Source: The New York Times

Written by Ann Eisenberg

ROBOTS already cut the grass and vacuum rugs. Now they are helping with a more artistic job: creating vast photographic panoramas with ordinary cameras.

A new, inexpensive robotic device from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University attaches snugly to almost any standard digital camera, tilting and panning it to fashion highly detailed panoramic vistas — whether of the Grand Canyon, a rain forest or a backyard Easter egg hunt. The robot is called GigaPan, named “giga” for the billion or more pixels it can marshal for a typical panorama. It creates the huge, high-resolution vista by extending its robotic finger and repeatedly clicking the camera shutter, taking tens, hundreds or even thousands of overlapping images, each at a slightly different angle, that are then stitched together by software to create one gigapixel shot.

Viewers can explore a panorama in detail when it is displayed on a computer screen, clicking on any part of the image and then zooming in for crisp close-ups. You can move from an overall shot of the forest, for instance, to an image of one small moth resting on the side of a single tree trunk.

The roboticized camera mount and related software were devised by a team led by Randy Sargent, a senior systems scientist at Carnegie Mellon West and the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and Illah Nourbakhsh, an associate professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. The work was part of a project to introduce people to different countries and cultures through images.

The GigaPan provides a low-cost alternative to sophisticated motorized camera mounts on the market used to take panoramic photos, said Greg Downing, co-founder of the xRez Studio in Santa Monica, Calif., which specializes in gigapixel photography. The motorized mounts can cost thousands of dollars, he said, and typically require a high-end camera.

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The P 65+ digital back and the P 65+ camera system are fully upgradeable, based on advancements in the chip technology, providing a competitive advantage through enhanced performance and new functions as well as a lower overall cost of operation. Such improvements have previously been available only at the cost of new chips and hardware.

The Phase One P 65+ is the first digital back and camera system to take advantage of the new Sensor+ design and is the world’s first full-frame capture system based on actual 645 film format. The P 65+ provides the largest live capture area available with coverage of 53.9mm x 40.4mm — enabling full viewfinder coverage thus no need for lens magnification. “What you see is what you get.” The P 65+ sensor format provides 20 percent more live area compared to 39 or 50 Megapixel, 48mm x 36mm chips currently delivering or announced. Sensor resolution is 60.5 Megapixel with 8984 x 6732 active pixels achieving 180 MB, 8 bit RGB files.

In addition to offering the industry’s largest live capture area and highest resolution, the P 65+ offers captures at 1 frame per second, reduction of Moire artifacts, next generation Lens+ & Focus+ technologies and an unprecedented 12.5 f-stops of dynamic range.

More technical details and demonstrations of Sensor+ technology will be available at the Photokina trade show in September 2008. Camera shipments with P 65+ digital back are expected to begin in Q4 2008. The P 65+ digital back starts at $39,900; the P 65+ camera system starts at $41,990. Advance orders are available now. For more information please contact sales@phaseone.com.

Phase One is a leading provider of digital image capture and work flow management technology. Phase One P+ Series digital backs and camera systems open new possibilities, putting the focus back on the moment of capture. Phase One Capture One software helps streamline the capture and post-production process. Supporting DSLR, medium- and large-format photographic equipment, Phase One products are renowned for their superior quality, flexibility and speed — enabling pro photographers to realize their most subtle and most complex visions without compromise.

Phase One is an employee-owned company based in Copenhagen with offices in New York, London, Tokyo, Cologne and Shanghai.

This full-week photography workshop is an intense immersion into digital photography with one of its pioneers. In five days you will go from perhaps not even understanding what a RAW file is, to making well-crafted and thoughtful prints.

Fieldwork, extensive lecture and lab work will fill your time together. Every student will have full access to their own workstation in the lab. Class Topics:

All necessary materials will be provided, including a copy of Stephen’s latest book “Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography.”

Class will run Sunday through Thursday from 9am to 5pm. Lunch will be provided each day of studio work.

