Big gig flash drives

I love my LaCie rugged portable drives but I think the new,  large flash drives from Kingston could give them a run for their money. The problem with carrying duplicate drives everywhere is…..you have to carry duplicate drives everywhere. Substituting two small flash drives would cut the poundage from the laptop bag considerably.  Also, the idea of running a pair of Kingston’s 128 GB flash dives in my USB ports is exciting.

Imported images with a Firewire 800 card reader could go through the MacBook Pro and simultaneously out to the two flash drives. The MBP has three USB ports and I think by using the two outside ports there would be enough room for the flash drives. It could block the Firewire port, though. More study is needed.

In the meantime, I’ll be watching the price of the Kingstons (currently approximately $400).

Baby tigers on the Today’s Show

It was cool to see the baby white tigers on the Today’s Show this morning. This was nicely timed as the book “Tiger Pups” goes on sale tomorrow. They’re almost a year old now and certainly not babies anymore. They are so much larger than the last time I was with them. The photo here is one of my favorites even though it didn’t make the book.

Baby tiger, Caney, KS

I like the photo because it has a strange look to it. Part of that is the orientation. I shot it as a horizontal and the tiger is actually lying down in the chair. When I rotated it into a vertical the tiger suddenly looks like she is standing. Plus, the light now appears to be coming from the side and  a little below. The light for this shot is a large monolight strobe place near the ceiling in the corner of the room.

Upgrade early and often: It’s camera-buying-article season

Every year about this time a bunch of how-to-pick-the best-camera stories show up in preparation for the summer travel season. This year is no different and one that particularly caught my eye was the July-August issue of  Departures Magazine. (Departures is behind a paywall so the link will just get you to the login). This piece is worth pursuing because there is some sage advice offered up by brand photographers like Peter Turnley and Michael Yamashita.

I like the piece because one of my favorite cameras, Panasonic’s Lumix LX3, is in the handful of cameras the story profiles. I use the camera and have written about it here before. Also, it is the camera I most often recommend to friends. Unfortunately, it is hard to find this days (especially in black) because everyone else likes it, too. Another recommended camera is the Canon PowerShot G10. I’ve also owned this camera in an earlier iteration and it gets high marks. My only complaint is it’s larger size. The Lumix will slide into a pants pocket, the Powershots usually won’t.

Unlike film cameras, digital cameras can make huge leaps forward in one model rev. One example of  this game-changing innovation is touch screen focus found on this new 12 MP camera phone from Samsung. You choose what you want the camera to focus on by touching that spot on the LCD view finder. This could be an extremely useful way of manually focusing a camera that uses live-view. Another example is the improvement that can happen in sensors (something I’ll be talking about in my next post.

Goodbye yellow boxes

Kodak announced Monday that it will discontinue making Kodachrome. This is little surprising to me as I thought Kodachrome had long ago left the building. 

The NYTimes piece doesn’t give a date when production will end, just that Kodak has made the announcement. I’d guess there are more than a few bricks hiding out in the freezers of old National Geographic photographers. The article lists Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, KS as the only place to get Kodachome processed…that lasts until 2010.

In the meantime, I may just run a roll through the M4 for old time’s sake.

The camera that changed the world

Actually, it may be a phone.

The camera-enabled cell phone is rapidly becoming the default tool for crowd-sourced photojournalism (the most recently example of which comes from Iranian election protest coverage). Someone walking through the streets of Beijing or Islamabad  has the reporting and distribution potential of what, 25 years ago, would have taken an AP bureau to produce.

The universal nature of imagery means that phone camera reportage can easily reach a world-wide audience and no translation is needed. Couple that with the swarm affect of several people focused on the same event and a powerfully clear message can emerge.

IMHO, the number one reason cell phones are so efficient is because if you own one you tend to carry it all the time (even pro shooters don’t carry their cameras all the time). And, as developing nations leapfrog over land-line technology directly to cellular this results in a whole lot of potential photojournalists walking around.

But being able to capture and transmit images is meaningless unless there is the support of a distribution network. Historically, this has been the differentiator for legacy media organizations.   Crowd-sourced photojournalism now becomes “cloud-sourced” as it goes straight to Facebook, Twitter,  blog, or website.

Is it possible that we’ll look back on the cell phone camera the way many of us look back on the Leica M camera? The same tiny camera that Henri Cartier-Bresson used to usher in a new way of seeing in the world.

