I got in a FIGHT with Mr BIG at the airport: RAWtalk 153
I don’t like to fight generally but when I do I make sure it’s at the airport after you go through security so you know there’s a good chance the other person doesn’t have any weapons. This is just a stupid story but I think it’s one worth telling. Hear the story starting at 6:46
This weeks show is sponsored by RODE who wants to give you 50% OFF all MERCH in their store when you use code FroKnowsPhoto until the 19th. You can’t go wrong with their gear as it’s not only well made but dam affordable with or without the code.
Don’t forget I am giving away a camera, check out the site for how you can enter.
I got to play with the DXO one camera, Stephen catches us up on photo news and two winners get picked for the Wheel of FRO.
Thanks to everyone for their continued support week in and week out it is greatly appreciated.
00:00:16 – Show Intro
00:06:45 – Seattle Recap
00:14:17 – Photo News
00:49:23 – Flying Solo
01:25:51 – Gear of the Week
01:28:38 – Wheel of Fro
Here’s all of Stephen’s photo news stories in detail:
Sony to Create Separate Sensor Business
Sony has announced that it will be creating an entirely new business out of their image sensor technology. The new sensor business will be called Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation, which has been created to reinforce its Devices segment. The Devices segment currently covers its battery and media storage businesses. Sony aims to reinforce the business and allow it to focus on sustained growth. They say the new company will be in charge of its own R&D, business control, sales, and other operations related to the semiconductor business. The new company will officially commence operations on April 1 of next year and no it’s not an early April Fool’s joke! What do you think of this move by Sony? (via PP)
Japan’s 1st Female Photojournalist Just Turned 101 And Is Still Shooting
Japan’s first-ever female photojournalist named Tsuneko Sasamoto just turned 101 last month and she’s still taking pictures! She began her career by documenting pre- and post- WWII Japan at the young age of 25. She is currently working on putting together a new collection of photos that span her 70-year career as a photojournalist. Her last book was just published back in 2011 when she was 97-years-old. Check out the behind-the-scenes video of her recent promotion for that book below where you can see her in action just a few years ago. There’s also a news piece on her just before she turned 100, where she’s quoted saying, “You should never become lazy. It’s essential to remain positive about your life and never give up.” Advice that everyone should live by… (via Reddit)
Microsoft Unveils Mac Book Pro Competitor: the Surface Book (+ Surface Pro 4)
Microsoft has unveiled its Mac Book Pro competitor, the Surface Book. The new laptop doubles as a detachable tablet, where the keyboard can be removed. It’s not just a keyboard either, it houses an NVIDIA GTX GPU graphics card and other components that gives the laptop a performance boost which Microsoft says is “twice as fast as the Macbook Pro.” Spec wise, it has a magnesium shell, a 13.5 inch screen with 3000 x 2000px resolution and 267 PPI. It sports a 5MP front camera and 8MP rear camera with 1080P video, has 2 USB3 ports, an SD card slot and 12 hour battery life. Users also have the choice of a 6th generation Core i5 or i7 processor and 8 or 16GB of RAM. The new laptop will be available later this month on Oct. 26 and will cost about $1500 for the base model, going up to $2,700 for the decked-out version. Microsoft also revealed the Surface Pro 4, which adds some beefy specs to the original Pro 3 model. It’s now thinner and lighter, at 8.4mm thick with a 12.3-inch screen, up from the Pro 3’s 12-inch screen. Like the Apple Pencil, there’s now a new stylus for it called the Surface Pen that supports 1,024 levels of pressure and attaches magnetically to the outside of the tablet. Spec wise, it can be customized to the most powerful option: 16GB of RAM, a 6th generation Core i7 processor, 1TB of SSD storage, and Intel Iris graphics. Like the Surface Book, it has a 5MP front camera and 8MP rear camera that shoots 1080P video as well. The detachable Type Cover has also been redesigned. It has better keys, is thinner and lighter, and has a 40% larger trackpad. Microsoft says the tablet is 30% faster than its predecessor and 50% faster than the MacBook Air. It’ll be available on Oct. 26 like the Surface Book at a starting price of $899. Will you be upgrading?