Overnight Accommodations

About Stephen Johnson
A photographer, teacher and designer, Stephen has been teaching and working in photography since 1977. His books include At Mono Lake, the critically acclaimed The Great Central Valley: California’s Heartland and Making a Digital Book. His Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography was published in 2006 by O’Reilly Media.He runs his own photography, publishing and design company–scanning and designing his photographic books using a Macintosh computer and since 1994 photographing in the field with digital view cameras.

Current projects include With a New Eye, his ground-breaking and historic all digital national parks project.

Stephen’s pioneering work in digital photography has included software and product development for clients such as Apple, Adobe, Eastman Kodak, Epson, Foveon, Hewlett Packard, Leaf, Ricoh and X-rite. His work with Adobe includes the creation of the duotone curves shipped with their Photoshop software.

Photographic clients have included the Ansel Adams Publishing Trust, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Friends of Photography and the National Park Service. Johnson’s photographs have been widely published and collected internationally.

He has recieved numerous awards and grants for his photographic work, including an NEA for At Mono Lake, awards from the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association, the Commonwealth Club of California and the Golden Light Award for the Great Central Valley. The New York Times named the Valley book as one of the eight best photography books of 1993. He was named to the Photoshop Hall of Fame in 2003 and as a Canon Explorer of Light in 2006.

For more info see the workshop website here.

Think of it as digital photography 2.0.

In the last decade, photography has been transformed by one revolution, the near-total replacement of analog film cameras by digital image sensors. Now researchers and companies are starting to stretch their wings by taking advantage of what a computer can do with sensor data either within the camera or on a full-fledged PC.

Some elements of this new era, which researchers often call computational photography, are refinements of existing technology. For example, some cameras can wait to take the photo only when subjects are smiling and not blinking, in effect placing the shutter release button in the hands of the subjects rather than the photographer.

But more dramatic changes could shift the definition of a camera more dramatically. One major area of research, for example, uses computational processing to create a 3D representation of a scene rather than just the two dimensions of traditional photography.

“There’s a shift in thinking going on,” said Kevin Connor, who manages professional digital imaging products for Adobe Systems. “People are starting to see the broader possibilities and where we can push things…People are realizing that maybe we shouldn’t just be trying to make the best traditional photography experience.”

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Press Release: San Jose, California (PRWEB) February 26, 2008—The world digital camera market stands enthused by the effervescent level of technology development and product feature innovations. Technical innovations in the field of batteries, photo printing, storage devices and internet technologies are expected to propel the growth of digital cameras. Wireless communications enabled digital cameras, for instance, are growing in popularity, given their cutting edge advantages and benefits, such as, added convenience, effectiveness, and functionality in the form of e-mail transmission ability, enhanced storage media, compatibility with PC image processing, and higher image resolution.

Ease of use, compact design, size, style and convenience are few of the product features critical to commercial success in the marketplace. In addition, amplified digital photo improvement and management software, shorter shutter delays, partial image capturing, ability to modify scene backgrounds, high-end optical and storage features, also represent product features, which play an instrumental role in keeping demand alive and consumer enthusiasm sufficiently kindled. Encouraged largely by rapidly falling prices, higher functionality and improvement in picture quality, consumer preferences are increasingly shifting towards medium and high-end models, thereby promising expanded market opportunities. The waxing popularity of single-lens reflex (SLR) digital cameras is triggering several acquisitions in the industry, since production of these cameras requires advanced optical technologies. Matsushita, Sony and Samsung are few global players who have forayed into the SLR digital camera market, lured by its lucrative potential. Sony’s teaming up with Konica Minolta, and Samsung’s partnership with Pentax represent just the tip of the iceberg. The industry is abuzz with mutually synergistic alliances, partnerships, and collaborations.

Digital Cameras: A Global Strategic Business Report
As stated by the recent report published by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., world digital camera market is dominated by the United States and Europe with a combined share of over 59%, estimated for the year 2007. In the >2 MP – 5 MP digital camera market, European sales are estimated at 7 million units. Global sales in the above 5 MP digital camera market are expected to grow at a CAGR of over 50% through the period 2001-2010. In Europe, Germany and the United Kingdom, together, collar nearly 43% of the market for digital cameras.

