$6,000,000 in Canon Gear, 1500 Lenses 950 Bodies, Instagram Vs Snapchat: RAWtalk 193
Holy GEAR PORN batman, my friend Jeff Cable is at the Rio Olympics and got a chance to enter Canon NPS’s gear vault for the games. In there he found 6 Million dollars worth of gear which includes 1500 lenses, 950 bodies and so much more. That is an insane amount of gear to have all in one place.
PLUG ALERT: The FroKnowsPhoto Guide To DSLR Video is currently on sale for its lowest price ever when you use the CODE “shootvideo” right here: https://froknowsphoto.com/shootvideo/ The code is good for an extra 24% OFF it’s current discounted price. The sale ends Saturday the 13th at Midnight so jump on it right now if you can.
Stephen hits us with a ton of photo news stories including INSTAGRAM’S direct rip off, I mean unique introduction of what they call STORIES. Basically what you need to know is it’s snapchat. Check out that story.
Dan continues to get better at cutting RAW talk and including the photo news stories right in the video. Please leave him a comment and hashtag that says #ThanksDaDaDan
Throughout the show we drop funny little hashtags so please keep an ear out for them and post them in the comments, on twitter and Facebook.
As always enjoy the show and don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes for the Audio and NOW the Video Podcast. If you didn’t know, you can download the video portion of the podcast to take with you right from iTunes. Just search out FroKnowsPhoto RAWtalk and look for the YELLOW RAWtalk Logo.
00:00:16 Preview of the next 5min Portrait
00:04:39 DSLR Video Guide is on Sale!!!
00:06:21 Hos is Todd going to edit Green Piece?
00:08:51 Stephens Coldplay Contract
00:11:44 Photo News
00:39:50 Meredith Checks In
00:41:48 Hillary Clinton Checks In
00:46:34 Gear of the Week
00:49:03 Flying Solo
01:18:20 Wheel of Fro
01:26:32 Memes of the Week
Here’s all of Stephen’s photo news stories in detail:
Instagram Copies Snapchat and Add “Stories”
Instagram revealed “Stories”—their version of Snapchat. The new slideshow will lets users display photos and video clips that will disappear after 24 hours, again—just like snapchat. Unlike Snapchat however, there are no face filters—you can only add text, emojis or draw on your image. Instagram says they’ve “always been a place to share the moments you want to remember. Now you can share your highlights and everything in between, too.” To view analytics of your Story, users simply view it and swipe up. It will then display the total view count along with usernames. Users also have the option of hiding their story from certain people or displaying it to only a select group of friends. Is this the end of Snapchat?
Instagram Co-Founder & CEO Officially a Billionaire
On the topic of Instagram, co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom has joined the billionaires club. Forbes reports—he is also on the cover of this month’s Forbes magazine— that he’s officially hit a billion dollars—net worth of $1.1 billion to be exact— after Facebook’s stock grew. Stock that rose from $18 a share when Facebook acquired Instagram to now $120 a share today. Instagram is worth an estimated $50 billion today. To put that in perspective, Canon has a current value of $38 billion with Nikon trailing behind at just $5.7 billion. Welcome to the three commas club Kevin. (via Forbes)
What if Instagram Came Out on Windows 95?
One last story on Instagram: someone put together mockup animations of what it would look like if Instagram was around when Windows 95 came out. Designer Misha Petrick’s animations of the social media giant mimic the same text and window layout of Windows 95—blue and grey text boxes, along with a teal background. Even better: the filter names range from the “Apple II” filter to the “1-bit” filter, while the photos displayed are in beautiful 8-bit resolution. Check them out here. (via DB)
Are Your Photos For Sale Illegally on Amazon?
Amazon might be illegally selling your photos without your consent. Photographer Beverly Guhl stumbled across several listings featuring the sale of her copyrighted headshot of actor Marco Perella. Beverly says, “I was shocked because I did not license the use of this image to anyone. When I did a search of Marco’s name on amazon I saw that several sellers had my image listed.” One of the sellers is so big that they have over 2.7 million listings of just posters and prints of famous headshots, album covers, sports images, logos—all with the description: “All images are sourced from the public domain.” Hmm… After googling Marco Perella, she came across her headshot, which linked back to a website called HDpicsnwall.com. She quickly realized this is the sellers source where they must have gotten it from because the site’s page reads, “All HD wallpapers are free for download.” She then went on to file a copyright infringement claim with Amazon, who then later removed her images from the seller’s listings. Beverly notes that all photographers should do a quick search for their photos. The seller along with many others have several copyrighted photos for sale, yet she could only send a notice in about her image. (via PP)
Getty Responds to $1 Billion Lawsuit, Say They’re Not In The Wrong
Speaking of infringement, Getty has responded to photographer Carol M. Highsmith’s recent $1 billion lawsuit filed against them. Getty says they believe the complaint “is based on a series of misconceptions. which we hope to rectify with the plaintiff as soon as possible. If that is not possible, we will defend ourselves vigorously.” Getty add that, “The content in question has been part of the public domain for many years. It is standard practice for image libraries to distribute and provide access to public domain content, and it is important to note that distributing and providing access to public domain content is different to asserting copyright ownership of it.” They go on to note: “Image libraries, archives and other businesses have long collected and aggregated content in the public domain, investing significant sums of money, time and resources in indexing, archiving, digitizing and making that content searchable and easily available to people to make productive use of it. Image libraries are legally permitted to charge fees for use of images in the public domain.” Seems like they’re hinting that they’re charging for the search tool that they’re offering users, not so much the use of the photo. Do you agree with their rebuttal?
