Interview with ADF at Photokina.

 
Here’s another interview from last week at Photokina, this time for the Arbeitskreis Digitale Fotografie or ADF, which means the “Working Group on Digital Photography” and is the equivalent to the APA or ASMP in the U.S.

This link has an interesting collection of photography links in Germany, including museums, education, journals, and other relevant online services.

Visual Serendipity.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Will Lightroom 4 support all my files? Maybe.

 
Updated 9/22

I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking whether Adobe Lightroom 4 (and/or Adobe Camera Raw 7) will support the file format for certain new cameras.

In Lightroom 4.1 or later, you can import and work with TIFF 16-, 24-, and 32-bit floating point images – also known as HDR (high dynamic range) images. You can use the Develop module controls to edit HDR images, and then render the images for export or printing as 8-bit or 16-bit images. Lightroom can now import DNG format HDR images, but you need to make sure the images are processed version 2012.

To keep things simple, here’s the complete list of currently supported file formats:

• JPEG
• TIFF (8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit)
• PSD (8 bit, 16 bit)
• DNG
• RAW – Here is the complete list of supported cameras. As you can see, the list keeps growing and growing and now includes Hasselblad, Mamiya/Leaf, and PhaseOne Medium Format Digital Backs.

There are two important exceptions:
PSD files saved without the “Maximize Compatibility” setting enabled
Files with dimensions greater than 65,000 pixels per side

As you already know (if you have been following this blog), Lightroom 4 also supports the most popular HDSLR video formats, including MOV, MPG, AVI, and AVCHD.

Keep in mind that the AVCHD support is limited to MTS and M2TS video files. Video editing applications like Adobe Premiere Pro may need the AVCHD file structure to process the files, which can be a pain. Final Cut Pro 7 won’t even take the MTS files without transcoding them first.

This is how the typical AVCHD file structure looks like:

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Photokina TV Interview.

 
Earlier today we sat down for an interview for Photokina TV in Cologne, Germany. Here’s a segment that is available online:

Visual Serendipity.

 

Hidden gems in Brooklyn, NY, part 3. This one is very close to the Floyd Bennet Field.

The Dawn of the Innovated Dead.

 
Photokina started a few hours ago, and Sony is banging its drums. And loud!

Kazuo Hirai, the brand new CEO (since April), seems to finally come to the realization that in order to compete with Canon and Nikon in the HDSLR arena the company needs to provide products that photographers and filmmakers need, and understand.

The most impressive announcement is the Cyber-shot RX1, which is basically a point-and-shoot with a full-frame sensor.

• The Specs:
35mm full-frame 24.3MP Exmor CMOS sensor, ISO 100-25600, 14-bit RAW image capture, f/2.0 Carl Zeiss Sonnar T lens with 9 aperture blades, P/A/S/M modes, Full HD 24p/60i/60p video with manual control. Check all the features here.

• The Good:
1080p video recording at 60fps or 24fps.
Manual exposure controls for both stills and video.
RAW shooting.
Automated modes for HDR photography.

• The Bad:
35mm fixed lens, even if it is an F2.0.
For $2,800 it is pretty hard to consider this camera over a full-featured HDSLR. If you are still interested, Amazon is taking pre orders now.

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Photokina 2012 focuses on HDSLR Video.

 
Every two years there is one focal point in the Photo indus­try: Pho­tok­ina, the world’s lead­ing imag­ing fair. Photokina cov­ers the entire spec­trum of imag­ing, from image cap­ture to image pro­cess­ing and stor­age to image out­put. This is where new trends and major inno­va­tions are pre­sented to the world, and where the spot­light is on ground­break­ing tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ments includ­ing mobile imag­ing, con­nec­tiv­ity, and mov­ing images. The show always deliv­ers an impres­sive pro­gram of work­shops, sym­po­siums, pho­tog­ra­phy exhi­bi­tions and many spe­cial events at the exhi­bi­tion cen­tre and at sites all over Cologne.

As you might know every Pho­tok­ina show focuses on one sin­gle topic. Because film­ing withHDSLR sys­tems is increas­ingly becom­ing a neces­sity for pro­fes­sion­als, this year’s topic is HDSLR Video.

