Fascinating China.

The Atlantic consistently uses excellent photography, but their 41-image photo essay about China raises the bar to a new level.

“As China’s population and economy continue to grow, the country is scrambling to solve challenges in housing, elder care, cultural and political institutions, the environment, and other areas of everyday life. Today’s collection, a recent gathering of images from across the nation, covers a range of subjects from wheelchair dancers to bear bile farms, a monkey-controlled robot arm to a Tibetan exile protester who set himself on fire earlier today, and much more.”

Brew some coffee, and enjoy this cultural feast through outstanding imagery. The complete set is here.

Get set for AIPAD. Starts today.

If you have ever been to an AIPAD show in New York City, then you know that ‘tis the season to be excited for the 32^nd anniversary of this once-a-year photography showcase.

Starting today and until April 1, 2012, photographers, art dealers, hobbyists and international art enthusiasts will gather together for the latest in art photography at the Association of International Photography Art Dealer’s (AIPAD) Photography Show, returning to the Park Avenue Armory in the Upper west side.

The Armory was built as a military facility and designed by the world’s leading artists and architects in 1861, including Charles W/ Clinton (later a partner of Clinton & Russel), Louis Comfort Tiffany, Stanford White Herter Brother, Pottier & Stymus, and architects of the Astor Hotel. The main hall, measures 55,000 square feet…that is a lot of room for a gallery, wouldn’t you say? It remains as one of the few unimpeded spaces remaining in New York.

This year is going to be huge, with 75 of the world’s leading art galleries contributing all different kinds of photographic work including contemporary, modern, abstract, 19^th century, photo-based art, digital video…. you name it!

In addition to the amazing variety of artwork that you will encounter, there are also panel discussions and seminars from some of the world’s most influential photographers and curators including a conversation between Dutch photographer, Rineke Djisktra and Jennifer Blessing, curator of photography at the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum.

“Highlights of this year’s photography exhibition include work by Julia Margaret Cameron, Ansel Adams, André Kertész and Henri Cartier-Bresson, as well as a variety of modern and contemporary showcases such as those of Linda McCartney and Karen Knorr and an exclusive exhibition by David Zwirner gallery of a new body of work by Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, in which he endeavours to find a balance between documentary and theatrically staged photography. There is also an exhibition of personal cards sent from photographers such as Lee Friedlander and Jerry Uelsmann.” Read the press release. to see more featured speakers and artists.

For only $40, you can get a four-day pass, or $25 for a one-day pass. Even better, students can pay $10 for a one-day pass. I would highly recommend this show to anyone who is in the least bit interested to understand past and present trends in photographic mediums.

For more details, visit www.aipad.com.

Visual Serendipity.

Serendipity: noun; the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

“Multitasking” is our newest addition to “Visual Serendipity,” a weekly series of unplanned pictures taken with a smart phone.

Conversations with Friends.

On the sixth Episode of our “Conversations with Friends” we sat down with Ted Kawalerski, professional photographer and director, to talk about his transition from still photography to documentary and corporate filmmaking after a 35-year career.

Ted talked about finding great partners for his digital cinema projects, and shared with us some of the rewards and joys and technical frustrations he has discovered during his transition.

We discussed Ted’s upcoming Family Life Academy video project, the importance of sound, the video editor’s role, and storytelling. In fact, we covered so many interesting topics that we decided to edit Episode 6 as Part 1, and Episode 7 as Part 2.

For this Episode we used Rode Lavalier Mics and Ted mentioned his preference for Rode Shotgun mics.

To celebrate the Spring’s arrival, Eduardo enjoyed a “sparklingly mild and fruity” Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier natural wheat beer with a “delicate yeast flavour, gleaming orange colour, and uniform cloudiness.” Ted drank about a gallon of tap water.

Here are the links to Episode 05, and Episode 04.

Please add your comments below! Are you enjoying our Conversations? Did you learn something new today?

Visual Serendipity.

Serendipity: noun; the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

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Our new addition to “Visual Serendipity,” a weekly series of unplanned photographs taken with an Android cellphone. Grace Church, a French Gothic Revival masterpiece, is a historic parish church in the Episcopal Diocese of New York, located at the corner of Broadway and East 10th Street.

Updated Blog Editorial Policy.