Leading global and regional players operating in the industry include Canon Inc, Fujifilm, Samsung, Eastman Kodak Company, Sony Corporation, Toshiba America Inc, Sanyo Electric Co Ltd, Nikon Corporation, Olympus, Polaroid, Leica Camera, Panasonic, Casio Computer Co Ltd, Hewlett-Packard Company, and Vivitar Corp, among others.

The report titled “Digital Cameras: A Global Strategic Business Report” published by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., provides a comprehensive review of market trends, drivers, issues, challenges, and technology developments. Richly annotated with authoritative, and unbiased commentaries, and hard-to-find statistical facts, the report provides unequivocal views on future potential while throwing light on the prevailing climate in key regional markets. Product markets analyzed in the report include < or = 2 MP Digital Cameras, >2 MP – 5 MP Digital Cameras, and above 5 MP Digital Cameras. Latent demand patterns in product markets are quantified across major geographic market verticals including the United States, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, and Asia-Pacific, among others. Also provided in the report is an enumeration of recent mergers, acquisitions, and other strategic industry activities.

For more details about this research report, please visit
http://www.strategyR.com/Digital_Cameras_Market_Report.asp

About Global Industry Analysts, Inc.
Global Industry Analysts, Inc., (GIA) is a reputed publisher of off-the-shelf market research. Founded in 1987, the company is globally recognized as one of the world’s largest market research publishers. The company employs more than 700 people worldwide and publishes more than 880 full-scale research reports each year. Additionally, the company also offers a range of more than 60,000 smaller research products including company reports, market trend reports and industry reports encompassing all major industries worldwide.

It’s one of the oldest, most common problems in photography: that picture you thought would be the prize shot is out of focus.

Refocus Imaging, a Silicon Valley start-up, thinks its technology can be used to make cameras that can fix that problem–after you take the photo.

By fitting a camera’s image sensor with a special lens and then processing the resulting data with new methods, Refocus Imaging’s technology will let photographers fix their photos and exercise new creative control after the shutter is released, founder and Chief Executive Ren Ng said.

“There’s a lot of physical stuff in the camera that is limiting its performance,” Ng said. “What we’re doing is to capture much more than a two-dimensional photograph inside the camera…By collecting the light, we can process it in software to do what the hardware usually has to do.”

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Geotagging, in which digital photos are labeled with the location where they were taken, is mostly unfamiliar to photographers today. But new developments are likely going to put the technology on the map.

In interviews at the Photo Marketing Association trade show in Las Vegas recently, several camera executives expressed an interest in geotagging and some companies were demonstrating technology. It’s clear that mainstream geotagging is a matter of when, not if.

The strongest evidence I encountered is Air Semiconductor, a start-up building a chip designed to let cameras process GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite signals so latitude and longitude data can be attached to digital photos. It remains to be seen how well this works, but this idea is the holy grail of geotagging–no extra hardware or software is required.

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Source: Boston Globe
Written by Hiawatha Bray

Best mp3 music Get hereBest mp3 music wanted OnlyMusic tracks you sought AllMusic catalog you ever saw BestQuality music tracks Best

Polaroid Corp., the Massachusetts company that gave the world instant film photography, is shutting down its film manufacturing lines in the state and abandoning the technology that made the company famous.

“The Norwood plant is shutting down, and we will soon be winding down activities at the Waltham facility as well,” said Kyle MacDonald, senior vice president of Polaroid’s instant photography business segment. The closures, set for completion during this quarter, will eliminate about 150 jobs. In the late 1970s, Polaroid employed about 15,000 in Massachusetts.

The Norwood and Waltham plants make large-format films used by professional photographers and artists. Polaroid also makes professional-grade films in Mexico, and its consumer film packs come from a factory in the Netherlands. All these plants are slated for closure this year. Polaroid chief operating officer Tom Beaudoin said the company is interested in licensing its technology to an outside firm that could manufacture film for faithful Polaroid customers. If that doesn’t happen, Polaroid users would have to find an alternative photo technology, as the company plans to make only enough film to last into next year.

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Sitting on the back seat was a nice Canon digital camera. Gunderson asked the driver which previous passenger might have left it, but the cabbie didn’t seem to care. So Gunderson brought it home and showed it to her fiance, Brian Ascher. They decided that the only right thing to do was to find the owner.

