Sling-O-Matic™ Series from Think Tank

SANTA ROSA, CALIF – Think Tank Photo introduces the Sling-O-Matic, the photo industry’s first sling bag that can be easily switched back and forth to either shoulder. The Sling-O-Matic’s adjustable, fully padded shoulder strap “automatically” slides along a set of rails to change which
shoulder the bag can be worn on.

 

This innovation is the solution to the problem inherent with sling bags: they are designed to be to worn over one shoulder only. With one smooth motion, the Sling-O-Matic can be quickly switched to the opposite shoulder without losing the characteristics that have made sling bags popular among photographers.

Check out the new bag range at Thinktank.com

New Firmware Update for the GoPro HD Hero

GoPro, the Half Moon Bay, CA company that produces the tiny, GoPro Hero 1080p HD video camera just announced a firmware update with some great new features. My favorite among them is the One Button Mode. Now when you turn the camera on, it will start recording right away. No chance of messing up any of the settings with an inadvertent push of a button.

The other feature I'm excited about is Live Feed Out. To keep the size of the GoPro at a minimum. the designers left out a viewfinder or LCD screen so there was no way to accurately set up your shot. Now, you can attach an external monitor to the GoPro. This of course means that you'll probably want to buy their HD Skeleton Housing since the current mounting case does not have cutouts for the cables. Haven't had a chance to try this out yet as I'm waiting for the HD Skeleton Housing which is not available yet. But when it is, I'll attach it all to my Marshall field monitor and let you know how it works out on location. 

Another nice feature is the Live Feed Out Display which will show you you battery life and recording status when your GoPro is hooked up to a live feed field monitor.

The other two features of this firmware are the Upside Down Mode which will help if you need to mount your GoPro upside down,  eliminating having to rotate the files later.

And finally, new PAL 25/50p support. Helpful if you are recording for broadcast in most countries outside the US.

Come by Camera West and check out this fun camera.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.2

The Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 3.2 update includes these enhancements:

• Additional camera support for several new camera models including the Panasonic DMC-LX5, Sony NEX-5 and Pentax 645D
• Numerous corrections for issues introduced in Lightroom 3.0
• Direct publishing to Facebook and over 120 new lens profiles

See the Lightroom 3.2 ReadMe file for additional details.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4789

The iPad and Your Camera

I'm a recent convert to Apple's iPad. Bought one a few weeks ago and absolutely love it.

With Apple's camera connector kit and a great photo app, I can now, no matter where I'm at, take images off my camera, crop, color correct and caption the photos and send them to friends or to a client's ftp site - all from the small, 1.6 lb tablet. No more lugging around my 6 pound MacBook Pro!

After nearly 40 years as a photojournalist, I feel naked without a camera with me at all times and without a quick way of transmitting photos. Didn't matter if I was working or not, I always needed to be able to shoot and transmit photos, no matter where I was or what I was doing. So, I lugged around a laptop with me everywhere. No need anymore. Not with the iPad, the camera connector kit and an app called Filterstorm.

Since the iPad cannot support the processor intensive photo apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, etc., third party developers have come up with some great solutions. My favorite among them is Filterstorm which is one of only a few photo apps I've found that attaches IPTC tags to your photo - an absolute must if you are sending the photo to most clients and any news publication.

Apple's camera connector kit consists of just 2 small connectors - one has a sd card slot and the other a usb connector. They plug into the bottom of the iPad. With the usb connector, you can either attach a card reader to it or skip the reader and just run the cable from the camera to the usb connector.




Filterstorm Features :

• Adjust brush size, softness, and opacity
• Email images
• Post images via FTP
• Save edits as automations to apply to other images
• Export images up to 3072x2048px
• Curves
◦ Luminance
◦ RGB
◦ Red
◦ Green
◦ Blue
◦ Cyan
◦ Magenta
◦ Yellow
• Brightness
• Contrast
• Color balance
• White Point Picker
• Saturation
• Text tool
• Black and white fine-tuning
• 10-step Visual History
• Cropping, with the ability to specify aspect ratio
• Scaling
• Rotation and Image Straightening
• Vignetting
• Sharpen
• Tone map (Simulated HDR)
• Blur
• Noise Reduction
• Clone Tool
• IPTC tags available for E-mail and FTP (does not work with saving to photos)
◦ Caption
◦ Headline
◦ Title (byline)
◦ Keywords
◦ Instructions
◦ Subject
◦ Category
◦ Supplemental Category
◦ Author
◦ Creator
◦ Source
◦ Provider
◦ City
◦ State
◦ Country
◦ Job Title
◦ Job ID
◦ Copyright
◦ Date/Time

All this for $3.99!

