at Fotomoto, explaining that they've thrown in the towel, after trying and apparently failing to integrate their service into 500px for quite a while.

He writes:

As you may already know, Fotomoto is going to stop providing service to 500px platform at the end of today. Unfortunately 500px didn't meet their business and technical commitments. After several unsuccessful attempts and unanswered emails to solve their issues, we had to send them a notice last week informing them that we are terminating our contract with 500px (which is a slightly different from what they mentioned in their email).

As far as we understand, this means that 500px users can no longer use the 500px Store, although the 500px site still thinks you can: "We have integrated a system from our friends at Fotomoto for automatic photo store management. Now every user have an opportunity to sell their photos via 500px with no upfront costs."

It remains to be seen if 500px will come crawling back to Fotomoto, or if they're going to have to start shopping around for a new printing provider. It's not clear what the impact is on the average 500px user, but for now, it may be a good idea to turn off your print sales in your preferences panel at 500px.

500px: They're not good enough!

Of course, the drama wouldn't be complete if 500px didn't have a different take on the same story: In a recent e-mail from them, they say:

One of the most requested changes is coming very soon - we are completely redesigning and redeveloping the photo store experience on 500px. The current 500px photo stores, provided by our partner Fotomoto, are not ideal. Its platform, although powerful and feature rich, does not quite satisfy our high demands for quality of the user experience. So, we will not extend our contract with Fotomoto, and they will end supporting stores on 500px on September 27, 2011.

It seems as if 500px are definitely taking the print sales in-house however:

So, who dumped who? And why? Did 500px ditch Fotomoto because they think they can do a better job themselves (and, presumably, with bigger profits)? Or did Fotomoto decide they weren't getting the support they required, and were at their wits end with 500px?

I suppose we'll never know, but I'm excited to see what comes next, both for Fotomoto (who do have a mighty nifty photo printing service) and 500px (who keep the other photo sharing sites on their toes, if nothing else).

Lens thieves ruin the day

A hustler from BBC's The Real Hustle demonstrates how easy it is to steal a lens off a camera body.

If you're anything like me, you'll walk around merrily with your camera slung over your shoulder. After all; you can feel the lens strap against you, right, so you'd know if someone was trying to steal your camera. Right? Right? Well... Yes.

I have heard about a few people who have had their lenses go missing off the front of their SLR cameras, however; The thieves know exactly what to look for, too: If there's a golden plaque and the word "Nikon" on the lens, it's worth money. Canon make it even easier: If the lens is white, or if it's got a red ring on it, it's an L-series lens, meaning that the lens is likely to be worth a significant proportion of the camera lens.

The great thing about a quick-release button and a bayonet fitting, of course, is that it's quick and easy to swap lenses. But a would-be thief could use the exact same technology against you, by stealing the lens straight off your camera. If you think it can't be done, take a closer look at the September 26 episode of BBC's The Real Hustle.

In the episode, they show one of the main characters distracting the 'mark', whilst the other carefully presses the lens release button on the camera, and turns to take it  off the camera body. The victims frequently haven't got the faintest idea that their lenses are being stolen straight off their cameras!

When I first saw this, I thought "there's no way I wouldn't notice that", and I suppose if I'm carrying a 70-200mm, that's true (there's no way you wouldn't notice several KGs of lens vanishing off your shoulder), but my 50mm f/1.4 is light-weight, and could conceivably be stolen off the camera without me noticing.

It does take a little bit of practice to remove a camera lens like that, but it's not extremely difficult, and it's easy to see how, with appropriate distraction and a little bit of a crowded street, it would be very hard to notice - until it is too late, of course.

So, what can you do?

Well, the obvious starting point is to make absolutely sure that you keep a close eye on your belongings. If you can feel anybody near you, be sure that you know where your wallet, your phone, and your camera gear is.

And... Despite the ease-of-use of having the camera slung over your shoulder, perhaps it's a good idea to get a quick-access camera bag, like the LowePro Slingshot or similar...

Oh, and whilst we're on the topic of keeping your gear safe; if you do use a camera bag, make sure you put a carabiner or similar over the zippers; it's too easy to open them up in a crowd, and you wouldn't know where or how your bag was opened when the time comes to check...

News in brief: Two months in nick - the cost of taking a photo in court

Here in the UK artists’ chalk sketches made in court are a familiar sight; photography in court rooms is banned. Unfortunately this snippet of information, along with the signs saying something along the lines of ‘No photography’ escaped the notice of one Paul Thompson when he turned up at Luton Crown Court on Friday to lend his support to a friend who was on trial for robbing an off-duty police officer.

One photograph from his Blackberry and an hour-and-a-bit later, he was sentenced to two months in prison for contempt of court by Judge Barbara Mensah. She reckoned that a strong message needed to be sent to people who commit such a serious offence.

