TWiP #237 – Bourne to Be Wild

 

This week on TWiP: Scott Bourne gets hands on with a Lytro camera, a look back at some of the announcements coming out of CES, Adobe backtracks on their upgrade pricing for CS6, and a new online service lets photographers make money from photographing strangers.

Hosts: Frederick Van Johnson, Ron Brinkmann, Martin Bailey, Scott Bourne

NEWS & DISCUSSION

Scott Gets Hands-on With a Lytro Camera
During CES, Scott had the chance to meet with some of the folks over at Lytro and get his hands on their new camera. He was blown away by what the device was capable of doing and thinks the technology in the Lytro camera will be a game changer.

Scott saw them demo some of the amazing features including 3D and a time lapse movie where the focus point changed position during the time lapse. Scott thinks that this will be an important piece of technology in the next few years and thinks that we will see their technology incorporated into cameras that we will all be using.

Scott wrote an extensive article on his experience with the Lytro camera on his blog at Photofocus.

Digital Camera Manufacturers Struggle to Keep Up at CES
From Yahoo News: At first glance, it would appear the camera industry is in trouble. Some of the smartphones introduced at CES have specs that equal or surpass cameras: 16-megapixel sensors, displays as big as 5.3 inches and the ability to shoot HD video at 1080p.

Plus, smartphones have much more intuitive interfaces and can instantly upload photos and video to the internet for instant sharing. Which is why more and more people shoot photos and video on their phones, leaving cameras and camcorders at home.

To counter this trend, camera and camcorder manufacturers have introduced a number of models that connect to the Internet via WiFi. Some look promising, like Sony's Bloggie Live, which lets you live stream video to your computer through a web video service called Qik.

Polaroid also announced a new camera powered by Android called the SC1630 Smart Camera. Ron saw this specs on this camera and wasn't impressed. He was really hoping for a camera with a decent sensor in the micro 4/3 category powered by Android.

Adobe Backtracks on it's Upgrade Pricing for CS6
Bowing to public pressure, Adobe has backtracked slightly on it's proposed plan to only offer upgrade pricing on CS6 to registered users of CS5. This move prompted a great deal of backlash from the photography community since their previous policy allowed users who were as far as three versions behind to qualify for upgrade pricing.

Perhaps in response to the angry customer response, Adobe announced a “special offer” for CS3 and CS4 owners.

Martin tends to upgrade with every release because of his role as an educator but thinks if that wasn't the case he would probably only upgrade every other version. Scott thinks they handled this very poorly and that they need to move on and learn from it.

He would recommend Elements for everyone unless you're into video or special effects. CS6 will be a great upgrade for people who are into video.

Candidtag Lets Photographers Earn Money from Photographing Strangers
From Petapixel: Candidtag is a new service designed to make it easy to earn a little cash by photographing strangers you meet out in public.

The idea is that there are people (e.g. tourists) out there who are too busy enjoying their lives to carry a camera around, but at the same time would like memories of their experiences. If you always carry your camera around, you can offer to take pictures for strangers and then give them a card pointing them to your Candidtag “collection”.

The client can later visit the website to view the photos you took and purchase prints or digital copies. Photographers are paid by commission when sales are made.

The panel generally agrees that this service has been around for awhile and is a horrible idea. Frederick wonders why someone couldn't just do this with a SmugMug account and some Moo cards.

LISTENER QUESTIONS

Anddavros in the forums writes: I have been using Aperture for about a year, and am coming up against a need for working with layers more frequently. I am trying to decide if I would be better off purchasing PSE, or if OnOne Layers offers some functionality that I shouldn't be living without?

Scott: I think all of them are good. All of them have free trials so I would try them all and pick the one that resonates with you. Martin agrees that you can try them all for free and see what you like.

PICKS OF THE WEEK

Scott: Pegasus R6 Hard Drive array

Martin: Lenser H7R Rechargeable LED Headlamp

Ron: http://www.MyShotLists.com

Frederick: Martin's eBook – Making The Print

WRAP UP

Follow us on twitter.com/ThisWeekInPhoto. Join the Flickr critique group. You can also join our Facebook group and add us to your circles on Google+.

Scott Bourne: www.scottbourne.com or www.twitter.com/scottbourne or plus.ly/scottbourne

Ron Brinkmann: www.twitter.com/ronbrinkmann or www.digitalcomposting.com

Martin Bailey: www.twitter.com/martinbailey or www.martinbaileyphotography.com or Google+

Frederick Van Johnson: www.frederickvan.com or www.twitter.com/frederickvan or fvj.me/plus

CREDITS

TWiP is brought to you by the following sponsor:

Squarespace.com, the fast and easy way to create a high-quality website or blog.  For a free trial and 30% off your new account for three months, go to Squarespace.com, and use offer code SQAURESPACE13.

Pre-Production and Show notes by Edmonton Wedding Photographer Bruce Clarke at www.momentsindigital.com or www.twitter.com/bruceclarke

Producers: Suzanne Llewellyn

Bandwidth provided by Cachefly

Intro Music by Scott Cannizzaro

Photo Credit: Lytro

3 Comments

  1. I wish Scott was on more often. Viva Las Vegas.
    PS. I hope what happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas.

  2. After looking at the Lytro it made me wonder if there would be a resurgence of linticular printing applications… especially with the “3D” features yet to be unlocked. The expanded FOV (“step to the left”) mentioned in the podcast would be spectacular for industrial and Ad-space linticular uses.