But how? The only clues were the pictures on the camera: typical tourist snapshots, complete with a visit to the Statue of Liberty. How could they find a stranger among the huddled masses?

Gunderson is busy in finance for Bear Stearns Cos., so the detective quest fell to Ascher, a 26-year-old law student at New York University. He was on winter break and eager to put off writing a paper about climate change treaties.

He checked whether anyone had reported a matching missing camera to the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission. No dice. He placed ads in lost-and-found sections of Craigslist but got just one response — from a couple in Brazil who had lost a camera in a cab on Oct. 12, not Dec. 31.

“I guess they thought their camera had been riding around in a taxi for two months,” Ascher recalls now, chuckling at the notion that such a thing would be possible in New York.

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Source: CNET
Written by Stephen Shankland

Already, single-lens reflex cameras were disproportionately popular as photographers moved to models that responded quickly and worked better in dim conditions. The bulk and expense were worth it.

But a panoply of new models arrived to satisfy the needs of experts and professionals in 2007. First was Canon’s $5,000 EOS-1D Mark III, a rugged 10.1-megapixel photojournalist model unveiled in March that can shoot 10.5 frames per second. Alas for Canon, the camera’s record was blighted with concerns about its autofocus performance.

But the floodgates opened in the second half of the year with Canon’s top-end, $8,000 21.1-megapixel 1Ds Mark III. Canon hopes this full-frame model not only wlll keep professional SLR shooters loyal but also to woo studio photographers using even more expensive medium-format cameras. Announced at the same time in August and aimed at the serious enthusiast was the 40D, a $1,300 10.1-megapixel model.

A week later, Canon’s biggest rival, Nikon, shot back with the $1,800 D300, and, more significant by far, the $5,000 D3, the first digital SLR to follow Canon’s lead with sensors as large as a full frame of 35mm film.

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Source: ComputerWorld
Written by James Niccolai

New rules will go into effect on Jan. 1 that prohibit air passengers in the U.S. from carrying spare lithium batteries in their checked baggage.

The new rules, announced Friday by the U.S. Department of Transportation, are designed to reduce the risk of fires in aircraft. Lithium batteries have been identified as a possible cause of several aircraft fires.

Passengers will still be able to carry lithium batteries in checked bags if they are installed in a device like a laptop or digital camera. But loose batteries will need to be put in a plastic bag and carried on the plane as hand luggage, the DOT said.

The rules also limit each passenger to two “extended-life” lithium batteries. These are larger batteries with more than 8 grams of equivalent lithium content, examples of which are pictured in the DOT’s statement.

The rules are also described at the SafeTravel.dot.gov Web site.

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How is that even remotely possible? The medium certainly looks alive, well and, if anything, overpopulated. There are hordes of photographers out there, working with back-to-basics pinhole cameras and pixeled images measured in gigabytes, with street photography taken by cell phones and massive photo “shoots” whose crews, complexity and expense resemble those of movie sets.

Step into almost any serious art gallery in Chelsea, Santa Monica or Mayfair and you’re likely to be greeted with breathtaking large-format color photographs, such as Andreas Gefeller’s overhead views of parking lots digitally montaged from thousands of individual shots or Didier Massard’s completely “fabricated photographs” of phantasmagoric landscapes.

And the establishment’s seal of approval for photography has been renewed in two current museum exhibitions. In “Depth of Field“— the first installation in the new contemporary-photography galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, on display through March 23—the fare includes Thomas Struth’s hyperdetailed chromogenic print of the interior of San Zaccaria in Venice and Adam Fuss’s exposure of a piece of photo paper floating in water to a simultaneous splash and strobe.

At the National Gallery of Art in Washington, “The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888–1978” (up through Dec. 31) celebrates average Americans who wielded their Brownies and Instamatics to stunning effect.

Yet wandering the galleries of these two shows, you can’t help but wonder if the entire medium hasn’t fractured itself beyond all recognition. Sculpture did the same thing a while back, so that now “sculpture” can indicate a hole in the ground as readily as a bronze statue. Digitalization has made much of art photography’s vast variety possible.

