Are these the worst wedding photos EVER? RAWtalk 152

This week we finally take a look at Todd’s attempt at shooting photos at a wedding. We find out why he was asked in the first place and we learn that he used iPhoto to edit the RAW files. We apologize in advance if you are listening to this as audio only as you won’t get a chance to see the photos until you can watch the video.

This weeks show is brought to you by GraphicStock, VideoBlocks and AudioBlocks. It’s simple, try them out if you do any type of video creating. We use something from either one of those services in almost every video we produce.

I discussed my Pope Photos along with the Rode VideoMicro as gear of the week and Stephen hits us with some Photo News.

Here’s the video of the Pope driving by in Philadelphia that Jared was referring to in this week’s RAWtalk:

Show Intro – 00:00:16
Camera Giveaway Announcement – 00:09:51
Pope Recap – 00:13:07
Photo News – 00:20:05
Gear of the Week – 00:58:35
Todd’s Wedding Photos Critique – 01:02:05
Wheel of Fro – 01:42:48

Here’s all of Stephen’s photo news stories in detail:

TV Station Replaces Broadcast Cameras with Selfie Sticks & iPhones

A local news station in Switzerland has ditched their broadcast cameras in favor of iPhones and selfie sticks. Yup, the TV station Léman Bleu gave each reporter an iPhone 6 kit for recording footage out in the field, both prerecorded and live. The station’s news director, Laurent Keller, says “it’s a search for lightness and responsiveness, but also a way to reduce the costs of producing a newscast. It’s up to us to reinvent the grammar of the image, to learn to shoot differently.” One of the big reasons for the change is for easier online use. Since the station’s only on air a few hours a day, most of their traffic is seen online and this will make it easier to share quicker. The news director adds that “the misconception is that the iPhone generates poorer picture quality than standard cameras. We believe the opposite. The picture is different, but it offers an interesting grain.” Hmm, smart move? Or just plain dumb? (via LT)

Donald Trump Calls Out Photojournalist Over “Empty Room” Photo

Speaking of news reporting, Donald Trump is calling out a photojournalist after they photographed empty chairs at one of his recent speeches in South Carolina, calling the AP photographer, “a f**king thief!” The photographer, Mic Smith, sent in two photos to the press, one showing a packed room up close to the people in the front, and the other taken from the back, showing the last few rows of empty chairs, appearing as if no one turned out for the event. Trump claims that the room was actually full, and that the chairs in the back were empty because people had left them to crowd around him at the front of the room. Trump says, “the point is that everybody from the back rushed to the front. And the people who put out the pictures knew it. And they said, ‘Oh, look! The back 25 per cent [is empty]’. I was speaking from the podium. Everybody was wrapped around the podium. If they hadn’t done that, there wouldn’t have been an empty seat.” He adds, “tell them they’re a fraud, whoever took it. I just got killed on that thing, and it was just really unfair. It’s godd**n unfair.” The Associated Press has responded saying, “we are confident that the description of crowd size is accurate.” The current caption from the photo will remain, noting “Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, speaks on the front of the stage while the back seats remain empty at an event.” Another example of how powerful a single image can be… (via TDM)

Fujifilm Unveils New Instax Mini 70

Fujifilm has announced their brand new Instax Mini 70. The new instant camera will have “a modern and simple design” and come in three new colors: “canary yellow”, “island blue” and “moon white.” One of the new main features is its automatic exposure control which will finally expose both the subject and background properly even in dark environments, with a shutter speed range of 1/2 a second to 1/400. They say, “the camera automatically detects the amount of ambient light and adjusts the shutter speed and flash amount accordingly,” where before it just always fired off a harsh flash since it had a fixed shutter speed. It also has a new “selfie” mode, equipped with a new front facing selfie mirror next to the lens for proper framing. The new camera will be available later this month on Oct. 23 for $140. What do you think?

Anthony Mazur’s School Wants Photo Students to Now Sign “Work For Hire” Contract

An update on the Anthony Mazur story from a few months back, when his school district threatened to suspend him if he didn’t take down all of the photos that were captured with the school’s equipment on his Flickr page. Fast forward a few months, now the high school is requiring students to sign a “work for hire” contract in order to use the school’s photo gear, which will in turn give up each photographer’s copyright on photos taken with the gear. The contract, which Mazur posted on his official Twitter, states that “images to be created shall be considered ‘works made for hire’ as the work is specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, including but not limited to school newspaper or yearbook.” The contract adds that “any images of students taken by LISD students on equipment owned by the District shall only be saved and/or posted on District computers and on the District’s network.” If they choose not to sign it, then students will be “denied access to district-owned equipment and/or press credentials except for school specific assignments.” The document also requires a parent’s signature since the kids are under 18. What do you think about all of this? (via PP)

RED Releases New “Inexpensive” Camera Called the RAVEN

RED unveiled a new “inexpensive” lightweight camera called the RAVEN. The big thing about this is the cost, it comes in at only $5,950, which for a RED camera is quite affordable. Spec wise, the Canon EF-Mounted camera is equipped with a 4K RED DRAGON 8.8mp sensor, that will shoot REDCODE RAW (their raw format) in 4K at up to 120fps, or 2K at 240fps. The sensor has 16.5 stops of dynamic range and can record RAW and Pro Res at the same time for proxy editing. They say it has the same DR and color rendering as the Scarlet, Epic, and Weapon too. It’s also RED’s most compact and lightest camera ever, weighing just 3.5lbs, which they say can be drone mounted. RED says, “RED RAVEN reflects RED’s ongoing commitment to the belief that cinema-quality creative tools should not be in the hands of a few — they should be available to all professional shooters.” RED president Jarred Land adds, “it’s a younger, hungrier, more ‘spirited’ member of the RED family with a bit of a chip on its shoulder, ready to take on the entire sub-$10k market with images that users will be incredibly proud of.” The new brain will be available this February in several different packages. Will you be upgrading?