Another option that works well comes from Adobe, the makers of Photoshop. They offer iPad users a free Photoshop Express app.  Not nearly as robust in features as Filterstorm but if you want basic controls and don't need to caption your photo, then this may work for you.

Note : iPad processor speeds currently preclude the possibility of running a RAW workflow.

Anyway, there are many, many more photo apps to choose from - most either free or very inexpensive. Have not looked into the video editing apps but I'm sure to find some. If I find any that look interesting I'll let you know.

GoPro in Near Space

Check out this amazing video shot earlier this summer with 2 GoPro Hero video cameras tethered to a balloon.


Near Space Balloon Flight, shot with HD HERO cameras from GoPro from Kevin Macko on Vimeo.


"We are a group of engineers/designers from San Francisco. This was our second balloon launch on 6/5/2010. Shot with 2 HD Hero cameras from GoPro. Launched from the California coast near Davenport, landed in Crows Landing 70 miles away. Peak altitude 80,000 feet. Acquired GPS, pressure, accelerometer, and temperature data with a Shadowbox (www.shadowboxlive.com). The payload was tracked with a SPOT satellite personal tracker."

A few excerpts from Kevin Macko, one of the engineers, answering viewers questions:

Technically for payloads under 4 lbs there are no FAA restrictions, but we made sure to stay out of SFO and SJC airspace. We also put the radar reflecting material on the capsule and called the FAA to let them know what we were doing


Yes, we did notify the FAA and made sure to stay out of the takeoff/approach airspace of the surrounding airports.


The peak speed on the way down was about 50 miles per hour. This was high up where the atmosphere was thin and the parachute was not as effective. At the bottom it slowed to about 30 miles per hour.


The brunt of the impact was absorbed by the styrofoam container. We actually didn't even see any cracks in the styrofoam, so the parachute must have slowed it down a good bit. It's hard to say how the camera would hold up if it impacted water - probably depends on how fast you're going when you hit.


We did check the wind patterns ahead of time and it landed within ~10 miles of where we predicted. We definitely didn't want it landing in water or the mountains, and we got lucky that it landed so close to a road on a farm without a fence!


We drove to where we predicted it would land. Ordinarily we would have had real time tracking, but unfortunately we got interference from the other electronics on board and didn't get a tracking signal until 6 hours after launch. We were very excited to finally hear from it!


Yes, we can definitely go higher by using a bigger balloon and inflating it with less helium. The GPS tracker may not work above a certain altitude, but we could certainly track it again once the balloon pops and it descends to a working altitude. I think a goal for our future flights is to get above 100,000 feet.

Btw, Camera West now carries the GoPro. Come check it out. 

Canon and Nikon News

Big announcements from Canon and Nikon this week with both offering a consumer level camera body and an assortment of new lenses.

Nikon
D3100
55-300mm/f4.5-5.6 AF-S VR DX
28-300mm/f3.5-5.6 AF-S VR super zoom for FX
24-120mm/f4 AF-S VR, constant f4 mid-range zoom for FX
85mm/f1.4 AF-S (no VR)

Canon 
EOS 60D
EF 70-300 f4-5.6 L IS USM
EF 8-14 f4 L USM Fisheye
EF 300 2.8 L IS II USM
EF 400 2.8 L IS II USM
EF Extender 1.4x III and 2x III

Surprisingly, no Canon 24-70mm 2.8 IS which has been a hopeful rumor all year.

I'm most familiar with the Canon lineup but I have been a Nikon user, most notably in the early eighties when I joined the staff of the SF Chronicle and they were using Nikon. So, I always anticipate Canon and Nikon's new product announcements.

Anyway, back to the purpose of this post - new toys! Since I don't have the opportunity to have any of this equipment in my hands to play with, I can only comment on what is coming out in the press releases and some of it is pretty exciting! I'll start with the lenses and then finish up with a few brief thoughts on the two bodies, especially their video capabilities.

What is in my opinion the coolest lens to be announced by both camps has to be Canon's EF 8-14 f4 L USM Fisheye - a zoom fisheye! And the way it is designed, you get two lenses in one - a circular 180 degree view at 8 mm and a full frame coverage at the 14mm setting. How cool is that! This is certainly a specialty lens and not one you'll use all the time, but it's the one lens I really want to play with.

Looks like Canon is revamping their fast super telephotos with their EF 300 2.8 L IS II USM and EF 400 2.8 L IS II USM - most notably the weight. (They also just announced they will be doing the same with the 500 and 600) If you've ever lugged around a 400mm 2.8 all day, every day for 3 weeks like I did at the summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia a few years back (Ok, 10), you'll know what I mean. And aside from the weight shaving, Canon offers a new three mode, four stop IS with movable programmable buttons. Something else I look forward to trying out!