But it’s also a major reason that, 25 years after the technology exploded what photography could do and be, the medium seems to have lost its soul. Film photography’s artistic cachet was always that no matter how much darkroom fiddling someone added to a photograph, the picture was, at its core, a record of something real that occurred in front of the camera. A digital photograph, on the other hand, can be a Photoshop fairy tale, containing only a tiny trace of a small fragment of reality. By now, we’ve witnessed all the magical morphing and seen all the clever tricks that have turned so many photographers—formerly bearers of truth—into conjurers of fiction. It’s hard to say “gee whiz” anymore.

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Check out this Google Search for the “Is Photography Dead” meme.

Since Ansel Adams developed the zone system of manipulating the lights and darks of a photograph at the turn of the 19th century, darkrooms have been facilitating the production of this mainstay of popular art.

But in the name of digital, the art of photography is undergoing a revolution.

As the techniques formed in the wet lab darkroom are translated into computer applications like Photoshop, can that sacred space, the darkroom, survive?

It’s not looking good if you consider the movement of college education. The new consolidated Colorado Mountain College in Breckenridge, set to break ground by April 2009, will not include a darkroom.

“Our numbers in wet lab are way down, as they are everywhere in the country,” said division director (and up until recently interim dean) Dave Askeland. “The market for photography — everything is moving to digital.”

CMC classes of Photo I and Photo II, which both utilize and teach the use of a darkroom, formerly were able to fill up two classes of 12 students each. But in the last four years, the tides of change have become evident. Filling up just one class is not always a given.

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InfoTrends Press Release: According to a recent InfoTrends survey of over 1,000 professional photographers across specialties, the increased use of digital photography is leading to new opportunities in the imaging industry. It’s no surprise that the percentage of total digital images captured by pros has grown from 82% in 2006 to 89% in 2007; however, a pronounced increase in the number of digital images captured per week by the average pro suggests that software, service, and printing solution providers are likely to benefit in the long run.

The study indicates that over 90% of professional digital images captured are saved and stored, suggesting that pro photographers will need help managing their image workflows and backing up their work. The market for image management tools is wide open, and storage media vendors have yet to fully capitalize on this opportunity by committing more of their marketing dollars to the professional photographer segment.  The survey also shows year-over-year changes in the production of proofs and final prints, which has implications for photo labs, retailers, and printer vendors.

“Today’s photographers are technologically savvy, as a significant majority is using image editing software and many are using RAW conversion and color management software,” commented Ed Lee, Director at InfoTrends. “It’s particularly interesting to note that 83% of professional photographers are using the Web as part of their business and about 30% use an online photo service provider. This suggests that a variety of Web services providers could see future growth opportunities.” InfoTrends is currently conducting a study that specifically examines the Web services market for professional photographers.

InfoTrends’ recently released report, “Digital Imaging and Professional Photographers: 2007 Survey Results,” provides further insight into the opportunities that are available as a result of the transition from film to digital. It also examines the digital photography behaviors of professional photographers, including the equipment they own; what they plan to buy; how many digital images they take, save, store, and print; the types of software they use; and more. A subset of the study, entitled “Photo Printing and Professional Photographers,” looks specifically at output activity.  As appropriate, each document considers how the results from this year’s survey compare to the results from previous years’ studies.

The complete research reports are available immediately to clients of InfoTrends’ Digital Photography Trends Service and Photo Printing Trends Service. For more information about either report or to make a purchase, visit our online store or contact Matt O’Keefe at +1 781 616 2100 ext. 115 or matt_okeefe@infotrends.com.

InfoTrends, a Questex company, is the leading worldwide market research and strategic consulting firm for the digital imaging and document solutions industry. We provide research, analysis, forecasts, and advice to help clients understand market trends, identify opportunities, and develop strategies to grow their businesses. Additional information about InfoTrends is available on the Web at http://www.infotrends.com.

Based on his latest book, Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography, Johnson will discuss the history of electronic imaging, the transformation of the darkroom, ethics in the digital age, and trends in digital photography for the future.