Judge Mensah, I think that Paul Thompson and quite a few other people might just have got that message.

Yes, it was contempt of court. Yes, it was a remarkably stupid thing to do. Yes, it was also a remarkably ignorant thing to do; using your mobile phone in court is plain rude. But I can’t help but agree with various lawyers and penal reform charities who’ve said that two months is verging on over-kill. Haven’t we got other people, you know, like convicted murderers, who should be in our already-overcrowded prisons?

(If you want to know more, take a look here, here, or here.)

What is this? - In our NewsFlash section, we share interesting tidbits of news. Think of it as our extended twitter feed: When we find something that get our little hearts racing, we'll share it with you right here! Loving it? Great, we've got lots more News Flash articles - and, of course, we're still on Twitter as well, for even shorter news tidbits.

Pictures from the ice

Whenever I think of Scott’s or Shackleton’s ill-fated Antarctic expeditions, I tend to be more preoccupied with Titus Oates being some time and 22 men being marooned on an island for four months. That both of these expeditions had official photographers who schlepped along tonnes of equipment, including whatever they needed to develop their images from glass plates, has sort of passed me by.

But Scott’s doomed Terra Nova expedition was accompanied by the first official polar expedition photographer, Herbert Ponting, and Frank Hurley was one of the 22 men stranded on Elephant Island when the Endurance was trapped and crushed by ice. Ponting was never meant to travel across the ice to the Pole and Hurley managed to salvage 120 plates, a pocket-sized camera and a few rolls of film before the Endurance was lost. So some, at least, of their pictures survive.

The night watchman spins a yarn, 1915, by Frank Hurley

Ponting presented his images to George V, whilst a selection of Hurley’s work was given to George V by Shackleton. And the Royal Collection will be exhibiting them from 21 October 2011 to 12 April 2012.

Ponting’s pictures consist of the wildlife and icebergs that they encountered as they sailed from New Zealand to Antarctica, as well as scenes of life on board ship and even shots of Scott’s last birthday dinner in 1911.

Hurley did what I can only think of as totally crazy things – like climb the rigging and spend three days out on the ice watching as the Endurance broke up – to get his photographs. As if going on a polar expedition isn’t dedication enough to the cause of photography. But he was, of course, rewarded with some wonderful pictures.

The Heart of the Great Alone will show at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, from Friday 21 October 2011 to 12 April 2012. Tickets for adults are £7.50, more details available from the Royal Collections website.

(Featured image: Grotto in an iceberg, 5 January 1911 by Herbert Ponting. Both images courtesy of The Royal Collection © 2011, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.)

Making your own flash diffuser

The (in)famous disco twins

If you're using flashes on the go, you may have noticed that there's lots of ways you can create interesting effects: Bouncing the light of the ceiling, for example (that's possible even if you are using a compact camera, by the way), or similar.

A lot of photographers swear by Light Spheres, such as the ones marketed and sold by Gary Fong, Lumiquest and Sto-Fen. They're good products, there's no doubt about that, but I always had a problem with them: Basically, light doesn't care whether it travels through a pretty, $60 piece of plastic, or anything else.

The idea is simple: You're trying to increase the apparent size of your light source. When you do that, you can create some beautiful, soft light.

Creating the flash diffuser

But does that mean you have to spend a lot of money? Like hell it does. The other day, I was going to go take some photos of my good friend Sherlock Ohms, who was going to do a spot of DJ'ing in central London. I had never been to the venue, so I couldn't know for sure whether the ceilings were light enough to trust bounce flash, and I didn't know how big the venue was, so wasn't sure whether I could bring along an umbrella. (In retrospect, I'm lucky I didn't; there were too many people and too little space).

As I was standing in my living room thinking about this little conundrum, my eye fell on the Jiffy bags I use to ship out my Gray Cards (you have bought a set, haven't you? Because if you haven't, you really ought to), and I had an idea: There's no reason why a bubble envelope shouldn't work as a lovely light diffuser.

Ingredients

A cheeky modification

However, I wanted it to be a little bit directional as well; there's no point in lighting the area behind me, if I need the light to go forward. So I dove into the kitchen drawer and got some aluminium foil. I clad the inside of one side of the envelope with some foil, and simply stapled it into place (if I had had a little more time, I'd probably have glued it, to prevent the staples from scratching my flash).

Final assembly

Finally, all you need to do is to insert the flash head into the top of the envelope. It fit snugly, so I didn't have to do anything else. Perfect! If the envelope had been slightly larger, a rubber band would have been sufficient to hold it in place.

Let's give it a go!

So there you have it; a $1 envelope and about $0.05 worth of aluminium foil made a beautiful light shaper. If it works? Well, let's take a look:

Looks like a studio shot, right? Well, the set-up shot isn't nearly as glamorous:

And the shots of my friend who was DJ'ing?