Kingfishers – gorgeous tiny little birds, blue and fire orange plumage, super fast moving, and hard to find at the best of times!! So this article and photos are all the more amazing for their sheer awesomeness given the complexity!

Of course, it helps to have a stack of patience, and some tricks to make the process much easier. I’d like to have posted a teaser image, but apparently others who have referred to the images before me got in trouble over copyright (a different discussion for another day in my view!). So, all you get is a link to the article this time!

Shooting fish in a barrel

As a side note, Adrian Groves is clearly an excellent and creative shooter, so kudos to him for a great result!

Really interesting announcement (leak?) today – Hasselblad seems to have let the H4D-40 out of the bag before it’s official launch! The ‘blad website is updated, and it’s telling us there is a new 40MP ‘blad body with 80mm lens that is the H4D-40 provides the perfect entry point into the Hasselblad world – at only $US 19,995!!

I find this article interesting because it seems to show that even the medium format brands are starting to realise that digital has put photography within reach of far more people than ever before. Of course, statistically that means being able to reach more people with more money – but the gap between the high-end DSLRs and the entry level digital medium formats was huge, until now.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but I do wonder if Hasselblad is also concerned about the uptake of cheap HD video, and the flip side being produced by Red with the rumours surrounding the 24MP Scarlet FF35 that shoots high frame rate video and will allow amazing stills to be lifted (DSMC is the new term, the Digital Still and Motion Camera) – while the FF35 is expected to be closer to $US 30k (for the complete kit), the fact that you can upgrade sensors or other body parts without having to dispose of the whole is a pretty compelling argument for many pro shooters tired of the aggressive upgrade cycle presented by DSLRs.

Check out the Hasselblad site for the full story and a hint at some specs.

GoPro HD - Skimboarding In A Storm! from Patrick Lawler on Vimeo.

You know, I like photography (errr, duh…) – but I have to admit that some of the new film work coming out of these consumer HD film toys like the GoPro and other similar action sports video gear is really impressive!! They are shooting some amazing stuff from perspectives I would never have considered useful (or even safe for my gear!!).

Can you image shooting the video above with your Canon 7D? It’s not that complex really – stick your camera on the end of a stick, splash around in the surf, and throw it to your mate occasionally… oh, and crashes are mandatory!!

I’m not suggesting for a moment that these types of cameras are going to replace DSLRs, that’s not their intention – but you can get some very cool ideas just from watching what people are doing with the other available technologies!!

This is one amazing camera – manufactured in 1839 by Alphonse Giroux, Louis D’s brother-in-law (Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, JD or Louis D to his friends) – it is in amazing condition and even comes complete with the original manual!!

I’m not going to explain how the first commercially produced camera actually works, and it goes without saying that if you decide you want to buy into one of these you’ll also need to be comfortable handling dangerous chemicals and try not to sniff the toxic fumes that went into making every image!! The articles say nothing about the camera coming with a tripod, so be prepared to cough up for one of them as well – with exposure times anywhere between 3 & 30 minutes, this beasty is not gonna work hand-held!!

For the expected selling price of €500,000-700,000 (Euros), approx $AUD 780k – 1.1 million (yes, million!!), the camera does produce some of the finest images possible, with no noticeable grain even under a magnifying glass!! You need to be fit to own one – the whole kit weighs in at around 50kg!! Oh, and you might want to know that Louis D signed this one himself, so at least you get a famous autograph in the deal as well!!

Oh yeah, this supremely expensive and historically important camera is basically a couple of boxes made of wood – and we worry about whether we have enough tech to get great images in today’s conditions!! I strongly encourage you to read the history behind Daguerreotype’s, it’s fascinating and every photographer should be familiar with it!! Some links below to help you out:

The Auction – WestLicht Photographica Auction
Daguerreotype’s – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype
Louis Daguerre – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Daguerre
The first photograph – Heliography

Interesting bit of side trivia – Louis D also invented the Diorama!!