SVA Amphitheater
December 4, 2007 7 PM
209 East 23 Street, 3rd floor
New York City

Free and open to the public

Press Release: Paris, France – DxO Labs has announced the immediate availability of DxO Optics Pro v5 for Windows, the latest version of its award-winning flagship automatic image quality enhancement software application for Digital SLR camera users. DxO Optics Pro v5 can be purchased via download on the company’s e-store (www.dxo.com) as well as from several well known retailers (a full list of resellers is available at http://www.dxo.com/intl/photo/Resellers). DxO Optics Pro v5 for Macintosh is scheduled to be available towards the end the year. All purchasers of DxO Optics Pro v4.5 on or after August 1, 2007 are eligible for a free upgrade to DxO Optics Pro v5.

DxO Optics Pro v5 RAW conversion delivers a breakthrough in image qualityHeadlining the new features in DxO Optics Pro v5 is a brand new RAW conversion engine including a breakthrough demosaicing algorithm which produces images with much more detail and fewer unwanted artifacts. In a second major breakthrough, DxO Optics Pro v5 now applies its noise reduction techniques prior to demosaicing — before noise has a chance to be amplified by the RAW conversion process and become obtrusive.

“Thanks to our new RAW converter and moving noise removal up front, before RAW conversion, images processed with DxO Optics Pro v5 are more natural looking with better detail and excellent color saturation. The results are really remarkable, and particularly on images shot at high ISOs in low light conditions,” says Luc Marin, Sales and Marketing VP of the Photography Business at DxO Labs. DxO Optics Pro v5 also includes a “click once, clean many” dust/blemish removal tool as well a completely reorganized user interface to improve workflow and ease of use.

DxO Optics Pro v5 adds even more features and support for more cameras
Previously unannounced, a handful of additional new features make DxO Optics Pro v5 even more of a time saver.

• Compatibility between DxO Optics Pro v5 and Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® has been deepened. DxO Optics Pro v5 can now read from and interact with image libraries from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, providing a more fluid workflow between these two popular applications.
• Using the new ‘Snapshot” feature; users can create several ‘virtual versions’ of an image to which they can apply different DxO Optics Pro corrections for processing.

With DxO Optics Pro v5, the library of camera bodies and lens correction modules expands to include the recently released Canon EOS 40D and selected lenses. In the coming months, the Canon 1Ds MKIII, Nikon D300 and Nikon D3 DSLR camera bodies will also be added to the more than 600 correction modules currently available.

Pricing and availability
DxO Optics Pro v5 is available in Standard and Elite versions at pricing unchanged from the previous version :

• DxO Optics Pro v5 Standard: $169
• DxO Optics Pro v5 Elite: $299
  (All prices are excluding sales taxes)

All customers who purchased DxO Optics Pro v4.5 on or after August 1, 2007 are entitled to a free upgrade to version 5. For customers who purchased DxO Optics Pro before August 1, 2007, the pricing of upgrades is as follows:

• DxO Optics Pro Standard (any version) to DxO Optics Pro v5 Standard: $95
• DxO Optics Pro Elite (any version) to DxO Optics Pro v5 Elite: $125
  (All prices are excluding sales taxes)

DxO Optics Pro v5 for Windows is currently available. DxO Optics Pro v5 for Macintosh is scheduled to be available towards the end of the year.

Operating System Requirements
Windows:

• Intel® Pentium® 4 processor or AMD® equivalent (Pentium® Dual Core or higher or equivalent recommended)
• Microsoft® Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows VISTA™ 32 Bits

Macintosh:

• Universal Binary (G4, G5 or Intel)
• Mac OS X.4 or X.5 when available

120 MB of available disk space
DxO Optics Pro Standard Edition: 1 GB RAM
DxO Optics Pro Elite Edition: 2GB RAM

About DxO Labs
DxO Labs offers products and solutions ensuring excellence in digital imaging. DxO Labs develops and licenses intellectual property serving the entire digital imaging chain: licensing of optics and silicon architectures for embedded still and video image processing; image quality evaluation and measurement tools and methodologies; image quality enhancement software for consumers. The company’s key customers and partners include:

• Consumer electronics manufacturers such as digital camera vendors and cameraphones vendors;
• Imaging components suppliers: camera module manufacturers, sensor vendors, and processor vendors;
• Demanding photographers, as well as photography journalists and imaging experts.