Introducing the “World’s First Widest Lens with f/2.8 Aperture”
A new Kickstarter has launched featuring the world’s widest lens with an f/2.8 aperture for full frame cameras. Called the Laowa by Venus Optics, the 12mm f/2.8 lens is rectilinear and claims to have “close to zero distortion.” Spec wise, the lens is manual, with a filter thread size of 77mm with 16 elements and 3 pieces of ED glass. It’s available in Canon, Nikon, Sony and Pentax mounts for a retail price of $949 but early bird backers can grab it for $649 and it will be available this November. The campaign has already reached its goal of $10,000, well surpassing it, currently at $480,000 at the time of writing this article, with three weeks still to go. Head over to their campaign to pledge.
Canon Has $6 Million Worth of Equipment at the Rio Olympics
Photographer Jeff Cable released a set of images taking you inside Canon’s setup at the Rio Olympics, where they house over $6 million worth of camera gear. Inside the CPS Olympic headquarters, they house over 1500 lenses and 950 DSLR bodies. on top of that they have a staff of 78 Canon professionals on hand for cleaning and repair services. Canon CPS members can simply have their badge scanned and borrow just about any lens and camera configuration that Canon makes. FYI: it’s extremely rare that any photographer can check out their inventory too, because of the high price point and possible theft. Check out Jeff’s blog where he breaks down each photo he took inside.
Photo: Jeff Cable
Scottish Couple Received “Worse Than Amateur” Wedding Photos from “Professional Photographer”
A Scottish couple were horrified after receiving their wedding photos back from a “professional photographer.” Claiming the photographer is “worse than amateur,” the couple—Leanne and Derek Cooper—say their memories of their wedding day have been ruined with terrible photos. Initially having another photographer in mind, but couldn’t lock in their date, they turned to their friend, Val Thomson of Topcat photography, who they note completed the same photography course as the groom, Derek, in college. What they got in the end though, were photos that mimicked that of a cell phone. They say on top of that, none of the posed photos were set up by her, they were all organized by the couple. They say ,“The images we had seen on her website were half decent and Derek knows her. That’s why we went for her.” Val—the photographer, has since responded, saying she re-edited them at their request: “My photographer friend helped me edit them the second time around and agreed there was nothing wrong with them.” It gets better: another “professional photographer” named Alan Watson stepped in and took formal photos of the couple for free. Not wanting others to suffer the same fate as them, they’re shelling out another £75 to send the pictures to the Scottish Photographic Federation to have the quality of them judged. If the quality is deemed as poor, they can then file for a refund in a small-claims court. Check out the not-so-professional photos from their wedding here. Do you think they should get a refund? (via TDR)
Photographer Claims Photo Business Dried Up After Photographing Trump
Photographer Ray Reynolds claims his photo business is officially “dead” after photographing Donald Trump this election season. Becoming the official photographer for the “Veterans for Trump” coalition last year, he’s photographed over 20 different Trump events all over the country, and was even Trump’s staff photographer for an event. The main reason he’s been able to follow him around the country? His regular photo business is drying up ever since he started photographing Trump. Check out an interview with him explaining his situation below, along with his obnoxious yellow DSLR skin… (via FS)
Official 2016 DNC Photo Taken with 100-year-old Camera
On the other side of the election, the official 2016 DNC photo was shot with a 100-year-old camera. Photographer Abbas Shirmohammadi operated the camera, directing the audience via a microphone, telling everyone to freeze, or else the person behind you will be blurry. The camera, a Panorama Kodak Cirkut camera, has been used for every single official DNC photo along with six presidential inauguration ceremonies. Check out video of him directing the audience below and if you want to grab your own copy of the official photo, you can pick it up for $179 here. (via PP)
New Web-App Turns Still Photo Into Animated GIF
A new web app can turn any still image into an animated GIF. Called Plotagraph Pro, the software is unlike cinemagraphs, which uses video to create moving GIFs. Instead, it works with a single still image. Created by photographer and artist Troy Plota, the apps asks the user to supply a JPEG image and to add points to what they want animated, essentially masking the still portion. It will then animate the selection and create a GIF, MP4 or MOV file of the animated photo. It’s currently limited to a small amount of users as a pre-release beta though. Once it goes live, it will cost $300 for one year of access and 10GB of online storage. Check out video of Trey Ratcliff and Matt Kloskowski using it below: (via PP)