In order to be truly objective and have complete freedom to voice our honest opinions, we will no longer use affiliate links. We provide quality content—not commercialization. This new editorial policy is effective now, and it applies to our in-depth reviews for Canon’s brand new EOS 5D Mark III, Adobe Lightroom 4 and later posts.

“The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.” David Ogilvy

Are you eligible for a complimentary (free) Lightroom 4 upgrade?

Adobe doesn’t notify customers who purchased single-user licenses about complimentary post-announce upgrades, BUT according to a somewhat obscure company policy, users who bought software (full or upgrade) soon after a new version was announced, might be eligible for a complimentary upgrade. If you followed my instructions on a previous post to purchase Lightroom 4 50% off, you might be one of the lucky ones.You need to contact Adobe directly to find out if you fall in the eligibility period. Let me know how it goes.

If you already purchased the upgrade and have questions about the installation, follow these simple steps here and here.

The Lion in the cloud.

The release of the new Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is approaching. Apple recently unveiled a “developers preview” to get programmers up to speed with the new platform. The shipping version will be available in less than 6 months. So far, some of the highlighted features are a deeper integration with Apple’s iCloud, new sharing capabilities, and improved security. It is believed that Rosetta will stay with us a little longer, while iChat will be replaced with “iMessages.”

As expected, iCloud will be the center of Apple’s universe, and all other devices (iPhones, iPads, desktops, and laptops) will simply interact with iCloud to handle media, messaging, calendars, reminders, settings, and even purchases. Everything lives in the cloud—the device is simply a way to retrieve and add information. Oddly enough, one of the biggest changes is direct integration with Twitter. iCloud’s Documents will be competing directly with Google Documents.

Applications like Safari, Mail, iPhoto, Reminders, and Photo Booth will be able to tweet directly without having to launch or manage a separate Twitter client. Tweets will be context-aware: meaning a tweet from iPhoto will enable sharing via Flickr, while a video tweet will display Vimeo or YouTube as an option. What will come out first, the new OS or the updated line of Mac Book Pros?

Visual Serendipity.

Serendipity: noun; the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

Spring leaves? No, it is just arriving.

Upgrading to Adobe Lightroom 4 in 7 simple steps.

The following steps can be used to upgrade Lightroom 1, Lightroom 2 or Lightroom 3, as well as Lightroom 4 Beta catalogs.

Step 1. Download and Install Lightroom 4

Step 2. On your Mac’s finder, find the location of your Lightroom 3 catalog. It should look something like name.lrcat

Step 3. Right click on that file and select “open with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4”

Step 4. You should see the “Lightroom Catalog Upgrade” dialog. Be very careful with this step. Catalog names can NOT be changed later. I strongly suggest you click on “change” and determine the best location and name for your upgraded catalog.

—Click to continue (more…)

Conversations with Friends.

On the fifth Episode of our “Conversations with Friends” we met with Peter Waisnor and discussed his 5 favorite movies, and why he feels “lost in translation” when visiting Tokyo on business trips. We also had a little “difference” regarding Jim Carrey’s acting skills.

The wine was a special bottle I was saving specially for Peter since last summer, a very beautiful 2005 G.D. Vajra italian Barolo.

“A sweet, inviting bouquet leads to roses, cherries, raspberries, flowers and spices. The wine possesses gorgeous inner perfume and wonderful depth as it hovers on the palate with a Burgundian sense of weightlessness. This is an emotionally moving, delicate wine of the highest level. Simply put, this is a marvelous bottle.” Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate

Installing and upgrading Adobe Lightroom 4.

Today we would like to show you how to install Adobe Lightroom 4 in 60 seconds or less. On Saturday morning we will post a step-by-step tutorial on how to upgrade your Lightroom 3 (or 2, or 1, or even 4 Beta) Catalog to Lightroom 4.

And by the way, don’t forget to come back tomorrow for a new episode of our “Conversations with Friends.“

Visual Serendipity.

Serendipity: noun; the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

Biking is fun, good for your health, and great to explore a new neighborhood. The colorful building is a simple storage facility in Brooklyn.

Adobe Lightroom 4 is shipping. Price cut in half.

The full version of Lightroom 4 is available now and Adobe cut the price in half: The full version (which used to cost $299) will now be $149. The upgrade version will only cost $79. The beta version (which was downloaded more than 250,000 times) will expire on March 31, 2012.