Seriously, I don’t think 570 Megapixels is enough – I’d need at least 2 of these car-sized photographenwonders, and at $US 35 million each, they’re a bargain!!

It has 74 CCDs – if there is something interesting (ie living!) in the universe, surely this bad boy will see it!!

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/01/570-megapixel-camera-is-the-mother-and-father-of-all-cameras/

Update 21 Jan 2010: So, it turns out it was faked, meaning that the wolf was proven to be trained/tame rather than wild. The photographer is still denying the claims, but has been stripped of the main prize. The image is still an actual photo, just the circumstances that went into creating it are suspect. Check this article for more detail.

This is the image that was able to win a prestigious award from the British Natural History Museum and also generate a stack of controversy with the veracity of the cries claiming “fake”!! I do not plan on analysing the image in an attempt to determine how genuine it is, there are others before me much better qualified to do so (and much more interested than I am!). If you want to read the background, there’s an article on Gizmodo and another on The Daily Mail.

I find these claims of fake interesting only because I can think of a bunch of ways I would capture this shot, and none of them involve PS!! In case you don’t know me, I’m squarely in the “PS is not a verb” camp – I will always aim to get a shot right in camera, editing is not my style and I don’t find it particularly enjoyable!! But I do REALLY enjoy nailing the perfect shot so that the only work needed is maybe a crop and an upload!!

But I digress – I looked closely at the image and thought about ways I would try to solve the problems so that I could get the image, and here’s what I came up with:

• Laser triggers – I have them, and they would be perfect for this. Set them up along the gate line, align strobes (having tested exposure on previous evenings), set meat out as the original photographer did, and then head inside for a cup of tea. Check camera in the morning…
• Long lens and patience – yes, I think it is possible to catch this image, but there’s no way I’m doing with with a short lens and risking scaring off the wolf (or making it angry!!). So I camp about 15 meters away, with a 400mm fully open and Pocket Wizards to fire strobes near the gate, and I hope I get lucky
• Wide lens on tripod up close – it’s a dark scene, I can’t be sure where the wolf is going to come from. So this time I take the Pocket Wizard and use it with the motor drive, stick a wide lens on (and have it wide open), and rapid fire when anything looks like it moves near the gate. Even with slower shutter speed, the strobe speed should give sharpness and a slightly longer exposure filles out the ambient. With strobe recycle times down to fractions of a second on low power, I could probably get 5 or so frames a second (although at that point the Pocket Wizard might be the limiting factor since they only do 1/200th or so and have quite a long lag between hits)

There are a variety of ways to get the image itself – I think the real trick is getting the wolf in the right place at the right time. I guess that’s where the controversy is, since it’s easy to claim the wolf was trained and placed in position. If I was using the laser triggers, I could camp away from the gate and when the time was opportune, effectively “herd” the wolf towards the gate (and the rush to escape would probably force the jump). Yes it’s random and requires luck, but how much wildlife photography doesn’t?

We’re in an era where the technology is smarter than the operator, and it will only get worse. We already have software like PhotoSketch that constructs an image out of random sources such as Google Images, so the days of crying “fake” are probably going to get worse before they get better.

Not sure about the rest of you photographers out there, but I sleep easy at night – I’m simply not good enough on the editing side of the equation to be able to fake anything!! And the only person I’m competing with is myself, in trying to improve my art!! Idealistic perhaps, but honest…

I’ve been hovering and waiting, and following the rumours and the forums, and literally hanging off every word Jim Jannard deems us mere mortals worthy of hearing (too over the top perhaps? hmmm…). I’ve been a follower of Red Cameras for years – the original Red One has been picked up by film-makers like Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) and other heavy hitting Hollywood producers. I won’t got into the tech here, but when a camera nut like Jim (who is better know as being the founder of Oakley) decides he wants to spend some of his fortune building a camera like no other, he certainly doesn’t hold back!!