Teen Falls To His Death in “Rooftop Photography” Attempt
Yet another tragic death in the photo community: a Russian teenager identified as Andrey R. fell nine stories from a rooftop after attempting to do “rooftopping photography” for his Instagram account. He was reportedly hanging off the edge of the roof while attached to a rope in order to shoot a photo that made it APPEAR like he was falling. Well, the rope snapped and he did actually fall, and was pronounced dead in the hospital just two hours later; RIP. (via IBT)
Is This New Image Format The End-All-Be-All Picture Format?
There’s another image format available called FLIF: which stands for Free Lossless Image Format. The big pitch for this new format is that it works well with ANY type of image, whether it’s text based, graphic based or a typical photo. The FLIF website states that, “You are supposed to know that PNG works well for line art, but not for photographs. For regular photographs where some quality loss is acceptable, JPEG can be used, but for medical images you may want to use lossless JPEG 2000. And so on. It can be tricky for non-technical end-users. FLIF does away with knowing what image format performs the best at any given task […] FLIF beats anything else in all categories.” Its lossless compression has been compared to other popular formats too: it was 35% smaller than PNG files, 37% smaller than lossless JPEG 2000, 15% smaller than lossless WebP (Google’s format), and 22% smaller than lossless BPG. The new format features grayscale/RGB/RGBA color spaces, 16-bit color depth, interlaced/non-interlaced support, and support for animation. FLIF is progressive too, so you only need to download the first part of the file for a reasonable preview of an image. Downloading the rest adds more and more quality to the image, so if you’re on mobile, you’ll still be able to download the image fast. One drawback is that it’s not the fastest codec though when it comes to encoding. The site says, “Encoding and decoding speeds are not blazingly fast, but they are in the right ballpark.” FLIF is currently free under the GNU General Public License. However, co-developer Jon Sneyers says it’s still a work in progress. He says, “The format is not finalized yet. Any small or large change in the algorithm will most likely mean that FLIF files encoded with an older version will no longer be correctly decoded by a newer version. Keep this in mind.” It still doesn’t have Metadata support, lossy compression, or web browser support, but it’s on their to-do-list, so I would wait a little longer until you use this… (via Reddit)
DJI Reveals the Osmo: a Handheld Stabilized 4K Camera
DJI has announced the Osmo, a new handheld 4K gimbal camera. The new system is basically the Inspire 1’s original payload (the X3 camera) on a stabilized gimbal. It has a 3-axis brushless gimbal, shoots 4K video up to 30fps (or 120fps at 1080P!) and takes 12MP stills. The standard camera has a 1/2.3-inch Sony Exmor R sensor with an ISO range of 100-1600 (or 100-3200 for video), a 20mm lens with a 94° field of view, and DNG support. It will also record up to 120fps at 1080P. Users also has the choice of choosing the new Zenmuse X5 or X5R camera with a Micro Four Thirds sensor and lens mount for better quality footage. The arm has a stereo mic, 3.5mm audio jack, smartphone holder, and supports 60 min of battery life. It has several different modes like the Automatic Panorama mode, which will make the camera automatically turn in a circle while staying level. They say you can also take long exposure photos and timelapse sequences while hand holding it–would love to test that out… Regarding the interface, you can attach a smartphone and pair it with the camera for a monitor, and can also control the camera with a touchscreen UI straight from the DJI app. Or, you can simply use the external controls on the arm. It’ll be available later this month for $649. In the meantime, watch DJI’s promo video featuring sample video footage below:
Here’s Every Photograph From the Apollo Moon Missions
You can now browse through EVERY image ever taken on the Apollo moon missions. The Project Apollo Archive has uploaded over 8,400 scans over on Flickr, which were shot by the astronauts with their chest-mounted Hasselblad cameras, aka their GoPro’s of the time. The images are unprocessed high-resolution scans from the original NASA images, which even go as far as including blurry outtakes. Check it all out right here. (via PP)
Introducing Light: A Point-And-Shoot Camera with 16 Lens Modules