The show has cre­ated a “Shoot Movie Park” in Hall 4.1, offer­ing a unique area where sup­pli­ers have an opti­mal loca­tion to present them­selves to the atten­dees. The Movie Park will be sup­ple­mented by a series of lec­tures, work­shops and exhibitions. Canon will present Richard Walch, sailor, snow­boarder and photographer. Zeiss will have Sebas­t­ian Wiegärt­ner, one of the first users in the German-speaking region to under­stand and make use of the capa­bil­i­ties of the new HDSLR sys­tems. We are very excited to be representing X-Rite, and show our most recent Color Management Video Tutorials (Video 1, Video 2 and Video 3).

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of ADF — Arbeit­skreis Dig­i­tale Fotografie (dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy work­ing group) will also be shar­ing their exper­tise as they answer vis­i­tors’ ques­tions about dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy and film. More infor­ma­tion about the “Shoot Movie” pro­gram can be found here.

Stay tuned!  We will be sharing the most exciting news and products live from Photokina via Twitter and Facebook. If you are not yet following us, do so today!

Visual Serendipity.

 

Something I truly love about New York is that it is a “pedestrian friendly” city. Not only it is much faster (and cheaper) to walk somewhere instead of taking a train or a cab, it is also a good exercise. Keep walking.

The power of words in marketing.

 
A wonderful friend sent me this short video, which impacted me at several different levels.

The original intention of the director, Seth Gardner, was “to illustrate the power of words to radically change a message and its effect upon the world.” It can be seen as a clever marketing piece or a bittersweet personal story.

For some reason, the video reminded me of the Washington Post’s experiment about 5 years ago, when Joshua Bell, one of the best concert violinist in the world, played for free, for 45 minutes, on a violin worth 3.5 million dollars at a subway station in D.C. Over a thousand people passed by Bell, only seven stopped to listen him play, including a 3-year old boy, and only one person recognized him. He collected $32.17. A few nights before he was playing a sold out theater in Boston with an average ticket of $100.

The first video inspired me to rethink how we market our company and communicate with our clients, and the second one remind to “stop and smell the roses” or at least listen to the music more often.
 

Putting us on the map.

 
We are proud to announce that Eduardo Angel LLC is now on a digital map called, Made in New York, a great resource developed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg for tech companies, investors, developers and designers. Featuring more than 500 local companies across the city’s five boroughs, including 325 that are presently hiring, the projects’s goal is to interactively show what is happening in the technology industry throughout the five boroughs.

“We expect this map to be another tool that helps propel our tech industry forward,” Bloomberg said . “The growth of the tech industry in New York City has been a critical part of weathering the nation’s economic downturn, far better than the rest of the country.” Since the map plots companies by location, job seekers can explore their desired neighborhoods, making this a fantastic resource for anyone who lives or is moving to New York City to find jobs in the technology sector. The map can be also be sorted by digital companies, investors, and co-working and incubator spaces.

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Visual Serendipity.

 

Over the past six years I have been collecting the corks from every wine bottle we drink. We have well over 700 corks at this point. I also try to write tasting notes for most wines. Since 2007 I’ve written 606 notes with an average score of 87.43 points, and tasted 77 varietals from 218 regions in 147 countries.  I do love good wine.

Seeing Information.

 
We have been trying innovative ways to make our content more visually appealing. Here are some of the most recent features that you might not know.

• The Tag Cloud is great. The more we write about a topic the bigger it gets in the “cloud.” Simply click on one word to access the most relevant articles.

• The Event Calendar (on your right) is very easy to share, subscribe to, and download (Google Calendar, iCal, etc). The Colored Categories are now much easier to read. This is a brand new edition.

• Visual Serendipity is our ongoing weekly series of images taken with a cellphone. You can access all the images by simply searching for “Visual Serendipity”

• We have been on Tumblr for a long time. We love the site’s interaction with other photographers and bloggers, as well as the beautiful looking menu of “recent posts.”

• We are part of Bloomberg’s Digital Map for Tech Companies in New York. Come back tomorrow to learn more about this great project.

• And our Visuals page keeps growing and changing. We are hosting our images on PhotoShelter and have been very happy with the results.

So, how are we doing? Do you like the graphics as much as we do? What can we do better to improve the site? Talk to us.