DxO Labs’ product portfolio is steadily finding a place at the heart of advanced consumer electronics and world-class industry imaging systems where “Image Science by DxO” becomes a reference for quality.

For more information or a list of distributors and resellers, visit DxO Labs online at www.dxo.com

DxO is a registered trademark of DxO Labs. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. DxO Labs disclaims any proprietary interest in trademarks and trade names other than its own.

This is an opportunity to take a workshop with Jay in his own environment, a historic landmark bank building in Lower Manhattan.

This is a workshop about seeing and expanding your capability. It is not about performing or getting your ego stroked. It is definitely not about technical things and absolutely not about Photoshop. You will shoot, get critiques, look at Jay’s work and talk about photography all day long.

It will take place Mon. Dec. 17 to Fri. Dec. 21, from 9am to 10pm each day. All meals are included. The cost is $5000. It will be filled on a first come, first served basis and will be limited to 9 participants. Payment in full, in advance must be made in order to secure a spot.

The workshop is sponsored by SanDisk. Please call 212.431.5013 or email jay@jaymaisel.com for more information. for more information.

The following quotes are from people who have taken Jays workshops and will help explain different aspects of the experience:

• …Life changing experience….I would take it again, for the critiques.
• …Expanded my awareness of what is out there
• …Sharpened my ability to evaluate and edit.
• …Gave me the vision and critical eye I was looking for.
• …Thinking outside the box. I will look at color differently.
• …Opened my eyes to opportunity.
• …Liberated me in where and when and what I could shoot.
• …I appreciated the time and detail of the criticism.
• …His remarks on editing will have a profound impact on my work.
• …Saw new ways of appreciating what is there.
• …The creative juices are flowing again.
• …You have definitely raised my bar. And I have learned how to wait.
• …I was pushed to explore areas and I expanded my vision.
• …Opened me up to new ways of seeing and thinking about my work.
• …I’ll never take an “easy” picture again.
• …I now know to “see”before the camera even goes to my eye.
• …I received the kind of honest criticism that will help me improve.
• …Learned to photograph people.
• …Great balance of shooting and talking.
• …Some of the best shooting information I’ve had.
• … Pushes and inspires his students to grow –everyone in the class improved…I grew beyond my expectations, and now see differently.
• …There was not one moment of bullshit from Jay – everything was brutally honest and thus extremely helpful.
• …I think magic was made this week.

Portraits of Jay by Jeff Schewe

Source: CNET
Written by Stephan Shankland

The multiple countries participating in the Joint Photographic Experts Group, which created the JPEG standard, have approved an effort to make Microsoft’s HD Photo format a standard called JPEG XR, said Bill Crow, who has led Microsoft’s HD Photo effort and who just took over the company’s Microsoft Live Labs Seadragon imaging project. XR stands for “extended range,” a reference to the format’s ability to show a wider and finer range of tonal gradations and a richer color palette.

“The country vote is done, and it passed,” Crow said. “That means the International JPEG committee has decided to go ahead and create the standard. Now it’s just a process of doing that work,” a process that will begin later this month in a meeting in Kobe, Japan.

Read entire article

Source: PCWorld
Written by Tom Spring

Daylight-saving time arrives late this year–we gain an hour on November 4. You already know this, but does your electronic gear?

Federal lawmakers voted two years ago to extend daylight-saving time (DST) one week to help conserve energy. Businesses have worked hard to patch their computers so time critical systems like electronic stock trading, billing, and airline schedules work without missing a beat. But for smaller companies and consumers, the time change may not be snag free.

“It’s the small stuff that people have to worry about,” says Andrea Protas, director of research for eEye Digital Security. “Any small electronics like VCRs, alarm clocks, and wrist watches are susceptible to error.”

It’s just the flip side of the concerns raised seven months ago when daylight-saving time kicked in earlier, by Congressional action.

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[Editor's note: don't forget to change the clock in your digital cameras because while you can alter the EXIF Date/Time captured EXIF metadata after the fact, it's time consuming and not always easy to do–particularly on a lot of captures.]