Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

Flickr Integration for Radar – iPhone and Web-enabled Phones

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There are a lot of photo apps for the iPhone.  Some are better than others.  Tiny Pictures says they’ve got the best thing for mobile Flickr users.  With the new Radar service, you can follow your Flickr contacts and engage in conversation through Flickr photo comments.

Get more details in the following press release.

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO ? March 11, 2009 ? Tiny Pictures, Inc. today launched Flickr integration for Radar (http://radar.net)—the leading service for real-time sharing of cameraphone pictures, videos and conversations between friends. The integration allows users to follow Flickr photos as they’re shared and stay on top of conversations around photostreams, directly from the Radar mobile applications, mobile site and desktop site.

“We have a long-standing affinity with the Flickr team and the massive photo community they’ve built, and we’re very excited to be able to offer the Radar mobile experience to Flickr users as well,” said John Poisson (http://radar.net/people/fugu), Founder and CEO of Tiny Pictures. [Read more…]

 

New Canon DSLR Coming March 25th?

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I’ve seen this date in the rumor mill a couple of times now, and it now appears to be in full swing with a press conference scheduled by Canon for March 25.  No details on which one it might be, but popular opinions suggest either a Rebel series update (EOS 500D) or a 1D Mark III update.

Fire away with your thoughts or derogatory remarks (just keep it clean) in the comments below.

Jack Camera Bags by Jill-e Designs

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In addition to girlie bags I showed you yesterday, Jill-e Designs also makes more masculine bags, aptly called Jack bags. The Jack camera bags aid in helping to protect and conceal your high-end photo gear in a bag that doesn’t necessarily look like a camera bag.

I had a few minutes hands-on time with these bags at PMA and have to say that they are very nice – truly high fashion, high function.  The rolling bag and messenger bag work together when traveling.  The slide out handle on the rolling bag fits through loops on the messenger bag for a great travel combo. [Read more…]

Bogen to Host Free Lighting Webinar on Friday, March 13, 2009

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Bogen is hosting a free webinar this Friday on how to create simple lighting to enhance your images.  Will Crockett, a respected pro shooter, will be leading the session and it will be held this Friday, the 13th from 2-3 PM EDT.  Registrants will also have the chance to win a Metz flash at the end – so it’s quite worthwhile aside from the valuable learning opportunity.

While I can’t join in live, I’ve gone ahead and registered because you can watch the recording for up to 24 hours afterward.  Yeah, I’ve got big Friday night plans!

More details in the press release below, or just you can just go ahead and register now.  [Read more…]

Jill-e Camera Bags: High Fashion, High Function

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Tucked away in the far corner of the second floor at PMA were some very cool camera bags for the ladies.  Jill-e Designs makes pro-caliber camera bags with an extra serving of style (check back tomorrow to see what Jill-e is doing for the guys).  While they aren’t exactly inexpensive bags, when you consider what you would pay for a quality camera bag made of nylon, the premium for a little style is not really too much of a jump.  Jill-e camera bags are available from a number of retailers, including Adorama.com. [Read more…]

Sony Cyber-shot HX1 Hands-On Review

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The Sony Cyber-shot HX1 is a powerful new point and shoot camera with an incredible spec list.  Sony had the HX1 on display after it was announced at a press conference just before PMA 2009.  The HX1 is yet another hybrid camera, which were very prevalent at this year’s PMA.

At first blush, the HX1 looks like just another super zoom point and shoot camera.  Dig a little deeper into the features though and you will find some unique and powerful specs.  One of the biggest new features is the Sweep Panorama, which allows you to hand-hold the camera and pan from side to side.  The HX1 captures a 7152 x 1080 panoramic image from a number of images captured and stitched in-camera.

In addition to the Sweep Panorama, the HX1 is capable of capturing full-size 9.1 megapixel images at 10 frames per second.  This is made possible by the mechanical shutter used by the HX1, which is a stark change from electronic shutters found on traditional point and shoot cameras. [Read more…]

Canon 5D Mark II Does the Bellagio Fountains

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I couldn’t resist doing a video with the 5D Mark II and EF 17-40mm f/4 L of the Bellagio fountains while in Vegas for PMA. Unfortunately, the embedded version is nowhere near as crisp as the original file. You can see a higher quality version on the actual YouTube page here (just click the HQ icon).

I would love to share the original file; however, it is 1.23 GB, which is larger than the online video sharing that I know of will allow. The version that I uploaded to YouTube was compressed to 883MB.

Does anyone know of a free solution to get the original video file online? I just don’t have enough bandwidth to share it on my server.

UPDATE: Here’s the original 1.23GB file as hosted on DropBox. Right click and “Save As…”

Panasonic Lumix GH1 Hands-On Review

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One of the most exciting new cameras at PMA 2009 was the Panasonic Lumix GH1, which was a follow-up to the Lumix G1 introduced at Photokina 2008.  The GH1 shares most of the same features and specs of the G1; however, it includes one significant improvement – the ability to shoot video in true 1080p HD at 24 fps or shoot 720p HD video at 60 fps.  Panasonic uses an AVCHD format for video capture and records audio via Dolby Digital Stereo Creator.

Panasonic has not announced the price of the new GH1, which will initially only be offered in kit form with the 14-140mm HD lens.  Panasonic’s reasoning for selling it as a kit initially is due to the specialized silent autofocus functionality of the HD lens.  It was designed from the ground up with video in mind, which required Panasonic to overcome some significant hurdles so that AF noise did not interfere with audio capture when recording 1080p video.  According to reps at PMA, the kit should be available in May or June 2009.

Panasonic had a couple pre-production models on display at PMA.  I was able to get some hands-on time with one and even grab some images and a quick video on my SD card. [Read more…]

Panasonic Lumix GH1 Sample Video

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Here’s a quick and dirty sample video taken from a pre-production Panasonic Lumix GH1 on display at PMA 2009. The AVCHD encoding was finicky and still isn’t final form, but I managed to get part of it out to MPEG 4 format so that I could share with you. It’s nothing fancy, but I think it demonstrates the potential that this camera has as a video solution. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get all of the footage converted.

Please remember this was a pre-production model which did have bugs in it. I’m encouraged though at the performance I saw from handing the camera. I’ll have more on my thoughts for the GH1 soon.

In the mean time, if you want the full-res MPEG 4 file for personal use and perusal, you can download it here (right click and choose “save target as”).