For an in-depth review of Lightroom’s newest features check our previous post. Also, if you live near New York or plan to visit during the Summer, check one of our upcoming events “What’s New in Adobe Lightroom 4,” and a 2-day hands-on Workshop “Creating Custom Photo Books with Adobe Lightroom 4.”

Adobe Lightroom 4 Geotagging

Canon EOS 5D Mk III, 5D3, 5D Mark III has arrived.

Ok. Let’s start from the beginning: We are looking at a 22.3 Megapixels, Full Frame (36 x 24mm) CMOS sensor system, powered by a DIGIC 5+ processor. Check this article if you want to fully understand the differences between the DIGIC 4 processor on the 5D Mark II, and the new DIGIC 5+ on the 5D Mark III.

Some of the highlighted features include:
• Dual card slots (1 SD/SDHC/SDXC and 1 CF). Sorry, no XQD on this one. What is awesome about the dual cards is that you can a) record the same data to both cards, or b) record different file sizes or types to each card, or c) automatically switch to the second card when the first card is full. That’s great when shooting long interviews, or concerts, for example.
• HDR with +/- 3 stops
• Improvement in noise reduction by 2 stops
• Multiple exposure mode
• 63 zone dual metering system
• +/- 5 stops (the 5D Mark II has only 3 stops)
• iFCL metering system with a 63-zone dual-layer sensor
• File Formats: AVI, RAW, JPEG, H.264, MOV, MPEG-4
• Full HD video recording: 1080/30p, 24p, 25p; 720/60p, 50p; 480/60p, 50p

All the typical features are here: Minimum Shutter Speed (30 sec), Maximum Shutter Speed (1/8000 sec), 100% coverage viewfinder, etc, etc, etc. As expected, durability on the Magnesium Alloy chassis has been improved including a 150,000-cycles shutter, and water and dust additional resistance.

These are the specs that REALLY got my attention:
• It is now possible to check two images side-by-side for sharpness, exposure, etc at different aspect ratios (1:1, 4:3, 16:9) with the new “Comparative Playback” function.
• There’s a Q button that will process RAW to JPG on camera.
• The new camera shares the same exact 61-point High Density Reticular AF system found in the EOS 1D-X (for half the price).
• There’s an iPod-like button to make changes in the movie mode without adding noise to the clips. Smart!

• The 5D Mark III uses the same batteries (LP-E6) as the 7D and 60D.
• The ISO war keeps getting better. The Mark III offers ISO 100-25600 (expandable up to ISO 102,400) for stills, and 100-12800 (up to ISO 25,600) for video. Wow! Now we really could use an iPad as a Key Light!

Here’s an interesting set of high-res JPEGs samples shot at ISO 50 to 102,800. The test was performed under low level halogen lights, which are perhaps the most challenging to digital sensors and noise reduction systems.

Video Features.
There are several serious improvements on this front:
•There are a couple of new video Modes: “Silent and Low Vibration,” but I don’t recall seeing them on the prototype I tested.
• The video resolution is Full HD (1920×1080), and the video format is the same H.264, which I personally love because it runs natively on Adobe Premiere Pro and Lightroom 4, and plays extremely well with online sharing platforms like Vimeo and YouTube.
• The recording buffer has been extended from 12 minutes to 29 minutes and 59 seconds. The 4GB limit is finally over.
• Following Nikon’s D800 improvement, we now have a 3.5mm headphone jack for live audio monitoring and a Wind Filter. Other ports include USB 2, HDMI, Mic Input, and Wireless.

• The LCD screen is virtually the same 3.2″ 1.04 million as the Nikon’s D800. With a screen this size photographers are out of excuses for not using Histograms the way they should.
• There’s a built-in info menu while shooting video, which comes super handy to quickly check important settings like White Balance, Resolution, ISO, Picture Style, etc.

Regarding audio, the changes are pretty exciting:

“The camera includes manual audio level control with 64 levels, adjustable both before and during movie recording. There is also an automatic audio level setting, or sound recording can be turned off entirely. A wind filter is also included. Sound can be recorded either through the internal monaural microphone or via an optional external microphone through the stereo mic input.”

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Bye Bye Phocus. Hasselblad gives Lightroom away.

In about two weeks, Hasselblad will start including Adobe Lightroom when you buy an H4D system. Currently only the H4D-60 is fully supported, and there are many lens profiles missing. It is also unclear if the offer extends to Lightroom 4 when it starts shipping or not. Stay tuned.