Dog Photographer Reveals “The Pug Life” Photo Series

Photographer Adam Jackman-Moore, who runs a dog photography studio called The Dog Photographers, revealed a new photo project called “The Pug Life” where he takes portraits of pugs mimicking old school hip hop artists. Check out his website dedicated to the series here, where users can also upload a photo of their own pug if they want to be “recruited” into the Pug Life. Click the image below to view all the recruited pugs: (via PP)

This Kickstarter Product Will Help You Take Better Selfies with Your Dog

On the topic of dogs, there’s a new Kickstarter campaign called the “Pooch Selfie” that helps you get better selfies with your dogs. Basically the device is an accessory for your smartphone that features a tennis ball at the top, which clips right to your phone. This in turn will get the dog’s attention to stare right at the camera. The ball can be easily taken off the mount and squeaked if you’d like to regain your dog’s attention too, or just have a friendly game of fetch. The company behind it, Clever Dog Products, says “Pooch Selfie takes advantage of a dog’s natural draw and focus to a tennis ball and uses this focus to hold their gaze as you snap away that perfect portrait picture.” The Kickstarter has already surpassed its initial goal of $7,000 and has raised $32,000 at the time of writing this article, and still has nearly two weeks to go. A pledge of $13 will get you one when it comes out this December. Check out their Kickstarter video below, where they demonstrate the product: (via PP)

FACT: More People Die From Selfies Each Year Than Shark Attacks

A new eye opening statistic for you: selfies cause more deaths now than SHARK ATTACKS! Yup, only about 8 people die each year from shark attacks, where this year alone there’s already been 12 confirmed deaths from people taking a selfie. We still have a few months to go too, where last year 19 people died from selfies. The Telegraph reports that most deaths involve people between the ages of 18 and 22 and are due to falling while taking a selfie, where the 2nd most common death is getting hit by a moving vehicle while taking a selfie. Wow…

GoPro Adds to HERO Lineup with the New HERO+

GoPro has added another action camera to their lineup with the new HERO+. The new camera is basically the HERO+LCD without the LCD screen. The HERO+ will fall between the basic HERO camera and the HERO+LCD, where the big difference here is the price: it’ll be $100 cheaper than its LCD brother coming in at $200, and $70 more expensive than the initial HERO. GoPro founder and CEO, Nick Woodman, says “even as we continue to raise the bar for our highest performing cameras like HERO4 Black, Silver and Session, we remain committed to developing simplified products like HERO+ that make GoPro life-capture accessible to everyone.” To add to that, the HERO4 Session has dropped in price too, from $399 to $299. The HERO+ is available now and you can see the product video below:

TinyMOS Bringing Astrophotography to Action Cameras

A new company called TinyMOS is trying to be become “the GoPro of stargazing.” They revealed a new GoPro-sized prototype camera called the Tiny1, which they hope will bring astrophotography to the masses. The camera will hopefully become a reality after they launch their Indiegogo campaign for it. However, they have already raised about $300K from investors so far. Spec wise, the interchangeable lens system has a sensitive sensor that they say can capture things that the eye can’t see. It can shoot timelapse video at 2.5K resolution, has exposure times of about 30 seconds, presets for people that don’t know what they’re doing called “Milky Way” and “Northern Lights”. It also has a feature called Point-To-The-Stars, which uses live preview and up-to-date star charts to help photographers find the stars they’re looking to photograph. They say it doubles as a standard mirrorless camera too, and it’s not just meant for the stars. Check out some sample images taken with it here. (via Mashable)

Photographer Loses Life’s Work After 21 of Her Harddrives Stolen

A photographer named Jennifer Little had her home broken into this past week and life’s work stolen. The burglars stole 8 of her cameras, and 21 external harddrives with EVERYTHING she’s ever taken on them–ranging around 70,000 photos from the past 10 years; ouch. She did already find one of her cameras however. After walking through a local flea market, she spotted it along with four of her stolen lenses. Little has posted flyers around her neighborhood that ask the thieves to return the harddrives for a hefty reward with “no questions asked.” The drives have handwritten notes on them too so they should be a little easier to spot, and range from the orange LaCie drives to small Western Digital drives. Let’s hope she finds them! (via KBCW)

PETA Suing David Slater Over Monkey Photo, Says Monkey Owns Copyright

PETA is suing David Slater, the guy that had a selfie of a monkey taken on his camera BY a monkey a few years back. The animal rights group filed a lawsuit in San Fran against Slater, stating that the monkey owns the copyright to the images, not him, and that all proceeds from the photos should be used to benefit the monkey (who’s name is Naruto by the way). This all comes after Wikipedia posted and refused to take down the monkey’s selfie, giving it out to the public domain. They said Slater didn’t own the copyright since the monkey snapped the photo. The US Copyright Office doesn’t register copyright to animals, so it was available to the public for free. However, Slater thought quite the opposite and went after them for it. Now, PETA is after him arguing that the US Copyright Office’s decision to exclude animals is “only an opinion” and not official. PETA lawyer Jeffrey Kerr says “the act grants copyright to authors of original works, with no limit on species. Copyright law is clear: It’s not the person who owns the camera, it’s the being who took the photograph.” Slater says he still believes he should be granted the copyright in the U.S. He says, “the facts are that I was the intellect behind the photos, I set the whole thing up. A monkey only pressed a button of a camera set up on a tripod – a tripod I positioned and held throughout the shoot.” He does currently hold the copyright to the image over in the UK however. Check out the court’s full documentation below. Who’s right here? (via AP / PP)