I’m interested in your thoughts?

Pictures from China

 

The China Gallery

See the China gallery here

Pan shots

 

This Hong Kong pan shot was made by combining three frames from a Nikon D3x in Photoshop.

 

Pondering the Hong Kong skyline.

Flying high with Wi-Fi…maybe not

All the major airlines are rushing to add in-flight Wi-Fi service but are overlooking a critical component…the space to actually operate a laptop computer while seated in a plane. See Joe Sharkey . I use a 17 inch Macbook Pro and the only way it’s coming open in coach is if I scrunch the keyboard up to my chin and/or slide down in the seat. This makes viewing uncomfortable and typing impossible. Also, with elbow to elbow seating it’s frequently impossible to operate the touch pad or keyboard without simultaneously elbowing my seat mate and becoming a target for the drink cart. Since many airlines have discontinued domestic first class, switched to regional “pencil jets” , pack every seat on the plane (or all three) the exit row is about the only place you can realistically use a laptop.

Southwest was testing Wi-Fi on two planes earlier this year.

 

 

Wi-Fi enabled smart phones and the teeniest of notebook computers will be about the only devices able to take advantage of airplane Wi-Fi.  Since more space on the plane is not likely to open up in my lifetime I’m looking forward to a smaller, tablet device (that Apple has been rumored to be working on). I suspect other companies will also begin to develop devices larger than a smart phone with airline passengers in mind. The new Kindle2 (and coming KindleDX) would be perfect devices for this but they don’t do Wi-Fi. 

Two steps forward….one step back.

Photo gadgets I can’t live without

I’m prepping for next week’s trip to China and thought I’d share some gear that’s become essential. 

*Rocket Blaster and liquid sensor cleaner. The only time I had the hood up on a film SLR was to inspect the mirror/shutter box (not that I could have actually repaired anything but it made me feel handy). Now, the mirror on my digital SLRs gets locked up more than I’d like to think about and the reason is dust. No matter how careful I am by changing lenses only when necessary and pointing the open body down,  dust ALWAYS gets on the sensor. The Rocket Blaster is good for dislodging casual sensor dust but for those bits that are committed to appear in your beautiful skies, you need to do some wet work. Get a bottle of the cleaner and it’s dedicated sensor swabs. Match swab size to sensor size. In other words, it’s easier to clean an FX sensor with a wide swab….not a narrow swab designed for DX-sized sensors. 

*LaCie rugged hard drives. I usually carry two, a 500 GB and a 250GB. I move the image files off the flash cards directly to the LaCies with redundant copies on each. The 500 also carries a bootable backup of my Macbook Pro’s hard drive in case of a failure. Since the new Macbooks only have Firewire 800, I do simultaneous downloads by daisy-chaining the two LaCies via their Firewire 400 ports. That leaves both Firewire ports open on the hard drives….one connects to the MBP, the other to a Firewire 800 card reader. USB could be an option but I believe that would require a power source for the hard drive, someone correct me if I’m wrong. 

*ThinkTank rolling bag. I have two ThinkTank airport rollers, a standard size and the smaller, international size. These have displaced the venerable, hard-shell Samsonite roll-aboards that have been my go-to camera carriers for at least a decade. ThinkTank rollers, like the Samsonites, look like all the other roll-aboards going on the plane….and that’s a good thing. Photographers want their photos to stand out…not their gear. In addition to padded protection, ThinkTank has an integrated a dual security system so you can lock the bag AND lock the bag to something using an on-board cable. These guys get it.

*The Scott eVest. This vest is like a wearable gadget bag designed for the person who travels with lots of electronic devices.These guys have really diversified from the original Scott eVest into a full line of geek clothing. There is a jacket with sleeves that zip off, pants and even a cap.  I like the vest because it’s black, the zippers are concealed and all of the 22 pockets hang on the inside of the vest. With the draconian restrictions on carry-on weights that many international airlines have adopted the eVest has rescued my cameras from checked baggage more than once. The method is simple. Load up your heavy camera gear in the vest (it will hold A LOT). Then, if you want, transfer the gear back to your carry-on after weigh-in. I have the jacket and the vest. For my purposes the jacket is too heavy, so the travel Scott eVest has become my constant companion. The vest is very discrete and since it’s black, works for almost any occasion.  (The khaki safari vests suggest you just came from a campfire. )