But I digress – it is not Red One or even the new Epic sensors that I’m really interested in (although, if you want to see sensor insanity, check out the Epic 617 sensor, coming in at a very physical 168×56mm – yes, actual size!). My interest lies in Scarlet, specifically the Mysterium Monstro FF35 (Full Frame 35mm) – an amazing piece of kit, you’ll need to read all the specs yourself to fully grasp the shift this kind of tech will make in the photography space. No longer will people think of film and stills as separate – that’s the coolness of DSMC (and we’re already seeing that convergence in the half-hearted attempts by Nikon and Canon to get film quality onto a still body – just try and film a high speed train or car with these new 1080p bodies and then lift stills from the footage, and you’ll see why I say “half-hearted”).

But I digress – Red crushed me today with the early pre-release pricing and release schedule! The FF35 didn’t even make it onto the release schedule, and the S35 (the sensor below) starts at $US 7000 just for the “brain”. By the time the rest of the camera is added (viewfinder, storage, power, monitor, triggers, lenses), it’s suddenly in the league of the ‘Blads and less in the world of the Canons and Nikons… Gizmodo was the first to shatter my hopes and dreams…

I saw another rumour too – word on the street is that when the FF35 is finally released (in at least 3 years, based on their prior release schedules), it could have a starting price of $US 28,800!! Yikes!!

You can read more on the Red User Forums where you can find the latest news, updates, and lamentations…

Apparently the iPhone is here to stay – I didn’t think it would last, yet here we are! OK, I’m lying, I was on the band wagon just after the grey market importers, and just before the Telco’s signed on. I’ve been extremely happy with my iPhone – it makes calls, it has calendar entries, I can even play a few games!! I’m heavily into pretty much everything tech, but I certainly never viewed my iPhone as being any more than a converged organiser – this lack of lateral thinking is probably why I’m not rich or famous, or doing new and cool things in photography!

Check these out – there are now HEAPS of people doing amazing things with converged devices (including iPhones):
Koichi Mitsui, a Japanese Pro photographer, is into shooting with the iPhone 3GS and getting great results!
Chase Jarvis got on board the iPhone so early he had time to build an app and establish a thriving community full of amazing images!
Greg Schmigel is right into the iPhone and produces some great work
Bhautik Joshi thought the iPhone had potential if only it had a better lens (madness!)

There are even dedicated websites, including iPhone Photography, iPhonephoto.us and the Flickr iPhone group among others! And plenty of resource sites as well, just Google for it

I know there are PS filters to achieve this look, but there’s something uber cool about some genuine tilt-shift lens action! For those of you not familiar with these lenses, tilt-shift lenses are realistically intended to be a corrective lens – architecture photographers often use them to straighten the edges of buildings so it doesn’t look like the walls are curved (like you get if you use a wide-angle to shoot a very tall building like the Empire State).

There’s also an excellent article in the tech behind tilt-shift on photo.net

However, tilt-shift lenses also have a pretty cool side effect – it’s easy to get an extremely shallow depth of field that is shaped along a plane!! What does this mean? Well, instead of a shallow DoF you get with a normal lens (which is a circle at the centre of the lens, and the bokeh appears more pronounced as you move further away from the centre to the outer edges), tilt-shifts have a horizontal or vertical DoF plane – which results in some amazing effects!!

A long explanation I know, but tilt-shift is the original method used to turn big, well known city scapes into images that look like model railroad miniatures. And finally one photographer has gone one further, and made some stop motion videos of Florida Disney World.

Check the full article here and watch the video too!!

Just wanted to let everyone know I won’t be posting for a while – I’m off to be first in the queue to get my hands on a new, cheap gigapixel camera!! You’ll find me waiting outside my local computer store – that’s where you get cheap flash memory, right?

This is a really interesting article that hints at the possibilities in the future world of photography!! Megapixel wars? Gone!! Instead, everyone will have cheap, amazing capability in their hands – and suddenly, it will be the good photographers (or at least, those with good business models) who will survive!!

This is a very interesting (tech) read, check it out!