A new camera startup called Light introduced a new type of point-and-shoot camera called the Light L16 which they say packs “DSLR quality” into a small form factor. The company says, “The L16 is the first multi-aperture computational camera that packs DSLR quality and capability into a device that fits in your pocket. The L16 is smaller, lighter, less expensive, and provides better image quality than any camera in its price class.” Shaped like a smartphone, it features 16 separate camera modules that take the same picture at different focal lengths, combining them into a high-resolution 52 megapixel image. On top of the multiple camera modules, it also acts like a Lytro, where it will let you adjust the depth of field after you shoot the image. The 16 cameras cram into such a small package by using “folded optics” where they use mirrors and lenses on their sides. More specs include a 35-150mm optical zoom range, where it has five 35mm, five 70mm and six 150mm prime lenses (10 of the 16 will always fire depending on zoom range), an f1.0 aperture that can be adjusted later, a 5-inch touchscreen interface where you pinch to zoom like a smartphone. It also shoots 4K video, and has an android-based OS for social media sharing. The camera will be available next year in Sept. of 2016 for about $1,700. However, if you preorder now it will be $1300. Watch the full promo video below along with a walk-through of the camera by the CEO. Is this a gamechanger? (via Gizmodo)
Selfies Are Ruining Baseball Games
Not exactly photo news but still pretty funny: there’s footage from a recent Arizona Diamondbacks MLB game where the announcers are commentating this group of girls taking ridiculous selfies the entire time. Watch below as the sorority girls ALL take selfies over and over with different poses and faces, while the commentators make fun of them the entire time. #1stWorldProblems (via PP)
California Governor Bans Paparazzi Drones Over Private Property
Drone news: Governor Jerry Brown has signed off on a new bill that puts new restrictions on drones flying over private property in California. The new bill, AB 856, changes the definition of a “physical invasion of privacy” to now include sending a drone into the airspace above someone’s land in order to make a recording or take a photo. This will expand privacy protections to prevent paparazzi from flying drones over private property. The governor has rejected several drone regulation proposals in the past too, including restrictions on flying over wildfires, prisons, and schools, citing a belief that such restrictions have little benefit, while having the consequence of creating new crimes. Hobbyist might have a little trouble flying around the neighborhood now… (via LAT)
FAA Proposes Largest Fine Ever for Flying Drones
The FAA has proposed the largest fine ever for flying drones. They proposed a whopping $1.9 Million fine against a company called SkyPan International that offers aerial photography and video. According to the FAA, “the company conducted 65 unauthorized commercial UAS flights over various locations in New York City and Chicago between March 21, 2012 and Dec. 15, 2014. The flights involved aerial photography. Of those, 43 flew in the highly restricted New York Class B airspace.” They add that, “These operations were illegal and not without risk […] SkyPan operated the aircraft in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger lives or property.” The large fine is due to the countless times the FAA warned the company about its illegal flying operations too, so this isn’t the first time they’re hearing from them. Ironically, the company states the fact that it’s one of around 1,700 companies that has received an FAA Section 333 exemption that allows it to operate drones commercially on their website. SkyPan’s president Mark Segal says the fine “is ridiculous and unfair.” The company now has 30 days to respond to the FAA’s proposed fine. (via TWP)
Photographer Showcases Trash Problem in Africa via New Photo Series
There’s a new photo series by photographer Fabrice Monteiro called “The Prophesy” that focuses on the pollution and trash problem in Africa. The series features “high fashion photos” that include a model and garment made completely from trash and surround debris. Monteiro partnered with costume designer Doulsy and the Ecofund Organization for the project, where he visited 10 different polluted areas in the African country Senegal. The photographer says, “It is not only a political or economic problem, but an educational one,” and that “Out of control consumption of plastics is augmented by a lack of ecological consciousness in the selling of everyday products.” He is featuring the images at an exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art now until Oct 25. Check out the entire project via Monteiro’s official website. (via THP)
