FroKnowsPhoto RAWtalk 216: "Sorry" Canada, NEW JPEG compression and Cameras BANNED on Flights

First off I would like to apologize to our Canadian listeners (sorry)! This weeks show brings us fun, news, laughs and a lot of “sorry”.

This weeks show is brought to you by RODE and the 2017 MyRodeReel competition. For the full rules on how you can enter for your chance to win some of the $500,000 in prizes click here.

There’s a ton of news this week from cameras and electronics being banned on many flights to the US, new drone restrictions in Canada “sorry”, awesome job opportunity in Washington D.C, camera store robberies and much more.

We have gear of the week, flying solo, the wheel of FRO, Memes and a bonus MAIL TIME unboxing at the very end.

Enjoy and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube and iTunes.

00:00:00 What Are You Eating?
00:02:29 Coming Soon
00:06:45 Plug of the Week
00:12:01 Photo News
00:12:29 Mermaid Wedding
00:15:11 Northern Lights Engagement
00:16:39 Canada’s New Drone Restrictions
00:20:15 Meredith Checks In
00:22:41 Sorority Sorry Girls
00:28:44 Real Pied Piper
00:30:47 US Supreme Court Photo Job
00:34:07 No More Four Thirds
00:34:53 Midwest Photo Robbed
00:38:16 Veydra Optics Robbed Also
00:39:11 How To Talk To A Client
00:49:16 Gear of the Week
00:53:06 Flying Solo
01:21:17 Wheel of Fro
01:25:25 Memes of the Week
01:29:35 BONUS Content, Super Fan Delivers
01:34:40 Hashtags of the Week…kind of

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

Wedding Photographer Takes on Wedding in the Middle of the Ocean

A wedding photographer was faced with a tough location: a ceremony held in the middle of the ocean. The couple, Susana and Jovany were told by their planner to not get married in the water as it’s much too complicated. However, the bride is a scuba diver and says her happiest days were always in the water. Photographer Sol Tomargo of Del Sol Photography took on the challenge with a team of eight photographers. She personally used two 5D Mark III’s in underwater housings along with her 2nd shooter photographing with an unprotected 5D Mark III above the water. Meanwhile, they also added a DJI Inspire X5 drone to the mix for aerial photography and video, which they piloted from a moving boat around the ceremony. Sol says the biggest challenge shooting with the housings is that she couldn’t really see her images. Decked out in nearly full scuba gear, minus the tank, half of the images were taken submerged and the other half above water. She says, “I jumped into the water wearing a snorkel, mask and wetsuit and mermaid cap in the middle of a wedding! When do you ever get to do something like that?!” She ends with, “Every wedding is special but we’re excited to meet couples who have a crazy wedding dream.” Check out the full video below featuring footage of the ceremony with some photos mixed in. Would you shoot this wedding if asked? (via PP)

Photographer Takes His Own Proposal Photo Under an Epic Aurora

Speaking of getting married, a photographer photographed his own engagement, under an epic aurora. Photographer Dale Sharpe and his now fiancé Karlie Russell are both nature and travel photographers. They took a trip to the arctic circle to photograph the Northern Lights. Sharpe set up his camera, telling Karlie that they would take a self portrait together. He suddenly dropped to a knee and proposed under what he says is “the most amazing display of color in the aurora that we’ve ever seen.” Normally, you would need a hefty exposure time for something like this but since the image was taken under a waxing gibbous moon, he could shoot at short exposures like 1.5-2.5 seconds. He used a Nikon D810 with the 14-24 f/2.8 lens set at ISO 4000 at f/2.8. The camera was set to continuous burst so he hit the trigger as he went down on a knee and it fired away, leaving him with really only one usable image due to too much movement in the others. Luckily, the single image was near perfect. Seen below, it looks like he also had a remote flash behind them giving them a nice separation highlight. Check out their Instagram here where they post most of their epic images. (via SB)

Canada Announces New Drone Restrictions

There’s now new drone restrictions that have taken place in Canada. Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau announced the new rules, which are effective immediately. Recreational users will face a fine of up to $3,000 if drones weighing more than 250 grams are caught flying under the following circumstances:

-if they’re higher than 90 metres (~300 ft)
-if they’re within 75 metres (~250 ft) of buildings, vehicles, vessels, animals or people
-if they’re more than 500 metres (~1600 ft) away from the pilot
-users can’t fly at night, or in clouds or somewhere you can’t see it
-if they’re within nine kilometres (~5 miles) of somewhere aircraft take off or land, or a forest fire or emergency response scene
-the pilot’s name, address and phone number must also be marked on the drone itself

Garneau adds, “I’m taking strong measures now before a drone hits an airplane and causes a catastrophic event. That’s the kind of nightmare scenario that keeps me awake at night as your Transport Minister.” The new restrictions are due to a large increase in the number of reported safety incidents involving drones in the last three years: there were 41 in 2014, 85 in 2015 and 148 last year. Transport Canada notes that anyone who sees someone flying a drone illegally should call 911. The new rules do not apply to people flying at sites and events sanctioned by the Model Aeronautics Association of Canada, a national model aircraft association. Garneu ended his speech with, “When it comes to safety, I don’t think anything is overkill.” Do you think the new rules are too harsh?