The new and improved extenders will be also be interesting to check out. I've always liked the 1.4 extender, especially on my 70-200 2.8 zoom. Paired with a 400mm 2.8, the combo was perfect for covering football and many other sports. On the other hand, I never liked the 2X - never seemed sharp to me and it slowed the auto focus capabilities so, it will be very interesting to see how these new converters perform.

The lens that looks most interesting to me from Nikon is the 28-300mm/f3.5-5.6 AF-S VR zoom. With this lens, you pretty much have it all covered - I see this as a great travel lens. Don't really ever need another! One of my friends who was a long time shooter for Associated Press loved this zoom. (He was using the old EF 35-350mm f/3.5-5.6L Canon lens released in 1993) He would often show up to events with just this lens and 1 body while the rest of us had 3 bodies draped on our neck and shoulders with wide, medium and telephoto lenses. Biggest drawback to this lens is the relatively slow aperture however with image stabilization and better sensors, even that is less of an issue these days.



Now on to the camera bodies…and this is what I'm most excited about.

The Nikon D3100 is the first DSLR that will allow you to shoot video with auto focus! Don't know how well it works - will be interested in getting my hands on one to find out - but to be able to shoot in auto focus mode is huge for many. Pro film makers of course will pooh-pooh auto focus but for most, it will solve one of the most frustrating things about shooting video with the DSLR. The D3100 also offers 24, 25 and 30p frame rates at 1080p resolution however the biggest disappointment is that there is not a 60p mode. The higher frame rate is important for film makers who shoot action or like to slow down their footage for smooth slow motion effects.

The Canon EOS D60 stands out for me because they finally put a flip-out variable-angle 3 inch LCD on the camera so that you can set the camera anywhere and still be able to see the screen. For video, this is huge because if you're shooting without support, you can now tuck the camera to your hip for added stability to avoid  the all too common jittery videos you see these days on YouTube. The other features of this new camera are very similar to the 7D but unlike Nikon, Canon unfortunately has yet to offer us an auto focus video mode. Soon I'm sure!


Here are a few links for more detail on these new toys.

Nikon D3100
New Nikkor Lenses
Canon

Access to History

Saw an amazing set of photographs last weekend at the ProPhoto Expo by Stephen Somerstein who stopped by the Camera West booth for a visit. The black and white images were taken by Somerstein in 1965 in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama when he was the editor for a small college newspaper at City College in New York.

This was of course during the civil rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was calling for a march to Selma to protest discriminatory voting laws and many of the students at City College were heading down to participate. And Somerstein, being a dedicated journalist went with them to report on the story with his cameras. It was his first foray into the South and a memorable one.

This historic march brought together thousands of people from all over the country, from politicians, and union leaders, to students, and many others to support a federal voting rights law and Somerstein was right there, up close and personal.

What amazes me most about Somerstein's images is the intimacy. We see a photo taken directly behind Dr. King while he was on the podium speaking. Another image shows folk singer and political activist Joan Baez all alone except for a line of state troopers behind her and another of Rosa Parks who was a key figure in the civil rights movement. It is as if Somerstein was part of the civil rights leaders entourage instead of just a college student with a camera.

Access like that these days is nearly impossible.

I covered many political events during my time at the SF Chronicle. Whenever a national or international political figure was coming to town, we had to fill out an application days in advance with our name, date of birth, and our social security number. And that was just to get into the same building! And once inside, after going through metal detectors and having our equipment sniffed by explosives trained dogs, we often had to shoot from assigned positions, on risers 30-50 yards away. That's as close as we could get so long lenses were the norm. Sometimes if we were lucky, they would escort us to the base of the stage for a few minutes where we could at least get a close perspective and angle.

And even when the politician was visiting a business or public place, we were corralled to a certain area and told to stay there for our photo op. Everything was  controlled, rehearsed and staged and because of that, I hated covering them. Sometimes I would carry just one camera and try to blend in with the crowd to get a more intimate photo and sometimes it worked, especially when the politician would work the crowd in a grip and grin session as they often did after a speech. But most of the time it was difficult if not impossible to get the access Somerstein and other shooters had in the 60's.

With the political and social climate being what it is today, we will never see that kind of access. It's unfortunate because those kind of images are unique and are an important record of our history.

Stephen Somerstein is hoping to publish a book of his images. Until then, you can see them on his SmugMug page which you can access through his website.

Check them out...they are truly amazing.

Photos above of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Stephen Somerstein