U.S. Bans Cameras in Cabins of Airplanes from 8 Countries

Meanwhile, the U.S. is banning camera and electronics in cabins of airplanes coming from eight different countries. Britain has also followed suit. Now in effect, the restriction includes having tablets, laptops, cameras (anything larger than a smartphone, excludes medical devices) for flights taking off from 10 specific airports. The ban will affect 9 airlines that operate roughly 50 flights per day into the United States, those include Egyptair, Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways, Kuwait Airways, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines and Turkish Airlines. The banned countries include Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar (kahtar), Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. U.S. officials say this is a direct response to intelligence that terrorists are continuing to work on ways to target commercial airlines by “smuggling explosives in portable electronic devices” in a manner that’s hard to detect. Passengers can still bring their electronics with them, they’ll just have to be stowed away underneath the plane with checked baggage. This ban also applies to American passengers and the restrictions will supposedly last until October 14, 2017.

Google’s New JPEG Encorder Offers “Nearly Zero Visual Loss”

Google has a new open-source JPEG encoder called Guetzli (Swiss German for “cookie”) which they say decreases the file size by 35% without degrading quality. This is not a new file format however, it still reads as a normal JPEG image, it’s just a new encoder. Google’s says their algorithm is better at figuring out which colors to keep and which to toss during the “quantization” portion of JPEG compression, which results in nearly zero visual loss of data. Google says, “It is our hope that webmasters and graphic designers will find Guetzli useful and apply it to their photographic content, making users’ experience smoother on image-heavy websites in addition to reducing load times and bandwidth costs for mobile users.” Will this form of compression become the new online standard? You can download the new encoder here.

Want to Be the U.S. Supreme Court’s New House Photographer?

The U.S. Supreme Court has opened up a new position for a full time photographer. The job listing over at USAJOBS.gov states that all U.S. citizens can apply, and that the job has an annual earning salary of $54,972 up to $86,460. Other prerequisites includes a Bachelors degree in photography or 4 years experience in general, the ability to shoot Nikon and Hasselblad cameras, artificial lighting knowledge, must be proficient with MS Word, Access, Excel, Adobe Creative Suite, and other computer programs, and must be a people person all together, being able to work with “visiting dignitaries” to the general pubic. The job description lists that you will be documenting, “the continuing history of the Supreme Court as an institution as well as the people who work at the Court, the architecture of the Supreme Court Building, and the historic objects and artwork in the Court’s Collection.” It goes on to read, “the Photographer must keep informed about the latest equipment and techniques for creating, storing, and processing images in digital as well as traditional formats.” Check out the full listing here if you’re interested and live in the D.C. area. Those interested only have until March 27 to apply. (via PP)

Olympus Officially Kills off It’s Four Thirds Lens Lineup

Olympus has officially killed off its Four Thirds lenses. The camera manufacturer says it will instead focus on its Micro Four Thirds lineup from now on. It’s been six years since Olympus has done anything with its Four Thirds system, so new photographers may wonder what exactly it is, however the discontinuation was just made official via Olympus’ latest catalog offering. Fun fact: Olympus was once the largest producer of Four Thirds mount lenses which they called Zuiko Digital. (via DPR)

Pro Thieves Break in to Midwest Photo, Steal Hundreds of Cameras and Lenses

Midwest Photo was robbed of hundreds of cameras and lenses this past week. Located in Columbus, Ohio, the store was broken into on March 15, by way of cutting a hole through the roof and ceiling. The perps then slid down a pole, and entered the storage area, stealing tons and tons of expensive gear by big name manufacturers. Midwest Photo says, “This break in appears to have been pre meditated and carried out by experienced individuals (a group of 5 people with 2 vehicles total). Police and local detectives are involved as this break in is potentially a part of a larger crime wave going throughout the Midwest at this time.” Midwest Photo posted some surveillance frames of the thieves as well which you can see below. They are now in the process of gathering the serial numbers of the missing items and using scraping software to scour the web in hopes that items show up for sale somewhere online. They would not release the dollar amount of the equipment stolen, but do plan on staying open with the help of their vendors. If anyone has information regarding the burglary, they urge you to contact the Columbus Division of Police or email them at moishe@mpex.com. (via Fox28)

$200,000 Worth of Lenses Stolen from Veydra Optics

Yet another burglary, where this time, $200,000 worth of cinema lenses were taken from Veydra Optics in California. 200 of their popular Mini Prime cinema lenses—most of their inventory—was stolen recently. The company writes, “We are offering a reward for any information leading to return of Veydra Mini Prime lenses from our inventory. Please share and tell your friends. Veydra lenses will be available again but it may take some time to fill orders so we appreciate everyone’s help and patience while we recover from this significant loss. Thanks for your help in keeping our dream alive.” They add to reach out to them at info@veydra.com if you have any information regarding the break-in. (via PP)

Photographer Blasts Client in Live Video, Client Fires Back

A photographer went public with her issues with her client and it definitely backfired on her. Check out the full story over on Petapixel along with her live rant below: (via PP)

C-Log Coming to the Canon 5D Mark IV?

Take this next story with a grain of salt: Canon Rumors is “confirming” that Canon will finally implement C-Log into their DSLR series, specifically the 5D Mark IV. The announcement is rumored to take place at this year’s NAB next month.. No word on if this will be a simple free firmware update or an update that will require sending your camera in for servicing. This will finally catch Canon up with every other manufacturer that features some sort of Log profile in their cameras. (via CR)